Many hands make light work: SCeNe Coalition welcomes new member to tackle ESG issues

The Southeast Asia Climate and Nature-based Solutions Coalition (SCeNe Coalition) announced last week that the Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific (RECOFTC) will join the coalition as its ninth member.

This is part of the Coalition's larger goals to aid the development in Southeast Asia in a sustainable way.

Introducing the Coalition

The SCeNe Coalition was launched in June 2023, and its existing members were from climate and science based organisations, such as Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and World Resources Institute Indonesia.

As a whole, the coalition hopes to accelerate and increase the investment of nature based solutions in Southeast Asia. Such solutions are ones that aim to maintain a healthy environment in order to aid people’s economic needs, country infrastructure, and provide a stable future.

Many countries in this region are rapidly developing, and as such, tensions between the economy, society, and environment have been increasing. The SCeNe Coalition was formed to address this tension by working with local communities to sustainably manage natural resources, to ensure that the livelihood of locals are supported as the coalition conserves the environment.

Why the RECOFTC

The RECOFTC primarily advises countries in implementing legislation to stop deforestation, and helps communities secure rights to their land and find alternative livelihoods for those who previously earned their income off that practice. This will contribute to the SCeNe Coalition’s larger goals by adding deforestation specific expertise to their roundtable.

Having the RECOFTC on board is particularly important as one fifth of the world’s rainforests are located in Southeast Asia, but the region is steadily losing its forested area each year.

“RECOFTC’s addition to the SCeNe Coalition strengthens our capacity to support the effective implementation of locally driven nature-based solutions,” said Martin Callow, the Chair of the SCeNe Coalition and Regional Director for Southeast Asia at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

“Their deep-rooted expertise in working with communities on the ground will be vital in scaling projects that protect ecosystems, boost biodiversity, and support sustainable livelihoods throughout Southeast Asia.”

Plans for the future

To support Southeast Asia becoming more sustainable, the SCeNe Coalition operates through three key workstreams: the NbS Tool, the NbS Incubator, and the NbS Portfolio. These interconnected initiatives are presently being developed and hope to provide critical support for organisations that are developing and implementing high-quality NbS projects across Southeast Asia.

The first workstream, the NbS tool, was launched at COP28 and developed with the support of Google.org, the charitable arm of Google. It aims to support frontline organisations by providing them with access to knowledge, technical assistance, and climate finance. Frontline organisations will be able to reference data analysis and project documentation of previous successful initiatives to aid them in developing their own projects.

NbS incubator is an ongoing effort by the coalition in the pre-feasibility stage. As with similar concepts of start-up incubators, the NbS incubator hopes to provide support to frontline organisations looking to start their own initiatives by providing resources such as linking them with mentors and expert networks, and organising workshops.

Lastly, the NbS portfolio is a portfolio of previous NbS projects. By curating and placing case studies together, the SCeNe Coalition hopes to curate case studies and establish a baseline quality criteria for projects. This workflow is in development, scheduled to be launched by the end of the year.

“The SCeNe Coalition and its web based NbS Tool, NbS Incubator to support project development and NbS Portfolio to guide best practices in project implementation will help us get there quicker with an ecosystem approach that considers people, nature, and climate,” said David Ganz, Executive Director of RECOFTC.

“We can achieve long-term and effective in-situ conservation of biodiversity outside of protected areas through community forestry and agroforestry. RECOFTC welcomes such a collaborative initiative in Southeast Asia and looks to contribute our expertise to help the Coalition achieve its objectives.”