Local Communities In Developing Countries Research Articles

Under the Climate Plan section of its Agenda 21, the city council of Paris came up with the idea of bringing about the involvement of city inhabitants in the protection of the environment by launching the operation Un Parisien, un arbre (One Parisian, one tree) as a form of solidarity with local communities in developing countries. Three countries (Cameroon, Haiti, Madagascar) were selected by the City Authority and were the topic of feasibility studies. ONF International (ONFI) was chosen to implement the project focussing in Cameroon on monitoring and providing support to establish plantations as potential biological carbon sinks. Before embarking on the various reforestation endeavours, the eligibility of the land in the context of a CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) in forestry was examined. The list of species to be planted was drawn up by common agreement with the communities concerned. During the pilot phase which began at the beginning of 2008, 51 ha were planted and, as of 2009 when the project entered the operational phase, plantations were made on 151 ha. Hence, a total of 202 ha were reforested with forest and fruit tree species. The aim of the community-based reforestation project Un Parisien, un arbre was to be innovative and directly involve local populations in the fight against the green house gases