Support Bionic Planet at patreon.com/bionicplanet In Episode 99 of Bionic Planet, recorded in Mombasa, Kenya, the focus is on the efforts to revive the coastal mangrove forests that protect the seaside city and support its fishing sector. The episode features guests from the community-based organization, Big Ship, who have been working on mangrove conservation for 15 years. The episode delves into the challenges faced in persuading communities to understand the importance of conserving...

Today we’re going to try and help you understand one of the most vexing components of the climate challenge — namely, the overlapping, interlinking, and contradictory land titles that determine control of so many tropical forests — in this case, the Amazon, the lungs of the planet.  With no clarity over control and no realistic way of enforcing it, there’s no way to sustainably manage and protect this massive bulwark against climate change. Today’s episode centers around a few individuals,...

Photo courtesey of  HH58 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70303656  This episode of Bionic Planet is entitled "The Mosaic, the Minefield, and a Manifesto."  The "Mosaic" reminds us that there is no single solution to the climate challenge. Instead, we have a mosaic of interlocking solutions that fit together like a clock. Carbon finance is just one part of it, and it's one of the few parts that have worked well, albeit imperfectly. The "Minefield"...

Tim Mohin wrote “Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Tree-Hugger’s Guide to Working in Corporations” back in 2012, after three decades in sustainability — first in government, with the US Environmental Protection Agency, and then at companies like Intel, where he served as director of sustainable development. He went on to head the Global Reporting Initiative, which administers the GRI standards for sustainability. He recently helped launmch ESG data provider Persefoni and hosts his own...

Remembering the Surui Forest Carbon Project, which was the first indigenous-led REDD project, plus: A conversation with Geoffry Mwangi Wambungu, Chief Research Scientist at the Kasigau REDD Project in Kenya. He explains what social scientists mean by “theory of change,” and tells us why he believes the term “co-benefits” is a misnomer in natural climate solutions. Further reading on the Surui Carbon Project...

Dr. Zorodzai Maroveke -- AKA "Dr. Zoey" -- heads the Zimbabwe Industrial Hemp Trust, which is promoting the uptake of industrial hemp as a climate smart alternative to wood, cotton, and plastic. Hemp, she explains, replenishes faster than wood, uses far less water than cotton, and has almost no waste. Its ecological benefits are clear, and she hopes carbon finance can be used to overcome the financial challenges to scaling up. Supplemental Reading: "Commodities at a Glance: Special Issue...

Zimbabwean entrepreneur Chiyedza Heri runs the Ubuntu Alliance, a company that's helping farmers leverage carbon finance to shift to more sustainable forms of agriculture. She's one of more than a dozen young Africans I met at year-end climate talks in Dubai (COP 28) -- a new breed of entrepreneur that the late Ghanian economist George Ayittey calls "cheetahs" because they're nimble, quick, and hungry. Green Cheetahs pursue activities that are pro-nature as well as pro-growth, and today's...

With just one full day of negotiations remaining, Pedro Venzon and Andrea Bonzanni of the International Emissions Trading Association summarize the remaining issues under Article 6

Article 6 negotiations, which focus on international carbon markets, remain stalled in Dubai. Kelley Hamrick Malvar of The Nature Conservancy offers a look into the current state of play and the road ahead.

Kenyan agronomist George Thumbi is helping farmers in the region between Tsavo East and Tsavo West improve their yields and their soil by shifting to agroforestry and other forms of sustainable agriculture. 

This piece, adapted from a piece that first ran in 2016, serves as the fourth installment in our continuing series on carbon finance in Kenya. Today, we look at how carbon finance supports Sustainable Agriculture Land Management (SALM), which has doubled the average income of more than 30,000 Kenyan family farmers while pulling more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by increasing the carbon content of soils. 

In part three of our continuing series from Kenya, we hear how the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Project helped people switch from burning trees for charcoal to conserving forests -- the their benefit and the benefit of us all. 

Evans Maneno is Makueni County Ecosystem Conservator for the Kenya Forestry Service. He walks us through a tree nursery in the Chyulu Hills and explains how the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Project has reversed deforestation by helping people develop sustainable livelihoods -- reviving in the process a threatened river that provides water for people hundreds of miles away.  Second in a series

A decade ago,  the cloud forests of Kenya's Chyulu Hills were on the brink of collapse, threatening water supplies for the Tsavo and Amboseli Plains — and for the coastal City of Mombasa, 250 kilometers away. Then the Kenya Forestry and Wildlife Services teamed up with the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, the Big Life Foundation, the Sheldrake Wildlife Trust, Conservation International, and, most importantly, grazing collectives, called “community group ranches” to launch the Chyulu...

Ghana's cocoa economy is second only to Côte d'Ivoire's, but climate change threatens to decimate it. Today's guest, Roselyn Fosuah Adjei of the Ghana Forestry Commission, is charged with leveraging carbon finance -- and specifically REDD+ -- to avert that disaster. 

A 2021 study of trees in America showed that poor neighborhoods had far fewer trees than wealthier ones, and that translates into higher temperatures, poorer air, and more deaths. Jad Daley of American Forests explains the Tree Equity Score, what it means, and his organization's effort to plant -- and, more importantly, grow -- 522 million trees across American cities.

Jos Cozijnsen has been working the climate puzzle for decades -- first by helping to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol and then by helping NGOs like the Environmental Defense Fund craft legal policies with teeth. Today, he offers his take on the year-end climate talks (COP27), which took place last month in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. We discuss the Bridgetown Initiative, the African Carbon Markets Initiative, and the new Loss and Damage Fund -- as well as the bad-faith arguments of those seeking to...

Under the Paris Climate Agreement, countries must document all of their greenhouse gas emissions and sinks, and that means measuring changes in tree cover. NASA Senior Scientist Sassan Saatchi has spent 30 years helping the world’s space agencies and foresters do just that by blending the newest science of the space age with centuries-old practices from ship-building and forestry. Thanks, to him, countries will soon be able track the growth and decay of every tree within their borders. 

Just over four years ago, Max DuBuisson took on one of the most difficult challenges you can imagine: namely, spearheading the creation of a new carbon methodoilogy undr both the Verified Carbon Standard and the Climate Action Reserve. Dubbed the "Methodology for Improved Agricultural Land Management," it aims to expand the practice of climate-smart agriculture by paying farmers who adopt the practices before their neighbors do. This is the story of the creation of that methodology. Further...

Tim Mohin wrote "Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Tree-Hugger's Guide to Working in Corporations" back in 2012, after three decades in sustainability -- first in government, with the US Environmental Protection Agency, and then at companies like Intel, where he served as director of sustainable development. He went on to head the Global Reporting Initiative, which administers the GRI standards for sustainability. He recently helped launmch ESG data provider Persefoni and hosts his own...

On October 2, 2022, the US Supreme court heard a case that could impact the quality of water across the United States. Sackett v EPA dates back to 2004, but the forces impacting the case date back to the 1960s and, arguably, centuries earlier.  Today we revisit a 2019 episode, where we dove deep into the history of the US Clean Water Act and the stealth effort to undermine it. 

Marco Cerezo of Guatemalan NGO FUNDAECO explains how he's using carbon finance to help Guatemalan farmers demarcate their land and save surrounding forests. Related Links: https://www.worldlandtrust.org/news/2021/10/marco-cerezo/  https://registry.verra.org/mymodule/ProjectDoc/Project_ViewFile.asp?FileID=43006&IDKEY=2iquwesdfmnk0iei23nnm435oiojnc909dsflk9809adlkmlkfd59305274

The science-denial movement delayed action on climate change for decades, and now the tropes they used are creeping into coverage of emerging climate solutions. Here’s one way of differentiating between honest inquiry and something more nefarious. Third of a three-part series. All links available at: https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/opinionwhere-does-healthy-critique-end-and-cynical-denial-begin/ ...

When popular media get natural climate solutions wrong, it’s usually because they’re struggling to understand complex mechanisms that have evolved over more than 45 years. Here is a brief look back on that evolution. Second of a three-part series adapted from Ecosystem Marketplace Click here for the original story and all related links: https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/opinionsix-lessons-from-the-history-of-natural-climate-solutions/