On 24 March, C4 Chairman Anthony Mills presented at the Global Forest Summit in Brussels on his efforts to catalyse the restoration of 1.2 million hectares of desertified land in the Eastern Cape Province using the plant Portulacaria afra, commonly known as...
The global project EbA South, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through its Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), was officially launched in Beijing, China, in April 2013. Implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme and executed by the...
Investments in ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA), which usually entails building ecological infrastructure[1], will generate benefits for society for decades. EbA projects funded by governments or donors typically run for 5 years, or at the most 10 years, and...
The EbA South project achieved considerable engagement between EbA practitioners, government officials and scientists from China, Nepal, Seychelles and Mauritania. Data, findings, ideas and experiences from a wide range of ecosystems were shared during field trips...
The EbA South project demonstrated that EbA interventions at the scale of hundreds of hectares are technically feasible in Mauritanian drylands and in Nepalese mountain forests, and at the scale of tens of hectares in mangroves, wetlands and riparian forests of the...
When the EbA South project was designed, it was assumed that government staff would have the time available and technical capacity to manage, over a period of five years, the implementation of relatively small areas of land – tens of hectares of degraded mangroves...
The ending of 2018 provided an opportunity for the team at C4 EcoSolutions (C4) to celebrate how far we have come and to recommit ourselves to the journey ahead. Last year was a good one for C4, primarily because we: i) visited 31 countries (Figure 1); ii) were...
The 19th of November 2018 was World Toilet Day, an official United Nations observance day that intends to inform, engage and encourage people to contribute towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation[1]. Kenya-based social...
The clearing of primary forest for agriculture, urban expansion and industrialisation has increased across the tropics. In addition, marginal agricultural lands are being abandoned as communities seek more lucrative careers in urban centres. As a result, the...
The Kuzuko Thicket Restoration Project (KTRP) is planning to plant spekboom (Portulacaria afra) cuttings over 5,000 hectares in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Over a period of fifty years, the planted spekboom will sequester carbon and increase biodiversity,...
In 1996 food security was defined by the World Food Summit as follows: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active...
I had the privilege of attending the UNDP conference on climate change, food insecurity and resilient livelihoods in South Sudan held in Juba from the 27th to the 28th of June. Representing C4, I presented on sustainable water management – a relevant topic for a...
Homegardening is a form of agriculture that has been practised for centuries in tropical and temperate climates. Each homegarden is unique, but in general they are small‑scale (~30 m2) and maintained by individual households. These gardens are places of innovation...