Ethiopia gained over 149 million birr from carbon trading sold through REDD+, after its success in reducing deforestation and polluting gases in Bale and West Oromia.
In a sensitization event organized on Monday to promote carbon trading, Oromia Forest and Wild Animals Development Enterprise Director, Ararsa Regassa said comprehensive work is being undertaken to ensure the public benefits from natural resources.
According to him, by avoiding the emission of 5.5 metric tons of carbon, 149 million birr was gained from carbon trading.
Some 60 percent of the money obtained from the trading will be used for enterprises engaged in sustainable forest development and conservation, while the remaining will be apportioned among 36 natural resource cooperatives.
It is to be recalled that the World Bank (WB) paid USD 34,000 for the purchase of carbon credit from the Humbo Community Based Forest Management Project, marking the first ever incident of carbon trading in Ethiopia.
Essentially, REDD+ is one of several approaches accepted by the United Nations to mitigate the effects of climate change by offering financial incentives to governments to protect their forests instead of tearing them down.
Unlike other approaches, the main attraction of REDD+ is that forests have many economic and environmental benefits besides carbon storage. Forests are home to many species of animals and plants, while the trees play a vital role in water cycle and can be harvested for useful forest products.
The first payout under REDD+ was approved for Brazil in February 2019, USD 96.5 million, for reducing deforestation in 2014 and 2015. In Brazil in 2014 and 2015, those un-toppled trees represented 18.8 million tons of carbon not released into the atmosphere, and thus not contributing to anthropogenic climate change.
