Khasi Hills Community REDD+ Project
Meghalaya, NE India
Restoring the forests of the Khasi Hills.
The Khasi Hills Community REDD+ Project seeks to slow, halt, and reverse deforestation in the Umiam Watershed of Meghalaya. The project unites 10 indigenous kingdoms in a federation or Synjuk to mobilize community forest conservation and restoration activities. The strategy builds on Khasi cultural traditions, leadership and institutions that have historically protected community sacred forests with their ancient stone megaliths.
India’s first certified REDD+ project.
The project began in early 2007 when community mobilization initiatives were conducted in two pilot project villages. The success of these early efforts to restore degraded pine forests led to requests from neighboring communities to join the conservation program. By 2012, a large REDD+ project was launched covering 27,000 hectares and involving over 6,000 households. The project was certified under the Plan Vivo Standard and represents the first community REDD+ project in India. Over the next ten years the project went through two successful third-party verifications, generating over 500,000 tCO2 offsets that resulted as deforestation was halted and thousands of hectares of degraded land was restored to healthy young natural forests.
The The project communities have been instrumental in controlling rapid deforestation that the area had been experiencing due to heavy fuelwood exploitation, charcoal manufacturing, logging, and agricultural expansion. Through carbon offset sales, the Federation raised funds to establish a range of livelihood activities supporting women’s micro-finance organizations, and sustainable agriculture and horticulture programs. The project has also distributed propane cook-tops and fuel-efficient stoves to over 90% of project households, as well as giving small community grants to improve water resources.
A community conservation model.
The project is entirely administered and implemented by local communities, including men, women, and village youth. The watershed management strategy is monitored with remote sensing data and drone technologies, as well as regular silvicultural measurements and social surveys. It has become a model that is widely studied in India by the government as well as civil society organizations and has guided the design of the Meghalaya state-wide forest conservation program.
