PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SCHEMES FOR LAND-BASED CDR

Government establishes a programme offering eligible people paid work on land-based removal activities. It sets recruitment criteria, pay, work duration and delivery conditions, then assigns suitable tasks through public agencies, municipalities or community organisations. Activities could include native revegetation, soil restoration, nursery work and continuing maintenance where additional net removals can be demonstrated. The programme creates organised access to paid work, including for people without land or carbon rights. It differs from payments to landowners, training alone and ordinary contractor hiring. The lever can be applied, wherever LULUCF related CDR work is not, or only partially, undertaken by public authorities. A statutory employment guarantee is one possible design; a funded programme with limited places is another.

Authorities should match available workers to useful, ecologically suitable tasks and provide the supervision, tools and materials those tasks require. Eligibility, selection, pay, working hours, safety and payment deadlines should be explicit. Work schedules should accommodate planting seasons, farming and caring responsibilities. Land access, consent and responsibility for subsequent maintenance must be secured before recruitment. Employment budgets should cover quality control and monitoring, while carbon accounting distinguishes new removals from erosion prevention, avoided deforestation or routine conservation.

Public employment can supply restoration labour where projects lack organised crews, while distributing income to residents who would receive little from landowner payments or carbon-credit sales. Paid experience can develop local nursery, maintenance and monitoring services. Recurring work can improve survival and stewardship after initial planting. Linking employment to an agreed restoration plan can connect social protection with useful environmental delivery, provided the work remains additional and technically appropriate.

A target for workdays can encourage unnecessary earthmoving or poorly planned planting. Short contracts and interrupted budgets can leave sites without maintenance. Patronage, delayed wages, unsafe work and exclusion of women or people with disabilities can undermine the programme’s social purpose. Labour-intensive requirements may increase costs or displace existing jobs. Income support should remain accessible to people unable to work, and recruitment must not be coercive. Counting jobs or hectares as removals would overstate climate results.

Programme managers should compare recruitment, paid workdays and payment timeliness with completed tasks, vegetation survival and ecological condition. Independent checks should examine safety, selection fairness, displacement of existing employment and access for disadvantaged groups. Net carbon gains require separate baselines and monitoring. Repeated replanting, poor survival or unmet maintenance obligations should trigger changes to site selection and work plans. Evaluation should also assess whether participants progress into sustained employment or viable local enterprises.

Employment and environmental authorities should jointly define the work offer and eligible restoration tasks. Local governments and communities should identify suitable sites and recruitment barriers. Landholders and Indigenous peoples should decide access and consent arrangements. Worker representatives should shape pay, safety and grievance procedures. Ecologists and experienced supervisors should establish practical work specifications, while nurseries and equipment providers confirm supply. Social-protection agencies should ensure people unable to undertake physical work retain appropriate support.

National governments can establish and fund employment programmes, while Regional/State and City/municipal authorities can organise work within their employment, budget and land-management powers. South Africa’s programme combines public agencies and local community teams under common employment conditions. Delivery organisations may hire workers, but the public authority remains responsible for the programme’s eligibility, funding and employment offer.