Technical Assistance to the GCCA Climate Support Facility
under the 10th EDF Intra-ACP Financial Framework

Work Order 17

Climate Change Adaptation in Lake Victoria Basin:

Ecosystem Health and Sustainable Development in Mt Elgon:

Field Report for the Ground Truthing of Scientific & Socio-Economic Information at Selected Sites

Mission Report for ACP Secretariat and European Commission

Field Missions from March, 2013 to August, 2013

Author name: Simon Thuo

Quality control: Manuel Harchies

Consortium SAFEGE-Prospect-ADETEF-Eco – Gulledelle 92, 1200 Brussels, BELGIUM

Climate Support Facility– WO 17 – Mission Report

Mission data

Country / Kenya
Period / 2nd-9th June 2013
Local coordinator / Dr Eric Odada, Gloria Nafula- ACCESS
Acronyms / ACCESS- African Collaborative Centre for Earth System Sciences

Objectives

As specified in the ToR:

General objective: To increase adaptive capacity to adverse climate change impacts in the Lake Victoria Basin.

Specific objective: To strengthen ACCESS’ capacity in addressing adaptation needs and Climate Change induced disaster risk reduction in the Lake Victoria Basin, their working area.

Activities

As specified in the ToR:

-  Task 1 : Review and compile work done on climate change adaptation in mountain areas. Focus should be on: risks and needs specific to mountain ecosystems, existing CC adaptation policies, best practices in adaptation measures and risk reduction in areas with similar conditions. Advice on climate change measures to be taken with limit to Mt. Elgon water towers

Following preparation of my draft report for the client entitled Mt Elgon: Securing Ecosystem Services that provides background and context on the challenges facing communities’ dependent on natural resources (live directly off the land) in poor countries with weak regulatory institutions, which also identified case studies demonstrating successful interventions to restore environmental services in mountain and forest regions; and compilation of GIS maps depicting regions of intense degradation and encroachment within the Mt Elgon catchment in both Uganda and Kenya, it was decided to visit hot spots identified in the remote sensing exercise undertaken by ACCESS that were, in addition, areas that had been identified by stakeholders are priority for restoration to preserve environmental and human well being.

A joint team was consisting of project partners – IUCN and ACCESS, accompanied by the GCCA consultant Simon Thuo went to areas in the Mt Elgon catchment districts to assess (groundtruth) hotspots developed from the remote sensing, socio-economic surveys and that demonstrated significant human-induced degradation of land and forest resources.

Given the significant budget limitation earmarked for the project intervention, and again the unwillingness of the lead partner to consider projects that involve planting of economically attractive plantations even if these would provide timber and fuel while reducing erosion; it has been problematic to agree with the community, local authorities and stakeholders the nature and scope of the project that will be implemented on the ground.

-  Task 2 : Assist ACCESS in the design of an M&E system for pilot areas in Mt Elgon. The system should allow to measure implementation progress as well as impact in pilot areas.

The GCCA consultant provided continuous, sustained advice and support to the mission. Given the very limited budget for implementation of activities for the IUCN project, he emphasized the need to narrow down the choice of project to options that within the project period of 2 years.

However, due to the difficulty, mentioned in Task 1, to agree on the nature and scope of the project to be implemented on the ground, it was impossible to define a specific and detailed M&E system.

Subsequently, only a general advisory on monitoring and evaluation based on sustainable development approaches relevant to climate adaptation could be given within the timeframe of the assignment. The key factors to be considered include projects that have the following attributes:-

·  Can demonstrate observable improvement to the natural resource bases- land, forest, water catchment- preferably all three

·  Where the situation on the ground is close to the contraflexure- the tipping point where the situation on the ground can easily become much worse, but can also be reversed if dealt with quickly. In many areas of Mt Elgon, the situation was either beyond salvage given the degree of funding available, or had not yet reached critical nexus that could self-stoke and increase the damage on for instance land cover degradation from rain or wind

·  Where there is demonstrated political commitment to implementing proposed solution both in the local leadership organs and the community as well

·  Given the limited budget and time, identify where there are existing complementary initiatives, or teams already working with communities on the ground, that can be roped in to accelerate the project kick-off and implementation

·  Focus on hotspots that provide incentive (financial, food, water, energy) that communities readily need; that enhance their lives and livelihoods, while improving and restoring the environment

Task 3 : Based on the findings of activity 1 and 2, prepare a technical briefing paper and power point presentation to be used during a training workshop. (4 days)

During the groundtruthing exercise, more than 9 Mt Elgon areas with worsening environmental status or cause increasing hazard from a combination of climate impacts coupled with rising population and adverse change in land use are causing humanitarian crisis that is threatening to move downstream. Given the scales of the problems and scarcity of funding available on this project, it was necessary to agree between IUCN, the Lake Victoria Basin Authority and the main government agencies from national and also local level on how to prioritise the intervention as many identified problem areas would be left unattended.

It was finally agreed on the decision criteria to be applied on the subcatchments in question, and it was further agreed that though the current IUCN project will only tackle one of two of the identified problem areas, Lake Victoria Basin Commission will negotiate with national governments and donors on how the larger number of identified areas of concern would be addressed in the near future.

Task 4 : Conduct a 2-day training workshop on climate change adaptation in Mt Elgon area and train local/community /professional staff of ACCESS, IUCN-ESARO and LVBC (Lake Victoria Basin Commission) on how to use the M&E system to measure impact of interventions on the ground in pilot areas (3 days inclusive of travel)

Three trainings have been provided, to:

o  ACCESS, IUCN-ESARO, LVBC and key national and district environmental agencies, local stakeholders including NGOs active in the Mt Elgon catchment (Kisumu, 11-12 July 2013)

o  East African Community (EAC), LVBC, IUCN-ESARO, National Environmental Management Authorities (Kenya and Uganda) ; Kenya Water Towers Agency, Directorate of Water Resources Management (Uganda), Global Water Partnership; USAID and Mt Elgon Stakeholders Forum (Entebbe 23 August 2013)

o  Mt Elgon & LVBC Technical officers training on replication of research methodology for hotspot identification in Mountain Ecosystems (Nairobi, 28-30 October 2013)

Outputs

As specified in the ToR:

-  Output 1 : Climate hotpots identified and their particular situation with respect to environmental resources; encroachment, community livelihoods determined, as well as the risk areas that will undergo transformation as result of climate change for instance forest cover shift, and thriving ability of different species of commercial and food crops in altitude from increase in average temperature determined.

-  Output 2 : Criteria agreed on for M&E system for the pilot areas for the “Implementing a Resilience Framework to support Climate Change Adaptation in the Mt Elgon Region of the Lake Victoria Basin” programme.

Technical briefing paper and training materials regarding climate change adaptation in mountain areas and an M& E system for the pilot areas.

As stated in Task 2 above, given the budget limitation, institutional constraint on technology options, and plethora of possible interventions IUCN has not been able to decide on specific actions to be undertaken in the two selected catchments.

In this situation, the GCCA consultant provided IUCN, ACCESS, LVBC, Mt Elgon stakeholders and technical officers background information on ecosystem based adaptation, giving examples of promising approaches in mountain adaptation from selected projects in a similar setting to Mt Elgon.

The technical papers and presentation highlighted key outcomes and constraints of the model projects in the context of significant and different challenges facing sustainable management of Mt Elgon.

To ensure the stakeholders and technical officers obtained extensive appreciation of the key factors Mt Elgon’s social, economic and environmental sustainability the technical papers addressed issues related to stakeholder involvement, information for effective decision making, institutional roles, governance and the financial, technical and human resources needed to initiate and sustain effective management of the mountain ecosystem

The technical papers then gave a comprehensive framework for the monitoring and evaluation system to be used once the specific interventions on the ground have been decided by IUCN; distinguishing between the equally important process and impact indicators; value for money; and need for efficient communication.

The monitoring framework gave specific components for regular monitoring to ensure the project implementation remains on course and benefits all stakeholders including project administration, how to monitor ecological impacts; ensuring social support for the project and measuring economic benefits

Problems encountered

IUCN, given its brand, mandate and reputation, is extremely reluctant to tackle land tenure problem in Uganda, where part of land given by government to settle indigent communities is contested. The problem is that in Uganda much of the high altitude lands identified as climate hotspots are located in the contested zone.

We managed to agree with the IUCN team, on a “no-regrets” approach, by implementing solutions that would serve to improve environmental services no matter if the community is finally given secure tenure or if they are moved elsewhere.

IUCN team was also quite reluctant to accept commercial forest generation, preferring to restore indigenous trees as there has been plenty of condemnation of REDD+ initiatives based on commercial incentives, sometimes resulting in displacement of native species.

We managed to make the case that since communities will have no incentive to plant trees that deliver no benefits in the next 30-40 or even more years, a combination of commercial forestry for the open areas, combined with planting of indigenous species in sloppy land especially to protect water catchments and riverine reserve would meet the community livelihood and financial needs as well as IUCN interests with additional synergy.

Challenges

On the Ugandan side, land tenure presents the most formidable obstacle to improving livelihoods and reversing environmental degradation. In a sloppy exercise the Government in 1983 hived off 6,000 hectares of land to settle indigent communities, bringing many from further up the mountain to be able to conserve critical catchment and pristine forest areas. Unfortunately, the population grew rapidly and by the time the government commissioned a formal survey in the 1990s they found the community had taken up 8,000 hectares of land.

According to the local leaders’ opinion, the community believes that having any trees on the land strengthens the demands from Uganda Wildlife Authorities that they vacate certain areas. In order to weaken these demands, they regularly clear up any trees and cultivate crops that cause rapid soil erosion. That way they believe they establish “facts on the ground” that will sway to their favour eventual determination of the land formally excised and de-gazetted.

I proposed to the ACCESS/IUCN team to consider the “no-regrets” kind of solution that provides the community with improved access to household energy as the denuded land requires them to use up critical financial resources buying firewood from afar. Agroforestry and shift of cultivation to the kind of crops that do not lead to soil erosion given the steep slopes of land; establishment of woodlots, and linking improved access to water services by requiring the communities to restore water catchments would provide the win-win-win outcome for livelihoods, nature and enhanced land productivity even if the land issue remains intractable.

Comments on Organisation

Preparation of scientific, biophysical and geographic information; presentation of these different issues in state-of-the-art GIS maps; and management of logistics by Prof Odada’s ACCESS team was formidable. It enabled rapid uptake of complex information and common understanding by not only the IUCN team on the ground; but more vitally, technical, administration officers and political leadership on the ground that will be indispensable for successful project implementation, sustainability and scaling up not only to wider areas that the selected hotspots, but as well in applying techniques and knowledge gained to address more issues that affect their community.

Follow-up required

The ACCESS team has now the biophysical data, climate outlook and strategy for intervention in the proposed pilot sites (from the GGCA support).

In a follow-up full day workshop on 17 June 2013, the GCCA consultants and ACCESS team took IUCN management and Project Implementation Team through the comprehensive background, overlaid bio-physical information with socio-economic data and threatened areas that are critical for ecosystem functioning. The GCCA/ACCESS team provided clear basis for pilot project identification sites, the interventions required, and proposed criteria for screening the pilots.

The IUCN team brought their senior technical officers managing the regional work on water and environment; and particularly asked for support to integration between the approach ACCESS team has identified with the ongoing global initiative by IUCN/UNDP/UNEP on Ecosystem Based Adaptation that is also meant to work around Mt Elgon.

Thus, the impact from GCCA support to ACCESS has already spilled over to other programs and can have unusual leverage in providing direction on interventions aimed at reducing climate vulnerability while restoring ecosystem services and improving community livelihoods.

What is needed next is preparation of a training program to ensure relevant technical and administrative officers in all the areas within Mt Elgon catchment understand the concept and approach of the pilot intervention. This will enhance synchronised uptake and implementation for other areas similarly affected in the catchment for impact.