Carbon First, Ruangwa ink deal on carbon trade

Carbon First Tanzania Limited and Ruangwa District Council have signed an agreement to trade in carbon dioxide with the aim of benefiting the people of the district and taking care of the environment.

The deal was reached recently on 17th April at Ruangwa Pride Hotel in Ruangwa witnessed by the Council of Councillors, the Chairmen and Executives of the villages that will be associated with the project.

Before the signing of the agreement, the Councilors of Ruangwa District Council held a special meeting to discuss the agreement and approved and gave all the blessings to the council to sign the agreement.

Speaking immediately after signing the agreement on the trade, Ruangwa District Council Chairman, Andrew Chikongwe thanked the councilors for consensus on signing the agreement.

Chikongwe said that the event of signing the right of agreement means inviting the facilitators to start doing other procedures to implement the scheme with the aim of taking care of the environment, while simultaneously raising the income of the people of Ruangwa.

“Today’s event is the result of a training trip about this business that we did in Tanganyika Council in Katavi Region, we are very grateful to Carbon First for agreeing to participate with us in implementing this carbon dioxide project,” said Chikongwe.

Chikongwe said that the project is new, so after welcoming them, the first step is to provide education to the people of the 14 villages that will be involved in it in order to create sufficient awareness before it starts.

The Chief Operating Officer of Carbon First Tanzania Ltd, Iftikhar Khan also thanked the Ruangwa District Council for welcoming them and promised that the project is going to change the entire community of those areas.

Khan said that after signing the agreement document, they will follow other steps quickly in order to sign the full contract of the business with the aim of fulfilling the mission of the project to raise the community economically and take care of the environment.

For his part, Carbon First Tanzania Ltd’s Environmental Expert, Engineer Elisekile Mbwile said apart from raising the economy of the people of Ruangwa, the project is going to save the forests by changing the income from carbon and wood to air and carbon.

“Statistics show that 400,000 hectares are destroyed within one year, but through this project you are going to save those forests, because instead of thinking about cutting wood or charcoal, the citizen will take care of the forests to get the benefit of the charcoal air business,” said Engineer Elisekile.

Injia Elisekile said apart from education they will go to check the type of trees in the forests and the age of the trees along with the soil of the respective areas with the aim of seeing the possibility of planting other trees.

The Director of Ruangwa District Council, Frank Chonya said a total of 250,000 hectares from 14 villages will be used in the project which they have planned to start as soon as possible so that it will bear fruit for the people of Ruangwa.

The representative of the Head of Ruangwa District, Hassan Ngoma, who is the Administrative Secretary of the council, Mwandisi Zainab Rashid thanked the company Carbon First Tanzania Ltd for choosing Ruangwa to implement the project which is going to raise the economy of individual citizens.