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28 March 2022 the Netherlands
The European Commission's proposed EU Regulation on deforestation-free products is a welcome step towards a higher ambition to tackle global deforestation, and forest degradation and to level the playing field for companies. Smallholders (and especially women) are some of the most marginalised actors in global supply chains. They produce a third of the world’s food supply and represent a large share of the producers in sectors included in the scope of the proposal (such as coffee, cocoa and palm oil). They often depend on large operators to buy their product and to decide the price.
23 March 2022 Indonesia
On 22 February 2022, a major step forward was taken in Ketapang, West Kalimantan, that allowed local climate-friendly and community-based enterprises to show their products to policy makers and potential investors and customers. And importantly, these producers of handicrafts, organic fertilizers, fruits, vegetables and mushrooms - winners of a new business competition - also shared what they need to expand.
17 February 2022 Ethiopia
On February 10th 2022, at a validation workshop in Addis, Ethiopia’s first National Dryland Restoration Strategy was officially endorsed by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and by Ethiopia Forest Development (EFD).
01 February 2022 Ghana
Ecotourism, 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.
13 December 2021 the Netherlands
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.*
13 December 2021 General
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 conservation success lies in community-based monitoring and enforcement