The Rainforest Alliance in Kenya and Clarmondial announce a collaboration to execute a catalytic pilot investment for the Biosphere Integrity Fund in the Mount Kenya landscape. The Mount Kenya landscape is a world-renowned biodiversity hotspot, that services more than 50,000 smallholder farmers and contributes significantly to the Kenyan economy. The transaction builds on foundational work done by the Rainforest Alliance under the Mount Kenya Sustainable Landscape and Livelihoods (MSuLLi) Program, funded by the IKEA Foundation. This program seeks to support Mount Kenya’s farming communities to conserve and better manage their natural resources, leading to increased incomes and positive climate action.
The Mount Kenya landscape, with its glacier capped peaks, is one of Kenya’s most important water reservoirs. Together with four other major “water towers,” it supplies over 75% of Kenya’s renewable surface water. As a biodiversity hotspot, the landscape has over 700 plant species and is home to endangered and rare animals, including the black rhino and albino zebra. The landscape also serves the local economy as an important agricultural zone where various food and cash crops are cultivated. This has made the landscape strategically relevant for internationally recognized brands, such as leading tea, coffee, nuts, herbs, and spice companies. The landscape and its smallholder farmers are increasingly facing challenges related to climate change, including unpredictable rainfalls and increasing costs to adapt.
While there is interest from companies and government to support the transition to more sustainable landscapes and value chains in the Mount Kenya region, funding is still insufficient. This pilot catalytic investment will demonstrate the potential for social and environmental impact, notably on biodiversity, climate action and women’s economic empowerment, alongside financial returns in a scalable manner. The Clarmondial team will further evaluate layering in payments for ecosystem services, such as for carbon.
For the Rainforest Alliance, Mount Kenya is a priority landscape, and one where practices can be transformed so that communities and nature both thrive. This is a point reiterated by Julius Nganga, Senior Director for East and Southern Africa at the Rainforest Alliance: “The Mount Kenya landscape holds immense potential for farming communities. In recent years, the Rainforest Alliance has diligently pursued an integrative landscape management approach in the region, managing its land and resources more sustainably while improving farmer livelihoods, through strategies such as scaling regenerative agriculture and land restoration. We’re excited to collaborate with Clarmondial to advance our plans, linking the landscape to additional funding. Together, we can bolster the capacity of farmers and community members across the region, fostering more vibrant, resilient and equitable rural economies.”
To advance these sustainability actions across landscapes, innovative financial mechanisms are required. Herbert Hatanga, Clarmondial’s Partner for East and Southern Africa, expands: “Building on the great work the Rainforest Alliance has already done in the Mount Kenya landscape, we will support selected local actors in evaluating the business case of transitioning to better practices. Providing this pre-investment readiness support will allow the transaction to catalyze further funding that realizes sustainable benefits within the landscape. We have already designed and implemented vehicles that adopt mechanisms in which stakeholders within the value chains have a financial stake to advance better agricultural practices. We are in the process of developing another, the Biosphere Integrity Fund, that will aim to scale this investment further.”
The Rainforest Alliance and Clarmondial are already collaborating to accelerate Investments in high biodiversity landscapes globally under the Business Case for Collective Landscape Action, a partnership between the Rainforest Alliance, Clarmondial, CDP, and Conservation International, supported by USAID. This investment will build on that work and leverages Clarmondial’s experience in the Africa region.
Annelies Withofs, Programme Manager at IKEA Foundation, elaborates: “We are confident that a collaboration between the Rainforest Alliance and Clarmondial will advance the landscape action plan. This collaboration builds on the unique networks and expertise that the parties have built: the Rainforest Alliance has relevant experience in regenerative agriculture, and Clarmondial has demonstrated its ability to develop and execute innovative financing mechanisms that mobilize private capital for sustainable agricultural value chains.”
Clarmondial has already identified potential investments and will be working closely with the Rainforest Alliance and other parties in the landscape with the aim of executing a transaction before the end of the year. The work builds on the track record that Clarmondial has established, including through transactions executed by the Food Securities Fund in relevant value chains, including in East Africa.
About the Rainforest Alliance
The Rainforest Alliance, an international non-profit organization, works to restore the balance between people and nature for both to thrive in harmony.
Active in more than 60 countries, its alliance brings together farm and forest communities, companies, governments, civil society, and millions of individuals to drive positive change in some of the world’s critically important landscapes and global supply chains.
The Rainforest Alliance implements landscape and community projects, engages in advocacy, and works to improve markets by putting farm and forest communities at the centre.
In 2023, the Rainforest Alliance partnered with more than 7.5 million farmers and workers, and millions of consumers around the world can find the Rainforest Alliance seal on over 42,000 of their favourite products. To accelerate the speed and scale of its impact the alliance wants to reach 100 million farmers and workers by 2030.
About the IKEA Foundation
The IKEA Foundation is a strategic philanthropy that focuses its grant making efforts on tackling the two biggest threats to children’s futures: poverty and climate change. It currently grants more than €200 million per year to help improve family incomes and quality of life while protecting the planet from climate change. Since 2009, the IKEA Foundation has granted €2 billion to create a better future for children and their families.
In 2021 the Board of the IKEA Foundation decided to make an additional €1 billion available over the next five years to accelerate the reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions.
Learn more at: www.ikeafoundation.org or by following them on LinkedIn or Twitter.
About Clarmondial
Clarmondial is an independent company focused on mobilizing capital for the sustainable management of natural resources. Through its advisory work and the investment funds it developed and implements, Clarmondial supports sustainable agriculture practices, climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience, biodiversity conservation and improved livelihoods. Please refer to www.clarmondial.com for more information or by following them on LinkedIn.
Rainforest Alliance Media Contacts
East & Southern Africa: Belidina Bella Gwada, bgwada@ra.org
Global/Other countries: Darla van Hoorn, dvanhoorn@ra.org
