The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve project is protecting one
of the most highly endangered ecosystems in the world.
Without this project, the carbon-rich, peatland forest of
Rimba Raya would have been turned into palm oil estates,
emitting over 100 million tonnes of carbon into the
atmosphere.
Instead, the project is protecting the land and working with
local communities to achieve all 17 of the Sustainable
Development Goals.
Developed by InfiniteEARTH in 2009, Rimba Raya protects over
640 square kilometers (250 square miles) of High Conservation
Value (HCV) tropical peat forest, with over 350 million tonnes
of carbon stored in their peat domes.
The measurable contribution to emission avoidance is the
equivalent of removing one million cars from the world’s
highways every year for the next 30 years!
As well as playing a huge role in climate mitigation,
peatlands are home to rare organisms found nowhere else, and
they contribute to reducing floods, droughts and wildfires,
all expected to increase as the climate changes.
This project is committed to proactively work with local
communities to not only preserve the peatland and surrounding
wildlife, but to support sustainable development and ensure
people and nature can survive and thrive into the future.
Developer Information
InfiniteEARTH is a Hong Kong-based project development company
specialising in conservation.
The company was created in 2008 with the goal of creating this
reserve.
The company is dedicated to sustainability solutions that go
beyond ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘sustainable’.
They are committed to the development of economically viable
solutions for climate change and environmental degradation by
addressing one of the largest underlying drivers of
deforestation: poverty.
Great for Earth
Carbon emissions from peatland degradation currently
contribute to a whopping 5% of global emissions.
As the largest natural store of carbon on land, it is
essential that we protect peatlands like Rimba Raya from
conversion for agriculture such as palm oil while working
with local communities on alternative sustainable
development opportunities.
However peatlands are underrepresented in carbon off-set
projects.
As much as 85 percent of Indonesia’s carbon emissions
come from deforestation and land use change.
This project is helping to avoid and reduce emissions by
stopping the conversion of tropical peatland forest into
palm oil plantations.
As well as protecting 47,000 Hectares of peatland, community
training and awareness campaigns paired with significant
investment in fire prevention and suppression is helping to
reduce habitat loss and emissions from fires.
The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve collaborates closely
with the Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) to
actively conserve these charismatic great apes.
Palm oil is the leading cause of orangutan extinction, where
it is estimated that every year 1,000 - 5,000 orangutans are
killed by palm oil plantations.
The Reserve is now a critical buffer zone between palm oil
and one of the last populations of wild orangutans on Earth.
Not only paying attention to the land, but the project also
works with communities in fishing villages along the Seruyan
River to encourage sustainable fishing practices and carry
out community clean-ups, removing 5.7 tonnes of rubbish from
the area so far.
Along the coastal area of the project, the planting of
55,350 mangrove seeds is also providing habitat for young
fish, reducing the damage of storms, and helping to
sequester more carbon which would otherwise be in our
atmosphere.
The program also helps to generate income, particularly for
people of Sungai Bakau who work mainly as fishermen and
farmers.
Positive for People
Money earned by the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve project
supports livelihood programmes in surrounding villages.
The programme uses the Sustainable Development Goals to
identify priorities for local communities, resulting in
extensive programmes across employment, education, energy,
health and equality.
The project addresses all levels from education to
employment.
To support literacy, all children are provided school
resources like books, stationary, school bags through an
Education Fund and scholarships are provided to high
achieving children from low income families.
To develop skills the project gives communities access to
technology like drones, computers and generators, and
provides on-the-job training in enterprises like farming.
To date, the project has created 52 positions, directly
hiring local villagers including 17 women.
Micro-enterprises and community initiatives support
entrepreneurship and decent job creation as well as
increasing the income of all households bordering the
project.
The project started a women’s COOP empowering women to
develop initiatives and micro-enterprises like Zuper Shrimp
Paste, Chicken and Egg farming, The Salted Fish
micro-enterprises and Traditional Handicrafts.
Investment in health and clean energy is another key focus,
which has led to the distribution of 300 water filters to
villages alongside 3 community-wide filtration systems, the
construction of a small-scale solar power plant and
provision of individual solar lanterns to every household, a
floating clinic providing access to healthcare in every
village - particularly those in more remote regions - and a
program providing reading glasses to those in need.
The project is also committed to generating awareness and
promoting accountability in their work, releasing a periodic
newsletter, ‘Seeds of Change’, providing updates on Climate,
Community & Biodiversity initiatives maintained by the
project, including on-the-ground interviews.
UN Sustainable Development Goals met by this project:
Launched in 2011, this project is found in the heart of
Democratic Republic of Congo in the Congo basin, the second
most important rainforest in the world after the Amazon.
Run by Wildlife Works, Mai Ndombe is pushing the boundaries of
what a REDD+ (Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and
Degradation) project can achieve and is a world-class example.
This project not only reduces forest and biodiversity loss but
is providing community prosperity through vital investments
into the local area.
It has protected 300,000 hectares of vital Bonobo and Forest
elephant habitat as well as some of the most important
wetlands in the world around Lake Mai Ndombe.
The project supports local people by increasing access to
education and vital medical care.
Developer Information
Wildlife Works is a carbon development company founded in 1997
based in San Francisco, California and Voi, Kenya.
Their mission is to protect 5 million hectares of forest
across the globe with projects also based in Kenya (their
prestigious Kasigau Corridor project which was one of the
first VCS/CCB REDD+ projects) and Cambodia as well as
consulting on various other projects.
Great for Earth
A REDD+ project stands for "Reduce Emissions from
Deforestation and Degradation".
The idea is that by placing a price on a natural asset, in
this case the rainforest, countries will take greater measures
to protect it, thereby reducing forest loss, increasing
conservation management and increasing Greenhouse Gas removal.
The project began after the national government took control
of timber extraction within the area.
Out of 156 logging contracts that were held 91 were suspended.
After the moratorium was lifted the government began to
reissue concession rights, however Wildlife Works helped to
convince the ministry that the area was of much more value
when considered to be of conservation importance.
The Green Insurer’s investment in this project therefore goes
towards not only protecting the rainforest but also
sustainable development within the area.
The project has avoided 13 million tonnes of CO2 to
date, with an annual volume of 2.4 million tonnes.
This is because the project ensures the protection of the
rainforest from its largest threat - logging.
The project has so far prevented 74,000 hectares of pristine
rainforest from being destroyed.
The project is situated by Lake Mai Ndombe in the Congo Basin.
It is home to 20 Bonobos and 30 forest elephants (reported at
the beginning of 2020). Since the project began in 2011 these
numbers have been increasing.
The project conducts extensive biodiversity monitoring, with
teams conducting monitoring within the project area twice a
month.
The team also works with local villagers to discuss any
poaching reported within the area.
Positive for People
This project not only benefits the environment but also the
local community, supporting five of the UN Sustainable
Development Goals.
Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing.
This goal has been supported through the development of a
mobile medical clinic.
This has helped over 3,000 people receive vital healthcare
which had not previously been accessible.
The project is working closely with national and regional
health authorities and non-governmental organisations to
improve the healthcare of the area as well as the
distribution of medicine.
In the first quarter of 2020 the construction of a maternal
health clinic in the town of Ibali was started to address
high maternal mortality rates within the area.
At the beginning of 2020 the area was still dealing with the
repercussions of a measles epidemic that began in 2019.
This was caused by unusually high water in the Mai Ndombe
lake.
The project spent a total of $50,000 on emergency medical
responses with many lives saved due to this action.
The project is now focussed on preventing another epidemic
occurring, with a push for vaccinations being conducted in
the dry season.
Goal 4: Quality Education.
This goal is being addressed through the projects goal of
building 28 schools within the area, currently 4 schools
have been built with a further three under construction.
In total the project aims to provide 8,000 students with
education.
Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth.
In total the project employs 112 local people providing
training and new career opportunities within the project
area.
Agriculture and fisheries are a vital source of income
within the area; therefore the project has helped develop
programmes supporting agricultural intensification in areas
of degraded land.
This not only addresses deforestation but also provides a
secure income.
UN Sustainable Development Goals met by this project:
A REDD+ (Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation)
project with a focus on reducing high deforestation rates in
eastern Cambodia by helping secure land rights for the
indigenous Bunong people in the area.
The project began in 2010 and impacts more than 20,000 people.
The Ministry of Environment of the Royal Government of
Cambodia manages the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (KSWS),
originally designated as a protected area in 2002.
The site is part of the ancestral homeland of many ethnic
Bunong people, for whom the forest is a key source of income
and central to their spiritual beliefs.
Technical and financial support from the Wildlife Conservation
Society, and collaboration with other local non-governmental
organisations partners, supports the project to both conserve
and restore biodiversity values and to protect the livelihoods
of local people.
KSWS plays a vital role in the preservation of the
region’s important and vulnerable wildlife, including
the world’s largest populations of the endangered
black-shanked douc and yellow-cheeked crested gibbon, as well
as a nationally important population of Asian elephants and
many other species.
At the same time, it supports the sustainable development of
local communities, most notably through securing communities
legal title to their traditional lands, and through the REDD+
Benefit Sharing Mechanism which provides significant funding
to community-chosen and community-led development projects.
Developer Information
The Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (KSWS) is managed by the
Royal Government of Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment
with technical and financial support from the Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS).
WCS is an non-governmental organisations founded in 1895 and
is one of the first conservation organisations within the US.
Their goal is to conserve the world’s last wild places
within 14 priority regions across the globe.
WCS assists governments and communities to protect the natural
systems critical to saving wildlife and wild places, securing
valuable flows of ecosystems, services and local livelihoods
based on principles of social and environmental
sustainability.
Great for Earth
The largest threat driving deforestation in Cambodia is land
clearance for both large and small-scale agriculture.
KSWS sits at a deforestation frontier with areas of nearby
protected and unprotected land extensively cleared over the
last decade.
There is also a great deal of illegal wildlife poaching and
illegal logging of rare tree species.
The Wildlife Sanctuary is home to over 1000 species, including
more than 85 globally threatened species.
The project’s biodiversity monitoring is world class,
with long term species population monitoring available for 11
key species.
The project area borders what used to be the 62,000 hectare
Snoul Wildlife Sanctuary until 2018. Rampant deforestation led
to the loss of almost all of its forest cover, and it was
therefore de-classified as a protected area.
Rampant deforestation led to the loss of almost all of its
forest cover and it was therefore degazetted as a protected
area.
KSWS however has successfully managed to prevent approximately
25,000 ha of predicted deforestation since 2010.
The project also supported Cambodia’s first data-driven
zonation process for a protected area.
This process took into account more than 40 spatial data
layers, which helped provide objective and robust decision
support for long term land use planning and sustainable
protected area management.
This helps ensure the long-term protection of the project area
and reduce further deforestation.
Positive for People
The project actively supports community land rights,
including securing the first Indigenous Community Title
(ICT) in a protected area in Cambodia and the first ICT to a
Bunong community.
In total the project has been able to secure seven
Indigenous Community Land Titles for Bunong communities
within the project area, with 8 more under process.
An ecotourism venture has also been started through
WCS’s support.
The Jahoo Gibbon Camp is a community-run ecotourism project,
now run with support of World Hope International, which
brings in more than $14,000 annually in community income.
This tourism revenue is used to support management of the
ecotourism product and for community development funds.
Over the lifetime of the project, livelihoods or income has
been improved for 11,799 people through agricultural
programs, improved resource security, sustainable bamboo
harvesting and handicraft production, community nest
protection programs, and direct employment.
All 20 target REDD+ villages in and around the site are
provided resources and support to enforce their legal right
to patrol and protect resources within their indigenous
lands, as well as receive direct payments from the
project’s benefit sharing mechanism to be used for
self-directed community development investments.
UN Sustainable Development Goals met by this project: