Project Description
The CROSSROADS - SSA project will document and test the use of “side-lined” or “underutilised” native plants to restore degraded soils in Ethiopia, characterising impacts on biodiversity, poverty alleviation, and climate adaptation and mitigation.
- What is the CROSSROADS project all about?
- What will be achieved through the CROSSROADS project?
- Our Funders
What is the CROSSROADS project all about?
The CROSSROADS project will catalogue and examine the use of “side-lined” or “underutilised” native plants to restore degraded soils in Ethiopia. It will do this by characterising the impacts these plants have on biodiversity, poverty alleviation, and climate adaptation and mitigation.
Restoring degraded land by capturing more carbon in soils contributes to mitigation of climate change. This also increases infiltration and retention of water in the soil, thus, improving resilience to erosion, droughts and floods.
By using underutilized plant species, both above and below-ground biodiversity will be improved through increased use of indigenous crops, trees and shrubs to improve fertility and reinforce unstable soils. The extent of this and the consequent impacts on soils, biodiversity, poverty and climate adaptation will be fully quantified and understood.
Species include:
- Local high-drought-resistant varieties
- Climate-adaptive and resilient plants
- Soil enhancer species (e.g. nitrogen-fixing, phosphorous mobilising and carbon builders)
- Erosion control species (e.g. stabilising roots and preventing erosion)
What will be achieved through the CROSSROADS project?
- Restoration of degraded land through the capture of more carbon in soils. This will help contribute towards the mitigation of climate change and increasing infiltration and retention of water in the soil, improving resilience to erosion, droughts and floods.
- By using underutilised plant species, both above and below-ground biodiversity will be increased. This will be achieved using increased use of indigenous crops, trees and shrubs to improve fertility and reinforce unstable soils.
- The extent and consequent impacts of these underutilised plants species on soils, biodiversity, poverty and climate adaptation will be fully quantified and understood.
Our Funders
The Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate (GCBC) is a UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme which looks to support developing countries in making better decisions and developing policies that value, protect, restore and sustainably manage biodiversity, notably for tackling a wide range of global environmental challenges such as climate change and poverty alleviation.
By working together with scientists, academics, and research institutions in the Global South and North, GCBC seek to develop innovative and scalable approaches which deliver climate solutions and improve livelihoods. Furthermore, GCBC seeks to support delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Global Biodiversity Framework and Paris Agreement, and help countries achieve a nature-positive future.
The GCBC is funded by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) with International Climate Finance and managed in partnership with DAI. Royal Botanic Gardens Kew is the Strategic Science Lead.
