Cumaribo

This 14,000 hectare project is on indigenous land.  The indigenous community want to replace their current slash and burn lifestyle where each family is allowed to clear fell and burn 1 hectare of forest each year which is then planted up but only used for around a year because of declining soil fertility.  The cleared areas are then allowed to revert to forest.  The community want to move to permanent planting on the savannah areas which are currently unused and are regularly burned to control snakes and chiggers. Funding this move will allow the remaining forests, which are a mix of recovering areas from slash and burn activity and pristine areas to recover over the 40 years of the project.  In addition, to protect the forested areas from the savannah fires, firebreaks will be ploughed on a regular basis around 100m from the edge of each of the forest patches.  The areas between the forest edge and fire breaks will be allowed to naturally regenerate which will add further carbon and wildlife value.  A huge consultation exercise with the indigenous communities involving 250 people including 63 community leaders, has recently been completed and there was unanimous support for the proposed project and a request for it to be extended to other communities.