Photo above: Cashew seedling distribution 2008

We have so far distributed 4,200 cashew nut trees to 40 participating Kenyan farmers. As they grow, these trees absorb carbon and produce a high protein cash crop that gives the farmers an alternative to cutting down their existing forest for charcoal which is currently their main source of income.

Where is Bore?

Bore is located near Malindi which is to the north of Mombasa in Kenya's Coastal Province. It is very close to the Equator and lies within the Coastal Forest that extends down the eastern seaboard of Africa from Somalia to Mozambique. This forest (and its absorbed carbon) is under pressure from a variety of sources including charcoal burning, mining and clearing for agriculture.  See the Bore area on Google Earth – (Link)
The latest research indicates that we get a far stronger 'cooling effect' from forests located in tropical latitudes so it pays us to allocate resources to both planting new trees and securing existing forest down by the Equator.

www.terradaily.com http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Trees_To_Offset_The_Carbon_Footprint_999.html 

About cashew-nut trees

These drought-resistant trees grow very fast in The Tropics and can start to yield a crop after 3-4 years. The individual farmers have a strong vested interest in keeping the trees alive as they are planting on their own land. Once the tree starts to yield, its nuts can either supplement the family diet (they are high-protein) or they can be sold at market for cash. Every year the crop increases for up to 20 years. At the end of its useful life the tree is felled for timber and used in packing cases, furniture or for boat building (cashew nut timber is water resistant). In cashews the fruit hangs below the nut and on harvesting, the fruit part (sometimes called the apple) is discarded and can be fed to children (it is very high in vitamin C) or to village animals. The leaves that continually fall off the tree are added to the soil as a fertiliser and to improve tilth and aid water retention.  One of the main advantages of this tree as a food crop for poor people is that it has low perishability which means that it can be either stored as a food reserve or taken to market if the farmer has sufficient for their own needs.

These drought-resistant trees grow very fast in the Tropics and can start to yield a crop after 3-4 years. The individual farmers have a strong vested interest in keeping the trees alive as they are planting on their own land. Once the tree starts to yield, its nuts can either supplement the family diet (they are high-protein) or they can be sold at market for cash.       The shell of the nut contains a valuable chemical, cardol, which can be used for a variety of industrial purposes including making resins, paints, etc and for termite proofing timber. Processing cashews to separate the nuts is very labour intensive (the main reason they are so expensive) and has to be done by humans, thereby creating work within the community.

Bore Community link details

We currently have 40 farmers involved in the project and the village elders in Bore are very keen to expand this scheme as a way to reduce their dependence on charcoal burning for the Mombasa shanty towns which is virtually the only other way that the community has of bringing in cash. Bore is made up largely of the Giriama tribe who are a marginalised and impoverished group within Kenya, itself one of the world’s poorest countries. All sponsored trees are individually tagged and recorded with the client’s details for verification purposes and monitored annually to ensure survival.

The local primary school (Kundeni Primary School) are key stakeholders in the project and the headmaster is keen to encourage the children to plant trees themselves and is on the coordinating committee in Bore. Education is the key for sustainable development in any community.

Each tree sponsored in Lampeter for £2.50 - 100% goes out to Bore.
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Why is the community carbon link a good idea?

This is a win/win project. The farmers are paid to plant trees that sequester CO2, aid biodiversity and produce a valuable cash crop which diminishes their need to cut down their existing forest, thereby reducing CO2 emissions. In the process, relatively affluent people in our community start to take some responsibility for their emissions and learn about our global interconnectedness in the face of climate change. As we know, the developed world has created a problem that is impacting disproportionately on the underdeveloped world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. What is happening here is simply that a carbon intensive community in Wales is making the first steps to reduce its carbon footprint by supporting a tropical community in Africa that is at the sharp end of climate change.