Attachment J.12 Supplemental OP Guidance for Sustainable Landscapes.pdf

Supplemental OP Guidance for Sustainable Landscapes PURPOSE: This document provides information about the Sustainable Landscapes (SL) rationale, goals, direct and indirect attribution, examples of strategic approaches and programming, and resources to complement the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Operation Plan (OP) guidance.1

RATIONALE FOR SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

Agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) accounts for approximately 23 percent of net global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, of which deforestation accounts for approximately half.2 Natural climate solutions (NCS) reduce GHG emissions and increase carbon sequestration through protection, sustainable management, and restoration of land ecosystems, and are among the most cost-effective global emissions reductions. SL programs support NCS by addressing drivers of land-based emissions at scale. They have the highest potential for impact in countries where current and projected future emissions from land management and land use change are high and where there is strong potential to reduce these emissions.

GOALS OF SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

SL programming aims to achieve globally relevant reductions in net AFOLU emissions and help partner countries on their Journey to Self-Reliance by: (1) identifying major sources of land-based emissions; developing and implementing subnational, national, transboundary, and regional programs for large-scale emissions reductions; or using existing or novel market mechanisms and other incentives to promote low-emissions development, while (2) sustaining livelihoods and advancing governance, resilience, and other development goals.

1OP Definition: Sustainable Landscapes programs promote mitigation through sustainable land use practices such as the development of low emissions development plans; sustainable landscape planning including reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) strategies; climate-smart agriculture; improved data and analytical tools; monitoring, reporting, and verification systems; enabling laws and policies; effective implementing institutions; social and environmental safeguards; economic incentives; and demonstration activities. Sustainable Landscapes programs help countries achieve their green growth goals, which may be included in their international commitments such as Nationally Determined Contributions. Sustainable Landscapes programs may work with both public and private sector entities to help sustainable land use systems. Sustainable Landscapes work encompasses practices at all spatial scales to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Practices encompassed in this program area should ultimately contribute to the capacity for development and implementation of cohesive national sustainable land management systems.

(Source: https://pages.usaid.gov/F/op).

2 IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (2019) https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/ https://pages.usaid.gov/F/op https://pages.usaid.gov/F/op https://pages.usaid.gov/F/op

DIRECT ATTRIBUTION OF SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES FUNDS

Programs should place highest priority on achieving broad-reaching, long-lasting structural changes that put countries on low-emissions development pathways. Within this context, SL funds must be spent on activities that have an explicit, primary purpose of slowing, halting, or avoiding GHG emissions from AFOLU and land use change, or sequestering carbon in the land to support global mitigation goals, while promoting locally important, development goals. To achieve cross-sectoral, large-scale emission reductions, programs should support enabling environments (e.g., working with institutions, policy, finance, and supply chains) that create incentives for wide-scale adoption of practices and approaches that reduce land-based GHG emissions or increase carbon sequestration.

Scale

SL activities should focus on interventions, subsectors and/or areas where large-scale GHG emission reductions can be achieved. Scaling up may involve systemic changes such as eliminating legislative or regulatory barriers or creating new public revenue streams to mobilize domestic resources. It may also involve catalytic actions such as working with financial institutions to overcome investment barriers in low-emissions agriculture, supporting host-country adherence to trade policies (e.g., Lacey Act), or supporting corporate commitments to sustainably source timber and other land-based commodities.

Small-scale activities or innovative pilots may be appropriate to test the effectiveness of an approach or demonstrate its promise to local stakeholders, as an initial step to laying the groundwork for scaling up. Such activities should comprise a relatively small proportion of a SL

LINK TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

Forest and landscape management are essential to addressing poverty, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Consistent with USAID’s Environment and Natural Resource Management (ENRM) Framework, SL programming aims to help governments, civil society, and the private sector on the Journey to Self-Reliance by increasing land productivity, strengthening resilience to natural hazards, creating new economic opportunities, protecting water and land resources, and maintaining biodiversity, among other benefits. SL programs help partner countries achieve GHG emission reductions and sustainable natural resources management goals in support of ENRM Priority Area 1.

SL approaches can also support ENRM focal areas, including: (i) democracy building through natural resource governance, (ii) land and resource rights, (iii) natural resource conflict, (iv) sustainable food systems, (v) water resource management, and (vi) one health.

program and should rest on a strong theory of change for how they contribute to scale-up in the future.

Illustrative Examples of SL Program Objectives

● Develop or implement sustainable land management systems at the regional, national, subnational, or local level, or throughout a specific supply chain.

● Support policies, regulations, and the enabling environment for low-emissions development in the land sector.

● Increase the availability of finance for low-emissions development, through private sector loans, appropriate intergovernmental transfers within partner countries, aligned trade policy, and international finance.

● Protect forests and mangroves from being cleared or converted to other land uses.

● Restore high carbon ecosystems such as peatlands.

● Reduce emissions from ruminant livestock, particularly cattle, compared to business-as-usual by improving feed efficiency and productivity, or by promoting other protein sources, such as poultry, where appropriate.

● Change rice paddy management and nitrogen fertilizer application rates and methods.

● Reorient commodity supply chains to reduce pressure on land use change.

APPROACHES FOR SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

SL programs can achieve development and environmental goals through strategic approaches grouped here under five major themes. The activity list below is non-exhaustive and illustrative.

Data, Tools, and Information Systems

● Improve data, tools, and information services for land use decision making.

● Support development of measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems for land-based GHG emissions and carbon sequestration, including as a basis for financing and meeting international transparency requirements.

● Analyze the GHG emissions and other environmental, social, and economic impacts of development options.

Local and Institutional Capacity Building

● Improve the capacity, governance, coordination, transparency and accountability of land management institutions.

● Develop institutional capacity and tools for effective planning, policy development and implementation.

● Strengthen law enforcement to reduce illegality in the forest sector, including illegal wood products and illegal forest conversion.

● Support the legal, institutional, and policy framework necessary for REDD+ readiness and implementation.

● Increase capacity of universities, agricultural schools, extension services, and other institutions to teach and scale low-emissions land use practices.

● Improve the ability of stakeholders to use information and tools for better decision making.

Policies, Laws, and Commitment

● Improve land tenure, natural resource governance, and land administration systems.

● Help governments and institutions develop and implement policies and regulations for sustainable development and the conservation and restoration of critical ecosystems and environmental services.

● Address natural resources corruption and illegality through enhanced transparency, free press, civil action, or other means.

● Support land and resource use rights of local communities, including indigenous groups.

● Realign incentives, including by eliminating perverse incentives, in favor of low-emissions land management and other practices.

Financing and Market-Driven Change

● Help countries access results-based financing through the development of carbon markets and REDD+ projects.

● Increase commercial bank lending for SL (e.g., through green bonds, impact investment funds, risk mitigants, integration of social and environmental safeguards into lending criteria, and credit enhancements).

● Increase private sector and consumer engagement to reduce deforestation and forest degradation from commodity production and promote low-emissions development practices.

● Promote financial incentives (e.g., subsidies, performance-based payments for ecosystem services) to reduce unsustainable land and natural resource use.

● Increase public and private sector financing and investment for low-emissions development strategies.

● Link low-emissions agricultural and forestry products to more profitable markets.

Low-Emissions Development Practices

● Increase adoption of low-emissions development practices through training, technical assistance, education, extension services, behavior change and information campaigns.

Improved practices might include:

○ improved land conservation, restoration, and management practices with resilience and poverty reduction co-benefits;

○ agricultural systems and practices — from land management to post-harvest loss

— that reduce GHG emissions, usually with diverse co-benefits;

○ sustainable value chains to avoid commodity-driven deforestation and increase carbon sequestration on farms; and

○ improved cookstoves and charcoal kilns to reduce woodfuel consumption.

SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES PROGRAMMING IN PRACTICE

There are many examples of SL programs that successfully reduce GHG emissions at scale while promoting other development goals. The following examples illustrate high impact components of SL portfolios.

● The Paramos and Forests program supports the Government of Colombia’s (GOC) policies and incentives to reduce GHG emissions using the domestic carbon market by conserving and restoring carbon-dense tropical forest and paramos ecosystems across the country. The program is working with forest communities to implement REDD+ projects and verify carbon credits, and is now focusing on replicating USAID’s experiences with REDD+ in subregions prioritized by the GOC as key to the peace process. Verified credits are sold to companies looking to reduce their carbon tax obligations, providing a source of income to communities and long-term financial sustainability for the conservation projects.

● Green Invest Asia catalyzes private sector investments in agriculture and forestry businesses in Southeast Asia to scale up sustainable production and reduce pressures on tropical deforestation. This helps develop the marketplace for low-emissions agriculture and forestry business models, incorporate social and environmental safeguards into investment decisions, and thereby address a major source of GHG emissions in the region. The program uses an enterprise-driven approach to match like-minded investors and businesses and to reduce barriers to investment.

● The Forest Conservation and Agriculture Alliance (FCAA) is a partnership with private sector stakeholders along the beef value chain in Paraguay that promotes improved technology and management practices in livestock production and a sustainable land use framework to reduce deforestation. FCAA works with key actors in the public and private sectors and civil society to reach consensus on practices to improve productivity and land use management across selected jurisdictions in key landscapes. Beef from these jurisdictions can qualify for higher paying markets that demand sustainable practices. The project will reach the upstream segments of the beef value chain to promote the establishment of sustainable sourcing commitments.

● The Vietnam Forests and Deltas Program (VFD) helped standardize, modernize, and expand the payment for forest environmental services (PFES) system led by the Government of Vietnam (GVN). The PFES system requires forest service users, for instance hydropower companies, to pay people living in watershed forests to protect them in order to better regulate and improve water flows. VFD is currently working with GVN and partners to pilot a carbon PFES system where local carbon-intensive companies pay forest owners for the carbon sequestration and storage services provided by their protected forests.

● The Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) is testing the effectiveness of partnering with a private cocoa export company and a cocoa producers’ cooperative to support shade-grown cocoa agroforestry as a solution that reduces deforestation and associated GHG emissions in primary forest areas at risk of agricultural conversion, and alleviates poverty in rural Democratic Republic of Congo.

CARPE’s results demonstrate this model has the potential to be scaled up for broader impact, if combined with complementary SL strategic approaches.

● SilvaCarbon has mobilized and coordinated U.S. Government interagency support to increase partner country capacity for MRV of GHG emissions and carbon sequestration in tropical forests and other lands for better land use planning and management. The program focuses on the key technical areas of remote sensing, national forest inventory, and GHG inventory. Capacity for MRV is critical for transparency and accountability and access to climate finance. It also motivates countries to raise their level of climate change mitigation ambition, and helps them with early warning of deforestation, land use planning, and management.

INDIRECT ATTRIBUTION OF FUNDS TO SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

Operating Units (OUs) should consider reporting on indirect SL attributions for projects or activities that contribute to SL objectives. Projects and activities that have a different primary purpose, such as biodiversity conservation or food security, may also reduce GHG emissions, increase carbon sequestration, or improve the enabling environment for SL. These activities should attribute their contribution to SL objectives under the Indirect SL Key Issue. Only the portion of the total funding that is expected to have SL benefits should be reported as an indirect attribution.

Reasons to Report on Indirect SL Attributions Indirect support for SL improvements contributes meaningfully to the total impact of USAID’s programming; failure to report SL impacts of other funding streams leads the Agency to underestimate the impact of its programs on SL objectives. Reporting SL indicators from indirect support enables USAID to demonstrate the full value of its funding to the U.S. Congress, Executive Branch, and the American people to maintain support for the foreign assistance budget. Indirect attribution also enables USAID to demonstrate to international partners USAID’s commitment to integrating climate mitigation goals in its broader development portfolio.

Indirect Attribution of Funding to SL in Practice

● The Partnership for the Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity (PCAB) works with the Government of Brazil and local partners to conserve biodiversity and protect forests while allowing people to meet economic needs by strengthening protected area management, forest-based value chains, and private sector engagement. For PCAB’s many private sector partners, climate change impact is a key result, therefore PCAB reports on GHG emissions reductions although it is funded by Biodiversity funding.

(Funding stream: Biodiversity; SL indicator: GHG emissions reductions)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND TOOLS

● This pullout of the FY20 OP Sustainable Landscapes has the official language for the SL SPS and Key Issue definitions.

● The ClimateLinks Sustainable Landscapes landing page.

● The ProLand page includes analyses of promising landscape productivity enhancement opportunities at the global and mission levels.

● The CEADIR page includes resources on financial and economic analysis, policies, planning, and financing of SL.

● The Low-Emissions Opportunities in Agriculture page contains resources for iIdentifying key opportunities for reducing emissions from agriculture.

● This draft Global Sustainable Landscapes Situation Model depicts threats and drivers to the reduction of GHG emissions from natural and productive landscapes.

● Climate-smart agriculture training page on Agrilinks.

● Biodiversity Conservation Gateway has forest management resources, including the Integrating Biodiversity and Sustainable Landscapes in USAID Programming document.

● USAID’s Environment and Natural Resources Management Framework.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KW5WnhpM84A2A0VGl7_TpnYT1kyCqRoKZO7SLxSE7VU/edit?usp=sharing https://www.climatelinks.org/sustainable-landscapes https://www.climatelinks.org/sustainable-landscapes https://www.climatelinks.org/project/proland https://www.climatelinks.org/project/proland https://www.climatelinks.org/content/global-assessments-landscape-approaches https://www.climatelinks.org/content/global-assessments-landscape-approaches https://www.climatelinks.org/content/usaid-mission-analyses-landscape-approaches https://www.climatelinks.org/content/usaid-mission-analyses-landscape-approaches https://www.climatelinks.org/project/ceadir https://www.climatelinks.org/project/ceadir https://www.climatelinks.org/project/low-emissions-opportunities-agriculture https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B32zLHBMTffMYkNpWmJCWGJ1dTVOZm02MmZnMDBpbVpheXgw https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B32zLHBMTffMYkNpWmJCWGJ1dTVOZm02MmZnMDBpbVpheXgw https://www.agrilinks.org/training/climate-smart-agriculture https://rmportal.net/ https://rmportal.net/biodiversityconservation-gateway/projects/current-global-projects/bridge/bridge-resources/integrating-biodiversity-and-sustainable-landscapes-in-usaid-programming https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1865/environmental-and-natural-resource-management-framework-pdf

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND TOOLS