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Isilda Nhantumbo
Senior researcher, Natural Resources; team leader, forests
Forestry, REDD+, forestry economics, natural resources management and policy analysis.
Forests and climate change with particular emphasis on the Reduction of Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD).
The work involves:
- Supporting development and implementation of forest-based climate strategies with partners in sub-Saharan Africa, Vietnam and Brazil;
- Undertaking broader international work to ensure local forest rights, practical governance and capacity development approaches are integrated into REDD preparations and other forest-based climate strategies linked to the post-2012 UNFCCC agreements.
Independent consultant on natural resources management and policy analysis for FAO (Ghana, Zimbabwe and headquarters), the UN Drylands Development Centre in Nairobi, the World Bank in Mozambique, and IIED.
Between 2000 and 2006, country programme coordinator, then coordinator for the Development of the Southern Africa Forestry Programme, at IUCN.
English, Portuguese
Isilda Nhantumbo's blog posts
As a new book warns that carbon forestry in Africa is heading for failure, representing little more than "green grabbing", Isilda Nhantumbo argues that we need to urgently learn the lessons about what works and what doesn't when it comes to forest (and carbon) management.
Curbing climate emissions means managing and using existing forests, and land sustainably. An IIED workshop in Paris will look at how the programme to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) can be made more effective, while also supporting local communities.
This year International Day of Families is focusing on gender equality. As IIED embarks on our own gender audit, Isilda Nhantumbo looks at the importance of gender and family roles within the workplace.
On a cold day in Warsaw last year, governments from around the world reached an agreement with far reaching implications for the world's forests, especially those in the tropics and subtropics. After several years of negotiations they agreed a framework — called REDD+ — to compensate developing nations for avoiding deforestation. So what's next? This month, IIED hosted a two-day conference to answer that question.
Weak engagement with businesses that operate in forest landscapes and a lack of clarity about who has rights to the carbon in trees are among the problems facing private-sector REDD+ projects, says Isilda Nhantumbo.
As developing countries act to protect their forests in return for compensation from industrialised nations, their strategies will affect men and women in different ways. Value chain analysis that links commodities that drive deforestation with gender offers great opportunities to designing REDD+ delivery models that capitalise on advantages of different actors, says Isilda Nhantumbo.
Investing in sustainable local enterprises could help REDD+ secure projects' long term financial viability — that was the feeling emerging in discussions at IIED and partners' REDD+ workshop at the COP18 climate talks in Doha.
“The government took our forest land to create a forest reserve and the same government confiscated our land for planting trees. All that is left is unproductive savannah,” said a community representative speaking during a meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
<p><strong>REDD+</strong> has the potential to bring positive changes to the lives of people who are dependent on forests for their livelihoods. But this can only happen if they <strong>participate</s
This blog asks whether REDD+ in Mozambique is just another opportunity for land grabs in the country.