Date
10 Dec 2014
The Ministry of Agriculture, Peru, has unveiled its plan for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) at the UN climate talks currently underway in Lima. The Peru agriculture NAMA, titled the iNAMAzonia, is landscaped-based and aims to create the enabling environment for sustainably intensified coffee, cocoa, livestock and oil palm production and to promote the ecological restoration of deforested degraded land in the Peruvian Amazon.
Speaking at the launch, the Minister for Agriculture, Juan Manuel Benites Ramos said the country will implement the NAMAs as important tools for increasing agricultural production without decreasing forest cover.
“We embark on this change process by introducing crops are all needed in world markets, as well as livestock to reduce carbon emissions within the framework of sustainable agriculture for smallholders. We want to increase productivity through the use of certified seed, appropriate tree species, agroforestry practices and sustainable utilization of water sources.”
The Peru Ministry of Agriculture is aligning policies and strengthening institutions to enable the effective implementation of NAMAs. The National Forest and Wildlife Service, SERFOR, was established to ensure the sustainable use of forests and land resources at the forest margins.
Fabiola Muñoz-Dodero, the Executive Director of Peru National Forest and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) explained the participatory, inter-institutional process for developing the NAMAs, and appreciated the technical input of several organizations including the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).
“The value of policy and the understanding of the importance of an intra-sectorial landscape perspective in the identification of strategies to reduce deforestation and increase productivity is supported by research. ICRAF has been a valuable partner in giving research information and evidence for such an approach. We hope to see the co-existence between agriculture and forestry in the future; people producing more in a sustainable manner and using smaller pieces of land. We need to give people knowledge on the value of agroforestry to reduce the pressure on forest for land and restore ecological functions on already degraded land,” she said.
Peter Minang, Head of Environmental Services at ICRAF and the Global Coordinator of the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins said, “Through its research in climate change, ICRAF has been working with partners and governments in Indonesia and Kenya to develop NAMAs. Indonesia for example, is at the fore of implementing NAMAs and has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26% unilaterally plus an additional 15% through international support by 2020. They aim at achieving this while at the same time retaining annual economic growth rates of 7%.”
Kenya is exploring the implementation of NAMA through the dairy value chain. This will be done through livestock diversification and breeding of animals to improve their ability to adapt to climate change and produce lower greenhouse gas emissions. Agroforestry, conservation agriculture and limiting the use of fire in cropland and rangeland management are also approaches that will be used in the NAMA.
As part of their commitment to mitigate climate change, governments of developing countries are implementing policies and actions, also known as Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). The NAMAs are mainly based on political commitment through global conventions (such as the Copenhagen Agreement and the UNFCCC), policies around regulations and incentives, and projects within sectorial or geographic boundaries.
The interest of the Peruvian Government for the agricultural NAMAs dates from early 2014 when a roundtable of partners was established. The design of the NAMAs commenced in September following an initial workshop supported by CCAFS, ICRAF, GIZ and ECOFYS, under the leadership of the Peru Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, representatives of farmers associations and cooperatives, the private sector, national and international research centres under the coordination of a technical team comprising ICRAF, Rainforest Alliance, NewClimate Institute and GIZ drafted NAMAs for cacao, oil palm, coffee and livestock, currently expanding in the Amazon, integrated in a larger landscape framework (Landscape NAMA).
Peru is one of the most vulnerable countries in the developing world to climate change. The NAMAs will encourage activities that will reduce forest cover loss and recover ecological functions, increase competitiveness for forest activities in relation to agricultural alternatives, reduce carbon emissions and at the same time encourage the production of low carbon crops.
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Also see
Peruvian Environment Ministry and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Sign a Memorandum of Understanding for Inter-Institutional Cooperation
World Agroforestry Centre at Lima COP20: http://worldagroforestry.org/cop20
Photos from Lima COP 20 and Global Landscapes Forum
Climate change blogs from ICRAF