TIST
December, 2005
TIST India Wishes you all a Happy New Year
CHEZHUMAI©
The efforts of TIST Small Groups in world wide publications
Ecosystem Market Place (http://ecosystemmarketpla ce.net) in the Internet is the place for the companies who trade with Carbon Credits. There are several articles in this site about the companies who deal with ecosystem. Last month, Ecosystem Market Place has highlighted articles about TIST’s efforts to make the world's carbon markets work for the rural poor people of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, and India.
In the Ecosystem Market Place, under the “Carbon Sinks and Emissions Trading: Room for Optimism?” column, Ms.Fiona Mackay of TIST (UK) has projected that carbon credits through afforestation/reforestation projects can lead to increased revenue streams that go right down to the grassroots level and can feed back, to those involved in the actual reforestation work on the ground.
In the Ecosystem Market Place, the articles on 1) “Transaction : Tanzania Small Group and Tree Planting”, 2) “Tanzania International Small Group and Tree-planting Program (TIST)”, 3) “eBay Shoppers and Subsistence Farmers Meet on Virtual Ground” talks about the thousands of TIST Small Groups who are playing a vital role in afforestation/reforestation. These Small Groups have planted millions of trees and millions more seedlings are in nurseries (2,000 mature trees account for about 1,000 tCO2e). This will amount to large quantities of carbon emission reductions that will be available for sale to buyers. The subsistence farmers of the TIST Small Groups are planting trees that absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, locking up greenhouse gases that might otherwise contribute to climate change in the atmosphere.
Many publications like Ecosystem Market Place are publishing about the efforts of TIST Small Groups towards carbon sequester and several buyers are coming forward to buy carbon credits from the TIST Small Groups.
Now, it is a great chance for the Small Groups of TIST India to show their efforts to the world by displaying how much CO2 they have removed so far and how much they could remove in the future. It is all the ‘Best Practices’ of TIST, which has chiseled the Small Groups of Tanzania to become a well Qualified Small Group who would play a vital role in carbon sequestering.
Qualified Small Groups
TIST empowers Small Groups of subsistence farmers in Tamil Nadu to reverse the devastating effects of deforestation, drought, and famine. TIST expects to provide long-term revenue for the Small Group participants through the sale of greenhouse gas credits (GhG). Every Small Group should do the following to get qualified to receive the revenue:
1. Provide a copy of your land ownership certificate – Wherever you have planted trees, those lands should be owned by you and the Government Official concerned should state that this piece of land where the trees are planted belongs to member. A certificate from the VAO is a must.
2. GhG Contract signing – Sign the GhG Contract document immediately. Unless this contract is signed, the greenhouse gas credits from your trees cannot be taken for sale, which will affect your revenue. TIST will not make any more voucher payments to your Small Group till your group signs the TIST GHG contract.
Submission of SGMR & Attending the node meeting – Attend all Node meetings without fail and adhere to the ‘Best Practices’ that is projected during the meeting. There should be minimum 2 members from every Small Group. Keep your SGMR ready couple of days before the Node meeting. In fact, the SGMR should be prepared during the Small Groups internal meeting and that’s the reason TIST emphasizes every Small Groups to have atleast one internal meeting in a month. At least one meeting a month but if possible 1 meeting every week.
3. Plant trees and maintain the planted trees. This should start from nursery level. Have a minimum of 1000 live trees. Should have atleast 3 diferent species. No one species should be more than 33% of the total trees.
The above four points are more vital which every Member and every Small Group should adhere to be a Qualified Member and Qualified Small Group for marketing the carbon credits.
Best Practices
This month we have three Small Groups whose ‘Best Practices’ are displayed for others to follow:
1. Salsa Small Group of Mel Kodungallur – They use their naturally fallen trees effectively.
2. Nila Small Group of Kandoor – They have given adequate spacing between each tree and great care is taken to allow the trees to grow in large size.
3. SindhuKavi Small Group of Chittoor – They are maintaining their trees without any casualty and using their voucher payment effectively. They have enjoyed the benefits of intercropping.
Salsa Small Group of Mel Kodungallur
This Small Group is the leading TIST group in tree planting work in Ulundhai. There are two families in this group. This Small Group has planted only casuarinas trees in their groves. This is because of their village soil condition. Moreover, Velikathan, a wild tall growing weed, occupies 75% of their village. This weed does not allow the other species of trees/plants to grow, but casuarina is able to grow inspite of velikathan infestation and that is also one of the reasons for this Small Group to grow casuarinas in their groves. In the Chezhumai, May 2005, we have emphasized to uproot the velikathan weeds to regenerate the land. Every Small Group should consider uprooting the velikathan as one of the best practices.
Presently, there are four groves with full of casuarinas trees totaling to 27,050 with this Small Group, out of which, 13,500 trees are two years old and 13,550 trees are one year old. All these trees were started from seedling at their own land on soil bed. Few months back, they have trimmed the side branches of their two-year-old trees and had a great sale. Due to the extreme heat till September, few hundred trees have fallen naturally. These dead trees are of great benefit to these Small Group members. They are using the wood for fuel and are also selling it for money, which is an additional payment other than TIST voucher payment.
Nila Small Group of Kandoor
This Small Group is two years old. They are located in the Kandoor Village, under the Molachur TIST Group Center. Their Node meeting is at Kandoor. This Small Group was not active for more than 1.5 years. Recently, one more new family have joined in this group, due to which, this Small Group has started to be much more active in TIST and they are in the verge of getting their first voucher payment. There are two different species of trees like mango and teak planted in a single large grove. During October 2005 quantification, there were 478 mango trees and 753 teak trees. As a best practice, the teak trees are planted as compound wall all around the mango trees with more than 10-15 m spacing, so that, there is no interference between the trees in growth. Utmost care is taken for the mango trees. The spread out side branches of the mango trees are pulled and tied together, so that, they grow tall and the branches do not fall down and go waste with out produce. Any Small Groups who are interested in planting mango trees can discuss with this Nila Small Group to know how to start. Since there is huge spacing between trees, the members are planning to have some short time crops as intercropping.
SindhuKavi Small Group of Chittoor
Sindhukavi Small Group was registered on 27 April 2003 under TIST Program, one of the oldest groups. There are 6 male members and 2 female members in this Small Group. This Small Group belongs to Chittoor village under Molachur Centre. Their Node meeting center is at Chittoor village.
They have three different types of trees like Neem, Teak and Eucalyptus. These three types of trees are planted in 6 different groves. There are 14,327 Eucaluptus, 250 Neem and 208 Teak trees. When their trees were very small, they gave importance to intercropping. Chilly was planted as intercrop between their eucalyptus trees and they have also enjoyed the benefits of it. The most important best practice of this Small Groups is, they work very hard in their groves to save all their trees and the casualty level in their groves are very minimum.
This Small Group is receiving the voucher payment for more than 2 years. Mr.Sundaram, one of the member of this Small Group does lot of other small and short time jobs like household electrical works, handiworks for festivals like V i n a y a g a c h a t h u r t h y , etc. Mr.Sundaram uses their voucher payment as investment for his small short time jobs.
