Investing in protecting forests 

Althelia Climate Fund specializes in investments which help prevent deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. It focuses on projects that will prevent deforestation and will generate ecologically sound production of for example agricultural products.

Certified emission reductions are sold on international markets. Examples of environmentally friendly produce are agricultural commodities like Fair Trade coffee or cocoa.

The Fund’s target size is 150 million euros. The first round of funding in 2013 generated 60 million euros. Alongside Finnfund, the other subscribers are public and private players like the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church, the European Investment Bank and the Dutch development finance company FMO.

Althelia announced its first investment in February 2014, a conservation and sustainable land use project in Taita Hills, Southeast Kenya. The scheme combines forest conservation with job and livelihood creation for local communities. It aims to introduce more sustainable farming and charcoal production methods and thus boost the income of the local communities.

The Taita Hills project builds on existing projects in the area that protect 225,000 hectares between Kenya’s two main national parks, Tsavo East and Tsavo West. Althelia's project will extend the protected area by another 200,000 hectares of land.

An estimated 200,000 local landowners and villagers will directly benefit. Moreover, endangered wild animals will be able to roam over a wide area and migrate annually between the national parks.