The communities activities in producing offsets for sale are not a “licence to pollute for wealthy individuals or companies but rather a way of bringing investment into poor communities in a way that does not foster dependence. African subsistence farmers have little or not way of accessing global markets market their agricultural produce – through this programme they are able to trade a commodity that brings long term benefit to them.

The project received a grant from the EU to develop a working methodology so that it could be replicated in other communities in former conflict areas in Africa. The experience gained is being used in two other regions of Mozambique at present with plans underway to take it to the DRC, Angola and Sudan.

The project has never received any money from Brad Pitt. While it is true that Creative Artists Agency offset their carbon footprint by supporting such as activities as managing bush fires and rehabilitating degraded forest in the buffer zone of the Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique, this is not linked in any way to Brad Pit. Money from CAA has paid for fire fighting equipment and towards other infrastructure in the community including schools. The company has also donated 200 XA laptops to the local schools in the community.

The claims made about the project were not made by the European Union as claimed by the Sunday Times, but by a third party in a “desk review” undertaken without the benefit of direct access to the project and its developers or a site visit. It is factually incorrect to attribute the opinions expressed to the EU.

The technical support work carried out by the University of Edinburgh and the activities of the project developers has been praised by a series of independent reviewers who have actually visited the project and investigated its claims of success. These reviews are publicly available.

All of the transactions and carbon offset sales are monitored and certified by an independent body that maintains a publicly database of all transactions to ensure that offsetting is genuine and that credits are retired to prevent double selling. It is incorrect for the Sunday Times to claim that information regarding sales is not available – it is in the public domain. Attempting to create the impression that the project has something to hide in this regard is disingenuous.

Equally ridiculous is the claim that the project has produced limited scientific evidence to support the work done on the ground. The project has produced a significant body of academic research that has been shared in an international conference held in 2008 on the work done and is all available for public access on a website (www.miombo.org.uk). This research is already being used to replicate the project in other areas.

The project plants back thousands of indigenous trees selecting species that live for hundreds of years as well as fruit trees that provide valuable extra food and nitrogen fixing trees intercropped with cereal crops to boost soil fertility. All of this is aimed at reducing dependency on aid and food handouts by building transforming subsistence agriculture into sustainable livelihoods. Claims about the permanence of the trees planted are a “red herring” that ignores the contribution the project is making to food security.

By the very nature of the tree species selected there is a reasonable expectation that the majority will survive, the project uses very conservative sequestration calculations that contain buffers with anticipated mortality and a degree of failure built into them for estimating the impact of the tree planting.

As one of the people involved in the creation of the project and its delivery in Mozambique it is true that I am a South African who as a member of the Inkatha Freedom Party and former member of the security services was involved in the conflict and civil war that led up to democratic elections in South Africa. I was involved in the training of self-protection units for rural African communities who were victims of this violence. I served as an opposition member of parliament in the post-Apartheid democratic parliament and was the co-founder of the company that has played a central role in delivering this project. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission raised issues about the human rights implications of my involvement as a participant in the conflict I have never been convicted of any crime in South Africa and deny being part of a hit-squad or giving instructions for anyone to be killed as suggested in the title to this blog. I hope that my life experiences in this regard have equipped me to play a part in helping people in communties who have had similar experiences.

Perhaps the most inappropriate criticism of the project contained in the article concerns the movement of new people into the community participating in the project and a suggestion that this has triggered an increase in deforestation. One of the key objectives of the project is to take pressure off natural resources inside the neighbouring national park to conserve its precious flora and fauna. It is a measure of the projects success that returning refugees have settled in the community rather than invade land in the national park historically owned by the community as has happened in other parts of the park were communities have not had the benefit of access to the this kind of assistance.