Last month, I had the opportunity to go to a remote island in Africa for work.
São Tome and Príncipe, located in the Gulf of Guinea, are sometimes referred to as the African Galapagos for their rich biodiversity and numerous endemic species (I learned during a tour at the National Botanic Garden that both islands have over 350 mapped endemic species combined). However, like many places today, STP faces threats from deforestation and climate change.
That is why, since 2018, the FAO, IUCN, and other UN agencies have set up a project within The Restoration Initiative (TRI) program to support landscape and livelihoods resilience in the country. Rabobank Acorn comes in to develop the carbon component of the project by connecting smallholder farmers to the voluntary carbon market and providing them with additional income after trees are planted and biomass increase is measured via satellite imagery.
My small contribution to this great collaboration, together with my colleague and friend Sofia Corral, was to complete key intake and certification documents to kick off the project from Acorn's side. This included co-developing a sampling biomass inventory and an agroforestry design, reviewing an eligibility assessment, and initiating a customer due diligence process and business case. None of this would have been possible without the most welcoming and kind support of the Directorate of Forests and Biodiversity, the Minister of the Environment in STP, FAO-ST, the directors of the three coffee and cacao cooperatives we are working with, and, most importantly, the farmers themselves, without whom this project would not exist.
I'm beyond thankful for having been part of this mission, which I deeply believe in, and for the chance to be mesmerized by this otherworldly country.
