This project on ?Strengthening Local Initiatives for Climate Change Challenges is aimed at supporting Iko-Esai community in Akamkpa Local Government Area of Cross River State to respond to changing ecological and socio-economic conditions in the area.The community sole depends on the forest and forest resources for survival, especially agriculture, gathering of non-timber forest products, hunting and fuel wood, drives deforestation and forest degradation, with their attendant effect on climate change.
This project will support the community to carry out community land use and forest management planning and regeneration of degraded forest, practice improved and sustainable livelihoods to contribute to food and income security for community members, and build the capacity of households to build and use fuel efficient cook stoves to reduce the pressure from fuel wood. The project will target community leaders, women and youth, age grades, natural resource management groups,and various resource user groups to ensure collective decision making and implementation.The community will identify 20 hectares of deforested/degraded forest for reforestation; and will receive support from the project to raise nursery of 10,000 seedlings of indigenous tree species for replanting in the deforested/degraded areas.
The project will target a total of 185 direct beneficiaries, and approximately 3,000 residents in the community as indirect beneficiaries. At the end of this project, the Iko-Esai community will be more organized to act collectively and proactively to sustainably manage their forest, increase household income, and adopt cleaner household energy. This will be achieved through the strengthening of the existing community based organizations.