Making knowledge work for forests and people
Together we can achieve sustainable management of tropical forestlands for the benefit of people, conservation and sustainable development.
More informationEcotourism, agroforestry (for oil palm and cocoa), beekeeping and fish farming are among ten sustainable green business proposals that were selected in the Sefwi Wiawso, Juabeso, and Bia landscapes in Ghana, to be further developed under the Mobilizing More for Climate (MoMo4C) programme. They were chosen for their focus on innovative climate actions that address key landscape challenges such as the loss of biodiversity due to deforestation and forest degradation, and dependence on one a crop, by building adaptive capacities, promoting crop and income diversification, and value addition.
Smallholders and small and medium size-enterprises (SMEs) in the global south often lack the capital to invest in sustainable businesses, even when they are profitable. This is especially true in the forestry and agroforestry sectors, which are considered risky by banks. To address this, Tropenbos International (TBI) is developing a financial support unit, named Green Finance for SMEs, or GFS in short. Here Eveline Trines, senior expert business & finance at TBI, answers five questions about this new programme, made possible by the Dutch Postcode Lottery.*
NGOs that support community-based forest conservation often focus on communities that have formal titles to their forest, as this is considered a main condition for success. According to Marieke van der Zon, PhD student at Wageningen University, the importance of having formal titles is overstated. Instead, she stresses that the key to conversation success lies in community-based monitoring and enforcement.
The TBI network has members in Indonesia, Vietnam, Ghana, DR Congo, Suriname, Colombia and the Netherlands. The members share a common vision and mission, as well as a common focus and approach, while tailoring their efforts to the specific local context