WFP and Forest Dept in food and forest conservation bid

by Dhaneshi Yatawara

In today’s world climate change is emerging as the greatest threat. Its impact is felt by the entire world. One of the worst fears of the world accelerated by climate change is food insecurity.

Climate change directly affects farming, fishing and agriculture, eventually decreasing the harvest. Thus limiting the availability of food and one’s access to it. Luckily Sri Lanka is still safe. We find no record of people dying of starvation even in the most rural village.

The world is in the need of concrete action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Sri Lanka needs to take precautions. One of the foremost institutes in Sri Lanka addressing issues of food security is the UN’s World Food Programme.

The routine line of work so far was caring for the Internally Displaced Persons of the North and East. With almost all the IDPs resettled WFP has now diverted its project to home gardens and forest conservation in support of enhancing food security.

Forest conservation and food security sounds rather mismatched but according to Giancarlo Stopponi, Head of the Program Unit of the WFP it is all interconnected. It is an eye-opener. People specially villagers depend on forests for their day-to-day work, thus forests play a great part in securing food for their families, he said.

Home garden

In rural areas even for firewood people go to the forests and by promoting home gardens and agro forests we are facing to limit people using forests, he said.

As Stopponi explained in the newly resettled areas people going to forests not only poses threats to the environment, but a threat to villagers as well due to landmines which are in the process of being cleared.

Apart from human habitats many other areas in the North are still under the de-mining program. We try to promote agro forests which is growing a forest within their cultivation plot.

We provide plants having timber value when it matures. It not only conserves forests but indirectly links with food security, he added. In addition several programs are under way to replant trees on selected spots of river banks as controlling ground water levels is important to maintain high yielding cultivations. Jointly with the Department of Forests, the WFP has already launched projects in the Eastern Province.

Interventions that help build human resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change are crucial, Stopponi added.

In 2012 the WFP plans to launch a new program targeting food security, forest conservation and protecting ground water levels at an approximate cost of eight million US dollars. Protecting water retention areas cannot be confined to one district as rivers flow through many districts, he said explaining how their work extends.

The WFP has established home gardens with technical support from the Department of Agriculture in backyards of selected beneficiary households. While the family concentrate on establishing successful home garden, the Ministry of Economic Development provides the cost of seeds and fertiliser while the WFP provides a food ration for 40 work days.

When asked why the WFP adopted such a strategy, Stopponi said, Many of these families depend on labour getting daily wages. So their main livelihood gets affected and the family will face a crisis. Thus in order to ease off this problem we decided to give food rations until they set up their home garden.

Under the project, school gardens and nutrition gardens are also established in selected provinces and at the moment the entire project concentrates in the Northern province. Nutrition gardens are established in Ministry of Health Clinics targeting families of expecting mothers and lactating mothers with the participation of local health authorities.

The objective is to promote supplementary nutrients to mothers and to promote the consumption of nutritious food. These gardens are established in Anuradhapura, Puttalam, Polonnaruwa, Moneragala, Batticaloa, Ampara, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna.

Agro-forestry home gardens are established in selected beneficiary homesteads. For the beneficiaries 35 - 40 forest seedlings of selected species and three fruit plants were established in a forestry home garden with the technical assistance of Forest Department. WFP provides 40 work days for food assistance to beneficiaries.

The project is implemented at present in Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Vavuniya districts and now moving on to the Northern Province. In 2009 - 2010 the project established 18,442 home gardens and 7,500 agro-forestry home gardens.

Introducing fuel efficient stoves specially to the IDPs is one of the success stories.

These stoves were first introduced to these families when they were temporarily living in welfare villages in Cheddikulam, said Kithsiri Mullegamgoda, the program officer.

The aim is to reduce consumption of fuel wood during domestic cooking which would support to reduce the rate of deforestation, Kithsiri said.

This would enable families to reduce their time spent for collecting firewood. It is observed that these fuel efficient stoves could contribute to reduce the emission of green house gases by a substantial amount.

According to him, data provided by the University of Moratuwa, Mechanical Engineering Faculty based on a study done in association with the AIT, Bangkok show the firewood usage is reduced to 41.2% when using these stoves. It shows a reduction of 44.8% of Carbon Dioxide emission and 29.6% reduction in methane.

In support of the Government’s effort on improving food security while combating climate change the WFP continues to benefit the villagers of the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

All our projects are implemented along with the support of the local Government authorities since they are correct people who have access to the grass roots level, said Kithsiri.

In the proposed projects on climate change adaptations, the WFP and UNDP has jointly prepared programs to reduce vulnerability of communities and eco-systems.

The aligns with President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s declaration of re-growing forests on hilltops above 1,500 elevation, Kithsiri said explaining their future plans in climate change adaptation and food security programs.

This is to protect the critical river basins in Sri Lanka in order to maintain a steady ground water level. The project intended to start in 2012 focus on Mahaweli, Galoya and Unnichchiya basins. The proposal has been submitted to the Climate Change Adaptation Fund for funding.