COP30, held recently in Belém, Brazil, emphasised scaling up adaptation finance to reduce gaps in resilience and vulnerability. India called this global meeting a ‘COP of Implementation’ and a ‘COP of Delivery on Promises’, stressing that local climate action is important to India’s goal of net-zero by 2070. Countries of the Global South are particularly focused on adaptation finance and the implementation of adaptation strategies, also calling for a significant increase in funding for adaptation targets and the operationalisation of adaptation monitoring and tracking mechanisms that directly support vulnerable communities and ecosystems.
Building upon these priorities, three villages—namely Sükhai, Kivikhu, and Ghukhuyi—in Zunheboto’s Tizu Valley, Nagaland, have taken up an agroforestry project. The project aligns well with India’s global climate goals, especially in the context of loss and damage, adaptation, and mitigation highlighted at COP30. This community-led agroforestry project in Nagaland addresses local loss and damage and also contributes to broader climate resilience efforts through forest restoration, biodiversity conservation, and livelihood support.
The project aims to transform the Tizu Valley’s traditional jhum cultivation fallows into productive forested land, supporting habitat restoration, preventing soil erosion, and conserving water. By planting over 120 hectares with more than 120,000 native saplings, these villages significantly enhance carbon sequestration while supporting native biodiversity, including threatened species and rich butterfly populations. This integrated approach reduces forest loss—which is a key driver of carbon emissions—and improves local adaptive capacity by stabilising soils and enhancing livelihoods through fruit and timber resources, directly offsetting local environmental loss and damage caused by deforestation and unsustainable practices.
Loss and damage
The Tizu River landscape has experienced severe strain from deforestation, uncontrolled hunting, soil erosion, and overextraction of aquatic life, all of which constitute loss and damage impacting ecosystem and community resilience. The community-declared Conservation Areas (CCAs), with strict bans on hunting and commercial fishing methods, represent a grassroots response to these challenges by reducing forest degradation and safeguarding biodiversity. They also reduce vulnerability to climate shocks, particularly extreme weather events.
A focus group discussion led by Palakiya Foundation with farmers in Zunheboto reveals that forest loss and soil erosion are impacting crop yields, delaying crop cycles and, consequently, affecting farmers’ incomes. The cultivation practices of jhum paddy, maize, plum, and oranges have undergone shifts due to unprecedented changes in climate. Loss or reduction in yield adds to already surging transportation costs of agricultural produce to markets and the lack of alternative livelihoods.
Ivan from the Tizu Valley Biodiversity Conservation and Livelihood Network (TVBCLN) says, “Our campaign is based on a two-fold response: first, restoration through tree plantation; and second, forest protection and conservation, which limits unsustainable forest produce extraction.”
Under the CCA arrangement, the forest is divided into zones. While the core zone restricts breeding, the buffer zone allows communities limited firewood collection and timber use for household purposes. About five jhum cycles have been demarcated as an economic zone, which communities can use for irrigation and horticulture. Multi-cropping is encouraged, with guided efforts to revive traditional practices, cultural knowledge, and agricultural systems while integrating scientific inputs on biodiversity and agroforestry.
The initiative’s success stems from active community involvement in nursery management, seed collection, plantation, and biodiversity monitoring. The agroforestry efforts diversify income through fruit and timber and rejuvenate soil.
Enhancing carbon credit
The community-led agroforestry project is structured as a 30-year initiative that focuses on capacity-building within communities rather than quick-fix solutions. It includes socio-economic surveys and forest carbon evaluations, and ownership lies with the communities.
According to community practitioners, any activity that removes or prevents the emission of one tonne of carbon dioxide (tCO?e) generates one carbon credit. Agroforestry and plantation activities capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in organic matter, which in turn enhances soil sequestration. This helps reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere naturally. The carbon credit project provides direct economic benefits through revenue sharing, support for alternative livelihood enterprises, infrastructure development, and training programmes. It also strengthens governance structures and community-based forest management systems.
On the one hand, Zunheboto presents a solution to the larger global problem of carbon emissions by focusing on basic interventions such as afforestation and adapting nature-based subsistence farming. On the other hand, it also serves as a model for rebuilding relationships between people and ecosystems.
Rohin Kumar is an independent journalist, filmmaker and program director at Palakiya Foundation. He can be reached at: [email protected]