Promoting Sustainable Development through Carbon Trade and CO, Sequestration: The Case of Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project in Southwestern Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia being a developing country and a signalory to the KyolO Protocol has a
high potential for gaining Carbon Credits through the implementation of Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) projects. The Humbo Assisted Natural
Regeneration Project is already developed and registered under the CDM scheme.
The objective oftlris study is to assess the trends of the CDM carbon sequestration
project and its contribution to sustainable development in southern Ethiopia.
Selected sllstainable development indicators Ihat include environmental, economic
and social categories were used for the evaluation of the project perfonnance.
Data were collected using household survey (l00 households) and key infonnam
interviews. Afour-poim Likert scale questionnaire was IIsed to collect data with a
0.85 level of Cronbach 's alpha coefficient. Most environmental indicators evafllated have shown a Significant improvement. All the economic indicators
assessed including household income, employment opportunities, technological
transfers have also shown improvemem. This also holds true for most assessed
social indicators: property rights clarification, community participation, and
capacity building. Exceptions are women's participation, distribution of benefits
and costs in Ihe cooperatives, and agreement on carbon trade income distribution.
The Humbo Project has opened up an opportunity to promote sustainable
development while there is a challenge of integrating it with the socio-economic
and political context of the country. Hence, clarifying and mainstreaming the
issues surrounding CDM and sllstainable developmenl in the Ethiopian context are
found to be of great importance.