Offsetting carbon emissions

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: