Forestry credits and land-use credits in general received a major boost today with the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) launching new protocols for four categories of Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU), including Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).



The Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) has released protocols for developing carbon sequestration projects in four categories of Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU), with provisions for expanding the categories over time.

The four debut categories are Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation (ARR), Agricultural Land Management (ALM), Improved Forest Management (IFM), and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).

Entitled Voluntary Carbon Standard: Guidance for Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use Projects (see link, right), the protocols offer detailed guidance on how to develop land-use projects.

"They give developers a detailed path to follow when developing avoided deforestation or agricultural land management projects," says David Antonioli, chief executive of the London-based VCS Association. "The beauty is in the entire package: it takes parts of the guidelines from the VCS documents and drills down a little further, looking at issues like risk and non-permanence and leakage that are unique to land-use projects."