Why REDD?
Wildlife Works was founded in 1997 with a simple yet powerful idea. If you want to protect the endangered wildlife, you need to balance the needs of wildlife with the need for work for those rural communities who share the same evironment. Our mission is to bring market-based solutions to conservation of biodiversity by providing benefits to rural communities so they can feed their children and put them through school without damaging the environment in which they live.
We believe that the UN-backed Reduced Emissions From Deforestation and Degradation, or REDD program, is a significant tool to provide real value to those rural communities who have made the commitment to protect their environment for future generations.
So what is REDD? Simply put, twenty percent of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions come from the destruction of tropical forests. REDD programs allow that if you can prevent the destruction of these forests by providing economic alternatives to those rural communities then you can claim the emissions reductions as carbon credits for sale in the carbon market place to finance your forest protection activities.
Wildlife Works has pioneered practical REDD solutions that are acceptable to both the rural communities and to the marketplace. It's allowed us to rapidly expand the amount of endangered species habitat we're protecting.
Our Kenya based Kasigau Corridor REDD project is the first ever to be issued Voluntary Carbon Units (VCUs) for REDD under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), the most widely used carbon accounting standard among projects issuing credits in the voluntary market.
There are six key elements to the Wildlife Work's brand of REDD that make it a successful model. The foundation of it all is job creation.
- Jobs supporting education [children's education, conservation education, community outreach about our projects]
- Jobs making eco-friendly products
- Jobs protecting wildlife [rangers and eco tourism]
- Jobs managing our mission
- Jobs helping farmers [jajoba and chili project]
- Jobs growing trees [seedling program, green charcoal project]
Visit the REDD Resource page to download Wildlife Works Project Design Documents for our various REDD projects.
Community Outreach from Wildlife Works on Vimeo.
Eco Factory from Wildlife Works on Vimeo.
Wildlife Works Rangers from Wildlife Works on Vimeo.
Managing the Future from Wildlife Works on Vimeo.
Dryland Farming from Wildlife Works on Vimeo.
Tree Nursery from Wildlife Works on Vimeo.
