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12 April 2012 | A small tribe of indigenous people unknown to the outside world a half-century ago and once on the brink of extinction has harnessed an innovative forest carbon project to shield their territory from illegal logging and preserve their chosen way of life.   As a result, the 1300-strong Paiter-Surui last week became the first indigenous tribe in the Amazon and globally to earn validationunder internationally recognized standards for keeping carbon locked in trees – setting the stage for scores of similar projects that can unleash needed funding for indigenous people who preserve endangered tropical rainforest across the Amazon.

“This project is good for the state of Rondí´nia and can serve as a model for other indigenous groups across the state and perhaps across Brazil,” said Nanci Maria Rodrigues, Environment Secretary for the Brazilian state of Rondí´nia, where the project is located.

“We’re watching it very closely in our state,” added Divaldo Rezende, Environment Secretary for the Amazonian state of Tocantins.   “I know others are as well.”

The Surui Forest Carbon Project (SFCP) earned dual validation under both the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), which ensures that the project is following recognized procedures for measuring carbon-emission reductions, and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) Standard Gold, which ensures the project is being carried out in a way that preserves biodiversity and serves the people living there. In the coming year, the project will be audited by an unnamed third-party verifier, whose job it is to ensure that the project design is being adhered to and the emission-reductions are taking place. If the project passes that audit, it will be free to sell carbon credits.

The project is part of a broader effort by the Paiter-Surui to chart an economic course for the next 50 years without converting their forest to farmland, as settlers around them have done.

“Future generations also have the right to live, the right to have forests,” said Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui, the 37-year-old Chief of the Paiter-Surui.   “This project makes it possible for us to preserve the forest as providers of an ecosystem service.”

The SFCP has attracted the support of several prominent environmental and human rights campaigners, including Jane Goodall and Bianca Jagger.

“At the heart of this program is a long-term vision for how to achieve independence and autonomy for the Suirui people,” said Jagger, whose Bianca Jagger Foundation awarded its first-ever Leadership award to Almir Surui in October – an award he shared with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei – in part for his efforts to develop a REDD project that benefits the tribe and its people.

The 248,000-hectare Surui territory, Sete de Setembro, is situated squarely in the “arc of deforestation,” a frontier of agricultural development that is extending northwest, deeper and deeper into the Amazon.   As trees are chopped and decay or burn, the carbon they store is released into the atmosphere, contributing to the “greenhouse effect” that is leading to global climate change.

But Chief Almir enlisted an impressive array of supporters to help him stand up to loggers and preserve his ancestral land, its vast carbon stocks, his people’s way of life, and many species of flora and fauna – all factors that led to dual validation.   Environmental NGO Forest Trends introduce the idea of carbon credits and commissioned the technical and legal work necessary to develop the project. The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) helped map the territory and, together with Kaninde, conducted outreach to all members of the tribe.   The Institute for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of Amazonas (Idesam) provided technical support, and the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (Funbio)set up Fundo Surui, which will administer income from the carbon project.   Google supported monitoring platform, USAID provided some of the funding.

Project documents validated by VCS show that actions undertaken by the Surui between 2009 and 2011 prevented up to 360,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, forming the basis of the carbon credits.

“The Surui Forest Carbon Project is now recognized as a national and international reference, and its concepts and methodological construction are used by Federal Government agencies such as FUNAI (Fundaçí£o Nacional do índio, the National Indian Foundation) and the Ministry of the Environment and other project developers in Brazil and globally,” says Mariano Cenamo, Senior Researcher at Idesam.

Indigenous REDD

Several indigenous organizations have taken a proactive stance towards REDD, working to ensure understanding among their members.   The Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indí­genas de la Cuenca Amazonica (Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazonian River Basin, “COICA”), for example, have endorsed forest carbon as a means of recovering the “ecological debt” owed by industrial country polluters.   The August 2011, the organization formally endorsed the Manaus Mandate, which explicitly supports such mechanisms, but only if they are designed in cooperation with the tribes and in a way that supports a holistic approach to forestry.

The mandate lays out the need for clarity on tenure and the need to strengthen the collective rights of tribes in general.   It also calls for accreditation mechanisms and state-sanctioned regulation to combat fraud.

In February, Almir participated in a weeklong workshop hosted by the state of Acre, the Forest Trends Communities and Markets Program, and the Pro-Indian Commission of Acre (Comissí£o Prí³-Indio do Acre, “CPI-AC”) a local organization that has been supporting indigenous peoples in Acre for more than 30 years.

Additional resources

Forest carbon could be a boon to indigensous people who protect their rainforest – but it could also be a bust for tribes who get fleeced by carbon cowboys. Media reports of an apparent fleecing in Brazil, however, miss the point. Something fishy is indeed going on, but it’s the investors who would have been the victims, and not the tribes, writes Raul Silva Telles do Valle of Instituto Socioambiental.

This story originally appeared in Portuguese, in the Public News Agency. Please reference the original when citing it.

12 April 2012 | In the mainstream media, the story of a forest carbon contract sale signed between the Munduruku people and an obscure Irish company called Celestial Green Ventures, has taken on an air of threat to national security: the indigenous people would, according to reports be selling, at the price of bananas, a slice of the Amazon. For those who are searching for reasons to take land away from indigenous peoples (there are various legislative proposals in this regard), this would be a demonstration that such important pieces of our territory should not be left in hands of such irresponsible people. It would be much better to leave public lands in the hands of large producers. These, who also sell much of what they produce to multinationals (Bunge, Cargill, Mafrig, etc.), do so in the name of “progress”.

There is not, however, any threat to sovereignty in this case, because what is being negotiated is not the land or the forest that the indigenous people preserve. Even if it were, the contract would be null and void, since the Federal Constitution prevents indigenous lands or their natural resources from being sold to third parties (art. 231, §40). A court would never validate such a contract.

In this specific case, the objective of the contract is the “cession”, on the part of the indigenous people, of the right to sell eventual and future carbon credits that could be generated through the forest conservation in the TI Munduruku (99.5% of the area is still preserved). In legal terms, we would say that the contract is not alienating property, but mere expectation of rights. That for two reasons: a) at this moment, an established market for carbon credits derived from avoided deforestation does not exist; b) even if it did exist, in the manner in which this “partnership” was apparently made, nothing guarantees that in reality there wouldn’t be a future increase in deforestation in the area. Allow me to explain.

REDD

The Durban Conference on Climate Change, held at the end of last year, moved the establishment of a new commitment period for the greenhouse gas emissions reductions for industrialized countries to 2020. Until then, countries which have already met their actual targets do not need to increase them and those who were unable to meet theirs (Japan, Canada, Australia) will remain without any targets.

This global indecision practically prevented the birth, in the short term, of any Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism (learn more) which could generate a demand for carbon credits from avoided deforestation. Today, therefore, there are no rules about how forest credits can be issued and much less a market for them. What does exist is a still incipient and unregulated voluntary market, which, although healthy, is much more similar to “green marketing” than any emissions reduction mechanism. And which, for this reason, has a minimal demand.

Beyond this, there is another serious problem in the negotiation between this company and the Munduruku. It presupposes that, in the future, the forest will be there and that, as such, if a market and regulations exist, some credit will be generated. But what guarantees that the forest will continue preserved? The US$ 4 million? Obviously not.

Avoided deforestation is not the result of a contract or even a payment. Especially in indigenous territories, it can only be reached through adequate territorial use planning, which can project how the indigenous people want to use the natural resources on their lands in the future. In Colombia, this planning has official recognition (life plans or planes de vida) which serve as the base for the transfer of public resources for management by indigenous authorities. In Brazil, these still do not officially exist, but they could – and should – be incentivized if the National Policy of Environmental Management in Indigenous Territories (Polí­tica Nacional de Gestí£o Ambiental em Terras Indí­genas – PNGATI), elaborated by the federal government in 2010, with ample consultation with indigenous populations, had already been approved by the president of the Republic.

There are positive REDD discussions with indigenous peoples underway in Brazil, which started with the preparation of a land use plan. Questions such as border surveillance, forest management, village structure, transportation, health, education, institutional strengthening of indigenous associations and enhancing agricultural systems are elements which should be included in long and deep discussions between those who inhabit the land, old and young, shamans and health agents. Without internal agreements and adequate planning, it’s impossible to guarantee that there won’t be deforestation because, above all else, with the advance of the agricultural frontier towards the regions where indigenous territories are, conservation will be permanently threatened. The new Forest Code in discussions in the National Congress, for example, permits that up to 20% of Indigenous Territories could be deforested for alternative land uses (pastures or agricultural activities). Therefore, forest conservation (and that of carbon stocks) is and will continue to be an option for indigenous peoples, not a fact of destiny.

Challenges

Now that the majority of indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon have been officially recognized, we enter into a new phase, whose challenge is precisely to support indigenous people to manage their lands in a context which is totally different from that which existed when the majority of their actual leaders were born. The advance of roads, waterways, hydroelectric dams, farms, loggers and cities brought threats, but also opportunities, which can be harnessed for better or for worse. Today a large part of the Amazonian indigenous population still lives within a subsistence economy, with very few public services (health and education) available to them and depending on assistentialism from the National Indian Foundation (Fundaçí£o Nacional do índio – Funai) or pilot projects executed in partnership with NGOs to obtain additional income. This is obviously an unsustainable situation in the immediate future and, if there is public support for the “forest use” option, many groups may fall, sooner or later, in the dilemma experienced by the Pareci (MT), who rent out part of their land to neighboring soy farmers, because of the absolute lack of viable alternatives.

It is clear, then, that no REDD project, will have any chance of success, without being based on a life plan of the involved populations, in an option for generating well-being through the sustainable use of the forest. In this context, eventual carbon credits could be a valuable source of resources to finance the implementation of this plan. It isn’t the only option, but a fundamental one.

The case of the Munduruku apparently doesn’t have any of this. The contract hovers over a vacuum. There was not – at least in the public eye – any land use planning, no agreement among the indigenous people themselves about the future exists. There is not a strategy for addressing the ever more frequent threats to the forest which exist there, no plan regarding training new generations to use the land in a manner equally as harmonious as previous generations, but with added value that will allow them to generate well-being.

This contract would be, therefore, the fruit of opportunism by an obscure company which, at its heart, does not threaten the country or the Amazon, but the indigenous people who signed the contract themselves. It actually tries to create a legal obstacle for the Munduruku if, in the future, a REDD mechanism – and emissions reductions – actually exist, operating in Brazil and the world and the forest in their territory begin to gain some value for being able to generate carbon credits. This contract would oblige the indigenous people to negotiate with this company to be able to access this eventual and future market, since it gave the company the right to generate and sell these credits. Although clearly a null contract, by bringing abusive conditions for the Munduruku, it will become an asset for the company, which can stop any future negotiation by the indigenous people. Who will want to purchase credits disputed in court? The situation is similar to what happened in the beginning of the internet, when opportunists rushed to register domains using the names of famous companies to later negotiate with them at the price of gold.

Therefore, although fears about national sovereignty were misplaced, this case raises the need to advance with national regulation for REDD projects which can separate solid proposals from empty ones, like this one. A proposal can only be solid if it is closely tied to a land use plan, whether it is in indigenous lands or other areas. For this reason, it is urgent that the president of the Republic signs the decree which institutionalizes PNGATI and finally gives resources to the Brazilian society to invest in the good management of indigenous territories, which is fundamental for the future of the climate on Earth and in Brazil, of the Amazon and the 205 indigenous groups who inhabit it.

This story originally appeared in Portuguese, in the Public News Agency and was translated for Ecosytem Marketplace by Rebecca Anzueto.   It is used by permission.   Please reference the original when citing it.

Additional resources

California’s new carbon offsetting regime is one of a growing number of government programs around the world using streamlined offsets that don’t require the creation of expensive protocols for each individual project.   It’s a practice that can slash costs and scale up offsetting – and now it’s facing its first test in court.

4 April 2012 | Last week, two new challenges came into view for the carbon offsets program that underlies the United States’ first economy-wide GHG cap-and-trade program. Shortly after the California Air Resources Board announced it would delay the program’s first allowance auction, another first emerged – the first of perhaps many legal challenges to the ARB’s offset program design, and a challenge with implications for emerging offset programs around the world.

At issue is whether the ARB’s so-called “performance-based” approach to generating offsets creates an incentive for people to reduce emissions or whether it just pays a bonus to people who would have reduced emissions anyway.  

The performance-based approach was pioneered in the voluntary carbon market and requires just one protocol for all projects of a certain type – as opposed to the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which requires the development of individual protocols for unique project scenarios.

Ecosystem Marketplace’s Bringing it Home: Taking Stock of Government Engagement with the Voluntary Carbon Market showed that compliance regimes around the world are turning to performance-based approaches to make their programs more practicable.

While some argue that the CDM approach is more thorough, it has historically led to bottlenecks in the assessment and approval of individual projects, prompting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which oversees the CDM, to take steps toward performance-based offsetting as well.

Two plaintiffs – the Citizens Climate Lobby and Our Children’s Earth Foundation – seek to repeal the ARB’s offsets provision, making California the first state to defend the merits of broad-based (versus project-based) tools in court.

The issue at its core, however, is as old as offsetting itself, because it asks whether a paid-for reduction is “additional” (meaning the payment made the reduction happen) or whether it would have happened even without the payment under a business-as-usual scenario. The California law, like most climate-change legislation, says that offsets can only be awarded if “the reduction is in addition to any greenhouse gas emission reduction otherwise required by law or regulation, and any other greenhouse gas emission reduction that otherwise would occur.”m

Market participants expect other challenges to come.

“You can’t help but be a little concerned as they are filed, it’s not a good thing, but the ‘offsets-aren’t-additional’ lawsuit was 100% expected and doesn’t look very convincing to me,” says Eugene Stumpf, Vice President at forest carbon offset supplier Equator LLC.   The concept of additional is something reasonable minds can differ on, and I’m confident CARB will bring a convincing, winning response.   Even if they lose one round I think CARB wins that one in the end.”

Performance-Based Accounting

In contrast to top-down initiatives stemming from the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), ARB’s offset methods originated in the unregulated realm of voluntary carbon offsetting. Running with precedents incubated in the voluntary market, ARB last year adopted language from four protocols for developing projects that reduce emissions by covering livestock manure, destroying ozone depleting substances (ODS) and improving urban and other forest management.

The protocols establish a generic emissions scenario against which all reductions in a common sector are weighed – and admitted into the program or not depending on their performance.

These protocols, all written by California’s not-for-profit Climate Action Reserve (CAR), have been used by CAR since inception. A representative from a leading standard notes that scientists, industry, academics, and other stakeholders worked together to create these CAR protocols, undergoing a lengthy development process to ensure that each protocol delivered the rigorous requirements needed to back a compliance-grade protocol. He states that the reason why performance benchmarks have not been used extensively in the past is because they are difficult to develop, and that high-level rules are not available to guide the way.

Growing Popularity

With the CDM entering its seventh year of operation, governments are claiming the benefit of hindsight and they – and recently CDM decision-making bodies, too – are going the way of California. Although still a work in progress, they feel that standardized methods present an opportunity to scale up project activity by reducing transaction costs.

Most recently, Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative is using “positive lists” to gauge project eligibility. This standardized method automatically qualifies certain classes of project activities as additional using a positive list. Projects that implement activities on the list do not otherwise need to demonstrate additionality – which is carbon argot for proof that the offset made the project possible.
             
Japan, too, tested the waters for the use of positive lists with its Japan Verified Emissions Reduction (J-VER) program for voluntary trading of domestic carbon offsets. In a discussion with Ecosystem Marketplace last week, US visitors from the Japanese Overseas Environmental Cooperation Center’s market mechanisms team pointed out that standardized methods are now a central tenet of both the nation’s voluntary and bilateral offset credit mechanism (BOCM).

Under the BOCM, Japan is developing project methodologies in collaboration with partner countries that include positive lists for determining project eligibility. The nation then bilaterally invests in the early-stage projects. The BOCM has so far supported over 70 feasibility-stage projects worldwide since 2010 through two different ministries. Japan recently announced another $30 million for similar efforts in its 2012 budget.
             
“Positive lists were first used in the J-VER scheme and are now a part of the BOCM,” points out one OECC representative, speaking to findings from the Bringing it Home report.   “The CDM approach works for some countries, but positive lists simplify project eligibility and development in developing countries – which Japan feels is very important.”

The report also finds that in the US, the Oregon Carbon Dioxide Standard, administered by the pioneering Climate Trust, has a preference for standardized methods when it comes to additionality. The Oklahoma Carbon Sequestration Certification Program uses a standardized method for additionality as well.

California Responds

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the organization filing the lawsuit on behalf of Citizens Climate Lobby and Our Children’s Earth Foundation, says the lawsuit will test the integrity of the offset mechanism so fundamental to many greenhouse gas cap-and-trade schemes.
             
ARB staff has underscored the role of offsets in keeping compliance costs low. The ARB says the four CAR offset protocols will subject projects to strict scrutiny before credits are issued.
             
Henry Derwent, President and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association, responded to the lawsuit in a press release last Wednesday. “If this lawsuit is successful, California citizens will end up paying more money for the same environmental benefit – what’s the point in that?” He cited the EPA’s findings that an effective offsets program can reduce costs by a factor of two or more while still meeting the most aggressive climate change targets.
             
He added that the ARB has already been extremely cautious about regulating offsets, and that without the ARB’s approval, many offset projects might never materialize. “I’m much more concerned about the important opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases and lower costs that are not being considered by the state, than I am about the possibility of a bad project somehow slipping through the State’s rigorous approval process.”

In an interview with Argus Media, JP Brisson of law firm Linklaters’ US environmental practice believes that the ARB should be able to demonstrate the performance-based protocols as more rigorous and accurate than the project-based approach, and fully compliant with AB 32. “Most everyone would agree – based on the CDM experience – that [the project-by-project] approach is fraught with uncertainty, prone to gaming and highly inefficient.”

If the plaintiffs have their way, the ruling will invalidate ARB offset protocols with a permanent injunction that prohibits the ARB from using its offset credits as compliance instruments under AB 32. Governments around the world may want to stay tuned, as the verdict could have interesting implications for offset programs beyond California.

Additional resources

Brazilian tribe offers details on first indigenous-led REDD project, while Ghana and the Philippines move towards REDD+ Readiness and Burkina Faso lays the groundwork for a new forestry project.   Plus the latest on developments in New Zealand and an update on Ecosystem Marketplace’s “State of Forest Carbon Markets” report in this week’s Forest Carbon News.

This article originally appeared in the Forest Carbon Newsletter. Click here to view the original.

May 15 2012 | Ecosystem Marketplace has formally closed its collection of data for the State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2012 report. We are grateful to those projects that provided us with complete responses – every respondent is featured at least once on the  Forest Carbon Portal  homepage now through the end of May.

If you did not respond to the survey during the open call for information and would still like to contribute (and be recognized), please contact  Molly Peters-Stanley  in our Carbon Program to find out how.

The Surui Tribe, Forest Trends, the State of Acre, and other partners invite you to a unique opportunity to discuss the complex array of ingredients for successful indigenous-led REDD+ projects. An agenda for the discussions with speaker profiles is available  here.  

The Paiter Surui tribe, under the leadership of Chief Almir Surui, with technical support from Forest Trends and other partners, has been working for over 5 years to protect their territory in the Amazon Basin from illegal logging and mining threats. This initiative has recently become the first-ever indigenous-led REDD project to be validated by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Project Design Gold Standard (CCB Standard).

We hope you can join us in reflecting on this important development at 4pm today at the Aspen Institute, Washington, DC!  RSVP here

Brazil’s first government-backed carbon trading scheme, Bolsa Verde do Rio de Janeiro (BVRio), opened preregistrations recently for a new  forest carbon credit market  for farmers to use in compliance with the Forest Code. President Dilma Rousseff has until May 25 to exercise her  veto  on the latest Forest Code reforms, just a month before Rio+20. Further north, Mexico has just become the first country to pass  domestic legislation  in favor of REDD+.

Over in Oceania, New Zealand Carbon Farming has just  converted  the Kiernan Creek forest into a carbon sink, with a forward-looking approach to managing carbon price risk. Melbourne’s CO2 Group has  new funding  lined up for carbon sink projects in Western Australia and New South Wales, while Greenfleet recently  registered  the first carbon sequestration rights under Victoria’s Climate Change Act 2011.

In REDD+ readiness efforts, the African Development Bank is  helping  Ghana finalize its REDD+ investment plan, preparing for a forest reserve project in Burkina Faso and another in the DRC to conserve the Mbuji Mayi/Kananga and Kisangani areas. Tasmania is looking to complement REDD+ with some  honey  while continuing to gather data on rainforest carbon storage. The Philippines recently held  events  to spur discussion around pilot REDD+ efforts and support its new national REDD+ strategy. Sri Lanka is  short on data  despite funding commitments, while Bhutan is still  in discussion  about what REDD+ could mean for the country.

These and other stories from the forest carbon marketplace are summarized below, so keep reading! And if you value what you read in this news brief, consider supporting Ecosystem Marketplace’s Carbon Program as a Supporting Subscriber. Readers’ contributions help us keep the lights on and continue to deliver forest carbon market news and insights to your inbox biweekly and free of charge.

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International Policy SBSTA tackles forest carbon in Bonn Climate talks have  kicked off  in Bonn, Germany. On the forest carbon front, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) will begin implementing a workplan agreed to in April designed to finally yield scientific guidance on forest monitoring systems and reference levels – two key components of REDD+. In the background, negotiators are moving forward on the Durban Platform, which aims to phase out the Kyoto Protocol by 2017 and replace it with a truly global agreement that will be negotiated by 2015.   FIP pilots reunite around REDD+ The African Development Bank has been helping Ghana finalize its REDD+ investment plan, preparing for a forest reserve project in Burkina Faso and another in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to conserve the Mbuji Mayi/Kananga and Kisangani areas. The three countries  recently joined other Forest Investment Program (FIP) pilot countries in Brasilia, Brazil for their third annual meeting to  exchange  REDD+ investment ideas. Burkina Faso highlighted strong political backing for REDD+ and integration of the FIP into the National Rural Sector Program to ensure synergies across sectors. Ghana’s FIP investment plan featured PES provisions, a rapid response unit for protected areas, and carbon benefits-sharing linked to tree tenure. The DRC underscored its integrated landscape approach, national REDD+ fund, mobile technology, and aonline National REDD+ Projects Register to track investments. Challenges included managing stakeholder expectations and harnessing private sector participation.   Project Development NZCF sells forward in Wairau Valley Purchased by New Zealand Carbon Farming (NZCF) last February, the 415-ha Kiernan Creek forest in Wairau Valley, Marlborough matured  from a conventional commercial forest into a carbon sink forest last Friday. The forest’s pines and Douglas firs annually sequester 20,000-25,000 tCO2, with carbon units sold to Fonterra, a dairy emitter with NZ ETS obligations. NZCF intends to plant over 20,000 ha of permanent forests over the next five years. Managing Director Matt Walsh says that at depressed carbon prices, planting is only economic because NZCF sells units forward up to 15 years out to emitters who expect prices to rise, thereby managing carbon price risk while maintaining spot price exposure. NZCF also manages carbon credits for forest owners who receive annual payments while NZCF relieves them of carbon price risk and carbon storage accounting liability. Walsh says the ETS made the business possible, noting solid net gains in afforestation over the past two years.   CO2 reaps $3.8M for biodiverse carbon sinks Forest carbon may save two birds (western whipbird, Carnaby’s black cockatoo, among their other threatened friends) with one stone. Melbourne-based offset provider CO2 Group has gained  $3.8 million  in federal biodiversity funding to finance carbon sink projects in Western Australia and New South Wales. The group will plant vegetation corridors between Lake Magenta Nature Reserve and Fitzgerald National Park, as well as between Corackerup National Park and Fitzgerald National Park. CO2 will introduce a second tranche of plantings adjoining conservation reserves in central and upper central west NSW. CEO Andrew Grant says, “The two projects will integrate biodiversity outcomes with large-scale commercial carbon plantings, creating a unique partnership between a for-profit commercial entity and the government.”   Greenfleet seals first carbon sequestration rights Greenfleet has received a  green light  on the first Carbon Sequestration and Forestry Right and Forest Carbon Right on title under Victoria’s Climate Change Act 2011. The agreement covers 122 ha of native revegetation, securing an anticipated 30,660 tCO2e in the next 20 years and protecting the forest for 100. Greenfleet CEO Sara Gipton says carbon sequestration rights will bolster investor confidence in the permanence of forest carbon, which in turn supports “a viable funding source to help revegetate vast areas of Australia’s degraded landscapes.” In upcoming months, Greenfleet will apply for carbon sequestration rights under the Climate Change Act for all eligible revegetation projects in Victoria. Greenfleet was  the first nonprofit forestry organization to become an Approved Abatement Provider under Australia’s former Greenhouse Friendly programme.   Jordan follows Sharia into the forest There’s a place for forest carbon markets under Islamic law, and its name is Congo. Al Sanabel International Holding, the first Islamic investment bank in Jordan, has  acquired  500,000 ha or 25% of a high value forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, among the world’s largest private forests. In response to accelerating deforestation threats to Congo’s forests, Al Sanabel is considering a number of Sharia-compliant forestry activities, ranging from carbon market afforestation/reforestation and avoided deforestation projects, along with sustainable agro-forestry projects. Chairman and CEO Khaldoun Malkawi said these activities are compatible with Islamic banking principles as they simultaneously help curb climate change, reduce poverty, and promote corporate social responsibility.   From Formula Three to formula carbon Colombia’s esteemed racing driver is fast without a footprint. The Gustavo Yacaman Foundation has partnered with Admire Life, and Biomax to  create a CO2 capture center at Bojonawi, a nature reserve in Puerto Carreí±o, Colombia. The first stage of the project involves planting over 15,000 trees in hopes of offsetting some 400 tCO2. Biomax has currently planted 1,500 trees, just 10% of its goal, but expects to double the number of plantings in the natural reserve over the next year. In the first year, the program offset over 14 tCO2, covering the carbon footprint of Yacaman’s Firestone Indy Lights car.   Ningbo to inhale through carbon sink zone Inhale, exhale. As Zhejiang Province’s largest natural freshwater lake, Dongqian Lake is not only a gem in the Yangtze River Delta but serves as the City of Ningbo’s lungs. In an effort to build Dongqian Lake into an ecological lake, since August 2001 the city government has arranged for 1.8 million trees to be planted along the edge of the lake. Going forward, Ningbo plans to  convert  Dongqian Lake into a carbon sink zone, aiming to enhance the forest carbon sink capacity to 700,000 tCO2 and achieve 50,000 mu (about 3,335 ha) in forest coverage by 2015.   National Strategy & Capacity Dilma’s dilemma Since Brazil’s congress voted  in favor  of the controversial Forest Code reforms, over 1.5 million people internationally have joined Greenpeace, Avaaz, and WWF in  petitioning  for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to veto the new Forest Code reforms. Katia Abreu, senator and president of the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil says, “Brazil is the only country that has the moral authority to discuss [Brazilian] environmental issues. I don’t understand why the NGOs oppose the changes. The main NGOs are European but I do not see them asking Europe to revive its forests. Why only in Brazil? We want to bring legal certainty for farmers with this bill. I am convinced [Rousseff] will not veto.” Rousseff has until May 25 to exercise her veto, just a month before Rio+20.   Brazil bullish on BVRio Against the fray, Brazil is moving forward with Bolsa Verde do Rio de Janeiro (BVRio), the country’s first government-backed carbon trading scheme. The scheme opened pre-registrations two weeks ago for a new  forest carbon market  for farmers to use in compliance with the Forest Code. Those with more forest than the legal minimum would be able to sell carbon credits to those falling short of the requirement. Mario Monzoni, founder and director of sustainability studies at Sao Paulo’s FGV School of Economics, expects tremendous growth from Brazil’s new carbon market as an emissions and deforestation cutting mechanism over the next eight years. Brazil is borrowing lessons from the UK to develop a carbon scheme that enables both economic and environmental growth, and is considering a scheme based on carbon intensity rather than absolute emissions.   Mexico first country to legislate pro-REDD+ Until now, the REDD+ debate has mostly taken place through the UNFCCC and at an international, multilateral level. On April 24, however the Mexican Parliament approved a set of  legal amendments  that position Mexico as the first country to legislate domestically in support of the REDD+ agenda. Approval by a domestic legislature highlights a shift towards anchoring REDD+ within national legal frameworks. This move is helping the Mexican Congress build a forward-looking legal framework on the worth of living forests, and takes a step toward ensuring that communities who sustainably manage their forests receive the economic benefits derived from any future carbon payment scheme. The question remains whether this precedent can be extended across a critical mass of countries to address deforestation on a more global scale.   Ghana to drink from CIF tap Ghana has been  selected  to benefit from Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) under the Forest Investment Program (FIP). The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR), the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance have completed a forest investment plan, to be vetted by the FIP subcommittee in Washington later this month. MLNR minister Mike Hammah says Ghana expects $30-$50 million for FIP to scale up pilot projects under the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, in order to conserve Ghana’s forests and woodlands, enhance carbon stocks, provide climate change-smart agriculture and watershed protection. The World Bank has provided a $3.6 million grant to implement Ghana’s REDD+ programme. Robert Bamfo, head of the Climate Change Unit of the Forestry Commission, said challenges hindering implementation include weak institutional capacity and coordination, illegal logging, and forest legislation and policy reforms still needed to mitigate drivers of deforestation and degradation. He called for reliable and sustainable financing to ensure verifiable emission reductions.   Hanging the Tasmanian hive Hey there, honey. IPP Media recently interviewed Monica Kagya from FBD about how Tasmania’s  beekeeping  sector can complement REDD+ as a key incentive for forest conservation that supports both the honey and carbon trades. Not only does beekeeping provide a traditional source of food, raw materials, and income for local communities, but helps disincentivize deforestation, improve biodiversity and increase crop production through pollination. To boost the industry, FBD plans to create bee reserves across the country, starting with 20 this year. FBD is producing training packages to teach beekeepers how to handle extracted honey and packaging, while pushing them to ensure their land is properly registered. FBD surveys show the local market for honey and related products features strong demand, but more needs to be done to educate forest and beekeeping officers about local markets given a lack of information circulated among beekeepers, traders, and consumers.   In other news, last week the Minister for Climate Change extended  the deadline for a forest carbon study gauging levels of carbon storage in Tasmania’s forests. Minister Cassy O’Connor said the consultants have asked for more time to gather more data on rainforest carbon storage. The study will now be completed by the end of June.   What would Bhutan do? As Bhutan  considers  the potential of developing a national REDD+ strategy, some stakeholders have voiced some skepticism over whether Bhutan should actually sign on to the mechanism. One environmentalist raises concerns regarding regulatory gaps, profitability of credits, and how sustainable REDD+ would be in the context of impeding development and livelihoods. A former Watershed Management Division official said that insofar as prior informed consensus by local communities is required, the end result largely lies in the hands of the community. However, without a national REDD+ strategy, he says communal benefits cannot be measured. A feasibility study recommended that Bhutan form a national REDD+ advisory group and technical working group. The group would help develop a national REDD+ strategy, give technical and policy guidance to Bhutanese negotiators at CoP and provide representation within the UN-REDD framework. Lack of solid guidelines and technical compliance standards in the absence of a comprehensive and globally agreed-upon REDD+ mechanism still hinder Bhutan from actively investing in REDD+ initiatives.   Vietnam gets ForestFinanced, sets 20% by 2020 goal German investor and project developer ForestFinance (FF) has  launched  a sustainable forest management institute in Vietnam to train local communities in sustainable and certified carbon forestry. FF has developed a curriculum with forestry experts at GIZ Vietnam, with the first training in April attracting participants from forest companies, local communities, and provincial authorities. The trained will in turn teach their workers how to practice sustainable forest management and prep their forests for certification. The program is currently located in Quang Tri Province, with plans to expand to other provinces. Through its trainings, it hopes to build up a domestic timber industry that incorporates carbon forestry in accordance with international forest management standards.   More broadly, Vietnam plans to reduce GHG emissions  by 20%  in its agriculture and forestry sectors by 2020, with 2005 as base year, according to a plan being developed by the Ministry of National Resources and Environment. The plan is projected to cost $9.9 million, with a draft scheduled for completion by the end of this month before being submitted to the government for approval. The plan will address issues of developing a domestic carbon market and promoting Vietnam’s participation in the international carbon market.   Ecuador pitches compensation schemes abroad In a  CIFOR interview, Ecuador Deputy Environment Minister Mercy Borbor Cordova stresses that Ecuador and other developing countries need more extensive access to climate change mitigation measures and capacity building for local communities. Ecuador’s unique Net Avoided Emissions scheme, which is being promoted at international forums, has countries compensating Ecuador’s natural resources industry for limiting its emissions. The Yasuni-iTT initiative, still in the fundraising stage, is central to the scheme and designed to receive payments from national and international sources for leaving Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil resources in the Yasuni National Park untouched. Ecuador is also proposing the Daily-Correa Tax Scheme, which taxes countries for using oil fuel, the proceeds of which will go toward conservation and social inclusion programs such as community forestry management training or climate-change mitigation technology transfers.     Sri Lanka lacks data prerequisite for REDD+ funds Money is no cure-all. Last month, Sri Lanka received a commitment for  $4 million  in initial funding from the UN-managed, multi-partner REDD+ trust fund. Potential annual revenues for Sri Lanka from REDD+ could reach $400 million. However, a lack of reliable data on forest resources could prevent the country from immediately accessing UN REDD+ funds, according to a  study  published in The Journal of Environmental Management. The study shows that while Sri Lanka has large forest reserves, it lacks reliable data on its forest resources and rates of forest loss needed to set emission benchmarks. In addition, emission reductions may hurt subsistence farmers who rely on forest clearing. Principal author Eskil Mattsson says that identifying drivers of deforestation and formulating a range of REDD+-relevant policy measures could take until 2020 to formalize, depending on “the overall pace within the UN Climate Change negotiations to set the overall policy for REDD+, especially [on] how REDD+ should be financed.” Part of the funding, expected later this year, will go toward creating benchmark data and hatching a national REDD+ programme.   Visualizing progress in the Philippines The Department of Environment and Natural Resources’s Forest Management Bureau, German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), CoDe REDD Philippines and the Southern Leyte government opened the Color it REDD+ Roadshow and “The Philippine Forests: Before and What Now?” exhibits last week,  providing visuals  and points of dialogue among stakeholders on forest loss and early REDD+ efforts in the Philippines. The exhibit featured REDD pilot work implemented by DENR and GIZ in Southern Leyte and at a national level. For local government, the project findings provide a scientific basis for designing management systems and monitoring protocols to help protect local forest ecosystems. For the national government, it will spur forest protection and rehab efforts under the Philippine National REDD+ Strategy as part of the National Climate Change Action Plan and the National Greening Program.   Science & Technology Review Congo Basin leverages geospatial tech for REDD+ The SPOT satellite imagery program, operated by Astrium and financed by the French Agency of Development for 8.5 million Euros, is now  entering its second phase. Established in 2010, the partnership aims to distribute free SPOT satellite images to governments, public institutions and NGOs that work on sustainable forestry management issues in Central Africa. French specialists in spatial observation are piloting the program, united as a consortium led by IGN France International.  Using large, high-res coverage capacity to monitor forest coverage, SPOT satellite imagery will help assess REDD+-related commitments over time, prepare reference scenarios and enable adaptive environmental policy to inform national climate plans in the Congo Basin countries. Vincent Kasulu Seya Makonga, UNFCCC representative of the Democratic Republic of Congo, says, “The SPOT data is an essential information source and its provision provides real added value, especially for the MRV system that we are implementing in the context of REDD+, as well as for the development of our National Forest Inventory.”   Publications & Tools In search of commercial value The Monash Sustainability Institute has completed a project  investigating  whether successful community-based forestry management experiences in Asia can be extended to include REDD+ reforestation trials. The study finds that until natural assets have commercial value (such as mineral resources), Asian countries have little incentive to restore and conserve. MSI’s Paul McShane says that for REDD+ activities like the Kalimantan Forest Climate Partnership to continue, Australia and Indonesia need a functional carbon market with transparent payment mechanisms to verify emissions reductions. In the spirit of nonconflicting legislation and regulation, benefits of ecosystem conservation and sustainable development of natural resources must both feature in Asian forest conservation policies. McShane highlights tensions surrounding oil palm in Indonesia, drawing a parallel in Australia’s dry land salinity problem where water resource allocation remains unresolved in the Murray Darling basin.   Free, prior, and informed consent in REDD+ demystified Karen Edwards and Ronnakorn Triraganon at The Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC) have developed a  Training Manual on Putting Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) into Practice in REDD+ Initiatives. The manual seeks to help trainers and facilitators boost understanding of  Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC)  among stakeholders at all levels. The principle that indigenous and local communities have a right to give or withhold FPIC to developments affecting natural resources is not new, but experience using FPIC in REDD+ implementation is still limited in the Asia-Pacific, with few training materials for practitioners. This guide seeks to close that gap, and complements the guidelines on Free, Prior, and Informed Consent in REDD+: Principles and Approaches for Policy and Project Development released by RECOFTC and GIZ last year.   Jobs REDD+ Forest Management/Carbon Markets Specialists – Chemonics Three positions based in Ecuador, including Ecuadorian REDD+ Policy Expert, Policy Dialogue and Local Governance Expert, and Monitoring and Evaluation Expert positions. Spanish/English fluency are required for the first two. Candidates should have an advanced degree in a relevant field, experience in Latin America, and a minimum of five years of experience in a relevant field.  Read more about the positions  here.   Technical Advisor, REDD+ Readiness – The Nature Conservancy Based in Washington, DC, the technical advisor will be in charge of supporting countries to engage in REDD+ activities at the national and sub-national levels. Candidates should have a MSc. in Forestry, Global Change, Natural Resource Management or a related field, with at least 5 years of work experience. Read more about the position  here.   Forest and Climate Initiative Internship – World Wildlife Fund Based in Washington, DC, the part-time intern will help support the production of reports, research REDD+ news, and draft relevant news and information items. Candidates will have excellent writing and research skills, ideally a first-year communications graduate student who is available 20-30 hours per week. Read more about the position  here.   REDD+ Advisor, Malawi – U.S. Forest Service Based in Lilongwe, the REDD+ advisor will work with the Malawi Department of Forestry to provide technical assistance on its REDD+ readiness efforts. Candidates should have a master’s degree, at least five years of international work experience in a natural resource or environment related field, and experience living and working in Africa on REDD+. Read more about the position  here.   Chief of Party, Vietnam Forest and Deltas Program – Winrock International Based in Hanoi, the Chief of Party will provide overall technical leadership and administrative oversight for the upcoming Vietnam Forest and Deltas (VFD) program, helping to accelerate Vietnam’s transition to climate resilient, low emissions development. Candidates should have a master’s degree in management, international development, or relevant fields and a minimum 10 years of professional experience managing complex international development programs. Read more about the position  here.     Verification Forester – Scientific Certification Systems   The Verification Forester will carry out a range of activities associated with third-party auditing and verification of forest carbon offset projects as a member of the SCS Greenhouse Gas Verification Program. Candidates should have excellent quantitative analysis skills, a bachelor’s or master’s degree in forestry or related field and 4 years of professional experience in a related field. Read more about the position  here.   Various Positions, Italy – Institute for Environment and Sustainability (ISPRA) Eight grantholder positions which require PhD degree in forest monitoring, crop analysis and food security. Four trainee positions in remote sensing, productivity modeling, crop monitoring and quality management. All candidates must have good knowledge of spoken and written English. Read more about the positions  here.   Various Positions, Brazil – Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM)   IPAM has opened 10 positions, including Local Technical Coordinator, Research Assistant, Field Technical Advisor, Communications Intern and GIS Intern positions in Belem, Brasilia, Satarem, Itaituba and Altamira. All candidates should be fluent in Portuguese. Read more about the positions  here.   ABOUT THE FOREST CARBON PORTAL The Forest Carbon Portal provides relevant daily news, a bi-weekly news brief, feature articles, a calendar of events, a searchable member directory, a jobs board, a library of tools and resources. The Portal also includes the Forest Carbon Project Inventory, an international database of projects including those in the pipeline. Projects are described with consistent ‘nutrition labels’ and allow viewers to contact project developers.   ABOUT THE ECOSYSTEM MARKETPLACE Fresh Finance, More EU Uptake, and New Data: The Month in Forest Carbon Fresh finance is flowing into forest carbon efforts internationally, from Mexico to the Republic of Congo to Sri Lanka, and European Union member states are thinking of adding cropland, grazing land, and forest carbon emissions to their national greenhouse gas accounts.   Here’s a look at the top forest carbon stories of the past month. This article originally appeared on the Forest Carbon Newsletter.   You can view the original here. 3 April 2012 | Ecosystem Marketplace has now formally closed its collection of data for the State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2012 report. We are grateful to those projects that provided us with complete responses – every respondent is featured at least once on the Forest Carbon Portal homepage now through the end of May.     If you did not respond to the survey during the open call for information and would still like to contribute (and be recognized), please contact Molly Peters-Stanley in our Carbon Program to find out how.   And on to the latest forest carbon news, where below we summarize how one industry organization is taking an active role in seeking guidance for how to treat forest carbon offsets on a balance sheet in the US, while EU member states consider adding cropland, grazing land, and forest carbon emissions to their national GHG accounts.   Fresh finance is flowing into forest carbon efforts internationally, from a Mexican REDD project with some very high-level domestic buyers (translation), to UN-REDD Programme support in the Republic of Congo and Sri Lanka, to renewed demand from the voluntary carbon market for pre-2008 New Zealand forest carbon credits under the country’s Permanent Forest Sink Initiative.   On the supply side, South Pole Carbon is seeking investors for its Zimbabwe-based REDD efforts, while across the globe FUNAI, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, has brought into question 30 contracts between international companies and indigenous communities – including invalidating a $120mn agreement between Irish company Celestial Green Ventures and the Munduruku tribe.   These and other stories from the forest carbon marketplace are summarized below, so keep reading! And if you value what you read in this news brief, consider supporting Ecosystem Marketplace’s Carbon Program as a Supporting Subscriber. Readers’ contributions help us keep the lights on and continue to deliver forest carbon market news and insights to your inbox biweekly and free of charge. For a suggested $150/year donation, you or your company can be listed as a Forest Carbon News Supporting Subscriber (with weblink) for one year (~24 issues). Reach out to inboxes worldwide and make your contribution HERE (select “Support for Forest Carbon News Brief” in the drop-down menu). You will receive an email from the Forest Carbon News team confirming your sponsorship listing and weblink information.   —The Ecosystem Marketplace Team If you have comments or would like to submit news stories, write to us at [email protected]. International Policy The farm and forest frontier Forests and agricultural lands cover three-quarters of EU territory, yet progress in EU carbon accounting for forestry and land use has taken its sweet time. To date, land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) has been excluded from the EU’s fixed targets on curbing climate change. In a recent turn of events, the EU is finally putting forth a proposal to require EU nations to incorporate cropland, grazing land, and forest into the EU’s reduction efforts. After monitoring and reporting has been in place for a number of years and proven effective, the Commission plans to propose including LULUCF in the EU’s binding emissions reduction target. Read more from Thomson Reuters and Mongabay. Tailoring REDD+ to fragile States One solution doesn’t fit all. The March issue of Go-REDD+ refers to an article by Alan Karsenty and Symphorien Ongolo that discusses whether REDD+ in its current form can be applied to all States. The authors argue that the incentives upon which REDD+ is based may have perverse effects in fragile States burdened by corrupt government and dominance of private agendas. They propose that, in such cases, REDD+ should promote long-term capacity development focused on fundamental socioeconomic transformations, and incentive mechanisms that directly benefit local economic agents. US Policy You won’t see this on the CFA exams While the forest carbon offsets sector in the US is growing, the International Forest Carbon Association aims to draw attention to the lack of transparency and comparability in US capital markets due to the lack of uniform accounting methods. Seeking clearer and more standardized financial accounting, IFCA recently submitted a request to the Financial Accounting Standards Board USA on behalf of the sector and offset buyers. IFCA’s letter asks for guidance for forest carbon offsets to be valued on the balance sheet at fair value as inventory with appropriate timing of the point of revenue recognition. Don’t be cruel to Tennessee’s urban forests Elvis Presley isn’t Tennessee’s only prized possession – the 284 million trees it houses in its urban areas are worth a whooping $80 billion. They also provide almost $650 million in benefits such as carbon sequestration and air purification. These advantages that trees bring, and more, are illuminated in the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban Forests of Tennessee, a report that details the urban forest’s contribution to the state’s economic savings. The trees are estimated to provide up to $204 million and $66 million a year in pollution removal and energy savings respectively. The study was done through sampling trees in the urban areas and running the data through a model to evaluate their value. Project Development GEF-5 SFM/REDD+ project update Two sustainable forest management projects in Azerbaijan and Togo have just become the first SFM/REDD+ projects overseen by the Global Environment Facility to receive CEO endorsement and become ready for implementation, according to the GEF. Azerbaijan’s $11.4M project focuses on subtropical mountain forest landscape, seeking to contribute to forest and pastureland restoration and improved management over 46,500 ha – to directly avoid 256,666 tCO2 emissions and sequester 747,460 t CO2 over the project’s lifetime. At over $70M, Togo’s project will focus on scaling up sustainable management of tropical dry forests with the goal of increasing carbon stocks by 290,000 tCO2 via better managed forest and avoided deforestation.   Selling oxygen to the planet (Spanish) Oaxacan communities of Sierra Juarez and the South, Costa and Mixteca are participating in carbon projects in conjunction with Oaxaca Environmental Services, Pronatura and the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR). Buyers of their carbon credits include the pharmaceutical company Chinoin, Fundacií³n Televisa, Grupo Gamesa and the Presidency of the Republic. For the strong community aspect of the project, a higher-than-market price of $10 per tonne has been agreed on. Participant communities have reportedly received over 9 million pesos from the neutralization of about 105,000 tCO2e. An interesting case is Santa Marí­a Tlahuitoltepec: when the springs dried up in the area, the community turned to their priest, who taught that “God creates miracles, but you have to help,” essentially saying that if the community wanted water, they would have to reforest. The story reports that they are now the most zealous of communities in caring for their forests, so much so that 90% of the salary of their Community Commissioner is financed by the sale of carbon. Read the original story here and translation (Google) here. Aloha, afforestation Up until now, private landowners’ small-scale afforestation efforts in the U.S. have generally been considered too cost prohibitive to generate reasonably priced VERs. Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods (HLH), however, reports that it has just completed a feasibility study that puts afforestation carbon offsets from small-scale landowners back on the table. HLH found that midsize to smaller scale private landowners in Hawaii, anyway, can generate commercially viable carbon offset products using a koa tree species native to Hawaii. The study examined reforestation techniques guided by different offset standards – the Climate Action Reserve and American Carbon Registry – in order to generate credits for either the compliance or voluntary carbon markets. “For the first time, we illustrate that landowners can leverage carbon finance to permanently restore native species throughout the Hawaiian Islands,” said Darrell Fox, HLH COO. New dawn for REDD+ in Republic of Congo and Sri Lanka Sri Lanka and the Republic of Congo are the two newest countries to receive support from the UN-REDD Programme, rounding up the total funding under this program at US$67.3 million. These grants were given the stamp of approval at the UN-REDD Program’s 8th Policy Board meeting held earlier last week. Sri Lanka called the boost a “new dawn” for their forestry sector, while the Republic of Congo saw it as an affirmation of the nation’s efforts in sustainable forest management. The Programme now provides funding to 16 countries and works with 26 others across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chipping away at Laotian deforestation Laos’ sub-national REDD program has offered the chance for the New Chip Xeng Group to invest in the country’s forest and market its carbon in return. The project eyed by the Group spans about 550,000 hectares in four conservation areas, and across 19 districts in Vientiane and several provinces. The Group’s initial $3 million investment went towards a feasibility study for carbon trading, and upon its completion in 2013, a 17-year trading scheme will run through 2030. Estimates suggest that the forests could sequester between 10 and 20 tCO2e per hectare, which is speculated to be worth $4 – $15 per tCO2e in the international carbon markets. Norway, Switzerland and Italy have expressed enthusiastic support for the project. Planting trees Sur can make a difference in Chile House by house, car by car, the municipality of Peí±alolén is mobilizing to bring its carbon footprint down to zero. Peí±alolén’s carbon neutrality campaign encourages residents to offset the carbon impact of their homes and vehicles toward a common good for the community – by tree planting in the “Communal Peí±alolén Forest” in the Chilean Patagonia. For every vehicle entered into the system, the Patagonia gains 6 new trees. The afforestation project, led by the company Patagonia Sur, has seen 180 trees of three native species planted thus far. Participation is voluntarily – residents can conduct the compensation through a web platform or seal the deal at their local supermarket. South Pole seeking investors Switzerland-based project developer South Pole Carbon is seeking investors for its Lake Akriba project in Zimbabwe, which in its current state covers one million hectares and is hoped to avoid three MtCO2e over five years. The project is seeking certification under the VCS, and South Pole anticipates its validation to VCS methodology VM0009 by the second half of 2012. The project is also seeking verification to the CCB Standard’s Gold level for its protection of a wildlife corridor in Zimbabwe and the prospect of improved livelihoods in the region. For more information, read here.   SAFI forest owners reject Merlins Wood MoU with Pakistani government In our more recent news briefs, we have touched upon the back and forth on a proposed REDD project in Pakistan, referencing the ownership dispute between UK-based Merlins Wood and forest owners with coverage by Chris Lang of REDD Monitor and Surriekha Khan, Director of Merlins Wood. Despite the dispute, Merlins Wood signed MoUs with the governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad State, with Terra Global Capital joining on to develop the project. The ownership issue has persisted. Most recently, Sarhad Awami Forestry Ittehad – an alliance of private forest stakeholders – has unanimously rejected the MoU between Merlins Woods and the Forest Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Calling for immediate cancellation over the agreement, SAFI argued that the Forest Department does not hold exclusive ownership over the highly contested forests in the province. Read more here. As clock winds down, voluntary buyers line up for PFSI VERs In our last newsletter, we put out a reminder to NZ forest owners to register with the NZ Emissions Unit Registry by the end of 2012 to qualify their credits for the first Kyoto period. Since then, Permanent Forests International reports has received a surge in requests for Permanent Forest Sink Initiative (PFSI) VER registrations. The company has so far sold over 500,000 PFSI VERs, earning forest owners more than NZ$2M in profits, and is set to deliver 600,000 more to offshore buyers by mid-2012. Under the PFSI, the company develops credits for pre-2008 carbon that meets the voluntary market’s “high standard for environmental integrity,” according to Permanent Forests owner Mark Belton – standards and safeguards that he says are lacking under more current ETS forestry rules. National Strategy & Capacity Questionable contracts provoke FUNAI; Brazil cautions VCM In past weeks, the issue of carbon rights in indigenous territories and the unchecked activities of carbon outfits in Brazil came under serious scrutiny after the Irish company Celestial Green Ventures signed a $120 million agreement with the Munduruku tribe for their 2.3 million hectare piece of the Brazilian Amazon. The contract as proposed prohibits any changes to the forest, including the tribes’ traditional and subsistence use of their ancestral land for thirty years. An account of the meeting between the company and the tribe described hostility and resistance on the part of the Munduruku, but the contract was later sealed by some Munduruku members without the consent of the community. A chief has since called for the cancellation of the agreement. In a recent statement, the deal with CGV has been deemed invalid by FUNAI, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, along with thirty other contracts that have granted private investors legal title to carbon credits in the Amazon, on the basis of illegality. FUNAI has stressed the necessity of legal guidelines for regulating such future negotiations. In recent weeks, government representatives in Brazil have further warned the market about working with any projects that are not actively engaged with the government or FUNAI as Brazil finalizes the design of its REDD+ national strategy. Point Carbon reports that while projects aimed at the voluntary carbon market are not automatically exclude from a national system, “they will have to comply with future policy to have official recognition.”   Colombia will receive $3.4million for National REDD+ Strategy (Spanish) Colombia is now on its way to implementing its National REDD+ Strategy, after a boost of $3.4 million from the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). The World Bank will conduct its due diligence mission in Colombia over two days, a visit meant to ensure that the grant is compliant with the Bank’s safeguard policies. The mission will meet with ministries to question how deforestation drivers will be tackled, will verify the participation of various stakeholders in the REDD+ Strategy, and will hold workshops in the Amazon and Pacific regions of the country as part of the social and environmental assessments required in Colombia’s Readiness Preparation Proposal. Read more here.   FFI launches REDD+ Community Carbon Pools Programme in Vietnam Fauna and Flora International (FFI) launched its REDD+ Community Carbon Pools Programme in Vietnam in February of 2012, with the goal of promoting knowledge sharing between REDD+ countries in the Southeast Asian region. The three-year Programme would bring forest communities together under a common management and benefit-sharing system. A workshop held at the program launch saw a positive attendance of government officials, which coordinators saw as a promising start for future collaboration with government stakeholders. Because a challenge faced in the area is awareness of and interest in environmental services, capacity building will be a key component of the programme. Read more here. Woodland Carbon Code reaches million tonne milestone The UK’s programme for incentivizing woodland creation announced a milestone late last month – the Forestry Commission reports that enough projects have registered under the Woodland Carbon Code to sequester one MtCO2e. Welcoming the million-tonne milestone, Forestry Minister Lord Taylor of Holbeach said, “It demonstrates that we were right to establish the Code. The few short months it has taken for it to reach a million tonnes registered demonstrates that there is an appetite for planting new woodland.” The Forestry Commission points out that so far 57 woodland projects across the UK, totaling 2733 hectares (5565 acres), have been registered. Ten of these, totaling 760ha (1900 acres), have also now been validated. If all the projects go to plan, the 1 MtCO2 registered will be removed from the atmosphere over the next 100 years. REDD+y or not: sustainable timber production in the Congo Basin The Center for International Forestry Research is launching a new project in the Congo Basin in conjunction with the French Development Agency and the French Global Environment Facility. The FORAFAMA project aims to bolster scientific evidence that establishes sustainable timber production in forests as a viable method of increasing carbon stocks needed to reduce GHG emissions. In monitoring carbon stocks conditions in different areas, CIFOR hopes to identify the most effective sustainable management practices and gauge whether standards set by forest certification schemes can be compatible with REDD+ standards and safeguards. The results may help address concerns voiced during a recent conference in Cameroon about whether it is yet time to integrate sustainable timber forest management practices with REDD+.   Indonesia: we own the land and/or you don’t To understand the latest row over Indonesia’s Forest Code, consider difference an “and/or” makes in the following definitions of a forested area: …a certain area that is allocated and/or determined by the government as a permanent forest area VERSUS …a certain area that is determined by the government as a permanent forest area. The few omitted words are at the center of a controversy between the government and Indonesian businesses seeking clarity regarding plantation and mining companies’ ownership of forest areas. The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry deputy chairman for plantations, Rudyan Kopot, says that if there was no clarification, the government could unilaterally take the areas and declare them as permanent forests. “All we need is a guarantee because the situation is not clear anymore,” he says. The change was made on February 21 of this year, when a court issued a ruling to drop the phrase “allocated and/or”, at the request of regents from five regencies in Central Kalimantan on the grounds that the phrase made the article contrary to the 1945 Constitution. Finance & Economics REDD+ brainstorm At 73 countries strong, the REDD+ Partnership met in late February to discuss next steps for the UN’s REDD+ mechanism on deforestation and forest degradation. Attendees observed that while the short history of REDD+ shows a robust core, a well-performed voluntary market and high confidence standards, the current market remains difficult for those who want to invest – and discussed their concerns about a lack of consistent demand for REDD+ credits. The meeting concluded with key recommendations to simplify bureaucracy, improve the REDD+ management system, continue developing the Voluntary REDD+ Database, develop proposals for joint public-private funding formulas, improve sharing of knowledge and best practices, unify emissions calculation standards and indicators, coordinate transparent, equitable sharing of funds between countries, and look into forest bonds as a new source of capital. Human Dimension Villagers claim some payback from carbon trade REDD has reportedly delivered in Tanzania: communities in several villages in Lindi rural of Tanzania have received a little over US$25,000 from the sale of credits through their avoided deforestation and conservation efforts. The government wants to set some of this money aside for development projects that include brick making and buying desks for schools, although villagers have rejected the idea by claiming it is the government’s responsibility, and not theirs, to fund such projects. The REDD pilot project is being implemented by the Mjumita and Tanzania Forest Conservation Group with financial support from Norway. Goodall takes tools to Tanzania In the Masito-Ugalla forest, young men have been given tools quite unlike the nets and machetes they are used to. Under a program at the Jane Goodall Institute, more than 30 forest monitors from seven villages in the Kigoma Rural district are being trained to use GPS gadgets, calibrated rulers and other technological equipment. Acquiring skills in forest carbon measurement are valuable for communities participating in REDD as it allows them to avoid the otherwise high consulting fees that could offset the economic benefits the projects are meant to bring. With partnerships with companies like Google and Android, technical training at the JGI is bringing communities in touch with the international marketplace to directly demonstrate the outcomes of their conservation efforts. Read more here. Science & Technology Review Zoom in… If only the creators of the Amazon Trail game could release a new version with a Google plug-in. Google Maps recently launched the next best thing (ok, maybe) – a Google Street View of the Amazon River, enabling users to virtually explore communities and ecosystems in Earth’s largest tropical forest from the comfort of their computers. For the project, Google partnered with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS), an NGO that develops forest conservation projects with the Amazonas government. Block-by-block coverage seems tough enough in an urban or suburban setting. Imagine snapping away in an environment where heat and humidity can frustrate the best of cameras. In some photos, you can even glimpse the wake of the boat that holds the photographer. …and out For a bird’s eye view, check out the global rainforest carbon map now publicly available on ArcGIS Online, a web-based mapping platform. The data, based on NASA satellite measurements, maps out the biomass of tropical forests at a 500-meter resolution, the highest resolution ever published on a global scale. The greenest areas on the map – rainforests in the Amazon, Borneo, New Guinea, and the Congo Basin – are especially carbon-dense. Aside from visualizing the importance of conserving these areas for climate change mitigation efforts, scientists hope the maps can be used to estimate CO2 emissions from deforestation and help determine how much countries may earn in compensation through REDD+ efforts. Publications & Tools The State of the Forest: Congo Basin deforestation doubles since 1990 The Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC) and members of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership released a 300 page report on the State on the Congo Basin forest. Deforestation rates increased from 0.13 percent to 0.26 percent between the 1990s and the 2000 – 2005 period. The new report identifies five primary drivers of deforestation in the region: fuel wood extraction, agriculture, mining and oil extraction, expansion of biofuels and logging. It also notes that efforts to preserve the region’s economic resources, protect biodiversity and the creation of protected areas have “not lived up to expectations, nor do they satisfactorily reflect investments to date”. Read more from CIFOR and Mongabay.   Justice for Forests: Improving Criminal Justice Efforts to Combat Illegal Logging In some countries illegal logging can reach up to 90% of all logging activities, and generates approximately US$10–15 billion annually in criminal proceeds. Furthermore, a portion of this untaxed income is used to pay off corrupt officials at all levels of government. This report suggests that, rather than “go after” individual perpetrators, governments might be better suited to follow the money trail in pursuit of criminal organizations engaged in large-scale illegal logging and confiscate any ill-gotten gains. The World Bank says there are tools available for use that were developed in over 170 countries to go after such “dirty money.” Read more here. REDD+ monitoring on a budget Emissions from deforestation and forest degradation are hard to track for many developing countries, posing the risk of leaving changes in forest conditions driven by REDD+ or other efforts undetected for years. Widespread measuring of carbon – while accurate – can be quite costly. This month in Environmental Research Letters, Bucki et al. released a paper that pushes UNFCCC parties to consider cost-effective alternatives to provide reliable data on anthropogenic forest emissions. Remote sensing, used in conjunction with a transition matrix and default carbon stock change factors, can inform initial estimates of trends in emission changes. From there, the UNFCCC may be better equipped to set credible benchmarks and allocate REDD+ incentives. The paper presents a proof of concept for one biome in Congo. REDD+ Safeguards for Vietnam: Key Issues and the Way Forward The Center for People and Forests describes in this short paper Vietnam’s strategy to develop efficiently REDD+ safeguards in its National Program. Biodiversity conservation, local community rights and a MRV program spearhead the list of concerns the government should take into account developing the safeguard strategy. Download the report here (PDF). Biodiversity monitoring protocols for REDD+: Can a one-size-fits-all approach really work? This paper by Harrison et al. highlights the challenge of creating a single model to assess the impacts of REDD+ activities on biodiversity. Among the drawbacks of simplifying the model, the authors underline the disparity among the world’s forests, the different conservation goals and the heterogeneity of ecosystem services around in the globe. For that reason they propose site-specific biodiversity monitoring programmes. UN-REDD Launches its 2011 “Year in Review” Report The UN-REDD program formed by 42 partner countries across Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean launched its 2011 annual report. Total funding in 2011 was US$ 108.1 million utilize to finance REDD+ Readiness Programs around the globe. Norway, the mayor donor funded 25% of the operations and overall the donor contributions raised 26% in 2011. In the next year UN-REDD will start negotiations with the Green Climate Fund and support the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technology Advice (SBSTA).   Jobs Technical Advisor, REDD+ Readiness – Conservation International The Technical Advisor for REDD+ Readiness will support countries in REDD+ activities at national and subnational levels. The advisor will travel frequently to provide training in carbon MRV, GHG inventories, IPCC guidelines and other technical elements. Read more about the position here. Senior Project Manager: Forest Products Supply Chains – Proforest Based in Oxford, UK, the Senior Project Manager will work with forest products supply chains, including requirements relating to the EU Timber Regulation and public procurement. Five years of relevant international work experience and a masters in a relevant discipline are required. Read more about the position here. Postdoctoral Associate, Forest Ecosystem Modeling – Virginia Tech The Postdoctoral Associate will primarily design a climate change adaptation and mitigation model in the southern United States as part of a multi-organizational team. A Ph.D. with emphasis in forest ecosystem modeling and Linux/UNIX programming are required. Read more about the position here. Senior Policy & Communications officer – Wetlands International The Senior Policy & Communications officer will be in charge of the communications efforts in relation to mangrove conservation and coastal resilience. Indonesian nationality is required with fluency in English. Read more about the position here. Agriculture and Climate Policy Analyst IPAM is looking for a part-time consultant for a 12 month contract with excellent written and spoken Indonesian and English skills. The Policy Analyst will focus on agricultural, forestry, and forest carbon policy in Indonesia. Read more about the position here. REDD+ Technical Specialist for Climate Change Programs in Ecuador and Peru – Winrock International The REDD+ Technical Specialist will work with USAID-funded programs related to Climate Change Mitigation in Ecuador and Peru. Minimum five years of experience working in forestry and knowledge of Ecuador and/or Peru’s forest sector and climate change policies are required. Read more about the position here. Socio-Economic Adviser – Fauna & Flora International Base in Cambodia, Indonesia or Vietnam, the Adviser will help ensure that the socio-economic and community aspects of Asia-Pacific conservation projects are implemented in compliance with standards like the CCB standards for REDD+ projects. Read more about the position here. Four positions in UNDP for REDD+ based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia The candidates should have between 5 and 10 years of professional experience as well as fluency in written and spoken English and Bahasa Malayu. Read more about the positions on the Forest Carbon Portal jobs board. Additional resources Visit the Forest Carbon Newsletter Does the Ecosystem Markets Metaphor Blind us to Ecosystem Complexity? 30 March 2012 | Ecosystem markets aim to preserve nature in part by recognizing the value of ecosystem services – such as water filtration, flood control, and carbon sequestration.   But does the market metaphor create the illusion of simple solutions?   UC Berkley Professor of Energy and Resources Richard Norgaard argues this week on the Ecosystem Commons that it does just that in a post entitled Ecosystem Services: From Eye-Opening Metaphor to Complexity Blinder, which is based on his 2010 paper of the same name. “The metaphor of nature as a stock that provides a flow of services is insufficient for the task ahead. Indeed, the simplicity of the stock-flow framework blinds us to the complexity of the human predicament,” he writes. “The complex practice of understanding ecosystems is being skewed and simplified to inform markets.” This, he says, distorts our understanding of complex ecosystems and creates the illusion that we can keep burning through resources if we just save a few patches of wetland. He then poses three questions to readers: First:   Should we be concerned about long-term effects of this shift? Second:   Don’t we need to shift our focus to national and global politics and institutions to address the broader issues? Third:   How do we design ethical reasoning into environmental governance? The Answers Thus Far So far, he’s received two answers: one from Restoration Systems President George Howard and one from Ag Resource Strategies President Tim Gieseke. Both men are mitigation bankers, and both concede Norgaard’s point – but then argue that the markets metaphor is as good a beginning as we are going to get, and that global solutions are unworkable at this time. “It is awkward, and as you say, simplified, but that simplification is occurring for each of these oikos dimensions,” writes Gieseke.   “Ecological economics is more than interdisciplinary; it is the integration of the earth’s life support system and the means by which humans will value it.   And since we just began this journey during our lifetimes, we are children in understanding how to go about it.” “National and global institutions are notoriously insensitive to local conditions, inevitably provide one size fits all – or nothing – politicized solutions in the name of ‘equity’,” writes Howard.   “These tend to be costly, ineffective and too frequently counter-productive. Action locally will not be directed globally.” Join the Discussion It’s a fascinating discussion that’s just begun to roll – and we suspect it will attract many more comments before wrapping up.   You can follow the discussion here, and feel free to drop your own two cents in. Additional resources Join the Debate Download the Original Paper (Subscription) Clean Water Act Turns 40 29 March 2012 | Water quality in the United States has come a long way since 1969, when Ohio’s Cuyahoga River became so full of pollution that it literally caught on fire – one of those seminal events that helped spur the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency   one year later and the creation of the landmark Federal Water Pollution Control Act, better known as the “Clean Water Act” (CWA), two years after that. A revolutionary piece of legislation, the CWA was first passed by the US House of Representatives 40 years ago today and set a course “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters” by forging a partnership among federal agencies, state agencies, and the private sector. After a rocky road to validation (it was vetoed by President Richard Nixon, but Congress overrode the veto), the CWA came into effect on October 18, 1972.   To commemorate its anniversary, the EPA has set up a web site including history and timelines here. What’s so Special About it? The Act gives the federal EPA the authority to set policy, but leaves administration and enforcement to states, territories and authorized tribes.   Its real innovation, however, was the permitting system that led to wetland mitigation banking and the creation of water quality initiatives across the country. The system is built on a policy of “no net loss” of wetlands that requires anyone looking to dredge wetland to first apply for a permit through a program administered by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US EPA. Then, if a permit is granted, the developer must “establish, enhance, restore or preserve” an amount of wetland equal to or greater than what is being dredged – usually in the same watershed. The EPA’s authority over wetlands was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1985, and the EPA then created the Office of Wetlands Protection in 1986. Mitigation banks are essentially wetlands that have been pro-actively established, enhanced, restored, or preserved – in exceptional circumstances when the land was under significant threat – with the goal of generating credits that can be sold to developers later as offsets. The CWA requires mitigation banks to replace function as well as acreage of jeopardized wetlands, although many complain that the function requirement is often overlooked. Using Markets to Control Pollution The water quality standards mandated by the CWA also provide the legal underpinnings for the new generation of water quality trading mechanisms being piloted across the country. Water quality trading program are part of a broader shift in approaches to environmental regulation, and the CWA has proven flexible enough to keep up with these changes. Water quality enforcement in the years after the CWA’s enactment depended heavily on a ‘command and control’ approach that targeted heavily polluting point sources, such as factories discharging waste into a river through a single pipe. Regulation has seen a sea change in recent years, gradually shifting to an approach that focuses on using flexible instruments, incentives, and addressing diffuse point sources of pollution like stormwater runoff. Water quality trading, which uses market mechanisms to find the most economically efficient cleanup strategy, is a part of this new generation. In early 2003, the US EPA released its first Water Quality Trading Policy, which identified general provisions the agency considers necessary for creating credible watershed-based trading programs. Over a decade in the making, this policy identifies the purpose, objectives and limitations of these and other trading opportunities. The EPA has even gone so far as to publish a  map of trading programs in the US and a trading toolkit. The policy is flexible by design, letting states, interstate agencies, and tribes develop their own trading programs that meet CWA requirements and localized needs. Critics, however, say it’s too flexible, failing to identify tradable pollutants and other basic parameters. This leaves the system undefined and fails to generate the kinds of certainty a true market requires.   Additional resources CWA 40th Anniversary Home Page CWA Milestones Agriculture, ForestryOn Agenda At Bonn Climate Talks The first major climate talks of the year have kicked off in Bonn, Germany, and will run two weeks – culminating with the Carbon Expo in neighboring Cologne, where we will unveil the annual State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Report.   Here’s a quick overview of land-use issues under discussion. BONN | Germany | 14 May 2011 | Negotiators meeting in the former German captial aim to move forward on the Durban Platform, which aims to phase out the Kyoto Protocol by 2017 and replace it with a truly global agreement that will be negotiated by 2015. On a macro level, the all-to-familiar theme of rich vs poor will playing out again as developing countries lobby the European Union to adopt steeper reductions of 30% below 1990 levels by 2020, even though major emitting nations like China, Japan, Russia, Canada and the United States are but are willing to sign onto a replacement agreement that includes developing countries. We’ll be limiting our coverage to those issues impacting land-use and forestry. Forestry and Agriculture On the forest carbon front, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) will begin implementing a workplan agreed to in April designed to finally yield scientific guidance on forest monitoring systems and reference levels – two key components of REDD+. SBSTA will also be examining mechanisms designed to promote low-carbon agriculture – and will, for the first time, break “climate-safe” agriculture out into a stand-alone item.     Parties, intergovernmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations have all submitted white papers designed to feed into this process. Integrating Regional Programs Another subject on the agenda is the growing trend among individual nations to incorporate mechanisms from voluntary markets in their compliance programs and how to integrate these into the UNFCCC process. National Adaptation Plans Finally, talks are continuing to shift towards the development of National Adaptation Plans (NAP), designed to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change.   Additional resources Developed and Developing Countries Come Together on Post-Kyoto Durban Platform Party Submissions to SBSTA Intergovernmental Submissions to SBSTA NGO Submissions to SBSTA Governments Worldwide Embrace Voluntary Carbon Offset Market More Evidence of Link Between Extreme Weather and Climate Change 28 March 2012 | Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts… They’re all on the increase, everywhere you look – just as climate models predict.   But is climate change really driving these events, or are we simply enduring a period of turbulence? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we can’t link individual climate events to climate change, but that climate change probably is, indeed, responsible for the increased frequency and intensity of such events. That’s the core finding of its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX), released today. The report also examines the circumstances that turn extreme events into unmitigated disasters, and lays out policies designed to avoid, prepare for, respond to and recover from the risks of disaster. At the same time, as the IPCC notes in the report, limits to resilience are faced when thresholds or tipping points associated with social and/or natural systems are exceeded, posing severe challenges for adaptation. “The main message from the report is that we know enough to make good decisions about managing the risks of climate-related disasters. Sometimes we take advantage of this knowledge, but many times we do not,” said Chris Field, Co-Chair of IPCC’s Working Group II, which together with Working Group I produced the report. “The challenge for the future has one dimension focused on improving the knowledge base and one on empowering good decisions, even for those situations where there is lots of uncertainty.” The IPCC released the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the report in November 2011. The full report released today provides the basis for the key conclusions first presented in the SPM. It offers a greater understanding of the human and economic costs of disasters and the physical and social patterns that cause them. It enables policy-makers to delve into the detailed information behind the findings to examine the material on which the IPCC based its assessments. The report is the outcome of cross-disciplinary teamwork between scientists studying the physical aspects of climate change, scientists with expertise in impacts, adaptation and vulnerability as well as experts in disaster risk management.   Additional resources Download the Report Supreme Court Rules Against EPA in Wetlands Case The US Environmental Protection Agency has long responded to violations of the Clean Water Act by issuing administrative compliance orders, which can’t be challenged until the EPA initiates enforcement actions. But last week the Supreme Court found in favor of an Idaho couple who argued that they shouldn’t have to wait til enforcement to get their day in court. 26 March 2012 | Last week, the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision found the case Sackett v. EPA in favor of Idaho couple Chantell and Michael Sackett, asserting that when it comes to wetlands, “arbitrary and capricious” compliance orders can indeed be challenged in court without having to wait for the Environmental Protection Agency to take enforcement action. It’s a case that turns on somewhat obscure questions about administrative procedure – but it will have ramifications for wetlands protection across the United States. At issue isn’t whether the Sackett’s property is or is not a wetland, but how the  US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  responds to what it percieves as damage to wetlands. Michael and Chantell Sackett say they had no intention of making a federal case out of anything when they started building a house on a half-acre lot near Priest Lake, Idaho, in 2007. The EPA, however, says the couple dredged and filled in a patch of wetland without a permit – a clear violation of the Clean Water Act. The agency sent the couple an “administrative compliance order” in November 2011 requiring them to halt construction and restore the land to its earlier state. The couple contested the EPA’s assessment, pointing out that land wasn’t wet, but dry – as wetlands often are. The EPA responded by offering them extra time to comply, relaxing its stringent restoration requirements, and offering to work with the couple – although it’s not clear how far the EPA was willing to go. The Sacketts, for their part, didn’t wait to find out. They chose instead to sue the agency, arguing that the cost of getting a dredge-and-fill permit was too high for them to risk going through the process only to be turned down. By going to court, the Sacketts challenged the way the EPA deals with wetlands across the United States. Normally, when a compliance order is handed down, the recipient has two basic options. One is to comply, which can be costly and time-consuming. The other is to wait for the EPA to sue to enforce the order, at which point the recipient can make his or her case to the judge. The danger of this second approach is that the landowner risks being on the hook for substantial penalties – up to $75,000 for every day that they failed to follow the compliance order. In Sackett v. EPA, the Sacketts argued they should be able to challenge the compliance order itself without waiting for EPA enforcement. The EPA on the other hand contended that the compliance order isn’t the right stage to open things up to judicial review, in part because the Sacketts could have worked with the EPA on a solution. Many environmentalists have been nervously monitoring the case. The Agency issues approximately 3,000 administrative compliance orders every year to individuals and businesses, typically resulting in compliance. If compliance orders can be appealed in a court, the EPA’s power to quickly correct a violation is blunted. Environmentalists worried that a precedent would be set to allow individuals and businesses to tie compliance order up in court – leading to delays in compliance and significant court costs for the EPA. The Decision In a unanimous decision, the Court found in favor of the Sacketts on the grounds that the Administrative Procedures Act did apply in this case. The Sacketts are now free to bring a civil suit against the EPA’s 2007 order over whether their land is, in fact, a wetland. In his concurrence, Justice Samuel Alito noted that currently, “if the owners want their day in court to show that their lot does not include covered wetlands, well, as a practical matter, that is just too bad. Until the EPA sues them, they are blocked from access to the courts, and the EPA may wait as long as it wants before deciding to sue. By that time, the potential fines may easily have reached the millions.” Alito also called for clarification of the definition of wetlands under the Clean Water Act, noting that property owners currently are forced to “feel their way” when it comes to compliance. Still, environmentalists who worried that the case could have large implications for how the EPA handles compliance orders in the future have some reasons for relief at the outcome. The Court chose to focus whether the Adminstrative Procedures Act applied, not on whether the EPA’s order violated the right of due process – a much more narrowly interpreted decision. And though the Sacketts are now free to bring a civil lawsuit against the EPA, they could very well lose it, depending on whether the land in question is ultimately found to be wetlands. While property owners now have legal cover to seek judicial review on a compliance order, this doesn’t mean that compliance or financial penalties can be delayed. It’s also unclear how many property owners in the future will choose to use their ‘day in court’; given ongoing uncertainty around the definition of wetlands and the huge financial penalties involved , many may opt for immediate compliance. Further Coverage Read analysis at the SCOTUSblog . The blog has also posted links to filings from several parties, which we’ve posted below. Briefs and Documents Merits Briefs for the Petitioners Brief for Chantell Sackett and Michael Sackett Amicus Briefs in Support of the Petitioners Brief for the American Civil Rights Union Brief for Alaska et al. Brief for the American Farm Bureau Federation et al. Brief for the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center Brief for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America Brief for the Competitive Enterprise Institute Brief for General Electric Co. Brief for the Institute for Justice Brief for the Mountain States Legal Foundation Brief for the National Association of Home Builders et al. Brief for the National Institute of Manufacturers Brief for the Wet Wet Weather Partnership et al. Brief for the American Petroleum Institute et al. Amicus Briefs in Support of Neither Party Brief for APA Watch Merits Briefs for the Respondents Brief for the EPA et al. Certiorari-Stage Documents Opinion below (9th Circuit) Petition for certiorari Brief in opposition Petitioners’ reply Amicus brief of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence et al. Amicus brief of the American Civil Rights Union Additional resources Supreme Court to Hear EPA Water Policy Case on Monday US EPA Proposes Mandatory Emissions Cap For New Power Power Plants 28 March 2012 | The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday said it wants to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour generated.   That’s 40-50% below the emissions of modern coal-fired plants but about 25% higher than emissions from the most efficient new natural gas plants. The proposed new standard will be open for comment for 60 days, and a final version will be issued later in the year.   This is the first time the EPA has proposed such limitations on the power sector, which generates one-third of US greenhouse gas emissions.   The proposal only impacts new plants, roughly 24 of which are currently in the early planning phase, according to the US Department of Energy.   Another 24 plants are already under construction, and it is not clear how they will be impacted.   Most of these already employ natural gas technology.   EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that a second proposal will address existing power plants later this year, and observers say that is where the greatest potential for reduction exists. “Existing plants represent a significant opportunity to improve efficiency and reduce US greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kevin Kennedy, the World Resources Institute’s US Climate Director. “We can achieve these reductions at low cost while providing power plants flexibility in complying with them.” The proposal comes on the heels of a November proposal issued jointly with the Department of Transportation (DOT) to set stronger greenhouse standards for passenger cars and light trucks beginning in 2017. “A quarter of the nation’s fossil fuel-based generation capacity is more than 40 years old, and many plants are approaching retirement,” said Kennedy. “Any plants built today would likely be standing in 2050 and beyond, making strong rules for new plants an important part of the picture.” “The Agency’s action establishes a logical and modest standard for new electric power plants and provides the industry with much-needed regulatory certainty,” said Ralph Izzo, CEO, Public Service Electric and Gas. “The EPA provides a framework for the industry to confront this problem in a cost effective manner.”   Additional resources EPA Announcement US Government Supports Private-Public Water Solutions Worldwide 26 March 2012 | Water shortages threaten to undermine economic growth and spark conflicts around the world, and agriculture uses 70% of the world’s water.   In response, the US State Department is spearheading the development of a global alliance of governments, corporations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) aimed at harnessing new technologies for water management around the globe. Dubbed the US Water Partnership (USWP), the new effort was unveiled last week on World Water Day, the same day that the US State department released an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Global Water Security.   That report projects increased instability and state failure across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, with a ten-year window of opportunity to avert disaster. The Participants The initial participants from the private and NGO sectors include Africare, the Coca-Cola Company, Procter & Gamble, the Nature Conservancy, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Motor Company, Skoll Global Threats Fund, the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina, World Resources Institute, Global Environment & Technology Foundation, Global Water Challenge, and Clean Water America Alliance. The US governmental agencies participating include the US International Boundary and Water Commission, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US Agency for International Development, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the US Department of the Interior. Challenges and Solutions The ICA report does not project the emergence of “water wars” within the next decade, but does warn of increased shortages, mass migrations, and humanitarian challenges. It identifies several technologies such as drip irrigation and no-till farming that reduce the amount of water needed to grow crops, and it also assumes those technologies will improve in the future. Please see our Reprint Guidelines for details on republishing our articles. Additional resources US Water Partnership Web Site Private Sector Roundtable US Government Roundtable NGO Roundtable This Week in V-Carbon: Springing into new directions   March 23  |  Earlier this month, we released a new report investigating the use of traditionally voluntary carbon market mechanisms in emerging domestic carbon markets around the world.   Several news items in this issue echo this topic, including Point Carbon’s report of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources’ shift in focus from CDM to domestic markets where it has some expertise. One could have seen this coming from Managing Director Jay Mariyappan’s pre-Durban observations – coupled with the EU ETS’ pending restriction to LDC-only offsets after 2012 and the higher prices potentially commended by credits in regional schemes. One region where Sindicatum is heavy on expertise is Asia, where NRDC authors in another article offer pointers to China and other regions about some critical elements to include in a successful domestic trading scheme. Also shifting focus are VER project developers themselves, claims one Financial Times article that examines the potential for a stronger relationship between carbon offset programs and “results-based” aid institutions. And could the US Congress refocus on GHG policies after taking the year off? Experts say yes. Here at Ecosystem Marketplace, we are transitioning from data collection to report-writing mode in order to bring you the 2012 State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets report. Our survey is now closed – if you have not yet responded with data and wish to participate in the survey, please notify Carbon Programs Manager Molly Peters-Stanley. Visit our homepage for a map of our survey’s geographic coverage and full list of respondents. Special thanks to the over 250 organizations that have so far provided complete responses to our 2012 survey, including: Climate Bridge,  AIDER, Australian Carbon Traders, Ag Methane Advisors, 3GreenTree Ecosystem Services Ltd., Appalachian Carbon Partnership, Atlantica Simbios C. S. A. Ltd.,  Bischoff and Ditze Energy GmbH,  Bonneville Environmental Foundation,  Bosque Sustentable, A.C., BP (Target Neutral), Brighter Planet, Brokers Carbon, BTAAB Transacoes de Ativos Ambientais do Brasil, Canopy,  Carbon Advice Group Plc,  Carbon Market Solutions, CarbonBrake Limited, Carbonzero, Clean Air Action Corp, CLEVEL, Climate Friendly, Climate Care, ClimeCo America Corporation, Community Energy, Inc., Conservation Carbon Company (Pvt) Ltd., Cool nrg International Pty Ltd., Cool Planet, CoolClimate Holding, Inc., Credible Carbon and PACE – and many more to come in upcoming issues, so stay tuned! —The Editors Voluntary Carbon Dirt don’t hurt Aussie carbon farmers While soil carbon does not count towards Australia’s national target under the Kyoto Protocol, Australian government has recently initiated its own five-year pilot program to scope out the potential market for credits from soil carbon sequestration. The program has awarded contracts to eleven farmers in the Lachlan catchment, with soil carbon storage methods to include low-till ploughing and time-management grazing of livestock. Sequestering carbon helps secure soil nutrients and moisture in place, particularly salient given the region’s recent drought. Though projects of this type do not qualify to generate credits that companies can surrender against their future national compliance obligations, they can be sold into the domestic voluntary carbon market – which has traditionally exhibited a preference for “at home” offsets.    – Read more from The Age    – Read more from The Australian    – Read more from the Sydney Morning Herald   Help Build(TM), help offset Native Energy and a 25-member all-star cast of US-based companies recently announced their collaboration to provide upfront financing for the construction of renewable energy and carbon offset projects in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. By purchasing Help Build ™ offsets from project developer NativeEnergy, the supporting companies seek to boost the economies of local communities while collectively offsetting over 400,000 tCO2e worth of emissions. Supporting companies include eBay, Clif Bar, Comedy Central, Aveda, and National Geographic, among others. Projects supported include two wind turbines in Iowa, a landfill gas-to-energy project in Oklahoma, and a farm methane reduction project in Pennsylvania.    – Read more   O-VER the mark What’s common between the electricity consumption of 1.1 million US homes, 1.8 million cars on the road, and the impact of Gold Standard Foundation’s issuance record? As of this week, 10 MtCO2e of GHG reductions. The Gold Standard has issued its 10-millionth VER, a milestone in its diverse portfolio of carbon reduction projects that range from cookstoves to water filters and wind energy. One project that brought The Gold Standard over the 10Mt mark is a Turkish wind farm implemented and owned by Alize Enerji Elektrik í¼retim A.S and developed by Mavi Consultants. The Kuyucak project would prevent the release of 47,993 tCO2e and contribute to diversifying the country’s energy grid, a much-needed activity in Turkey’s attempt to move towards lower fossil fuel dependence. The Gold Standard aims to issue credits to projects that deliver social benefits as much as they do environmental gains in CO2 reductions.    – Read more about the Gold Standard’s milestone   The PCT gain is… How much should Canucks pay for carbon offsets? British Columbia is toggling the question as it undergoes a review of the Pacific Carbon Trust (PCT), investigating the large inflow of cash from its schools and health authorities. As part of BC’s carbon neutral plan, public institutions are required by law to pay $25 to the PCT for each tCO2e they emit—a scheme that saw the University of British Columbia pay $1.5 million in 2010. The PCT, however, may be buying offsets at a much lower price than $25. BC’s Environment Minister asserts that this amount was set without knowing what the price of carbon would be, and the PCT says that the amount is comparable to the price set by other carbon retailers in Canada. A main concern voiced is that public institutions may have less cash for their own emissions-reduction activities. The government will examine the gap in the buying and selling prices and explore the creation of a fund, seeking to assure compatibility between the amount paid by PCT for offsets with its market price.    – Read more    – And read the Pacific Carbon Trust’s response   Appeal to FSA on green “bucket shops” While the UK’s Financial Services Authority has some jurisdiction in the carbon markets and is able to crack down on more obvious scammers, its regulatory grey areas have allowed a number of fraudulent trading schemes to gain traction and escape regulation at the expense of unknowing investors. Some advertisements for carbon credits and other green investments not only draw upon promises of high returns and environmental perks, but come from seemingly well-staffed and educated companies operating within London. The author of the article presses for the FSA to police these new-generation “bucket shops.” Failing to do so may compromise the performance and reputation of both environmental markets and the City of London as legitimate investment hubs.    – Read more from the Financial Times   Better World’s offsetting on the Books Buried in news of the launch of its LEAP Grants for Non-Profits – an initiative designed to redirect company revenue toward support for specific programs and communities worldwide – Better World Books mentioned that it has offset 29,000 tCO2e with carbon-neutral shipping. Every order at BetterWorldBooks.com has the option to be shipped carbon balanced for a few extra cents. BWB partners with US-based offset supplier 3Degrees to secure verified carbon offsets and RECs from wind farms. BWB’s carbon offsets support the Tatanka Wind Farm, the largest renewable-energy project in North and South Dakota. This wind farm reportedly will generate enough clean energy to power more than 60,000 homes. Over the years, BWB has re-used or recycled over 70 million books while raising over $11 million in funding for global literacy and donating over 6 million books to those in need.    – Read more about Better World Books’s carbon offsets   Carbon payments and then some Even carbon projects that deliver substantial social and environmental co-benefits  sometimes have difficulty translating those into cost premiums for their carbon offsets. Environmental Finance reports that some project developers are turning to donors who are pursuing ‘results-based’ aid projects, noting that their carbon projects offer the kinds of health and community benefits that donor groups are pursuing. For example, efficient cookstoves could reduce instances of pneumonia while also reducing deforestation and carbon emissions. Edward Hanrahan, director of ClimateCare, notes that “if you could finance these deliverables on a results basis, and overlay that on the carbon revenue, these projects may become some of the more financially attractive projects.”    – Read more from Environmental Finance   New methodology lets small businesses get into the carbon game Small businesses that find it challenging to access the carbon market may now have their chance, thanks to a new VCS methodology developed by Gedden, ICF Marbek and CertiConseil. The methodology aims to enable small businesses to engage in grouped energy efficiency and solid waste diversion projects. Eventually, Gedden hopes to expand the methodology to cover GHG reductions from other activities, like transport optimization. Martin Clermont, CEO of Gedden, announced his plan to group 5,000 business units in Quebec during the next 3 years, resulting in up to 32 MtCO2e reductions. VCS, Gedden and SGS will host a webinar on 27 March to describe the methodology’s approval process.    – Read about the methodology    – Read more here   ERA offsets GLOBE 2012 ERA Carbon Offset, Ltd. was the official offset sponsor for GLOBE 2012, the North American business sustainability conference held in Vancouver last week. They also co-hosted a CODE REDD event alongside Wildlife Works. The CODE REDD program that was announced by ERA last year will consist of a campaign to support diverse protection of the world’s rainforests. The partnership for the GLOBE 2012 CODE REDD event comes on the heels of an  announced joint venture to develop a REDD project  in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.    – Read more   Climate North America New (or same) administration may revive GHG policy It looks like carbon could make it onto the US Congressional agenda after the November elections, though perhaps not in the way that Waxman or Markey may have envisioned it. If Congress pursues GHG regulation again, Capitol Hill experts say it may be in the form of a tax rather than cap and trade. While cap and trade carries the stigma of being associated with the finance sector and the difficulty of setting up a trading program, the carbon tax is not particularly flexible and may have its own set of policy hurdles. Still, this Environmental Finance article points out that a tax may be more actionable in the short term – particularly with the EPA expected to launch a utility-only GHG regulation this or next year, and support for a tax emerging from major companies like ExxonMobil.    – Read more from Environmental Finance   Caps off for New Mexico It’s been just a month since the Environmental Improvement Board scrapped rules that would have allowed New Mexico to join a regional cap-and-trade program. In the same vein, New Mexico regulators have since then also voided the state’s own regulations that would have required electric utilities and oil and gas developers to cut emissions by 3% annually starting in 2013. To the dismay of New Energy Economy and other supporters of the cap, the Board has adopted an industry-led repeal petition and dismissed the regulations for their stringency compared to federal rules, also alleging that New Mexico’s adoption of federal permitting rules had triggered a sunset clause for the state’s regulations.    – Read more   Quebec: you got a friend in me Despite California’s loss of New Mexico and other WCI allies, it still has a fellow advocate in Quebec. Quebec’s environment minister, Pierre Arcand, visited California last week to spur interest in creating a cap and trade carbon market. The state and province still plan to launch the market in 2013. Critic Scott McKay from Parti Québécois, Quebec’s centre-left political party, says Quebec has isolated itself with a smoke-and-mirrors mission, and could alternatively curb emissions by simply taxing heavy-polluting vehicles and rewarding electric car drivers.    – Read more   Highway to the… carbon credit zone Despite Alberta’s objection to participating in a regional cap-and-trade program, it continues to be active on its own carbon initiatives, sporting a carbon tax and active offsets program. Most recently, Alderman Andre Chabot of Ward 10 in Calgary has made plans to transform his ward into a carbon credit zone, an idea suggested by the International Avenue Business Revitalization Zone. The zone would provide incentives for businesses in Ward 10 to lower their GHG emissions, possibly funding improvements on International Avenue. For the feasibility study, Chabot will target the 21 local businesses with the largest potential for increased energy efficiency. If successful, the carbon credit zone may provide a creative new method of community finance.    – Read more   Burke to lead WCI pack While the Western Climate Initiative initially began as a government initiative in 2007, it was not until November 2011 that WCI, Inc. formed as a nonprofit to provide administrative and technical services to support the implementation of state and provincial GHG trading programs. WCI, Inc. announced Tuesday that it has pulled Anita Burke on board as the organization’s first executive director, acknowledging her business experience, commitment to environmental progress, and knowledge of carbon markets. Burke’s role involves coordinating administrative support for the emissions trading programs of WCI, Inc.’s participating jurisdictions.    – Read more   Kyoto & Beyond CDM needs a shake up The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) may have been revived for a second Kyoto period, but according to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), it is currently being undermined by poor governance and vested interest. One of the authors of the study went so far as to say the CDM risks turning into a “’rich man’s club’ of project developers, emission verifiers, and government officials.” The three-year study claims that CDM projects are skewed towards the interests of polluting corporations and people who earn a living from the CDM market rather than the communities that host the projects. The authors suggest reforming the CDM to ensure that it builds stronger governance institutions and increases community involvement.      – Read about the CDM study   EU CO2 permit set-aside risks being set aside The EU, the world’s largest emissions market, faces the decision of whether to include a CO2 permit set-aside in its latest energy efficiency law. The set-aside would provide the option of rationing or withholding some carbon permits from the market, possibly aiding the recovery of carbon prices—no small matter after prices dropped 47% in the past year amid oversupply. Last week, European Parliament committee members voted in favor of withholding the necessary amount of CO2 allowances from auctions as early as 2013, in hopes of garnering higher emission prices. Yet the Danish government, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, omitted the set-aside in its draft legislation. Depending on how the two sides reconcile differences in upcoming weeks, the European Commission may introduce a temporary curb on CO2 permit supply in 2013-2020.    – Read about the set-aside   Global Policy Update Korea set to try again on carbon trading, says climate chief After a decision on cap-and-trade legislation was delayed on Feb 27, South Korea is now on its second attempt at passing a bill for an emissions trading system for 2015 and that would allow lawmakers to work out the details later. South Korea would be the third Asian Pacific country to use cap-and-trade, but its largest business lobbies have urged the government to delay the scheme on the basis of increased costs and lower competitiveness. Lawmakers fear the possibility of having to start over again on the climate bill, since uncompleted bills would be abolished when a new National Assembly is established in June. In the event that it is passed, the law will take effect within 6 months and the government has that time frame to work out its main operating details. In Nov 2009, President Lee sent the goal of cutting emissions by 30% from projected levels by the end of 2010. South Korea has also imposed forest carbon reduction goals, and is in talks with Indonesia over a reforestation deal.    – Read more about Korea’s cap-and-trade vote   Say G’day to your neighbors The Climate Institute, an Australia-based research organization, released a discussion paper stating that Australia should look to bilateral or regional trade deals as a model to set up carbon trading links with individual countries, especially developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The report said too much focus had gone into setting up a deal with Europe, and that instead countries like South Korea and Indonesia should be the focus of creating market links.      – Read more   Food for thought on designing China’s carbon market Earlier experience gained from environmental exchanges in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin may offer valuable lessons as China’s National Development and Reform Commission prepares to launch carbon-trading pilots in five cities and two provinces—perhaps in anticipation of an absolute cap on emissions. To be on the safe side, Alvin Lin and Yang Fuqiang from the Natural Resources Defense Council offer some additional recommendations to ensure the success of China’s carbon market: 1) push for a carbon-emissions peak, currently rare in city and provincial strategies; 2) cut coal consumption; 3) create local legislation to help resolve carbon trading disputes; 4) take a multi-pronged approach to emissions reduction that goes beyond energy consumption; and 5) respond to market supply and demand, perhaps using a carbon tax to support trading volume during the market’s early stages.    – Read the commentary for Climate Spectator   Rio+20 means business While the landmark Rio Earth Summit in 1992 was government heavy, the business community will figure much more prominently into this year’s Rio+20. A key theme in the conference will involve discussing ways in which business can help create “a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.” This may include pursuing sustainability measures that tackle multiple, often compounded issues – for example, projects that not only mitigate climate change but also support food security and public health. Also on the to-do list is to standardize – and perhaps embed as policy – corporate disclosure on environmental and social impacts. As gleaned through conversations with business leaders, standardized reporting may not only be important for companies to manage their emissions, but also in enabling investors to better compare corporate performance and investigate the potential for positive returns on investment.    – Read more from the Financial Times   Carbon Finance Clean energy in Chongqing finds an advocate As Chongqing Energy Group looks to develop a series of clean energy projects in southwest China, J.P. Morgan is reportedly stepping up to the plate as its potential broker for over 7 MtCO2e worth of potential credit trades in 2013-2017. The prospective partnership between the energy company and financial services provider comes at a ripe time, just as China’s National Development and Reform Committee prepares to help launch a series of pilot carbon trading schemes across the country. In the meantime, China will push for stronger government incentives, pricing and tax measures, and credit aid support required to scale up energy-saving and low-carbon projects.    – Read more   EEX rapid-fire product launch The European Energy Exchange (EEX) is slated to introduce new products in upcoming months. Later this month, the Leipzig-based exchange will begin listing CER contracts with deliveries for 2013-2020. At the end of April, EEX will launch futures on Emission Reduction Units (ERUs), for the first time offering credits issued to emission-reduction projects in industrialized, Kyoto-compliant nations. Around the same time, EEX will debut a derivatives market for EU Aviation Allowances (EUAAs), with an EUAA spot market to follow midyear. These new product launches may perhaps reflect EEX’s anticipation of an extended Kyoto Protocol term and the EU cap-and-trade scheme’s third trading scheme running 2013-2020.    – Read more from Reuters   Carbon fall economic impact dwarfed by high oil – HSBC The low price of compliance carbon has been a forefront concern of industry players in recent times. Yet, analysts say that the high price of oil in fact warrants more worry. The current oil price is equivalent to 153 euros, a startling seventeen times the current price of EU carbon credits. A note by HSBC stated that the current EU ETS per-tonne price of 8.6 euros, if applied across the economy, would only have an impact of an oil price increase of 3.3 euros a barrel. It also argues that high oil prices are hardly helpful in lowering carbon emissions, estimating that a 10 percent increase would reduce emissions by only 0.2 percent in 2030. The rocketing economic costs would make raising oil prices a less effective method than a carbon tax in driving down emissions. Enhancing energy efficiency is in fact the way out and will save over 5.6 trillion euros by 2035.    – Read more   Science & Technology Aussies set the bar for carbon controls   Sydney-based CarbonSystems has landed a contract to provide sustainability software for US-based Microsoft, using cloud computing to simplify and streamline Microsoft’s global GHG management. CEO David Solsky attributes Australia’s expertise in emissions management to the country’s experience with state-based schemes and the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act. As a growing range of organizations seek to track and manage their carbon footprints, Solsky underscores the option for emitters to move from spreadsheets to a more robust emissions management platform.      – Read more   Fossil fuel drives the ticking clock The OECD projects that without more ambitious climate policies, fossil fuels may continue to dominate the energy mix at 85% in 2050, whereupon global GHG emissions could rise by 50%. This bodes poorly for a global economy in 2050 expected to be four times larger than today’s and one that would use about 80% more energy. CO2 emissions from energy use alone may grow by 70% and would contribute to an increase in global average temperature by 3-6 degrees Celsius by 2100—exceeding the 2 degrees allowance and translating into large financial, human, and biodiversity costs. Further delays in international climate action may make it increasingly difficult to stay within the 2 degree limit and may require accelerated emissions cuts after 2020 in order to compensate.    – Read about the OECD projections   Carbon Markets Modeller – Carbonjobs The markets modeller will lead the development of energy, carbon and clean energy price models for the Australian and New Zealand markets as well as regional CDM/CER markets.    – Read more about the position here   Technical Expert – The Gold Standard Foundation The Beijing-based technical team member will be involved in project and methodology reviews, as well as the further development of The Gold Standard rules and procedures.    – Read more about the position here   Sales Manager, Zurich – South Pole Carbon Asset Management The sales manager will work with sales activities globally, acquiring new customers for VER offsetting, negotiating terms and contracts, and helping with marketing. Candidates should have strong sales background with 1-2 years of carbon markets experience.    – Read more about the position here   Emission Markets Broker – Karbone Karbone seeks a candidate to broker all classes of environmental market products such as RECs and carbon allowances in the North American market. A minimum 2 years of experience in these markets is desired.    – To Keep Their Water Flowing,Peruvians Put Money Into Mountains LIMA | Peru | 9 May 2012 | The Peruvian Andes have long supplied the country’s cities with clean mountain water, but climate change and rural encroachment are disrupting this once-reliable supply.   Indeed, the US State Department has identified impending water shortages here as a security threat with implications far beyond Latin America. The Ministry of Environment (MINAM) has responded with an innovative project designed to keep the water flowing by paying people in the Andes to maintain the watershed.   Launched in cooperation with Forest Trends (publisher of Ecosystem Marketplace) and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Watershed Services Incubator aims to develop financing mechanisms that can be used in Peru and exported to other cities around the world. It builds on the experiences of cities as diverse as New York City and Denver in the United States; Dar es Salaam in Tanzania; and the Latin American towns of Heredia in Costa Rica and Saltillo in Mexico. Each of these cities face water crises that are the result of man’s impact on nature, and each has embraced economic solutions designed to persuade people who benefit from clean water to pay people who deliver it.   The Watershed Services Incubator and MINAM will work to develop capacity within the Ministry to oversee such mechanisms, and then to identify a set of best practices that can be adopted by other agencies around the world. “The incubator of projects for watershed services is an opportunity for Peru to take a more comprehensive and systematic approach to the protection and management of watersheds, with the objectives of ensuring the provision of the environmental services watersheds provide, ensuring the conservation of watersheds and rewarding the good practices that conserve and manage watersheds,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Minister of the Environment of Peru. The Incubator is designed to foster a new wave of policies and projects that will provide incentives to upstream communities to preserve and protect the natural systems that are essential to watershed health and human well-being. These innovative financing mechanisms are designed to maximize the contribution of natural ecosystem processes in the provisioning of water— sustaining healthy watersheds while lowering the long-term costs and stresses associated with ever-increasing demands for freshwater. “Today, Peru has said that it will set an example for the world by committing to a national policy of taking on natural infrastructure approaches to address their water crisis,” said Michael Jenkins, president of Forest Trends. “The Incubator is designed to show how support at the national level can leverage ingenuity from local initiatives to create real solutions for one of the biggest challenges we face today—the protection of our natural water resources.” The Katoomba Incubator The Incubator model has already been used to develop forest carbon projects in Brazil and to help local communities across Latin America and Africa develop their own mechanisms for environmental finance. The Incubator also maintains a Rapid Response Team that has lent support to regulators in Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil – all of which are nations with high levels of forest cover and pressure for forest exploitation. In Ecuador, the Team brought in experts from the Environmental Law Center of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and RISAS, a Quito, Ecuador-based PES network for an open forum and closed-door meeting with Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment on how to use payments for ecosystem services and carbon trading to foster forest preservation. This is the Incubator’s first foray into water payments. The Swiss Tradition Payments for watershed services have a long history in Switzerland, and were pioneered there in the Middle Ages when low-lying communities first recognized the importance of maintaining healthy mountain catchments.   The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Government has a long history of pioneering innovation in water management and policy, including leading initiatives that address critical topics such as water conflict and diplomacy, sanitation needs, access to water, and poverty alleviation. SDC’s emphasis on sustainability, particularly with regards to sustainable water resource management, is reflected in the support for Forest Trends’ work with MINAM on “compensation for watershed services.” Compensating, or providing incentives for those whose actions serve to preserve the quantity and quality of water, changes the way in which water is valued and provides income for the rural communities who are managing the upper watersheds and clean water for urban centers downstream. “The Swiss Government is pleased to support the Government of Peru in their efforts towards the efficient integrated management of water resources as part of their national policy efforts and wishes MINAM the greatest success in the implementation of this important project,” said the Ambassador of the Switzerland Confederation in Peru, Madam Anne-Pascale Krauer Muller. The Incubator will build on experiences in Peru and internationally in using relevant innovative financing tools to value nature’s benefits – efforts such as those in Moyobamba (see sidebar, right), where the drinking water tariff was modified to incorporate the costs of protecting the watershed to assure a sustainable supply of clean water to the community. “These experiences highlight the importance of involving water users in managing watersheds, whether they are domestic, agricultural or industrial users,” says Marta Echavarrí­a, an expert on innovative finance for conservation who is leading Forest Trends’ efforts in Peru. “With their commitment, land-uses practices are improved to insure water quality and flow.”   Additional resources How Wonks and Bean-Counters are Helping to Save the Environment Peruvians Hope Nested Approach Today Will Halt Deforestation Tomorrow How Much for this Mountain Forest? Ecosystem Services in the New York City Watershed Water Trading: Costa Ricans Keep It Simple Zapalinamé: Connecting Cities and Watersheds in Mexico Why Denver Spends Water Fees on Trees Indigenous Tribe Wins Validation for Landmark Forest Carbon Project A Look at the Links Between Water, Food Security, and Ecosystems 22 March 2012 | Nine billion people are expected on Earth by 2050. That’s an extra two billion mouths to feed, or the equivalent of another Africa, North America, and Europe appearing on the planet. Pressure will intensify on agricultural lands and in turn on water resources, since water is a major constraint on the amount of food that a society can produce. What’s more, individual water footprints  are likely to grow: a recent report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Water Management Institute (IMWI) notes that if current trends of urbanization and changing dietary habits continue, water required for agriculture will increase between 70 and 90 percent by 2050. Yet 40 percent of the world’s population could be facing severe water scarcity by mid-century, according to just-released estimates from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Taken together, these numbers are troubling: on one side of the equation, more people each consuming more water; on the other, predictions of increasing drought, changing rainfall patterns, falling water tables, and shrinking rivers and lakes. The Environment and Food Production Climate change  and ecosystem degradation will only exacerbate scarcity of clean water. Around the world, aquifers are being overdrawn, soil nutrients depleted, and water resources polluted with eroded soils, little-treated waste, and agricultural fertilizers. These actions do not only limit agricultural productivity in the long run, they damage other functions of healthy ecosystems that societies depend on. Forests, grasslands, and wetlands, for example, can filter out water pollution, regulate stream flows, recharge aquifers, limit erosion, and absorb and store flooding. These benefits are collectively known as “watershed services,” and society can’t do without them. A  healthy environment can also support soil nutrient cycling, the insects and birds that pollinate our crops, and the biodiverse ecosystems that offers resilience against agricultural pests and disease, a changing climate, and other system shocks. Around the world, ecosystem services like these are in crisis. We will experience as much as a 25 percent gap  between food supply and demand by mid-century from ecosystem service degradation (biodiversity, soil nutrient loss and soil erosion, declining storage capacity, vulnerability to pests and disease due to monoculture). UNEP/IMWI estimate  that we’re losing five to ten million hectares of agriculture land every year to degradation. What’s more, these problems aren’t evenly distributed. Developing countries are both disproportionately vulnerable to climate change and disproportionately dependent on agriculture. And global water scarcity particularly threatens women, who are often responsible for collection and food production, and at greater risk for malnutrition when food is scarce.  But this means also that better management of water-food-ecosystem linkages holds tremendous potential for poverty alleviation and benefits for women. Farming for the Future As UNEP/IMWI argue in Ecosystems for Water and Food Security, these challenges require a global shift to managing agroecosystems, not agriculture. An ecosystems approach to water and food security  means “growing” both food and ecosystem services like pollination, adequate infiltration to the water table, or soil nutrient cycling. It also means investing in our natural water infrastructure that can deliver clean, ample water supplies cost-effectively and sustainably. And, as FAO notes, the agricultural sector can grow more food with less water, through more efficient irrigation and less water-intensive crops, water reuse and alternative supplies (such as treated wastewater), and rainwater harvesting. – Stay tuned for updates: we’ll continue to cover World Water Day over the course of the day. – Visit the official website of World Water Day to learn more about the water-food security challenge. Additional resources Value: Counting Ecosystems as Water Infrastructure Harvesting Investment Funds for Sustainable Agriculture This Week in Biodiversity: A Candidate Species Marketplace Gains Steam NOTE: This article has been reprinted from Ecosystem Marketplace’s Mitigation Mail newsletter. You can receive this summary of global news and views from the world of biodiversity automatically in your inbox here.   March 21 |  At Ecosystem Marketplace, we’ve been following with interest recent developments in candidate species conservation banking. A ‘candidate species’ is a species that’s recognized as at-risk but not yet officially listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened or endangered.     Last week, the Department of Interior opened up a public comment period seeking input on whether and how regulators should allow “advance mitigation,” wherein a landowner’s actions to protect candidate species habitat could count as an offset later on if the species is ultimately listed. Advance mitigation would give private landowners incentives for conservation and drive a potentially significant candidate species marketplace in the US. Keep reading for more details on the public comment period and a story about a candidate species pilot already underway.   We’d also like to draw your attention to a new venture from the Ecosystem Marketplace team,  Watershed Connect.  Watershed Connect is a collaborative platform focusing on  payments for watershed services, water quality and environmental water markets, and other innovative financing mechanisms for protecting natural water infrastructure. It  offers practitioners, decision-makers, and other actors the latest news, resources, collaborative tools, and project information. Take a look and please let us know what you think!   Finally, if you value your monthly MitMail dispatch, consider supporting us with a donation! It allows us to keep the lights on and our news briefs to keep coming, free of charge. Individuals or organizations donating $150 or more are listed in the newsletter sidebar as “Supporting Subscribers” for a year. —The Ecosystem Marketplace Team If you have comments or would like to submit news stories, write to us at[email protected]. Building the New Candidate Species Marketplace The US Department of the Interior last week initiated a public comment period on proposed rulemaking on incentives for voluntary wildlife conservation on private lands, including the creation of a new “Candidate Species Marketplace” that focuses on at-risk – but not yet officially protected – species. As envisioned, a new type of conservation banking agreement would provide assurances to landowners that voluntary actions to protect candidate species habitat would count toward offsets if the species is later listed under the Endangered Species Act. The US Fish & Wildlife Service is already supporting these actions under a $33 million initiative. But with a 2016 deadline for listing decisions on hundreds of species looming, demand for regulatory certainty is likely to be enormous.   A new pilot led by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Advanced Conservation Strategies (ACS) is already exploring the potential for candidate conservation banking, including key lessons learned about the nature of supply, demand, and transaction infrastructure when it comes to candidate species. The project, which aims to develop incentives for voluntary conservation of gopher tortoise habitat in the Southern US forests, offers a preview of a candidate marketplace in action. – Read about the WRI/ACS pilot at Ecosystem Marketplace. – Read the press release about Interior’s proposed rulemaking and submit your comments. – Read the notice in the Federal Register. Labels, Markets, and the Law: Salmon Scores a Triple   On the West Coast of the United States, a coalition of organizations developing tools for environmental finance and an eco-labeling group are working together to layer the carrot of financial incentives onto the stick of regulation. The coalition is the Willamette Partnership; the eco-labeling group is Salmon Safe; and they’ve dubbed their project the “Incentives Trifecta” – so-named because it uses eco-labels to drive consumer demand, ecosystem markets to provide additional income, and regulatory assurances to provide a degree of security.   – Get the full story at Ecosystem Marketplace. ‘Watershed Connect’ Platform Promotes Watershed Payments Mechanisms Last week at the 6th World Water Forum, Forest Trends launched its newest venture, Watershed Connect, a platform that aims to foster projects using innovative financing models to invest in natural water infrastructure. Watershed Connect tracks the latest news, practice, and resources in the worlds of payments for watershed services, water quality trading, and environmental water markets. The platform is part of a larger Forest Trends initiative to scale up watershed payments as a solution to the global water crisis, and to convene a community of practice around the model. “Conversations about investing in watershed services have tended to be cordoned off by sector or watershed,” says Dr. Jan Cassin, the director of the project behind Watershed Connect. “Watershed Connect will allow us to overcome that obstacle and bring these approaches to the scale we need to meet the global water crisis.” – Visit Watershed Connect. – Read a press release. Indigenous Groups Launch Ground-Breaking Environmental Regime   As the Brazilian state of Acre rolls out its ambitious legal framework, System of Incentives for Environmental Services (Sistema de Incentivo a Serviços Ambientais, or “SISA”), it’s beginning with indigenous groups because of their unique relationship with the land. The state has spent the last two years engaging indigenous leaders – both to explain the goals of the program and to seek input on how to best implement it. “This is a chance to work with the state, rather than to sit back while the state runs and manages everything,” says Jose Ninawí¡, a member of the Kaxinawí¡ and president of the Huni Kuin Indigenous Federation. “We need the support and partnership of the state, but the state also needs us if this effort is to be sustainable.”   – Get the full story. Small Businesses Get Credit for Biodiversity in Central America The Central American Markets for Biodiversity (CAMBio) program has launched a new credit guarantee program through the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE). BCIE will offer $1.49 million in credit gurarantees for local bank loans to small, micro- and medium-sized enterprises with biodiversity-friendly operations. The program will be active in banks across Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. – Learn more at IISD. – Read a press release (in Spanish). When Standardized Monitoring is Bad Monitoring   Much to-do has been made over how to include biodiversity safeguards under a REDD+ regime and ensuring that impacts are monitored. But a new article in the Tropical Conservation Society journal makes a case against developing a standard protocol to monitoring biodiversity in REDD+ projects. Given wide diversity of project settings and conservation goals, “No single monitoring method is likely to be optimal, or even suitable for use, in all REDD+ forests,” write the authors. Instead, they propose an approach tailored to site-specific ecological objectives, appropriate indicators, and local knowledge.   – Access the article here. Introducing the “Grandma Test” Becca Madsen of Madsen Environmental is on the soapbox at Ecosystem Commons this week asking for examples of effective communication around ecosystem services (ES). When addressing the general public, concepts like ES, environmental valuation, or mitigation can be hard to explain: “I still have a hard time telling my grandma what I do,” Madsen writes. She offers a few examples of good ES communication (including the Nature Conservancy, Restore America’s Estuaries, and Hí¤agan-Dazs) and asks for others. – Jump into the discussion at Ecosystem Commons. Diversifying Marine Conservation Finance   An initiative in French Polynesia to establish a network of marine management areas (MMA) and their ecosystem services offers a useful model to securing long-term financing. Despite a strong management plan, limited funding was available for implementation. And though tourism is a major economic driver in the area, local NGO PGEM was wary of relying on just one funding mechanism. “We were compelled to explain that sustainable financing of the MMA would only be possible if it relies on diverse mechanisms and economic sectors,” says Mahe Charles, who led a study to identify a range of public and private financing sources, including user fees, taxes, donations, and establishing a regional trust fund.   – Learn more at Earth Collective. France Takes on Bio-Perverse Incentives The French Centre for Strategic Analysis recently convened an expert group to look at taxes and subsidies detrimental to the country’s biodiversity. Public Incentives That Harm Biodiversity takes a wide-ranging look at inadvertent drivers of biodiversity loss and offers recommendations for reforming subsidies in the land-use planning, transportation, water, agriculture, and industrial sectors. The consultation also highlighted the need for better reporting and assessment, including assigning “the same weight and the same degree of precision to impacts on biodiversity as that accorded to greenhouse gases.” A summary is available in English. – Download the summary (pdf). – Access the full report (in French). US MITIGATION NEWS   California Regulators Freeze Mitigation Banking Proposal Approvals Last week the California Department of Fish & Game (DFG) announced that it will not review or approve any new mitigation banking proposals due to budget constraints until further funding is secured. DFG also expects that it will be unable to handle approval of major amendments to existing agreements, though the department says it can sign agreements “close” to approval. – Read more at RMM Environmental Law. Washington to Protect its Trees with In-Lieu Fees   In Washington, a new bill has been sent to Gov. Chris Gregoire that channels in-lieu fees to state environmental agencies if no other mitigation option exists. Project developers lacking any other avenue for compliance can now make payments to the Department of Natural Resources and the Recreation and Conservation Office to fund conservation easement programs on forest land and in riparian buffer zones. The new change is hoped to generate some much-needed cash for programs that support conservation by small forest landowners. ““This bill has the opportunity to help fund what the state has failed to be able to fund so far,” Washington Farm Forestry Association Executive Director Rick Dunning said.     – Read more at the Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle. – Read House Bill 2238. $250 Million to Offset Levee Projects in New Orleans   The Army Corps of Engineers says that about $250 million will be spent on environmental restoration in the New Orleans area to repair damages from constructing levees. An estimated 2,143 acres of habitat damage must be offset. Bottomland hardwood and swamp projects are already tentatively planned with two private wetland mitigation banks, while the Corps aims to develop another four restoration projects itself. Corps officials are also currently identifying other projects to fund in the Lake Pontchartrain basin and the Barataria basins on the east and west sides of the Missisippi River. Final selection of projects is pending completion of an ongoing public comment process.   – Learn more at the Times-Picayune. Lexington Rolls out Conservation & Mitigation Banking Insurance   Lexington Insurance Company announced last week that it’s introducing insurance coverage for conservation and mitigation banks in the US. LexEcoBank’s can cover losses both before and after a banking instrument is executed; payments under the policy are determined on an agreed value basis. “Investment returns suffer if habitat credit sales are delayed as a result of direct physical loss or damage to the habitat that reduces its ecological value,” says Erik Nikodem, Senior Vice President and Property Division Executive of Lexington. “LexEcoBank was developed to protect both the property and the habitat credits.”   – Read a press release. Mitigation Roundup   Alaska just welcomed one of its first wetland mitigation banks, the Pioneer Mitigation Bank serving part of the Lower Susitna watershed . Credits are being brokered by Mitigation Solutions USA. Meanwhile, just in time for spring we’re hearing about lots of new mitigation banks, including East Bay Farms LLC’s newly-authorized Gulf Coastal Plains Wetland Mitigation Bank and two new projects planned in New Jersey from GreenVest LLC.     JOB LISTINGS   Chief of Party (CoP) Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Sustainable Landscapes Programs in Central America   Winrock International Winrock is seeking dynamic, highly-qualified Chief of Party (CoP) candidates for various anticipated multi-year USAID-funded Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Sustainable Landscape regional and country programs in Central America. We anticipate that these programs will strengthen the capacity of target countries in Central America to achieve meaningful and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the forestry-land use sector, and allow these countries to benefit from the emerging international REDD+ framework. These programs will also focus efforts on biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation within the context of a series of interventions targeting key landscapes.   – Learn more. Environmental Conservation Economist   The Nature Conservancy The Environmental Conservation Economist works as part of the Conservation Action Team to craft economic strategies for The Nature Conservancy’s work on Long Island today and over the next decade.The Economist will work to mainstream the economics of nature into everyday decisions and works with policy staff to develop long term solutions that will spur new investments in sustainability. He/She will ensure that the private and public sectors understand and value the benefits and services from nature. He/She is familiar with the science behind ecosystem-based adaptation and resilience strategies and makes economic policy recommendations that are science based.   – Learn more. EVENTS   Webinar: Introduction to Biodiversity Offsetting   In its 2011 White Paper, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) outlined the government’s vision for the natural environment for the next 50 years. This included a commitment to establish a new voluntary approach to biodiversity offsetting in England, and to test this in a number of pilot areas. This webinar introduces the viewer to biodiversity offsetting, its potential to deliver planning policy requirements for compensation for biodiversity loss, and the pilot projects launching later this year. 27 March 2012. Online   – Learn more. SAC-SEPA Biennial conference: Valuing Ecosystems: Policy, Economic and Management Interactions This conference will seek to present not only the best possible scientific understanding of the complexities associated with the delivery of multiple ecosystem services but also provide a forum to raise and discuss what still needs to be done to have an ecosystem approach recognised and supported by land managers, researchers and policy makers. 3-4 April 2012. Edinburgh, Scotland. – Learn more. UNU interactive seminar: Assessing biodiversity and ecosystem services   Scientific assessment serves as a structured, focused process designed to connect science with policy, providing information on plausible alternative futures, identifying policy options and contributing to international processes on environment and development. In this seminar, Professors Kazuhiko Takeuchi and Koji Nakamura, co-editors of the recently published UNU Press book Satoyama-Satoumi Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Socio-Ecological Production Landscapes of Japan, will explore the role of assessments in biodiversity and ecosystem services — and in particular, the experiences of the Japan Satoyama Satoumi Assessment (JSSA) and the recent International Science Workshop on Assessments for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). 11 April 2012. Tokyo, Japan.   – Learn more. Second Session of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Plenary Meeting   During the first session of the plenary meeting on IPBES,held from 3 to 7 October 2011 in Nairobi, participants made considerable progress in determining the platform’s modalities and institutional arrangements. It is anticipated that the second session will make decisions on the modalities and institutional arrangements for IPBES and agree on an initial work programme of IPBES. Deadline for registration is 31 January 2012. 16-21 April 2012. Panama City, Panama.   – Learn more. European Biodiversity Summit   The European Biodiversity Summit is the major event within the European Business & Biodiversity Campaign. This 2-day event is the only platform on sustainability & biodiversity in Europe with such a distinct focus on business. It shows with practical examples how business can seize biodiversity opportunities and provides the latest information on biodiversity valuation, new EU regulations and the link to climate change. 17-18 April 2012. Stuttgart, Germany.     – Learn more. Biodiversity Without Boundaries Conference   The annual NatureServe Conservation & Natural Heritage Conference, “Biodiversity Without Boundaries” will be held in Portland, OR April 22-26, 2012. Ecosystem services is one of the featured topics on the agenda, which will include a full day of sessions and workshops on this theme. 22-26 April 2012. Portland OR.   – Learn more. National Mitigation & Ecosystem Banking Conference   The only national conference that brings together key players in this industry, and offers quality hands-on sessions and important regulatory updates. Learn from & network with the 400+ attendees the conference draws, offering perspectives from bankers, regulators, and users. 8-11 May 2012. Sacramento CA.   – Learn more. 2012 Yale Conservation Finance Camp   The 6th annual Yale Conservation Finance Camp will be held at Yale University, Monday, June 4 through Friday, June 8, 2012. The course offers the latest information on a wide range of innovative conservation finance tools, including new sources of philanthropic funds, public capital and private investment, as well as a framework for analyzing and packaging them. The camp is focused on useful, hands-on tools for conservation practitioners and board members, foundation leaders, private investors and graduate students. This highly interactive course is limited to 20 participants. Registration is on a first-come-first-served basis. For further information and a participant application please contact Amy Badner at [email protected] or visit the camp webpage. 4-8 June 2012. New Haven, CT.   – Learn more. Workshop: Regulatory and Institutional Frameworks for Markets for Ecosystem Services   This workshop seeks to contribute to research and learning on the law and policy on ecosystems services by focusing on the regulatory and institutional challenges in creating markets for ecosystems services. The workshop goal is to enable outcome-oriented interaction between experts, innovators, and front-end users of these evolving market models to learn about recent progress, what strategies can be adopted to encourage cross-learning between different models for regulatory and institutional frameworks, and how to design new institutional and regulatory mechanisms that can help preserve ecosystem services? The workshop will enable the development of collaborative projects between participants on the elaboration of methodological tools for the development of regulatory and institutional frameworks for ecosystems services. 6 June 2012 – 7 June 2012. University of Surrey, UK.   – Learn more. ACES and Ecosystem Markets 2012   ACES and Ecosystem Markets 2012 is an international collaboration of three dynamic communities – A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES), the Ecosystem Markets Conference, and the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP). The conference will provide an open forum to share experiences and state-of-the-art methods, tools, and processes for assessing and incorporating ecosystem services into public and private decisions. The focus of the conference will be to link science, practice, institutions and resource sustainable decision making by bringing together ecosystem services communities from around the United States and the globe. The deadline for proposals is rapidly approaching (April 6th). 10-12 December 2012. Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA.   – Learn more. – Submit a proposal.   Water Trading Can Save BillionsOn Chesapeake Bay Cleanup: Study 8 May 2012 | As waterbodies go, the Chesapeake Bay is a fragile thing.   It’s only 21 feet deep on average and covers just 4,500 square miles, but dirty water gushes into it from farms, factories, towns, and cities spread across more than 64,000 square miles in six states and Washington, DC. With that water comes a suffocating 250 million pounds of nitrogen per year, as well as 20 million pounds of phosphorus, and the result is a national treasure full of rotting seaweed and bacteria, with only the occasional fish or clam. The federal government has ordered the Bay states to clean up their act, and that won’t be cheap. The Chesapeake Bay Commission says it will cost $1.47 billion per year just to get runoff down to a manageable level – unless they embrace water-quality trading (WQT), and in a big way. In a study published this week entitled in “Nutrient Credit Trading for the Chesapeake Bay”, the Commission says WQT can slash costs as much as 80% – a savings of $1.2 billion per year across the watershed – but only if WQT programs change dramatically from the way they are structured right now. Widen the Scope; Expand the Savings Four Bay states are experimenting with WQT, but the only entities that can buy credits in any of those programs are cities and factories designated as “Significant point sources” (SigPS) – a designation that doesn’t include stormwater runoff from cities and “concentrated animal feeding operations” (CAFO). The new study models the potential cost savings under different project designs that include CAFOs and stormwater managers as offset buyers, and that look at programs structured according to geography compared to those structured according to jurisdiction. It concludes that the greatest savings come when a program covers the most territory and the most sectors – and that the savings to be gained by expanding to include new sectors outweighs by far the savings to be gained by ratcheting up the degree of participation within sectors already covered. We’ll be posting a deep-dive on this later in the week, but you can explore it on your own in here (and feel free to contact me at [email protected] if have any insights you’d like to add. Please see our Reprint Guidelines for details on republishing our articles. Additional resources Download the Report Water Trading: The Basics Candidate Species Banking: Insights from a Pilot Initiative The US Department of the Interior is proposing rulemaking on incentives for voluntary wildlife conservation on private lands, including the creation of a new “Candidate Species Marketplace”  that focuses on at-risk – but not yet officially protected – species. A new pilot led by the World Resources Institute and Advanced Conservation Strategies  explores the potential for candidate conservation banking.   This article has been adapted from the World Resources Institute’s Insight Brief “Candidate Species” Marketplace Can Help Protect Gopher Tortoise Habitat.” You can read it in its entirety here. 20 March 2012 | Hundreds of imperiled wildlife species across the country are candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), yet landowners currently have very little financial incentive to protect them.   WRI’s new issue brief, Insights from the Field: Forests for Species and Habitat, released jointly with Advanced Conservation Strategies, details the insights from a pilot market-based initiative to conserve one such candidate species, the gopher tortoise, and the southern forests on which it relies. This pilot can serve as a model for conservation across the country, most notably for other ESA candidate species like the lesser prairie chicken and greater sage grouse (see box).   With 87 percent of southern forests currently in private ownership, protecting candidate species like the gopher tortoise and its habitat requires an innovative approach. However, these landowners often lack the necessary financial and technical resources to manage their land for declining wildlife. In addition, landowners are often concerned about potential land use constraints associated with these species being present on their properties.   A recent court settlement requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make initial or final listing decisions on hundreds of candidate species by September 2016. As USFWS accelerates listing decisions in the next few years, landowners with candidate species on their land face considerable uncertainty in their land-use planning.   How does a candidate conservation marketplace work? A candidate conservation marketplace is a scalable, voluntary, and science-based market mechanism to spur conservation for imperiled species prior to their listing under the ESA. This approach may allow federal and private project developers, such as solar, wind and natural gas developers, to manage their environmental risk by investing in conservation on private lands in return for regulatory certainty from the USFWS.   That’s why WRI, Advanced Conservation Strategies, the American Forest Foundation, the Longleaf Alliance, and other partners are developing the demand, supply, and transactional infrastructure for such a marketplace through a pilot initiative in the nonfederally listed range of the gopher tortoise in the southern forests of the United States.   Here is how the gopher tortoise candidate conservation marketplace is being designed and piloted:   An interested and eligible private landowner (the “seller”) receives a negotiated payment to conserve, sustainably manage, or restore longleaf pine forests capable of supporting healthy populations of gopher tortoises on his or her property. In so doing, the landowner generates gopher tortoise habitat credits.   The entity paying the landowner (the “buyer”) receives the habitat credits in return. The buyer may use the credits to offset the impact on gopher tortoise habitat elsewhere, in order to meet a voluntary net zero biodiversity impact commitment. Or, the buyer can save the credits for later use to meet offset requirements if and when the species is listed under the ESA. Other buyers may purchase credits simply to spur gopher tortoise conservation.   A gopher tortoise habitat credit is the currency that can be bought and sold. The number of credits on a parcel of land is determined via a science-based and peer-reviewed method, currently under development, to ensure a net conservation benefit for the tortoise when used as offsets for future impacts. The credit price includes funds to manage and monitor the habitat in perpetuity, along with a negotiated profit margin for the seller. The USFWS approves the crediting methodology and maintains agreements with buyers and sellers. The agency may also provide federal-level assurances or certainty to both the buyer and seller. This regulatory certainty allows buyers to preemptively buy credits that can be used toward offsetting future impacts if the species were to be listed. The USFWS could also provide assurances to the seller against any future regulation for net conservation actions undertaken that go beyond the habitat credits sold. Insights from the pilot initiative   WRI’s new issue brief focuses on an ongoing pilot initiative in Georgia and Alabama called the Gopher Tortoise Candidate Conservation Marketplace. Initial pilot transactions are intended to take place in 2012. Pilot partners are working with the U.S. Army, which is trying to proactively manage gopher tortoise habitats before federal listing under the ESA becomes necessary and potentially leads to a loss of training grounds.   The following are some of the lessons learned: Demand   Regulatory certainty is crucial. Because purchase of candidate conservation credits will be voluntary, the primary incentive driving demand is regulatory certainty that those credits will satisfy mitigation requirements for future land use activities if the species is listed. Early mitigation makes sense. Early pre-compliance action and mitigation saves time and money by identifying and implementing preapproved conservation measures and outcomes, identifying willing sellers, increasing flexibility in meeting conservation needs, and simplifying the regulatory compliance process and associated paperwork. Focus on major buyers. Identifying potential buyers that anticipate reasonably large impacts to species and habitats over the foreseeable future is an important first step to lining up potential investors in candidate conservation credits. Supply   Understand what landowners want. To meaningfully engage landowners, focus groups and survey research can help to ensure the marketplace is designed so that landowners perceive having candidate species on their property as an asset as opposed to a liability. Invest in parcel prioritization and woodland owner education. Spatial prioritization analysis and targeted outreach and education to the landowner community are important for energizing the supply side of the candidate conservation market. Up-front financing may be necessary. Private landowners may need initial financing to cover up-front costs associated with conservation efforts before credits are sold. This financing could be provided by revolving lines of credit, habitat performance bonds, program-related investments, and other structured transactions. Transactional Infrastructure   Use a broker model. An independent market broker may create efficiencies and economies of scale by facilitating the buying and selling of credits, managing the financial transactions, providing liquidity in the market, verifying and monitoring credits, and managing the potential default of credits. Balance precision with practicality. Crediting and debiting methods need to be designed to create a net conservation benefit that is scientifically sound and verifiable, while maintaining simplicity and scalability to ensure its adoption, timely implementation, and concurrent conservation benefits. Concluding thoughts   The gopher tortoise candidate conservation marketplace is testing an innovative approach to provide financial incentives and technical assistance to private landowners who manage their woodlands for habitat and candidate species. Interest in similar programs, most notably focused on the lesser prairie chicken and greater sage grouse, is rapidly growing in the private, public, and nongovernmental organization sectors as changes in land use across the country spark new challenges in balancing ecosystem management with residential and commercial development, national security, energy infrastructure, and climate change issues. Although still in the development stage, insights from this pilot could inform the successful design and implementation of other candidate conservation incentive programs leading to healthier forests and ecosystems throughout the United States.   Todd Gartner is a Senior Associate for the World Resources Institute’s People and Ecosystems Program Josh Donlan is Founder & Director of Advanced Conservation Strategies. James Mulligan is a consultant with the World Resources Institute. This article originally appeared on the WRI Web Site.  Please cite the original in references and consult them for information on reprinting.     References   Hanson, C., L. Yonavjak, C. Clarke, S. Minnemeyer, L. Boisrobert, A. Leach, and K. Schleeweis. 2010. Southern Forests for the Future. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.   U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2011. The Candidate Conservation Process.   World Resources Institute. 2012.  Insights from the Field: Forests for Species and Habitat Additional resources Backgrounder: US Conservation Banking Linking Smallholders to Modern Markets Picking up flowers at the supermarket is an easy task for the average consumer, but the journey that those flowers take to get on those shelves is complicated.  For most smallholder farmers, this means their products will never end up on those shelves.  But a new project from the International Institute for Economics and Development is trying to change that. This article has been adapted from the Linking Smallholders to Modern Markets. You can read it in its entirety here. 19 March 2011 | In 2008, Wilfred Kamami’s family-run business was already challenging the model of Kenyan flower exports from huge commercial farms. Wilmar Agro Limited exports cut flowers from 4,000 smallholder growers to the Dutch auction market. Once a farmer himself, Kamami invests in his growers, by enabling access to bank accounts for each grower, by using transparent pricing and payment models, and through technical support for sustainable production of flowers on mixed smallholder farms. This inclusive business model was attracting farmers across Kenya, for whom high value cash crops can secure a livelihood on small, subdivided farm holdings. But business growth was limited by the wholesale market. With prices based on supply and demand, more growers and more volumes meant lower prices. Kamami needed to sidestep the Dutch auction’s monopoly and take more direct routes to flower supermarkets in order to expand his business. IIED set out to support Kamami in finding those routes. In a pilot project for the New Business Models for Sustainable Trading Relationships programme, Wilmar supplied (and continues to supply) flowers from small-scale Kenyan growers directly to UK and US supermarkets. Consultant Steve Homer, a longtime IIED collaborator with substantial commercial experience in selling smallholder products to retailers, was the project’s commercial partner. Homer in turn contracted William van Bragt, who has long worked in the flower industry. Homer, van Bragt and IIED together served a role we call ‘ethical agents’ — enabling collaboration along supply chains and improving poor producers’ lives by injecting knowledge, building relationships and aligning interests, rather than handling the product. Working with Wilmar, Rainforest Alliance and Walmart’s UK subsidiary, ASDA, the IIED team developed the first smallholder flower bouquets with the Rainforest Alliance sustainability certification. In 2010, the Kenyan bouquets hit ASDA shelves and consumer shopping bags. But Wilmar soon had problems supplying flowers that consistently met the retailer’s exacting requirements. After 15 weeks, ASDA ended the pilot project. It was clear that satisfying supermarket buyers is a big jump from supplying the auction market. The bouquet business demanded specific varieties and volumes, in the right ratios, on schedule, all at uniform length and maturity — and with enough smallholder content to get the Rainforest Alliance sticker. The team was learning about the stark transition from supplying the Dutch auctions — a ‘push’ market where the company sends a relatively undifferentiated product at wholesale volumes to meet minimal requirements — to a retail ‘pull’ market that tolerates no deviation from pre-agreed volumes and specifications. To smooth this transition, Wilmar could use the support of ethical agents to help adapt products and processes for the new ‘pull’ markets while being conscious of the impacts on the business and smallholders. First, IIED and van Bragt renegotiated the Rainforest Alliance certification standard. Now bouquets were allowed to contain fewer smallholder-grown flowers, allowing for substitution when smallholder production was unable to meet the requirements. The team also arranged for Wilmar to sell bunches of single flower varieties, which could be packed in Kenya to add value locally. Drawn by the ASDA pilot, the US retailer Sam’s Club, another Walmart subsidiary, began purchasing these certified ‘consumer bunches’ as well as a limited number of bouquets. The innovation in products meant that Wilmar’s capabilities could better match their customers’ needs, with smallholder growers supplying the same or greater volumes. The ethical agents worked with Sam’s Club to fine tune the bouquets to the capacity of the supplier, while helping Wilmar strengthen their systems and communications. With the product and process improvements, Wilmar has been supplying 100 Sam’s Club stores since July 2011. The ethical agents provided support and opened doors at many levels of the supply chain. Their commercial knowledge and connections enabled Homer and van Bragt to create new retail opportunities, build Wilmar’s capacity, negotiate terms of supply, and encourage flexibility from the buyer. Ethical agents — with their network of relationships and ‘insider’ knowledge — were crucial in engaging retailers, cultivating their interest in a new business opportunity that is more than corporate social responsibility. In negotiations over the Rainforest Alliance certification, IIED could credibly communicate how inflexible certification was hurting growers, while van Bragt described expectations at the retail end of the chain. IIED also introduced systems to monitor the fairness of trading relationships along the chain. At the end of the project, the agents could step back knowing a commercially viable supply chain was in place. Going forward, IIED will apply lessons from this project to a variety of other efforts to link small-scale producers with demanding formal markets — in agriculture, textiles, energy, mining and payments for ecosystem services. Different as these sectors are, understanding the network support and expertise needed to succeed in more demanding or formal markets is key. In the four years of the project, the IIED team has revised strategies again and again. We moved from bouquets to single varieties; from niche supply of development products to mainstream supply of innovative products; and from ‘off the shelf’ certification to tailored, flexible certification. Had we kept to a rigid plan, we couldn’t have responded to unexpected challenges and opportunities. For any project testing new business models, flexibility is key to success Bill Vorley is the principal researcher at IIED’s Sustainable Markets Group and team leader for market governance and business models. He can be reached at [email protected]. Abbi Buxton is a researcher with IIED’s Sustainable Markets Group. She can be reached at [email protected]. This article originally appeared on the IIED Web Site. Please cite the original in references and consult them for information on reprinting. Additional resources Download the Original Labels, Markets, and the Law: Salmon Scores a Triple Ecosystem markets and eco-labeling both aim to incentivize good environmental behavior, and now they’ve been combined into the “Incentives Trifecta”, which aims to promote good stewardship of salmon habitat by using eco-labels to drive consumer demand, ecosystem markets to provided additional income, and regulatory assurances to provide a degree of security. 12 March 2012 |  One of the trickiest aspects in the world of environmental markets is encouraging people to get involved – an activity that usually employs a combination of carrots and sticks. On the West Coast of the United States, a coalition of organizations developing tools for environmental finance and an eco-labeling group are working together to layer the carrot of financial incentives onto the stick of regulation. The coalition is the Willamette Partnership; the eco-labeling group is Salmon Safe; and they’ve dubbed their project the “Incentives Trifecta” – so-named because it uses eco-labels to drive consumer demand, ecosystem markets to provide additional income, and regulatory assurances to provide a degree of security. Basically, a homeowner will have the opportunity to incorporate practices on their land that will enable them to qualify for both the Salmon-Safe certification and the Willamette Partnership’s Counting on the Environment (COTE) ecosystem credits using a efficient verification process to keep it simple. When it comes to layering different incentives on one piece of land, questions often arise around double dipping. These two organizations, however, think they have found the right approach – and so do the regulators – because the organizations are not proposing layering two different kinds of credits. Instead, they’re using ecosystem credits to support the creation of a certified commodity. A Partnership Built on Mutual Strengths To further their work and ensure that all projects are location-specific, Salmon-Safe and Willamette actively seek partnerships with complementary organizations. The focus of Salmon-Safe’s work has long been certification programs that emphasize watershed management practices that positively impact and restore the ecosystems that allow wild salmon to thrive. Their purview is wherever a salmon habitat exists along the West Coast, which includes British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. With a small staff at the headquarters in Oregon, much of the outreach and certification is performed through partners. “That is something I really love to tell growers because I can assure them that Salmon Safe is not trying to create an organizational empire,” says Kevin Scribner who leads Salmon-Safe agriculture outreach in mid-Columbia Basin and advises Salmon-Safe on special projects. “What we are trying to do as well is to culture in place-based partners.” The Willamette Partnership brings together a diverse group of people to increase the “pace, scope, and effectiveness of conservation.” Since 2004, the primary focus has been to actively support the development of ecosystem markets or market based approaches to restoration. Through COTE, the Willamette Partnership is developing the tools, credit protocols, and market infrastructure for a functioning ecosystem marketplace in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Willamette continues to pursue perspectives and support from organizations, government agencies, and individuals to further develop the program. “We take a partnership approach because we feel that including more people with more diverse thoughts and perspectives ultimately leads to better outcomes,” says Harmony Burright, an intern with the Willamette Partnership. One of the Partnership’s first projects focused on the development of a water quality trading program, developed using a 2007 grant from the EPA. The Partnership built metrics and tools to help groups meet clean water regulatory requirements, manage risk associated with clean water projects, and provide transparency through the entire process. “That required a lot of work just to get that up and running,” says Burright. These tools are being used in pilots and by utility districts who want to utilize innovative approaches to meet their clean water act requirements. The metrics from Willamette have expanded beyond water, with only two of the seven current metrics relating directly to water. The COTE program utilizes these metrics to either generate credits or to measure and monitor ecological outcomes of different practices. “Counting on the Environment, I think, is best represented as a Suite of Tools,” says Burright. “They can be used towards any number of things.” Such as establishing baseline conditions, monitoring ecological conditions, and generating ecosystem credits. When Scribner was working on river restoration and salmon recovery in the Walla Walla river basin, he heard about Willamette’s suite of tools. “I was very intrigued by this new world of ecosystem services, and markets, and credits,” he says. “I have an appreciation for what the market can do.” So he invited himself to COTE meetings. “At that time, I was really trying to see if what they were developing could be relevant for the Walla Walla watershed,” he says. But through that process, he got to know Bobby Cochran, the Executive Director of the Willamette Partnership. With the prompting of the NRCS Innovation grant opportunity, the two organizations began thinking of how they could bring their interests together. Both organizations were market-focused as well as interested in engaging with regulatory agencies. “We realized that we had a common interest that then gave rise to the incentives trifecta,” says Scribner. “We are just really excited about that.” Cochran was specifically interested in how incentive tools can be used more effectively, by layering different market-based incentives programs and by offering regulatory assurances. The question became how to leverage the different tools to gain efficiencies in the regulatory processes to ensure it is a user-friendly process for landowners. With these goals in mind, they pursued this grant to examine how the two programs can complement each other and ultimately increase the number of producers participating in the COTE and Salmon-Safe programs as well as accelerate the adoption rate of conservation practices by these producers. From the start, the two saw the possibility for COTE to be a potential alternative funding source for Salmon-Safe participants as well as demonstrate the measured ecological outcomes of the practices. “That’s really important as we look more seriously at how these different programs can be used to gain regulatory acknowledgement or assurances for landowners,” says Burright. Salmon-Safe and the Willamette Partnership completed the first deliverable for the NRCS grant earlier this year. The first stage in the grant focused on the technical aspect of how the two organizations can work and changes that might be necessary. “Just through looking at our respective programs, and trying to figure out where those synergies are, we found that we complement each other very well and we actually don’t need to make that many modifications to our program to use them together,” says Burright. “Rather than having to completely re-tool our programs to make sure they fit together, it’s just a matter of working together more closely and becoming familiar with each other’s tools and promoting these different incentives.” In a sense, the COTE metrics will provide an aspect to the Salmon Safe process that has been lacking in the past—i.e., the scientific metrics required in the regulatory process. “We confirmed in our research in comparing the two strategies that COTE can provide some of the more rigorous baseline and trends monitoring data that is not customarily a part of what Salmon-Safe develops,” says Scribner. “What we have heard particularly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the past is that NOAA respects and endorses the Salmon-Safe standards… but what they are missing when they are looking at the certification process is just the baseline information and the trends monitoring…” Moving forward, the two organizations will have to continue to refine how the different metrics will be used on different lands. By the end of the grant, the goal is to utilize the merged metrics and regulatory assurances—known collectively as a Salmon-Safe Plus program—on 10 different properties in the Willamette and Walla Walla regions. The lessons they learn on these properties can then be applied to a broader geography. As they apply the merged metrics to different lands, they will cross train verifiers to ensure that both the Salmon-Safe standards and COTE metrics are being used effectively—and that the process is efficient for landowners. Bring on the Regulators! As Scribner noted, this verification piece will be even more important when regulatory assurances or acknowledgements are bundled with these incentives. Before this project began, Salmon-Safe and NOAA were already building a relationship. NOAA provided feedback during the development of the Salmon-Safe standards. In addition, the community in Walla Walla was in conversations with USFWS and NOAA while working on developing a watershed-wide habitat conservation plan. “We were always trying to figure out how to innovate within the Endangered Species Act (ESA) purview,” says Scribner. “For the growers in Walla Walla, the holy grail was federal assurances.” Though this is still a work in progress, Scribner brought the initial experiences to Salmon-Safe and continued conversations with NOAA around broader regulations. Conversations between NOAA, Salmon-Safe, and the Willamette partnership are a key part of the grant—though neither organization is sure of what these will look like moving forward. And Scribner is hesitant to use the word assurances with landowners. “The operative word here with the services is to not presume that we can get full-fledged assurance because there is an aspect that has a lot of formality to it,” he says. “We are actually using the word acknowledgement; some aspect of acknowledgement that will give the growers some tangible acknowledgement that the services view them as contributing to recovery. At minimum, it would ensure growers that that they are not going [to be on the first round of enforcement actions.” Within the Willamette Partnership and their COTE program, however, the focus is on assurances when it comes to developing credits. They kept the ESA and Clean Water Act (CWA) in mind while developing their regulatory and voluntary metrics. For the CWA credits especially, it was important that the credits meet the regulatory requirements. Though both the organizations have a history of working with regulatory agencies, these conversations are beginning to ramp up as they seek regulatory acknowledgement to move these conservation efforts forward. The focus of current conversations may seem unlikely for many outside of Oregon: the Fender’s Blue Butterfly. The USFWS actually approached Salmon-Safe about creating a “Butterfly Safe” standard to protect this endangered species. Rather than creating a separate standard, Salmon-Safe is interested in integrating or overlaying the butterfly recovery requirements with the Salmon-Safe biodiversity standards in the uplands area. This is how Salmon-Safe approaches work with certification partners: they do a gap analysis between the two and determine whether overlay or integration would be more effective, according to Scribner. They are currently in the midst of this gap analysis. The relationship between COTE and USFWS is developing along the same lines, focusing on species of concern in prairie habitat. “We don’t have much prairie habitat left and we have a number of ESA listed species, such as the Fender’s Blue Butterfly, as well as candidate species who rely on this habitat,” says Burright. “We really want to incentivize restoration and preservation of the remaining prairie habitat in the Willamette Valley.” The Willamette Partnership has already developed a metric for upland prairie habitat credit type based on functional acres. The metric is a tool for understanding the function of prairie habitat and ensuring that the prairie with the highest functional value is preserved. Which is helpful, as there is currently little demand for the prairie credits that the metric can generate. The USFWS is, however, working with landowners to encourage voluntary preservation and restoration through regulatory tools such as Habitat Conservation Plans, Safe Harbor Agreements, and Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances. Layering these tools with incentives could increase landowner participation and further regulatory mitigation requirements could lead to a more active market in the future. “The USFWS is interested in ramping up and getting people involved and excited about this,” she says. “It would be great if we could offer Salmon-Safe certification, connect landowners with the necessary funding to restore and conserve habitat on their land and also offer regulatory assurances that will protect them from potential future enforcement. In this way, we would be able to turn these species of concern into an asset rather than a liability.” As this project moves forward in integrating species standards and ecosystem metrics, there will need to be this type of regional variation, according to Scribner. The USFWS is concerned about different species depending on the land type and geography. “We’ll have to recognize how to build in that regional variation,” he says. “But I think it can be done! If there is enough incentive to make it happen, we can make it happen.” Motivating the Landowners For both the Willamette Partnership and Salmon-Safe, the ultimate motivation for increasing regulation around ecosystems is increasing the involvement of landowners in the ecosystem protection. That is always the challenge, as landowners are not interested in time-consuming processes that yield little to no-benefits. That is why they are striving to make the process more efficient, pushing for regulatory incentives, and working with landowners to help them understand the existing benefits. “We are really interested in finding ways to gain efficiencies in the regulatory process,” says Burright. “If someone is enrolled in Salmon-Safe, managing their land to these very high standards, and are demonstrating the ecological benefits using trust habitat metrics, then that should count for something. How can we use our respective programs, our capacity to assist in species recovery efforts and offer landowners regulatory protection.” “We just kind of want to keep instilling this idea that we can have multiple incentives working together to maximize benefits for landowners and to minimize transaction costs for those implementing the programs,” she adds. Though they are pushing for regulatory assurances, there are other reasons for landowners to engage with these programs. For Salmon-Safe, Scribner focuses on the value-added. “The hypothesis we are trying to prove with Salmon-Safe is that the Salmon-Safe eco-label can help growers get 1) Market access; 2) One’s access to an increased market share; 3) To the prospect of getting market certainty, i.e. contracts over a span of time, not just one year contracts,” says Scribner. Landowners are also motivated to utilize COTE for a number of reasons already: 1) Satisfying a regulatory requirement; 2) The desire to invest in measurable outcomes; 3) Capital investment firms can restore purchased property, measure the benefits, and sell at a profit; 4) Wetland mitigation banks to comply with regulatory requirements; and 5) Organizations and companies can use the metrics for the purpose of public relations and community development. As land use laws change, Burright expects there to be increased interest from these sectors and others. With the first deliverable complete, these two organizations must now work together to motivate landowners to incorporate aspects of both of the programs. “For this particular grant, we have made a commitment to work with 10 different landowners to basically use both of our programs or tools on their property and see how it works,” says Burright. If they have the opportunity to incorporate regulatory assurances, these landowners will then have the potential to sell the credits generated by enrolling in the COTE and Salmon-Safe programs. However, there is still the challenge that there is a lack of buyers. “Right now, there aren’t that many buyers, especially for the voluntary markets,” says Burright. However she expects a greater number will engage with COTE as the conservation world puts more emphasis on demonstrating measurable outcomes. But as Scribner points out, it is difficult to expand the base of funding for ecosystem markets. And that limits where COTE can work—and therefore where Salmon-Safe and COTE can work in conjunction as it relates to this grant. Currently, in preparation for the pilot, Salmon-Safe is developing a GIS database of certified properties. Then they will correlate that with where COTE currently has activity and has the funds to generate credits. After that, they can begin the piloting process. Salmon Safe. Good For Farmers. Good For Fish. from North 40 Productions on Vimeo. Spreading the Impact At the end of the piloting process, the two organizations will develop a lessons-learned that can be transferred to other geographies and other organizations interested in layering incentives programs. And both organizations see potential in working together to replicate this approach in other parts of the region. “We are building a much stronger partnership with them,” says Burright about Salmon-Safe. “We are hoping to find ways to continue to partner with them in other geographic areas.” When it comes to replicating in other parts of the country, Scribner thinks that regions with emerging ecosystem markets need to think about their own charismatic animals, as Salmon-Safe is only relevant to a specific region. Other regions could create Blue Crab-Safe or even a Bats Safe—if there was regulatory potential around those. For now, these two organizations are focused on getting this project off the ground. As Scribner says, “We are having great fun because we think this can go someplace.” Additional resources Gearing up for Ecosystem Services Stacking: Are We Ready? Willamette Partnership: A Quadruple Win for Ecosystem Markets? The Complexity of Coastal Ecosystem Services Water Trading: the Basics Can Green Bonds Fill the Global Funding Gap? 14 March 2012 | When Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) decided to wean itself off of Egyptian gas, it figured the best solution was to build up its solar capacity. To do that, however, it needed $500 million – and it needed it fast. So it did what cities, towns and countries often do to get money for roads, airports, and anything else with a hefty short-term price tag and healthy long-term payoff: it issued bonds, which is a fancy way of saying it borrowed the money. More and more green financiers say this tried-and-true solution is the best way to move us to a low-carbon economy – a transition that the International Energy Agency (IEA) says will cost $13.5 trillion over the next 25 years just to build a low-carbon energy infrastructure. That’s steep, but science tells us the costs of doing nothing are multiples of that and come in the form of crop failure, drought, and war. The World Bank is developing new standards for “climate bonds”, which it hopes will make green projects more attractive to global investors, and scores of private-sector bond managers are also exploring the possibility. How it Works When a company like IEA issues bonds, it is essentially borrowing money from the people who buy the bonds. Over the course of the bond’s lifetime (which generally ranges from a few months to several years) the issuer pays interest on the bond, and eventually repays the value of the bond. This provides external capital for the issuer to fund their project, and gives a safe and known return on investment to the buyer. Bonds are rated on quality, and institutional investors only want high-quality bonds. The infrastructure and methods to rate green bonds exists, but those buying bonds will want to know that their bonds are delivering a positive environmental outcome. The World Bank already utilizes independent third party verification for their green bonds. This week the Climate Bonds Initiative released their Climate Bonds Standard, which they hope will become a recognized and trusted multi-jurisdictional standard to assure investors of the quality of a bond’s green credentials. The Green Advantage Those green credentials are the value-added that will lead investors to pick a green bond over a ‘brown bond’ (a bond not geared towards a low-carbon or otherwise green project). Don Kanak, adviser and former chair of the WWF’s Forest and Climate Initiative, distinguishes between two different categories of green bonds: “full faith and credit bonds” and “investment dependent bonds”. In the first category, the institution is taking the money from the climate bond and ring-fencing it for green investments, but the bond is backed by the institution’s total credit capacity and revenues from investments and assets. “Investment dependent bonds” are dependent on the revenue stream of the project being financed, electricity or rent for example, and purchasers of bonds are paid back with funds from the developed assets. Currently the green bonds issued by governments and multilateral organizations are of the “full faith and credit” variety, although bonds backing alternative energy projects are increasingly utilizing an “investment dependent” model. Currently, green bonds are geared towards traditional emission-reduction projects, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as adaptation projects. Sean Kidney, director of the Climate Bonds Initiative, sees green bonds as having the potential to fund a variety of projects outside of a common conception of climate projects. “In our construction of the theme we consider projects that are important to the transition to a low-carbon global economy,” he says. “That means everything from clean energy to water infrastructure investments for regions coping with climate change induced reductions of rainfall to broadband roll-outs because of its importance to smart-grids, to aviation avoidance (teleconferencing) and the like. As our understanding of what the low-carbon economy requires so will our universe of eligible projects.” The green bond seems poised to accelerate in growth as an attractive theme bond to investors looking for secure returns in a time of volatile equity markets. State Street Global Advisors, a Boston-based financial services firm, has launched its High Quality Green Bond strategy (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/state-street-global-advisors-launches-green-bond-investment-strategy-2011-10-19), which will allow investors access to green bonds through a managed fund. Japanese financial services firm Nikko AM created a green bond fund exclusively for World Bank green bonds in 2008, attracting almost $650 million since inception. Doing Well vs Doing Good? A stigma persists around green investments, however, which have traditionally been viewed as a trade-off of increased risk and potentially lower returns in favor of an environmentally responsible investment. A recent article in the online publication Global Pensions found that 80 out of the site’s 100 member panel would not invest in green bonds, with one respondent stating, “It is not part of our fiduciary duty to subsidize green investments. We must continue to seek the best risk adjusted returns in this challenging environment.” Firms that manage climate bond funds and issuers of the bonds are looking to dispel this stigma by creating green bonds that are indistinguishable from other bonds in when compared using current ratings instruments. Kidney counters the idea that green bonds cannot offer competitive returns, saying that, “The Climate Bonds Standard is expected to be used primarily for bonds that have investment grade ratings,” meaning the value and return from green bonds should be on par with “brown bonds”. Combined with a trusted standard, he says, green bonds should be able to attract large pools of capital from institutional investors – mostly insurance firms and pension funds – that are the source of most of the $95 trillion in the global bond market.   This Week in Forest Carbon:Norway Keeps the Throttle Open Norway is ratcheting up funding for UN-REDD and other bilateral efforts, but 89 out of 99 countries signed up for UN REDD+ say they aren’t up to speed on measurement, reporting and verification.   Meanwhile, Tasmania and Mozambique take illegal logging into their own hands. 30 April 2012 | Ecosystem Marketplace has formally closed its collection of data for the State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2012 report. We are grateful to those projects that provided us with complete responses – every respondent is featured at least once on the Forest Carbon Portal homepage now through the end of May. If you did not respond to the survey during the open call for information and would still like to contribute (and be recognized), please contact Molly Peters-Stanley in our Carbon Program to find out how. With Earth Day fresh on our minds… Brazil steals the spotlight with its delivery of the world’s first reforestation tCERs a decade after project inception. The country’s leadership in forest carbon markets could take on a new trajectory depending on the outcome of the vote on the controversial Forest Code reforms slated for this week (translation), as well as on Brazil’s potential to develop carbon market linkages, starting with Acre’s potential supply of carbon credits to Sao Paulo. Norway is breathing life into REDD projects in Guyana, Tanzania, and Indonesia, with additional financing going to Nigeria and Ghana via UN-REDD and other bilateral efforts. We always talk about financing, but what about the underwriting? British taxpayers may have some beef with underwriting tree-planting efforts in China. Perhaps researchers from Australia and South Africa can help with their proposal to manage risk on REDD projects using tips from the insurance industry. A report recently published in Environmental Science and Policy says that 89 out of 99 countries signed up for UN REDD+ have “very large or medium” problems achieving measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements – in large part due to insufficient funding. Where developed nations cannot always provide financing, poorer countries may need to team up to share MRV capacity-building resources. In the Pacific Islands, a new regional policy framework is taking shape that allows collaboration and pooling of resources among both larger and smaller countries.   A report by the EIA highlights illegal logging shipments from Peru to the United States, raising questions over how to make regulations more effective and the role that REDD+ could play in curbing illegal logging. Tasmania and Mozambique take illegal logging into their own hands with their new MoU. These and other stories from the forest carbon marketplace are summarized below, so keep reading! And if you value what you read in this news brief, consider supporting Ecosystem Marketplace’s Carbon Program as a Supporting Subscriber. Readers’ contributions help us keep the lights on and continue to deliver forest carbon market news and insights to your inbox biweekly and free of charge. For a suggested $150/year donation, you or your company can be listed as a Forest Carbon News Supporting Subscriber (with weblink) for one year (~24 issues). Reach out to inboxes worldwide and make your contribution HERE (select “Support for Forest Carbon News Brief” in the drop-down menu). You will receive an email from the Forest Carbon News team confirming your sponsorship listing and weblink information. —The Ecosystem Marketplace Team If you have comments or would like to submit news stories, write to us at [email protected]. International Policy       A REDD+ umbrella for the Pacific Islands   Last year, the Pacific Heads of Forestry mandated a project to develop a regional policy framework to guide REDD+ in the Pacific Island countries, with assistance from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fí¼r Technische Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). These past two months, stakeholders have brainstormed in Tonga, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, and Fiji in order to help SPC produce a first draft of the framework, to be discussed at a regional meeting on April 24-26 and finalized in September. Cenon Padolina of SPC said the framework will cover both “the large Melanesian countries that can bilaterally secure support and directly benefit from REDD+” and “many small countries that may not be able to benefit directly, but are in need of support for the better management and use of their forests.”     Bilateral carbon offsets for the Koreas? South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s hard-line policy has not exactly repaired relations with North Korea, which continues to insulate itself from its southern neighbor and the international community. While there hasn’t been much luck with diplomacy vis-í -vis the Kim family tree, what about actual trees? Lee has voiced interest in launching reforestation projects in North Korea, a gutsy “win-win” which would contribute to North Korea’s environment while supplying South Korea with carbon offsets. POSCO, a South Korea-based steel company, has already been carrying out a forestation project in Uruguay to earn carbon offsets. North Korea is within closer proximity than Uruguay, and could perhaps offer significant diplomatic value.   I’ve got your border Relations across the River Rovuma got a boost last week when Mozambique and Tanzania signed a new forest cooperation agreement to bolster their collaboration against rampant cross-border illegal logging and timber trading. The MoU between Mozambique’s National Directorate of Land and Forests and Tanzania’s Forestry and Beekeeping Division ratifies a years’ worth of work between the two, facilitated by the WWF. The two countries aim to share and collaborate over their approaches toward community forest management, REDD and other carbon credit projects. MoU provisions dealing with illegal cross border logging include establishing joint law enforcement units within boundaries, sharing intelligence, and establishing border checkpoints.     US Policy   Illegal logging imports to US raise REDD+ flag in Peru The Laundering Machine, a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), identifies U.S. importers of shipments of illegally logged cedar and mahogany from the Peruvian Amazon. Illegal loggers and importers may face investigation under the amended U.S. Lacey Act and the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement, and both tree species receive protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna and require export documentation. Yet Peruvian and U.S. regulations are far from foolproof, with illegal shipments constituting about 35% of total cedar and mahogany shipments between the two countries. Apart from raising awareness, the EIA report may provide fodder for the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute cases. Alluding to the $150M Peru will likely receive for REDD+, the EIA report warns that REDD strategies may fall short “unless Peru and its international donors acknowledge the systemic failures of governance in the current forest sector and judicial system.” EIA’s forest campaigns director notes on the other hand in a Climatewire article that with proper enforcement, REDD+ forest conservation efforts could curb illegal logging by creating economic disincentives against illegal timber activity. Massachusetts forests precious and under fire Researchers at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution recently published a study on Massachusetts’ forest cover, which sequesters 2.3 MtCO2, roughly a million homes’ worth of annual carbon emissions. The downside is that if the state continues its existing pattern of deforestation over the next half century, its capacity for forest carbon absorption could fall by up to 18%. Bob Perschel, ED of the New England Forestry Foundation, expects the impulse to deforest and develop will return as the economy recovers. He notes that while Massachusetts offers tax credits of up to $50,000 for forest landowners who donate property, developers may offer millions. Read about the study here. Project Development     Brazil reforestation issues delayed gratification with first tCERs For the past seven years, the BioCarbon Fund has supported over 20 Afforestation/Reforestation (A/R) CDM projects. Among the several projects moving toward issuance, one has finally borne fruit. The UNFCCC has just issued over 4M tCERs to the Plantar reforestation project in Brazil—the world’s first forestry-based tCER issuance. The Brazil-based pig-iron and plantation firm has established 11,600 ha of sustainably managed tree plantations, which sequester carbon and source carbon-neutral charcoal while guarding indigenous forests and biodiversity. This project, supported by the World Bank’s Prototype Carbon Fund and the BioCarbon Fund since 2001, was one of the first carbon finance projects, predating the debut of the Kyoto Protocol itself. Plantar hopes to end the historic deficit of renewable wood to fuel its industry, and the revenue from carbon credits enables the industry to use previously degraded areas while conserving native cerrado forests.     Nigeria lands $4M UN-REDD grant, needs ‘alternatives’ Nigeria’s federal government has received a $4M UN-REDD grant for capacity building, carbon mapping, and other relevant activities to nurture Nigeria’s forest cover. Most of the UN-REDD funds will go toward forest regeneration and conservation efforts in the Cross River, which constitutes 50% of Nigerian forest (translation). Some believe that the government’s current methods of cracking down on illegal logging are effective, while others believe that alternatives to illegal logging are still needed in order to truly incentivize conservation. Time will tell if programs funded by the new grant will make a difference. A 2010 MDG report noted that Nigeria’s forest cover had dropped by 18.9% to 9.9% since 1990, among the world’s highest rates of deforestation.   Japan injects $7.8M into Ghana’s forest preservation scheme The Japanese government is backing Ghana’s forest preservation programme with $7.8M to finance a special training programme on GIS and forestry inventorying. PASCO Corporation and RUDAN are running the program with goals to promote capacity and knowledge building among key forestry personnel, capture the benefits of emerging financing for forest services via REDD, and create a geographic information system for forest-based management. Read more from The Ghanaian Times here and here.   Read the underwriting on the wall Welcome to globalization and its discontents. Luxembourg-based European Investment (EIB) has lent China £210M to finance eight tree-planting projects. The UK has agreed to underwrite the loan, covering 16% per pound of unpaid debt (over £30M in the case of total default). EU anti-climate change loans to China, India, and Brazil – countries with competitive economies – have seen British taxpayers take on an additional £920M in liabilities this past year. While the UK government intends to stop sending aid to China, EIB taxpayers are still slated to underwrite loans. Roger Helmer, industry spokesman for the UK Independent Party, deemed the underwriting “simply absurd.” The EIB argue that the risk carried by British taxpayers is remote insofar as the bank performs careful due diligence on all projects. Goals in AusAID project are smaller than they appear Over four years ago the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, a $49M initiative by Australia’s Agency for International Development (AusAID), pledged to reduce 700 MtCO2 over 30 years. Since the initial hype, the project’s peatland reflooding target has dwindled from 200,000 to 25,000 ha, just 50,000 of an intended 100M trees have been planted, and the project is inching along relative to the rate of deforestation, according to researchers from the Australian National University. A new ANU report ” href=”http:%20www.thejakartaglobe.com=” >exposes concerns about project feasibility and transparency. Funding shortfalls, land tenure questions, administrative hurdles, and slow local buy-in may explain the delays and downsized ambition. But before we get disillusioned – while Sara Moriarty of AusAID acknowledges that AusAID could have been more transparent in updating its KFCP objectives, she stresses that the project approach remains valid and important in demonstrating how REDD might work in Indonesia. ANU researchers advise AusAID to think twice about starting a similar project in Sumatra’s Jambi province, lest it spread its efforts thin.   B.C. gets Cheak-y Managers of Whistler’s 33,067-ha Cheakamus Community Forest (CCF) will soon learn whether the B.C. government will allow them to earn carbon credit revenue on leased Crown land. The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations stated that it accepts in principle the CCF proposal for a carbon project, but is still working out details and would want a share of carbon credit revenue as landowner. It added, however, that it did not see this as a template for other B.C. community forests. Chairman Peter Ackhurst believed that the potential precedent set, since CCF is the first forest to seek this in B.C., could still have implications for other community forests. Studies and audits for carbon credit accreditation could cost up to $100,000, but Ackhurst has found a Victoria-based company called Living Carbon Investments to bankroll and execute the tests once the carbon credit program begins. It is unclear how much carbon credit revenue the project would earn. Ackhurst noted that Resort Municipality of Whistler, a CCF partner, spent $50,000 on carbon credits for the 2,000 tCO2 it emits annually.     Costa Rican conservation by tollbooth BAC Credomatic and the Foundation for the Development of the Central Volcanic Mountain Range (FUNDECOR) are launching a PES project to conserve thousands of acres of primary forest and offset emissions near the Cordillera Central, a volcanic mountain range in Costa Rica. BAC seeks $455,000 to go towards PSA Solidario as part of the National Fund for Forestry Financing, which helps finance reforestation and conservation efforts. Project financing will leverage $5 fees for GreenPass, an enhanced version of QuickPass—the wireless device used to pay road tolls. BAC will allocate $1 toward QuickPass credit, while allocating the donated $4 to forest conservation. While GreenPass holders will initially shoulder the bulk of financial responsibility, BAC plans to eventually extend funding to promote carbon-neutral practices in Costa Rican schools.   National Strategy & Capacity “Slap your veto, Dilma Veto” …read the T-shirt worn by Adson Lima, member of a mangrove protection NGO, as he protested against the new Forest Code reforms outside the Brazilian Congress. Congress will finally vote on the new Forest Code today or tomorrow, postponed to give priority to the World Cup Bill. While supporters say the amendments make the code clearer and more enforceable, opponents urge President Dilma Rousseff to veto the agri-business-backed bill, arguing that it loosens deforestation controls that have been in place since 1965 and grants amnesty to illegal loggers. In a recent interview, economist Jeffrey Hatcher of the Rights and Resources Initiative says the Forest Code’s land-intensive model of development may not be the most rational way to develop the agriculture sector: “It might be relevant for the agriculture sector, but probably not for the whole country.”   At the end of May, RRI plans to launch a publication that analyzes the evolution of forest ownership across 50 countries since 1992. Hatcher says the report will cover what Brazil has done in terms of laws and regulations and what is possible in terms of protecting rights, but also point to the threat posed by the Forest Code reforms. Read about dynamics surrounding the vote (translation) and a recent discussion of Brazil’s 2020 reforestation goals here   Acre credits seed fellow Brazilian interest With no plans to impose industry reduction targets by sector, Brazil’s Sao Paulo state is hungry for other means to satisfy its reduction target of 122 MtCO2 in 2005 to 98 MtCO2e in 2020. Sao Paulo recently signed an MoU to buy avoided deforestation credits from Acre, an Amazon state with 7.4M ha of protected forest. While Acre is in talks to participate in California’s ETS, a lawyer advising its government said Sao Paulo could demand more credits than California would. Acre would have to compete with other international sources of forest-originated carbon credits to supply just 2% of California’s ETS (200-260 MtCO2e up to 2020), a supply that Sao Paulo would exceed in demand within one or two years. The head of Acre’s Climate Change Institute said Acre may start offering credits in 2013, with the longer-term goal of integrating all nine Amazon states under one model.   Understanding Panama In March, the Carnegie Institution for Science finished the first nationwide survey of tropical forest carbon stocks using airborne LiDAR technology in Panama. 3D landscape-level maps of carbon stocks, forest habitat and biodiversity will fill crucial gaps in carbon estimation and monitoring that are instrumental to climate change mitigation policies. In tandem, the UN-REDD Programme is helping Panama explore which options of REDD+ could capture the greatest range of benefits. A team of local and international experts met in Panama City in March to report their progress on modeling deforestation drivers in Panama and how deforestation may advance based on shifts in the intensity or location of those drivers—important in informing a REDD+ cost-benefit analysis. Nepali participation behind closed doors Nepal’s Forestry Act-1993 has given high priority to community forestry management with a participatory model. The country, however, witnessed massive deforestation in 2009-2010 due to illegal timber trading and poor management. Privately, the Nepali government is considering a report from a high-level commission that recommends amending the Act by curtailing the rights of community forestry users’ groups (CFUGs), which operate some 17,000 forests. Currently, district forest offices are authorized to hand over community forests to local CFUGs based on their proposed action plans. The recommendations suggest requiring CFUGs to reapply and obtain approval from local and national government entities before receiving rights, and increasing revenue collection from community forests. The government has kept the report discreet. Forest activists say the report has been kept private due to concerns that the government is backtracking away from honoring community rights. The report also supposedly contains a list of high-profile forest officials, former ministers, and politicians involved in deforestation. Good governance is greater than REDD As part of its series with key REDD actors in Indonesia, REDD Monitor recently interviewed representatives from Kemitraan, an NGO that works as a convener to support governance reform in Indonesia. Avi Mahaningtyas of Kemitraan says the organization is interested foremost in ensuring that discussions surrounding REDD engage all stakeholders and acknowledge safeguards. Only to the extent that REDD can be aligned with good governance does it present an outlet for Kemitraan’s agenda. She says the $1B deal between Norway and Indonesia is a game changer in asking questions previously not discussed in public – including those regarding tenure, indigenous rights, forest and peatland definitions, and legal jurisdiction. Domestically, Mahaningtyas and her colleagues state that political reform is needed in order to see REDD implemented, particularly given conflicts between Indonesia’s economic development target and any commitment to reduce emissions from deforestation.   Guyana gets $70M for REDD+ and model to boot The Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund has just received $70M out of $250M promised by Norway’s government for its conservation efforts in the Amazon. Recently, under the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Enhancing Environmental Services in Tropical Forests Programme has developed a national forest estate model for Guyana to guide decision-making for sustainable forest management. The model estimates forest resource value across forest estates, with a spatial feature that lets the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) model physical and financial aspects of financing mechanisms for environmental services. In allowing GFC to manage forest resources while monitoring changes in forest cover, the model may help lay the groundwork for Guyana’s REDD+ efforts.   Around the Bolivian bend for credits The best answers aren’t always straightforward. A recent study by members of the Nature Foundation, presented as a part of a series of publications on the Amazon basin in Bolivia, offers a cost-benefit analysis on building a road through the heart of Bolivia’s Indigenous Territory and National Park of Isoboro Secure (TIPNIS). According to the authors, diverting road construction would not only reduce deforestation in the TIPNIS region, but earn $270M in voluntary carbon credits over the next 18 years (translation). Now how much does road diversion cost? Finance & Economics     Where there’s a will, where’s Norway? Enrolled in the UN-REDD programme back in 2008, Tanzania plans to finalize its national REDD+ strategy by December of this year. More could be done, however, and faster. Dr. Felician Kilahama, Director of the Forestry and Beekeeping Division in the Ministry of National Resources and Tourism, stressed this month that more support from developed countries would help expedite government efforts to manage forest resources. The Tanzanian government has in particular called on developed countries to honor the resolution they made five years ago at COP-13 to finance REDD efforts in Tanzania and other poor countries. While Denmark, Japan, and Spain have pitched in, Norway by far leads in UN-REDD contributions with $105.8M and sustained commitment notwithstanding Tanzania’s REDD embezzlement issues back in February. Invoking the rich man’s burden   Tanzania is far from alone in its call for help. An Earth Times article highlights a report recently published in Environmental Science and Policy that says that 89 out of 99 countries signed up for UN REDD+ have “very large or medium” problems achieving measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements. Most non-Annex I countries are not meeting the standards for forest cover monitoring and carbon stock assessments. Co-author Louis Verchot of CIFOR says, “REDD+ is assumed to be a performance-based mechanism and its supporters need to be realistic about what developing countries can do in terms of MRV, at least at this point in time. The international community needs to commit the human and financial resources to address the gaps in MRV capacity if they want REDD+ to work.” Apart from landing support from developed nations, the article notes that another option may be for smaller countries to team up to share MRV capacity-building resources.   iREDD: win-win damage control No, iREDD is not an Apple gadget nor an internet meme. A new paper in Conservation Letters proposes to address three major problems plaguing REDD—leakage, permanence, and additionality—by using insurance policies and premiums to create a new scheme dubbed iREDD. Under iREDD, the buyer and seller of carbon offsets together gauge, agree on, and purchase insurance for the risk in a forest conservation project. Professor Corey Bradshaw of the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute, a senior author of the paper, says, “If the sellers fail, then the buyer is compensated and can invest elsewhere. If the sellers do well, they get more money.” This way, both seller and buyer are protected.         Methodology & Standards Watch   REDD+ SES Version 2 ready for comments The REDD+ Social & Environmental Standards Version 1, launched back in 2010, served as a starting point for supporting a higher level of social and environmental performance from REDD+ programs through safeguards, with special attention given to human rights and the nurturing of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Since then, jurisdictions in Brazil, Indonesia, Ecuador, Nepal, and Tanzania have gained some firsthand experience using the guidelines. Driven by the need to clarify and streamline guidelines and eliminate any gaps in coverage on the Cancun safeguards, the REDD+ SES Secretariat has recently revised the guidelines, incorporating feedback from stakeholders in user countries, as well as guidance provided by the COP-UNFCCC. Public comments on ways to clarify or improve the guidelines document are welcome up until June 4.     UNFCCC releases submissions on financing REDD+ results-based actions The UNFCCC Secretariat has released 18 submissions from countries and NGOs regarding their views on modalities and procedures for financing results-based actions and considering activities related to decision 1/CP.16 of the Cancun Agreements relating to policy approaches and positive incentives on REDD+ issues in developing countries, in particular the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. The submissions are available on the UNFCCC website, and will be considered by the UNFCCC’s Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention at its 15th session, scheduled for Bonn, Germany, from May 15-24.   Unearthing the x factor The fate of unprotected forests prone to deforestation lies largely in the hands of geographic accessibility, but a study in Conservation Letters finds that previous studies that control only for geographic access may poorly gauge the effectiveness of protected areas. The confounding factor—land use regulations. Based on the 110,000 sq km protected area network in Sumatra, Indonesia, the study’s results show that measures of the effectiveness of protection varied depending on the land use regulations governing unprotected lands outside protected areas. Government-sanctioned access to industrial agriculture, for instance, could drive up deforestation rates. Measurements that control for government-mediated access may provide a more accurate benchmark for informing conservation policy, particularly in helping provide baselines for allocating REDD funds and evaluating conservation efforts. For every tree, there could be a logger, regulation, or conservationist watching over. Additional resources This article has been reprinted from the Ecosystem Marketplace Forest Carbon Newsletter. Click here to see it in its original format. Watershed Connect: The Simple Way to Find Watershed Solutions Waterbodies like lakes and streams are only as healthy as the watersheds in which they nest, and the consequences of poor watershed management have been devastaing in terms of life and expensive in terms of livelihoods. A new platform aims to promote water solutions by making it easier to invest in ecological infrastructure. March 13, Marseille — Today at the 6th World Water Forum, the nonprofit organization Forest Trends will launch a collaborative platform to foster innovative approaches to solving the global challenge of ensuring access to clean water supply. Watershed Connect supports projects that recognize the linked economic and ecological benefits of healthy natural water resources. “One of the major challenges to scaling up investment in water’s natural infrastructure base is not knowing what has worked and what hasn’t,” explains Carlos Muí±oz Pií±a, Director of Resource Economics at Forest Trends. “Watershed Connect is a big step towards improving our ability to share hard-earned knowledge on designing PWS. We must learn from the collective effort from all of those involved or we will be losing valuable time in getting it right.” 40 percent of the world’s population will face water scarcity by 2050 under a ‘business as usual’ scenario, while water pollution from agriculture and inadequate wastewater treatment is expected to worsen significantly in developing countries over the same period, according to new estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But as more than 300 cities and towns around the world have already discovered, it’s possible to cost-effectively address these problems by restoring and protecting the ‘ecological infrastructure’ that supplies clean water. Healthy watersheds do much the same work as water treatment plants, levies, dikes, and other engineered solutions – without expensive equipment and with added benefits like protection of wildlife habitat and carbon sequestration. Natural ecosystems can filter out water pollution, regulate stream flows, recharge aquifers, and absorb floodwaters. The Watershed Connect platform advances an approach that recognizes the links between economy and ecology: payments for watershed services (PWS). PWS is an innovative financing model that creates incentives to invest in natural water infrastructure. New York City famously uses a PWS approach to protect its drinking water, which has saved the city a total of more than $8 billion in treatment costs. PWS is quickly gaining team around the world: Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace State of Watershed Payments report found that the value of active programs in 2008 was over US$9 billion. Accelerating the Pace and Scale of Watershed Investment Despite the amount of activity in watershed payments and markets, there has been no systematic effort to connect individuals with experience, expertise, and interest in this field across geographies and regions. Watershed Connect aims to fill this gap. “To solve the global water crisis, we need to identify and disseminate innovative models for financing watershed conservation,” explains Katherine Hamilton, Managing Director of Ecosystem Marketplace. “At the same time, transparency and access to information is critical for these financing tools to succeed.” Building a Global Community of Practice to Increase the Visibility of PWS “Conversations about investing in watershed services have tended to be cordoned off by sector or watershed,” says Dr. Jan Cassin, the director of the project behind Watershed Connect. “Watershed Connect will allow us to overcome that obstacle and bring these approaches to the scale we need to meet the global water crisis.” Watershed Connect will engage and support PWS practitioners, policy-makers, and other stakeholders in developing projects and sharing experiences. Watershed Connect also aims to support decision-makers unfamiliar with PWS in rapidly moving up the learning curve. The platform offers a suite of collaboration and communication tools, a global inventory of innovative watershed payment projects, project development guidance, a library of key resources, and the latest news and analysis on watershed payments. Leaders in the field are welcoming these efforts. “There’s enormous value in connecting good people doing good work to protect watersheds across the world,” says Bobby Cochran, Executive Director of the Willamette Partnership, in Oregon, USA. “This project will go a long way toward helping a dynamic idea turn into a reality that benefits people and places across the globe.” Forest Trends is a Washington D.C.-based international non-profit organization that was created in 1999 by leaders from conservation organizations, forest products firms, research groups, multilateral development banks, private investment funds and philanthropic foundations. Our mission is four-fold: to expand the value of forests to society; to promote sustainable forest management and conservation by creating and capturing market values for ecosystem services; to support innovative projects and companies that are developing these markets; and to enhance the livelihoods of local communities living in and around those forests. We do this by analyzing strategic market and policy issues, catalyzing connections between forward looking producers, communities and investors, and developing new financial tools to help markets work for conservation and people. Our approach integrates the fundamental dimensions of ecology, economy and equity because our goal is to have an impact on a scale that is meaningful globally and for a diverse set of stakeholders. The Scaling Up Payments for Ecosystem Services to Meet the Global Water Crisis project is Forest Trends’ newest initiative in the water arena, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The recently launched project will generate, synthesize, disseminate, and scale up best practices in water markets and payments for watershed services. Ecosystem Marketplace, an initiative of Forest Trends, is a leading source of news, data, and analytics on markets and payments for ecosystem services (such as water quality, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity). We believe that by making accessible information on policy, finance, regulation, science, business, and other market-relevant factors, markets for ecosystem services will one day become a fundamental part of our economic system, helping give value to environmental services that, for too long, have been taken for granted. In providing free reliable market information, we hope not only to facilitate transactions (thereby lowering transaction costs), but also to catalyze new thinking, spur the development of new markets and the infrastructure that supports them, and achieve effective and equitable nature conservation. Contact: Anne Thiel Communications Associate athiel (at) forest-trends.org (202) 446-1982 Nathaniel Carroll Director of Biodiversity, Ecosystem Marketplace ncarroll (at) ecosystemmarketplace.com (202) 446-1981 Additional resources Visit the Platform This Week in Forest Carbon: Going Once, Going Twice…  March 12 |  Before we launch into the latest forest carbon headlines, a gentle reminder that the deadline to respond to the State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2012 report survey is extended to March 15, 2012.   If your organization developed forest carbon projects for the voluntary or compliance carbon markets (or sold forest carbon offsets to, well, anyone) in 2011, we invite you to contribute your data by COB Thursday.  LOGIN TO THE SURVEY HERE.   What’s in it for you? Forest carbon project developers can opt to let us feature your project on the front page of the  Forest Carbon Portal. Everyone who provides a complete response can choose to be featured on the  Ecosystem Marketplace  homepage and in our news briefs (with weblink). We are grateful to the over 150 organizations that have already signed up to the survey from over 30 countries worldwide (see the latest below).   Now on to the news, Ecosystem Marketplace launched a new report last week, with 13 case studies from around the world exploring the way governments are engaging with the voluntary carbon markets (VCM).  Bringing it Home: Taking Stock of Government Engagement with the Voluntary Carbon Market    reveals that of the 13 programs profiled in the report, 11 allow credits from a variety of forest and terrestrial carbon project types, from afforestation/reforestation, IFM and REDD to rangeland and grassland management.     Just today, forest carbon giants ERA Carbon Offsets and Wildlife Works announced that they have entered into a Joint Venture Agreement to complete the 299,645 hectare Mai Ndombe REDD project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which was announced by ERA in late summer 2011.   The last two weeks also saw forest carbon investments continue to blossom in Asia, as South Korea signed an MoU with the Indonesian government, worth $10 million and expected to net around 100 million tons of carbon emission credits through 2020 from reforestation in Sumatra. The European Investment Bank and China also worked out an agreement that would secure EU $250 million for forestry projects with carbon mitigation and biodiversity elements under the “China Forestry Framework Loan”.     The governance issue reared its head again, as a WWF-led REDD initiative funded by Norway was halted after reports of corruption. The WWF is on the line for the approximately $85,000 that is missing.     Malaysia was busy completing its forest inventory, while a Wetlands International-commissioned study found that Sabah and Sarawak, two of the country’s states, were rapidly losing forests, contradicting the estimates of Malaysia’s Forestry Department.   Keep reading below for these and more forest carbon market news, hot off the presses. And a special thanks to those organizations that have so far contributed complete responses to our State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2011/2012 survey:  REDD Forests,  Sierra Gorda Reserve,  Greenfleet,  GET Carbon,  GFA Envest,  Carbon Project Solutions,  Greenoxx,  Carbon Credit Capital,  Grupo Financiero de Occidente,  Camco,  Forest Carbon Offsets,  CarbonVerde, LLC,  Mountain Association for Community Economic Development,  Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust,  Oklahoma Carbon Program,  Equator, LLC,  Envirotrade Carbon Ltd.,  Carbonfund.org,  The Climate Trust,  China Green Carbon Foundation,  Conservation International,  Carbon Tanzania,  Green Resources,  Permanent Forests International,  Plan Vivo Foundation,  Climate Neutral Group,  CF Partners,  U YOOL CHE AC,    Carbon Credit Corp.,  Mpingo Conservation  ,  Forest Carbon Group,  and  South Pole Carbon.   The survey deadline is fast approaching, so create a profile and submit your response  HERE. —The Ecosystem Marketplace Team If you have comments or would like to submit news stories, write to us at [email protected].   International Policy Governments worldwide embrace voluntary carbon offset market Governments around the world are turning to the voluntary carbon markets and engaging the private sector in a wave that could shape tomorrow’s carbon market, and interestingly but somewhat unsurprisingly, forest carbon has a very definite place. Although long spurned by the Kyoto protocol and the EU ETS, forest carbon projects have found a home in many of these voluntary programs. Ecosystem Marketplace profiles 13 of the most advanced efforts across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Latin America in Bringing it Home: Taking Stock of Government Engagement with the Voluntary Carbon Market, a report which grew out of a meeting of national governments and carbon market participants convened by the International Emissions Trading Association’s (IETA) International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance and the Carbon Markets & Investors Association (CMIA) during climate talks in Durban in 2011. In a show of confidence in the voluntary markets as a valid complement to regulation, the study finds governments moving beyond their traditional role of providing oversight for voluntary offsetting programs to also developing methodologies and certifying projects. The report highlights these innovative domestic programs that in some cases are a testing ground for regional regulatory tools. Read more and download the report  here   Not out of the woods yet The Ecosystem Marketplace report highlighted some challenges to forest carbon offset programs in Annex I countries – like the UK’s Woodland Carbon Code – that are currently grappling with the topic of how you create a genuine carbon offset in a country with Kyoto accounts. The WCC, at least, remarked in a follow-up article that they are looking to address the issues that have arisen since the scheme’s deployment in 2011. On the docket is a way to confront its double counting issue – the Forestry Commission, which runs the program, is reportedly in discussions with Markit Environmental Registry to list a “Woodland Carbon Unit” in order to improve transparency around the program’s reductions. A domestic media article also points out another challenge to the program – the reduction of carbon stocks due to disease and drought, which are both on the rise in Britain and call into question the effectiveness of using forests to sequester carbon, according to some of the country’s forestry experts. The Forestry Commission has responded by a buffer amount of around 35%.  Read more about the Woodland Carbon Code’s challenges and potential fixes  here     Australian soil carbon methodology stuck in the mud An article from an Australian  agricultural news publication, Stock and Land, reports that despite the UN and others in the global community getting behind soil carbon, Australia’s efforts to reward the building of soil carbon stocks is lagging. Although a soil carbon methodology is in the works under the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), it has yet to be approved by the Domestic Offset Integrity Committee. That’s due to a number of factors, including the complexity of soil carbon dynamics, as well as the difficulty of ensuring compliance with Kyoto’s rules. Meanwhile, the Carbon Farming and Trading Association warns that some Australian farmers may have fallen into “the additionality trap,” by employing carbon-sequestering land management techniques before formally implementing soil carbon projects. Read more about the methodologies slow move towards approval  here   Project Development Two project developers are better than one A REDD project being developed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, announced by ERA Carbon Offsets Ltd.,  in August of last year, will benefit from a joint venture agreement with Wildlife Works, a project developer  with REDD project experience in Africa. Both companies will contribute to project finance, technical development, implementation, and sales of the offsets from the project. The Mai Ndombe REDD project concession covers 299,645 and is expected to generate 1.5 to 3.0 million tonnes of carbon offsets per year under the Verified Carbon Standard and Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance Standard. Read more about the joint venture  here   Korea inks deal for Indonesian carbon credits The South Korean and Indonesian governments have signed an MoU that will result in tree planting on a 200,000 hectare plot in Indonesia in exchange for 100 million tons of carbon emission credits over the next decade. The first step under the MoU will be reforestation in a 14,000-hectare area of rainforest in Indonesia’s Sumatra region at a cost of $10 million. Korean news service Chosunilbo notes that the amount of credits Korea hopes to receive through 2020 would normally cost almost $2 billion, or $20 per ton, but Korea will save more than $1 billion through MoU, and hopefully meet its national voluntary target. Read more about the MoU  here   Banking on China’s forests The European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced a EU $250 million loan that will fund forest carbon projects in China. Known as the “China Forestry Framework Loan,” it will support several individual forestry projects across China that contribute to the forestry programme of the People’s Republic of China and that achieve  environmental and biodiversity preservation and improvement, climate change adaptation and mitigation. The EIB has loaned close to EU $1 billion through 2010 to forestry-focused operations. Read more about the loan  here   Merlin’s Wood casts REDD spell in Pakistan   In our last newsletter we wrote about a dispute between UK-company  Merlin’s Wood and forest owners in Pakistan  over a proposed REDD project. There’s also been some back and forth between Chris Lang of REDD Monitor, who  highlighted the story, and  Surriekha Khan, the Director of Merlins Wood Limited. Now, a new piece of the story has emerged. Merlins Wood has signed MoUs with the governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad State of Jammu and Kashmir, with Terra Global Capital joining on to develop the large REDD project. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) project covers 300,000 hectares of Himalayan forest, which is being lost due to illegal commercial timber harvesting, fuelwood gathering, free grazing of livestock, and agriculture and settlement expansion. Khan, in her letter to Lang, mentions that the project is seeking validation under VCS and CCB. Read more about the project  here   Methodology & Standards Watch Speak your mind on VCS updates The Verified Carbon Standard has released revisions to two REDD methodology module updates and an avoided deforestation methodology. The standard also released an update to a tool that calculates historical deforestation rates using incomplete remote sensing imagery when complete scenes are not available. The updates are still in the approval process and are open to public comment through April 4. Read more and submit your comments  here   National Strategy and Capacity Kiwis watch NZU price climb New Zealand’s forest owners continue to hold on to their NZUs in the face of low prices. NZUs saw prices of around $20 fall to below $10 starting mid-last year in the face of a weak European market. Now, the price spread between CERs and NZUs has narrowed, as New Zealand’s carbon-emitting firms buy up cheap CERs to meet upcoming compliance targets. Nigel Brunel, an analyst at OM Financial, says that NZUs may find themselves back in double digits if the CER market rallies, which may be in the cards after the announced plans to withhold credits from the EU ETS. Read more about the NZU price rally  here   Forest Code veto date uprooted We’ve been tracking the saga of Brazil’s updated Forest Code for some time, and know by now that whenever a vote is at hand, there’s another delay. True to form, Agencia Brasil said the vote has been rescheduled for next week. Brazil’s congress decided on the delay to ensure that there is adequate support among lawmakers to pass the bill, which has been updated and includes some provisions championed by environmentalists. That could lead to another outcry and forced stalemate from the ‘ruralistas’, the large pro-agriculture coalition that has championed a more lax Forest Code. Read more about the vote delay  here   Borneo burning Malaysia will complete an inventory of its forests by the end of the year, as part of the country’s national forest inventory efforts that take place every 10 years. The country has a target of 50 percent forest cover in every state, excluding the most developed state, Selangor. The peninsula is estimated to have 44 percent cover. However, two states that are in need of forest protection, Sarawak and Sabah, are governed by separate rules and conduct their own assessments – although officials from the states reported 70 percent and 50 percent forest cover, respectively. However, a recent Wetlands International report based on satellite imagery shows that the two states on the island of Borneo have lost 10 percent of their forest cover over the last 5 years, and that deforestation is progressing at a much faster rate than the Malaysian government has acknowledged. Read about Malaysia’s forest inventory  here  and read about the Wetlands International report  here   Finance and Economics BioCarbon Fund reports on A/R CDM experience The World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund have been working to finance A/R projects under the CDM for the past seven years, supporting over 20 projects around the world. In a new report, launched at an event last week, the challenges, such as developing greenhouse gas accounting protocols and addressing land tenure issues are described alongside successes and future opportunities, like those in soil carbon and REDD. The BioCarbon Fund Experience: Insights from Afforestation/Reforestation Clean Development Mechanism Projects touches on CDM regulations, non-permanence, financing, legal and institutional challenges, and assessing under-delivery risk. While the CDM has provided the platform for A/R projects, its complicated and drawn out rules and procedures have been a hindrance to developers, and while the voluntary market has embraced co-benefit standards, there has also been difficulty in getting the CDM to account for project co-benefits. Read more about the report launch  here  and  here  and download the report  here     Possible embezzlement halts WWF-run REDD project in Tanzania A REDD project run by the WWF in Tanzania has been halted after reports of possible corruption. An interim management team has been assigned to the project while an investigation, led by Ernst and Young, takes place. In the meantime, Norway has suspended its $2.5 million funding of the project. Around $85,000 may have been misappropriated, which the Norwegian government has said must be paid back by the WWF. Despite the setback, Norway has said they remain committed to pushing REDD forward in Tanzania and elsewhere. Read more about the halted project  here   Human Dimension   REDD might not be rosy for Indonesia’s indigenous communities Indonesia continues to be the site of arguments over the impact of the country’s REDD activities on indigenous peoples and forest communities. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) are objecting to plans for a pilot REDD project in the Kayan Mentarang National Park, which they say will further marginalize the indigenous groups, an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Dayak tribesmen that live in the area. Indonesia’s government plans to move ahead with the pilot later this year, and said it will ensure that some of the revenue will be invested in local communities. Read more about the Dayak’s possible REDD troubles  here     Science and Technology Review Scientists paint a clearer picture of soil carbon Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found that current models and methods for estimating soil carbon stocks are creating very different pictures of the amount of carbon actually sequestered in soil in North America, from offsetting 20 percent of total fossil fuel emissions from the continent up to 50 percent. The top-down method, which uses atmospheric models, gives a high estimate of the soil carbon potential, while bottom-methods, which rely on land ecosystem models, give a lower estimate, and inventory models a lower estimate still. The researchers ultimately suggest that the different approaches begin to converge in order to produce fully integrated monitoring systems. Download the paper  here  (PDF) and read more about the 12-year study  here   Publication and Tools Where does all the money go? While attention to social and environmental protections around REDD+ has grown, there is a gap for safeguards addressing fiduciary risks and financial transparency under the scheme. Along this vein, Global Witness reviewed a wide range of existing international multilateral funding mechanisms, from those in the forest and climate sectors to AIDs and malaria, to produce this analysis of how REDD+ financial flows can be optimally managed. The paper offers lessons learned and recommendations for the design and improvement of REDD+ funding mechanisms to limit misappropriation and corruption, to instead promote transparency, accountability and efficiency. Specifically, it focuses on how performance-related criteria could be incorporated into the financial flow system. Download the report  here   Africa’s road to REDD+ This report produced by The Global Land Project highlights the challenges in implementing REDD+ in Africa and provides a data base of existing REDD+ initiatives and their status of implementation. The report covers the political, institutional, technical, social and economic challenges to REDD and also touches on funding and monitoring issues.  Read more  here   Final report for building REDD+ policy capacity should help developing countries at next COP This report is part of the third and final phase of the Building REDD+ Policy Capacity for Developing Country Negotiators and Land Managers project by the Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins at the World Agroforestry Centre. It was birthed out of a meeting of an advisory group of experts on the fringes of the climate talks in Durban in December 2011. Participants of the meeting decided on a focus thematic area, informed by the project’s two earlier phases, under which they developed case studies and lessons learned. The report therefore brings out the key messages from the discussions and provides an overview of the meeting proceedings, and concludes by offering perspectives on how outcomes of the meeting will influence the future trajectory of the project. Read more and access the final report  here   Announcements A friendly reminder for New Zealand’s forest owners If you’re a forest owner living in New Zealand and want to participate in New Zealand’s ETS, but haven’t registered yet, get a move on! The Waikato Regional Council has written to land owners reminding them that if they live on land where forests were planted after 1989, they can take part in the scheme.  Forests can be registered with the NZ Emissions Unit Registry by 31 March 2012 for credit claims back to January 2008, and must be registered by 31 December 2012 to claim NZ units or credits for the first Kyoto commitment period. Read more  here   Jobs REDD Projects Grant Specialist – The Nature Conservancy Based in Mexico City, the Grant Specialist will work closely with project managers to ensure that the terms and conditions of agreements are met and properly documented, and communicates directly with agency contracting officers to clarify or negotiate financial and administrative requirements. Read more about the position  here   Technical Experts, REDD+ and Climate Change Adaptation – Tetra Tech ARD Tetra Tech ARD are looking for regional and local technical experts in Central and South America to work on anticipated USAID-funded climate change adaptation and REDD+ projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. Five years of experience of technical experience and a masters degree in  forestry, climate change, natural resource management, or other related field are required. Read more about the position  here   Senior REDD+ Policy Consultant – Climate Focus The senior forestry and land use consultant will lead Climate Focus’ USAID-funded “Lowering Emissions in Asia’s Forests” (LEAF) work from Bangkok, Thailand. Travel within South East Asia and elsewhere is required. Read more about the position  here   Technical Specialist, Climate Program – Rainforest Alliance The Technical Specialist will be responsible for technical project coordination, verification systems and tools development, training, and supporting the growth of Rainforest Alliance’s Climate Program. Read more about the position  here   Technical Advisor (REDD+), Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Australian Government The advisor will primarily support the development of Australia’s international policy REDD+, with a focus on providing advice on its technical dimensions, including forest carbon accounting. Read more about the position  here   Policy Officer, Forestry Inventory Unit – Australian Government The officer will contribute to the production of the land aspects of the Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts and provide technical and policy advice on measurement issues related to land sector projects under the Carbon Farming Initiative. Read more about the position  here   Policy Manager, Forest Stewardship Council The Policy Manager will manage the implementation of projects under the current FSC Climate Change Engagement Strategy and other activities for the certification of ecosystem services. Read more about the position  here  (PDF)   Senior GHG Inventory Officer – CD REDD II Take the technical lead for project activities in 3-4 countries in Latin America and/or Africa and accompany the work on the forest-related national GHG inventory. At least 3 years experience in working on GHG inventories and REDD+ is desired.  Read more about the position  here If Brazil Guts its Forest Code,Will it Kill the Rural Economy? If signed into law by President Dilma, Brazil’s newly-amended forest code will give farmers the right to chop down more trees than they’ve had at any time in the last 50 years.   That might, however, not bring the economic boom many are hoping for, as evidence suggests short-term economic gains will give way to long-term degradation and poverty. 27 April 2012 | Brazil’s agribusiness sector scored an apparent victory this week when the lower house of Congress passed sweeping changes to the Cí³digo Florestal (Forest Code), which for decades restricted the amount of privately-owned rainforest that can be cleared for development. Indeed, the lower house scaled back protection even more than the upper house had.   The version passed Wednesday leaves it up to states to decide how they deal with Permanent Preservation Areas (PPAs), which established the protection of forest along riverbanks, hills, and meadows – areas prone to erosion and landslides that leave land degraded and rivers full of mud and agricultural fertilizers. President Dilma Rousseff has long vowed to veto the bill if it provides amnesty for farmers, as the current version provides amnesty for farmers who cut more than their share before July 2008.   Under Brazilian law, she can veto all or part of the Bill, and must do so within 15 days of Wednesday’s vote. What Changes? The new code replaces the earlier 1965 Forest Code, which established for the first time the concept of Legal Reserve (RL). It stated that private landowners had to conserve 80% of their forested land if they were in the Amazon region, 35% in the Cerrado region within the Amazonian states, and 20% in other regions of the country. Supporters of the new law say the current Forest Code has never worked: it has too many loopholes, too many rules and lacks adequate supervision or enforcement. The research, however, calls this into question. Deforestation Brazil is the world’s fourth biggest emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG), and 75% of its GHG emissions come from deforestation.   That number is sure to increase under the new forest code – continuing the reversal of a trend identified by Dan Nepstad et all in “ The End of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon”.   They found that an average of nearly 20 thousand square kilometers of forests were cleared in the Brazilian Amazon annually from 1996 to 2005, but that deforestation rates plummeted after peaking in 2004. One of the main reasons for this plunge has been the increase of the Amazon Protected Areas from 1.26 to 1.82 million square kilometers, which accounts for 51% of the region’s remaining forests. The Economic Argument: Fact or Fallacy? Brazil’s economy is expected to outpace the average among countries belonging to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but only if its agriculture sector delivers. Agribusiness employs roughly one-third of the working population, and Brazil is a leading exporter of soybeans, orange juice, sugar, coffee and meat. In 2010, Brazil became the world’s-third largest exporter of agricultural products, behind the United States and European Union. The more flexible Forest Code is designed to feed that economic beast, but here, again, the evidence is lacking. Indeed, when Giulio Volpi collected data from deforestation, agricultural surveys and demographic censuses in the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest for a paper called “Climate Mitigation, Deforestation and Human Development in Brazil”, he found that economic benefits and costs from deforestation balanced each other out, leaving the Human Development Index in deforested areas no better or worse than it was before – even though they were environmentally impoverished. Ecosystem Services In the long term, this robs the land of ecosystem services, according to Carlos Eduardo Young of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He contributed to a recent paper entitled “The Contribution of Brazilian Conservation Units to the National Economy”, which examined the economic value of Conservation Units that Brazil established under its obligations as part of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) The paper showed, among other things, that the cost of treating water soars once the forest is gone – something people in US cities like Denver and New York have also learned.   Both cities are using water fees to pay for forest preservation because of the role that forests play in filtering and regulating water. In addition to watershed services, Young’s paper identifies the following ecosystem services on Conservation Units: The production of timber in the Amazon’s national and state forests, from areas managed according to the model forest concession, has the potential to generate between $ 1.2 billion to $ 2.2 billion per year, more than all of the native timber currently extracted in the country; Rubber production in the 11 Extractive Reserves identified as producers, results in R$ 16.5 million per year, whereas the production of Brazil nuts has the potential to generate R $ 39.2 million per year, considering only 17 of the Extractive Reserves analysed. In both cases, these gains can be increased significantly if the conservation units receive investment to develop their productive capacity; Visitors in the 67 existing National Parks in Brazil have the potential to generate between R$ 1.6 billion and R$ 1.8 billion per year, based on estimates of the projected flow of tourists (approximately 13.7 million people, including Brazilians and foreigners) by 2016, the year of the Olympic Games; The sum of estimates of public visitation in federal and state conservation units considered by the study indicates that if the potential of the units are adequately exploited, some 20 million people will visit these areas in 2016, with a potential economic impact of approximately R$ 2.2 billion that year; The creation and maintenance of Brazilian conservation units has prevented the emission of at least 2.8 billion tonnes of carbon, with a monetary value estimated of at least R$ 96 billion; The estimated value for the annual “rental” of the carbon stock whose emissions were prevented by conservation units totals ranges from R$ 2.9 billion and R$5.8 billion per year. This amount exceeds the current spending and investment needs for further consolidation and improvement of these units; In relation to the different uses of water by society, 80% of the country’s hydroelectricity comes from sources that have at least one tributary downstream of a conservation unit, 9% of drinking water is directly collected in conservation units, 26% is collected from sources downstream of conservation units, and 4% of the water used in agriculture and irrigation is taken from sources inside or downstream of protected areas; In 2009, the actual revenue of Ecological VAT passed on to municipalities by the existence of protected areas in their territory was R $ 402.7 million. The potential revenue for the 12 states that do not yet have legislation on Ecological VAT would be $ 14.9 million, assuming a rate of 0.5% for the criterion “conservation unit” that the municipalities are entitled to.     Additional resources Brazil to Vote on Forest Code in March Will Brazil Change its Forest Code – and Kill the Amazon? UN Biodiversity Boss Dias Sees More Engagement With Cities, Private Sector This Week in Water: A New Way to Navigate Water Markets  9 March 2012 |   Exciting times at Ecosystem Marketplace!   Next week our newest venture,  Watershed Connect, will launch at the  6th World Water Forum. Watershed Connect is an online platform to advance watershed solutions that value and create investment in natural capital.     To date, best practices are hard to find, spread out across a variety of organizations and mediums, and in many cases inaccessible. Perhaps even more importantly, there’s no effective space for stakeholders interested in watershed payments and environmental water markets to connect with one another and share experiences and ideas.     Watershed Connect aims to fill this void.  We’ll offer a suite of communication tools, a global project inventory, ongoing news & analysis, key resources, and a project development cycle guide.     We’ll keep you posted on the launch as it happens.  You can also get real-time launch updates – and join the community – by visiting our new  LinkedIn group  and following us on  Twitter.   For questions or comments, please contact  [email protected].   GENERAL Video: Rethinking Markets and the Environment The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) posted a video of Forest Trends President Michael Jenkins presenting at a recent WWF-hosted symposium on how market mechanisms are transforming conservation and rural livelihoods for the better – something they haven’t traditionally been known to do. He talks about the current state of the markets, building necessary market infrastructure, and current trends he sees shaping water, carbon, and biodiversity markets. – Watch the video here (on YouTube). DOMESTIC MARKETS Virginia Nutrient Trading Bills Propose a Bigger, Better Market A pair of bills making their way through the Virginia legislature could give nutrient trading in the state a shot in the arm. The bills would implement many of the recommendations from a study commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly last year. Among the proposed changes to the existing nutrient trading program is an expansion of trading to include major polluters like urban storm sewer systems and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The bills would also establish a state-hosted trading registry, retire five percent of credits to offset nonpoint source pollution, and clarify credit generation and verification rules. – Learn more at the Bay Daily. Go West, Young Mechanism   The High Country News (HCN) profiles Denver Water’s $33 million agreement with the US Forest Service to protect forested watersheds around the city. Denver and the Forest Service match funds to to pay for tree-thinning and prescribed burns to limit future wildfires and their associated damages to drinking water supplies. This model – of managing forests for hydrological services like water quality or flow regulation at a landscape level – is taking off around the west, with similar programs active or proposed in Sante Fe NM, Aurora CO, Portland OR, and Bozeman MT. As HCN notes, programs can face big obstacles: “They’re expensive, and policy-makers must convince water users that the additional cost is warranted. Environmental groups sometimes object to thinning projects, and negotiating payment schemes for public land puts agencies at risk of breaking the law.” But if these problems can be surmounted, potential benefits and scale look to be even bigger.   – Read more at the High Country News. – Read Ecosystem Marketplace’s original coverage of the Denver Water – Forest Service Partnership. Webinar Series: User Contributions and Conservation   The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center is hosting a webinar series on the ‘Conserve to Enhance’ program, which generates funding for local environmental restoration projects by supporting water efficiency projects for homeowners, and then asking that the savings be donated to a restoration fund. An introductory webinar has already taken place (slides and notes can be viewed online). This month’s webinar, “Achieving Local Water Conservation and Environmental Enhancement Goals with User Contribution Programs,” is scheduled for March 20th.   – Learn more and register. As Traditional Funding Drains Away, Marine PES Proposed in Florida   One way to save reefs from degradation is through carefully cultivating marine coral nurseries. A number of such nurseries have been successfully created off of Florida’s coast, but grant money for the project will run out soon. Last month, researchers and conservationists met in Key Largo to explore how payments for marine ecosystem services might fill the gap. Picking the right mechanism was a main topic: mandatory access fees are off the table given current laws, and as Forest Trends’ Tundi Agardy noted, ongoing payments are preferable to one-time user donations.   – Read more at Nature. – Learn more about Forest Trends’ Marine Ecosystem Services (MARES) program. Forget Gold. Invest in Stormwater Retrofits!   A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) looks at smarter ways to leverage private financing of green infrastructure (GI) to control stormwater. Green infrastructure leader Philadelphia, like many cities, has GI incentives in place including tax credits and fee discounts, but private property owners still find it difficult to secure upfront capital for stormwater retrofits. Financing Stormwater Retrofits in Philadelphia and Beyond reviews cash flow models for three financing mechanisms – property owner equity, commercial lending, and off-balance sheet project developer financing – and how public and private entities can support greater investment.   – Learn more at NRDC. – Download the report (pdf). A Green Infrastructure Offer You Can’t Refuse   A new World Resources Institute (WRI) brief offers updates on three of its payments for watershed services pilots focusing on forested lands. The brief highlights new work in using economic, regulatory and ‘beneficiary’ analysis to better compare green infrastructure with traditional ‘grey’ engineering solutions and incorporate ecosystem services thinking into land-use planning. All three projects – in the Upper Neuse Watershed and the city of Raleigh, both in NC and in Maine’s Sebago Lake Watershed – demonstrate a central insight: “make the financial case.” In Lake Sebago, for example, WRI found that green infrastructure could result in around $70 million in cost savings over twenty years.   – Read more at WRI. MONEY MATTERS – THE LATEST FUNDING DEVELOPMENTS ReSource Award for Sustainable Watershed Management Seeking Nominations   The nomination process for Swiss Re’s ReSource Award for Sustainable Watershed Management prize is now open. The prize awards $150,000 to one or several projects demonstrating innovative approaches to guaranteeing sustainable access to water in developing countries.   – Learn more about the award and how to apply. New Hampshire Grants for Wetland Mitigation and Source Water Protection The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services recently announced that grant funding is available for wetland restoration and drinking water supply protection. Projects restoring or protecting wetland functions may be eligible for support from the Aquatic Resource Mitigation Fund. Additionally, in the southern I-93 corridor and the Lake Massabesic watershed grant funds are available to mitigate impacts to drinking water sources from the I-93 widening project. – Read more from WaterWorld. POLICY UPDATES Charting a Course for Source Water Protection A new pair of reports from the Water Research Foundation sets out a roadmap to every public utility in the country having a dedicated source water program program in place by 2025. The document identifies key actions to take – like improving knowledge and support for watershed investment – and includes an extensive bibliography of case studies and information on developing source water protection projects. – Read a press release. – Download the reports. Climate Change and the Case for Markets An essay written for the Environmental Law Symposium on 21st Century Water Law makes the case for relying more, not less, on market mechanisms and property rights in the face of climate change and water security issues. The author notes long-held environmentalist suspicion of markets but argues that “changing environmental conditions…do not counsel further restrictions on private property rights and markets. To the contrary, the prospect of significant environmental changes strengthens the case for greater reliance on property rights and market institutions to address environmental problems, such as the management of fresh water resources.” – Download the paper. GLOBAL MARKETS New Study Brings Ecosystem Valuation to the People (in Charge)   A new report from Earth Economics offers a model for using ecosystem valuation studies as a decision-support tool for policy-makers. Ecuador’s Intag region covers a range of ecosystem services and biodiversity values – as well as substantial copper reserves. To help policy-makers evaluate development alternatives in the region, the study presents projected income from exploiting copper, costs of doing so, and estimated values of Intag’s ecosystem services (using a benefits transfer method) all side-by-side, along with implications and recommendations for incorporating natural capital values into decisions.   – Read the report here (pdf). Theory vs. Practice in Designing PES Projects   Likely you’ve heard the prevailing wisdom on what constitutes a good payments for ecosystem (PES) project: clearly defined buyers and sellers, conditionality (payments contingent on provision of the service), requiring additionality, and avoiding multiple objectives (like targeting both conservation and economic development). But a new paper in Oryx argues that this ‘best practice’ guidance isn’t all that helpful in practice. Examining a series of water funds, the authors found that “requiring conditionality may limit the use of creative finance mechanisms such as trust funds,” and “requiring additionality can…result in the inefficient targeting of PES funds.” Moreover, while public-private partnerships tend to bring in new side objectives, they also have real benefits including transparent long-term management and reduced transaction costs.   – Access the paper, “Water funds and payments for ecosystem services: practice learns from theory and theory can learn from practice,” pp 55-63. Business Ecosystems Training Course Goes Live   The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has launched a free Business Ecosystems Training course on managing business dependencies and impacts on ecosystem services and biodiversity. The course consists of four modules covering basic themes, frameworks, and available tools for ecosystem services measurement and management.   – Read the press release. – Access the training program. EVENTS Ecosystem Credit Accounting Training 2012   The Willamette Partnership’s Counting on the Environment’s Ecosystem Credit Accounting System was designed to assist practitioners who are participating in or interested in ecosystem markets. The associated training program is open to individuals or groups and the modules can be taken individually or as a program ranging from one to six days. Training modules will cover foundations of payments for ecosystem services, ‘Markets 101’, and functional credit calculation methods for wetlands, streams, and upland ecosystems. Follow the link for more information on the training calendar and costs. 9 March – 8 June 2012. Portland, OR and online.   – Learn more. 2012 Sustainable Water Management Conference   The 2012 Sustainable Water Management Conference will be a true sustainability conference focused on water resources integration. This conference seeks to combine technical presentations with in-depth discussions on legal, regulatory, and legislative matters facing water utilities today. The conference will address a wide range of topics concerning sustainable water management, including managing water resources and the environment, water conservation, sustainable utilities and infrastructure, urban planning and design, and community sustainability. 18-21 March 2012. Portland, OR.   – Learn more. AWRA Spring Specialty Conference on GIS and Water Resources   We are living through a remarkable period of advancement in information technology — in just a few years we have learned to take for granted the massive computing resources for geospatial searches provided by the major internet search engines. Every type of work in Water Resources is impacted by these new developments as new sources of data and new tools come online; but, standards for data quality, statistical reliability (uncertainty), and metadata standards are still trying to catch up. We look forward to sharing experiences in New Orleans; meeting others who deal with the same challenges at every level of detail on the wide array of information and technologies that will help us meet the water resources challenges of the new century. 26-28 March 2012. New Orleans, LA.   – Learn more. Planet Under Pressure Conference   Building on a comprehensive update of knowledge of the Earth system and the pressure it is under, the Planet Under Pressure conference will present and debate new insights into potential opportunities and constraints for innovative development pathways based on novel partnerships. 26-29 March 2012. London, UK.   – Learn more. Water Rights and Trading Summit: California   Water rights trading and water resource development are emerging markets that are creating abundant business opportunities. However, these new markets are not always easily understood. WestWater Research and American Water Intelligence are coming together to provide information and direction to water trading and development opportunities through a series of thought-provoking, regional conferences. 12-13 April 2012. Santa Barbara, CA.   – Learn more. 2012 Yale Conservation Finance Camp   The 6th annual Yale Conservation Finance Camp will be held at Yale University, Monday, June 4 through Friday, June 8, 2012. The course offers the latest information on a wide range of innovative conservation finance tools, including new sources of philanthropic funds, public capital and private investment, as well as a framework for analyzing and packaging them. The camp is focused on useful, hands-on tools for conservation practitioners and board members, foundation leaders, private investors and graduate students. This highly interactive course is limited to 20 participants. Registration is on a first-come-first-served basis. For further information and a participant application please contact Amy Badner at [email protected] or visit the camp webpage. 4-8 June 2012. New Haven, CT.   – Learn more. 5th Annual International ESP Conference   The Ecosystem Services Partnership invites you to the 5th annual ESP conference. Don’t miss your chance to interact and exchange ideas with practitioners, educators, policy-makers, researchers, and many others. Be part of working-groups producing outcomes ranging from journal articles, white papers, book chapters (if enough we can put together a book out of this conference), grant proposals, database structures, websites, and much more. This Portland conference is being organised jointly with the International Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE) and A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES). 31 July – 4 August 2012. Portland, OR.   – Learn more. Additional resources Subscribe to this and other EM Newsletters View this Newsletter in its original format This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT Privacy & Cookies Policy Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. 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