Moldova Community Forestry Project

General description

Agency Moldsilva in cooperation with the BioCarbon Fund launched a new project - "Moldova Community Forestry Project" (MCFP). The goal of this project is to newly create community forests on 9.4 thousand ha by afforesting eroded and nonproductive lands, sequestrating the carbon and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, improving the regional and local forestry resources, ad­ditional provision with wood products and contributing to local/regional sustainable development. The investment needs for the implementation of the project during 2006-2036 are estimated at $27 million. This amount will be secured by the Agency Moldsilva and the 289 communities participating in the project.

From the total area planned for forestation under this project, 8.9 thousand ha (or 94,4%) are owned by local public authorities, about 0.5 thousand ha (or 5,6%) belong to other owners. As many as 21 forest entities of Moldova that undertake forest planting have established cooperation agreements with LPAs in order to improving and protect the degraded lands meant for afforestation. The duration of such contracts is of 5 - 10 years. After the contract termination, the LPAs will be responsible for the management activities in the newly established forest plantations.

Activities

Planting activities under the MCFP were carried out during 2006-2009. At present, cleaning and completion/restoration works in afforested areas are carried out, including in the context of improv­ing/conserving the biodiversity.

In the context of fulfilling the obligations under this project, Agency Moldsilva undertook in June - October 2010 a full assessment of forest plantations created under MCFP. The assessment revealed that the vitality of majority of the newly created forest plantations included in the BioCarbon Fund agreement was satisfactory. Thus, from the total area of the project, 901.5 ha (9.6%) are forest planta­tions included in the fully stocked wood. Circa 71% survival rate is assumed for 4327.9 ha (45.9%) of plantations, 71%, 2745.9 ha (29.1%) are plantations with a survival rate of 51-70% and 1454.6 ha (15.4%) are plantations with a survival rate under 50%. It should be mentioned that such a situation was created by unfavorable climate conditions from the last three years (severe droughts in 2007 and 2008; floods in 2008 and 2010).

Based on the results of the above mentioned inventory, Agency Moldsilva requested from all subor­dinated forest entities involved in the project to undertake measures aimed at improving the condi­tion of forest plantations. According to these documents, an area of 3654 ha (34.5%) of plantations are subject to recovery and improvement, and 213 ha (2%) are to be replanted. These activities are to be implemented during 2010-2011.

The project documents, with relevant annexes, were sent to the National Commission for the im­plementation of UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol provisions (DNA) on April 8, 2009. Agency Moldsilva received the Approval Letter on April 30, 2010.

A validation mission composed of representatives of the Swiss company SQS and BioCarbon Fund visited the project during May 4-8, 2010. All required information was then made available to the auditors. Field trips were organized and selected sites included in the project were assessed. The mis­sion had the opportunity to discuss with representatives of local forest entities, local communities and others. The validation report is currently under review prior to processing.