Nyungwe Agroforestry for Communities and Conservation

The Nyungwe Agroforestry project is a large-scale project developed by a Rwanda-based NGO, Initiative pour la Promotion de la Famille et du Genre (IPFG) in collaboration with Livelihoods Carbon Fund. IPFG’s mission is to promote active and fair involvement of both men and women in development activities. The project works closely with about 23,000 smallholder farmer households living adjacent to the Nyungwe National Park (NNP) and its buffer zone to implement agroforestry practices by planting 2.3 million trees on 13,741 ha of arable land. The project seeks to sequester around 1.48 net MtCO2e over 30 years. It obtains its seedling supplies from commercial nurseries and community nurseries. Project activities will be implemented in two districts of the Southern region – Nyamagabe and Nyaruguru. The main project activities are constituted of the following: 1. Integration of Agroforestry trees inside food crop plots: Planting of fruits, nitrogen fixing, fuelwood and shade trees inside the plots. 2. Integration of Agroforestry trees on boundary of food crop plots: Planting and managing fuelwood, timber, and fodder shrubs on the boundary of plots. 3. Integration of trees in the boundary of tea plots: Planting shade trees around tea plots for shade provision. At the heart of these innovations lies IPFG’s active engagement of village-level farmers who are invited to partake in the execution of community-based agroforestry action plans. This collaborative effort is designed to rejuvenate their local landscapes and enhance soil quality, ultimately fostering increased agricultural productivity and climate resilience. In this process of participatory community agroforestry action planning, at a village-basis, a group of 7 representatives will be chosen to constitute an Environmental Committee. These committee members will be introduced to the project’s mission and provided with training on how to develop and disseminate Community Agroforestry Action Plans tailored to their specific village landscapes. Project participants will be trained on agroforestry, implementing Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), the project’s objectives, the development of community agroforestry action planning, dissemination, and farmer registration. The project’s core impacts are expected to be as followed: 1. Reduced soil erosion: Protection measures against soil erosion will be planting of trees and improved fodder grasses in smallholder plots which are slowing runoff water and holding the soil. Leaves of planted trees reduce the impact of water droplets. 2. Increased soil fertility: By implementing GAP practices such as composting, manure application, mulching and cover cropping, the soil improves in health, accumulating abundant organic matter and fostering a well-balanced ecosystem for crop growth. 3. Reduced dependency on external inputs for crop production: Healthy soil enhances nutrient availability and diminishes the proliferation of pests through the presence of natural predators. Consequently, there is reduced dependency on chemical and synthetic inputs to enhance productivity. 4. Diversification of income generating opportunities: Surplus products such as fruits, timber and fuelwood will broaden the farmers income opportunities, since they can be sold on local markets. 5. Reduced Dependency on the NNP for forest products: Available fodder, bean stakes, fuelwood and mulch on plots will reduce incidences of resource conflict in the NNP. 6. Increased farm trees, crop and food diversity: A mix of native, exotic and fruit trees will increase plant diversity therefore promoting biodiversity conservation. The promotion of crop rotation and green cover manure crops will have diversified available food in the farms and landscape. 7. Reduced drudgery in households for forest provisions: Available fodder, bean stakes, fuelwood and mulch on plots will reduce drudgery of farmers in looking for these commodities in the NNP.

Project ID

GS13078

Registry

Gold Standard

Type

Afforestation/Reforestation · Forestry & Land Use

Removal or reduction

Impermanent Removal

Methodology

—

Developer

LIVELIHOODS CARBON FUND SICAV-RAIF · 4 projects

Country

Rwanda

First vintage

—

Crediting period

2024-10-15 to 2054-10-15

Estimated yearly credits

68,894

Scale

Large Scale · Standalone

Sustainable Development Goals

Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth · Goal 15: Life On Land · Goal 13: Climate Action

Data from

Berkeley VROD v2026-08 + Gold Standard registry

Coordinates

-2.5591, 29.2939

Source

OpenStreetMap (Nominatim), hand-checked

Note

Nyungwe National Park (named in the project title)