2 November 2009
ECI doctoral student designs community agroforestry offset project in Peru for Oxford College
ECI researchers and doctoral students have been involved in a project to help Oriel College, Oxford University, to calculate and reduce its carbon footprint. After a thorough review of the college’s energy use, many reductions in energy consumption have been made over the last year, and the decision was taken by Oriel College to offset any outstanding emissions with help from the ECI. In collaboration with doctoral student Joel Scriven and the CREES Foundation NGO, an agroforestry offset project was designed, using local community lands in the Peruvian Amazon. Last week Joel returned to Peru to help with the community consultation and capacity building phase of the project. This coincided with a visit to the offsetting site by the BBC World Service, who were covering a series of environmental stories in Madre de Dios (the SE Region of Peru), including "hope" stories, such as Oriel’s offsetting project. Joel was interviewed by the BBC and showed them around the local community.