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New Awards
Nature For Justice Awarded $3 Million By USDA
N4J to work with 100 Black small-scale farmers in North Carolina to adopt Climate-Smart Agriculture
Falls Church, VA, Oct. 3, 2022 – We are pleased to announce that Nature For Justice (N4J) has been awarded $3 million as part of the USDA’s Partnerships for 70 Climate-Smart Commodities and Rural Projects. These funds will be used to assist 100 small-scale Black-owned farms in central North Carolina to adopt Climate-Smart Agricultural practices (CSAF) across approximately 5,000 acres to sequester an estimated 90,000 MT CO2e over five years.
“This is an important award. These funds will help N4J provide much-needed technical assistance and climate-smart marketing support to Black farmers in North Carolina who traditionally operate with little financial or technical support,” said Clarenda Stanley, Nature For Justice Managing Director – Farmer Inclusion.
N4J will coordinate community networks in central North Carolina to connect the 100 Black-owned farmers to resources for CSAF implementation. N4J has established an Inclusive Climate Resilience Network (ICRNet) there to focus on providing small-scale, Black farmers access to climate services. These services include favorable finance, climate information and training, technical assistance, market aggregation, and political influence to empower proactive climate action for climate resilience.
N4J will identify an on-site staff manager in each location to coordinate efforts. This person will conduct outreach and training in the ICRNet hub beginning year 1.
The N4J project is part of the The Soil Inventory Project (TSIP) with the Meridian Institute as fiscal sponsor. TSIP is a component of USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. The overall project will work with 444 producers to implement CSAF on 121,480 acres across the US, sequestering an estimated 292,530 MT CO2e. It quantifies specific CSAF impacts to unlock consumer demand and catalyze market mechanisms to scale CSAF beyond the project term.
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N4J In The News
Liberty woman grows brand for equity
“Stanley, a native of rural Alabama, is paying her knowledge forward by helping other women, mostly Black, create financially and environmentally sustainable farming businesses.
“I didn’t set out to be part of a movement. It kind of just came with the territory,” Stanley said. Fox 8, Greensboro, NCLa vue de Montreal: Biodiversity gets its moment at COP15
“Nitah says the forests and other ecosystems in the Northwest Territories can sequester so much carbon as to make them ‘globally significant. Let’s invest in what’s proven: nature. And let’s recognize the responsibility that Indigenous people have exercised while fighting for their rights and to preserve their lands.'” GreenBiz
The Push to Conserve 30 Percent of the Planet: What’s at Stake?
“There are no better teachers today than Indigenous peoples,” says Steven Nitah, who is also a former tribal leader of the Łutsel Kʼe Dene First Nation in northwestern Canada. Council on Foreign Relations
How Indigenous-led conservation could help Canada meet its land and water protection targets
Steven Nitah in a CBC article, “Indigenous nations that are advancing their own protected and conserved areas really have to drive their agenda,” he said. “They have to own what they want to create.”
Indigenous conservation is key to protecting wilderness in Canada, report says
Steven Nitah in The Globe And Mail, “Noting that Canada could be looking to international carbon markets as a way to help support conservation on Indigenous lands, Mr. Nitah said. ‘Why not tie them together as an opportunity?'”
N.W.T. forests absorb more carbon than territory emits — most of the time
In CBC News article, Steven Nitah “said the fact forests and other types of ecosystems in the N.W.T. can sequester so much carbon makes them ‘globally significant.’ He said this fact should not be considered a license for the territory to continue emitting the same amount of carbon dioxide into the air.
Nitah also said that there is ‘definitely’ more carbon stored below ground in the N.W.T. than above.” French version.Partnerships
THE RIPPLE HAS SPREAD TO NATURE FOR JUSTICE.
We exist at a time when partnerships seem more important than ever. At least in recent memory. Few organizations go on their journey alone. When it’s shared with a kindred spirit, the journey is far less arduous and far more memorable.
The Pond Foundation and Nature For Justice are about to embark on a united mission to help those most affected by climate change.
By creating nature-based solutions to climate change, Nature For Justice believes issues such as economic development, social inclusion and so much more can be done for vulnerable populations confronting climate change around the world.
The Pond Foundation is a non-profit and exists to change the way the world acts on climate change. Its My Carbon Zero program is dedicated to driving change for good by guiding people to reconnect with themselves and with the planet.
This important and timely partnership will be at the forefront of climate change in communities where it’s needed most.
The ripple created by the Pond Foundation is just beginning to spread and Nature For Justice will ride this ripple as it becomes a wave of positive change for those most vulnerable to our changing climate.
For more information contact Scott Poynton of The Pond Foundation (WhatsApp: +41 79 445 62 77) or Hank Cauley of Nature For Justice (+1-202-262-4433)
Cultivo brings to the partnership an ability to help communities quantify the value of the natural capital stack – the biodiversity, water, carbon, and ecosystem services -– that they’ve lived with for generations and have begun to lose due to our changing climate. That’s part one.
“Diversity and resilience are important for investing. That’s why we select diverse projects across a range of ecosystems.”
Part two will be determining the potential of that natural capital stack if those communities were to adopt new land use practices that improved management, restored landscapes, and protected forests.
Monetizing and selling the differential to investors who see the value in one or more elements of the natural capital stack is the engine that will drive change – not philanthropy but real business investment.
Cultivo and N4J complement one another on our three foundational pillars: social inclusion, business durability, and science-based decision-making. We’re already applying those principles as we consider projects in Canada, Australia, Ghana, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica.
For an overview of their approach, watch this video.
See blog post here.
Los Aliados is pleased to announce a new partnership with the recently created NGO, Nature for Justice.
Nature for Justice bridges the gap between rural communities affected by climate change and investments in climate response. Nature for Justice’s approach focuses on building in-house country partner capacity, promoting smart experimentation and rapid evaluation of outcomes, and acting as an effective matchmaker between companies, their partners, and community organizations, such as indigenous peoples and farmer cooperatives.
Key strategies include aggregating small-holders such as indigenous groups, coops, women’s initiatives, and religious assemblies, and acting as a matchmaker between companies that stand to benefit through adapted practices (e.g., improved supply chains, carbon offset credits) and these communities.
Along with Aliados, Nature for Justice is building a network of committed partners, such as RESOLVE and Nature Conservation Research Center, and will provide technical skills, technologies, and resources, and share lessons.
N4J is supporting Aliados in our partnership with Cloudforest Organics and local farmers to implement a sustainable cloud forest management program in the critically important Cayambe Coca Ecological Reserve buffer area, where up to 20% of eastern tropical cloud forests have been lost in the past two decades.
There is a strong complement of skills, resources, and networks between Aliados and N4J and we’re looking forward to this partnership working toward impact at scale.
RESOLVE is pleased to announce a new partnership with the recently created NGO, Nature for Justice.
Nature for Justice bridges the gap between rural communities affected by climate change and investments in climate response. Nature for Justice mitigates the social impacts of climate change by helping communities adapt to the climate crisis, becoming more resilient through actions such as improved agricultural techniques, restoring ecosystem health, and managing local forests.
The vast majority of the 570 million global farmers are subsistence farmers with limited to no ability to adapt to the climate crisis. By monetizing practices that small-scale farmers can adopt to improve ecosystem services and store carbon, whole landscapes occupied by these farmers will receive reliable income in the near-term and build sustainable solutions for the future.
Nature for Justice is building a network of in-country partners, such as Los Aliados in Ecuador and Nature Conservation Research Center in Ghana, and will provide technical skills, technologies and resources, and share lessons.
Key strategies include aggregating small-holders such as indigenous groups, coops, women’s initiatives, and religious assemblies; and acting as a matchmaker between companies that stand to benefit through adapted practices (e.g., improved supply chains, carbon offset credits) and these communities.
Ultimately, Nature for Justice aims to transform impoverished areas into self-sustaining and thriving communities.
There is a strong fit with RESOLVE’s program with synergies across our partner networks.
We’re looking forward to this partnership with Hank Cauley and his colleagues.
Stephen D’Esposito