| Overview : Mt Elgon landscape presents a variety of ecosystems providing services upon which local population heavily depends. A large portion of the landscape is now degraded, considering current changes in land use due to expansion of agriculture fields and human settlements, largely driven by high population growth. There is also increasing pressure on the land to accommodate a population that is still rising in the Mt Elgon region and the inherent danger is that this increasing pressure for land will impact negatively on land use, such as a) causing trees to be cut for fuel wood before maturing and b) increase encroachment into the upper protected watersheds c) increased land fragmentation d) increased soil erosion. There is limited knowledge on how to implement Sustainable Land Management (SLM), sustainable forest management (SFM) and climate change mitigation (CCM). There is also limited access to extension services, limited or no innovation in land use management, and no incentives to improve land use practices. Non-application of sustainable land use practices is driven by limited ‘knowhow’ and technical capabilities to do so. There is a need to demonstrate how this can be done in practice but such demonstration has not been yet available in the Mount Elgon landscape. The Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) with support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is implementing the project “Integrated Landscape Management for Ecosystem Resilience and Improved Livelihoods in the Mt. Elgon Region” in the districts of Mbale, Bulambuli and Manafa.The overall goal of the project is to empower communities in Mt Elgon to manage their production landscapes in an integrated manner for improved livelihoods and ecosystem resilience. Objective of assignment: Overall the assignment is to establish the current carbon stocks and emission levels in farmlands in the Mount Elgon ILM project region in the districts of Mbale, Bulambuli and Manafa including roles and responsibilities of key actors considering the REDD+ methodology in a participatory manner The project stakeholders include farmers who are the direct beneficiaries, government agencies namely: The 3 DLGs, MWE, MLHUD, NARO, NEMA, NFA, NGOs, CBOs and MAAIF the lead implementing agency. The specific aim of this consultancy is to: - Establish ( by quantification) existing total carbon stocks
- Outline different methods that can be used to assess total carbon and highlight the most appropriate method to use, clearly outlining the assumptions to be made for each methodology
- Establish the rate of growth of the stock vis a vis the rate of depletion and thus the carbon being emitted (the reference levels)
- Build capacity of national staff attached to the project to monitor carbon stocks
- Establish key actors contributing to emissions and sequestration
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