Building Blue Carbon Projects - An Introductory Guide

7 Lessons from REDD+ The United Nations collaborative program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. There is growing recognition that mangroves could be included under REDD+, however there remains a lack of clarity and inclusion of all Blue Carbon ecosystems, such as salt marshes and sea grasses. Of critical concern is the ability for an expansion of REDD+ to include soil carbon, therefore serving as a long-term and stable source of funding to protect Blue Carbon ecosystems and achieve the various goals of stakeholders. The lessons from REDD+ in a Blue Carbon context are not very different from those of other successful payments for ecosystem service frameworks. These include the need to define project objectives, ensure clarity of administrative support and processes, and have capacity in country for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) (Fonafifo et al ., 2012). Research from Gordon et al . (2011) has suggested that if REDD+ protocols were to evolve to include soil carbon as a carbon offset, it could have significant potential to enhance Blue Carbon projects. The REDD+ framework has a history of expanding in scope, as described by Olander et al . (2012), demonstrating its importance and potential as a framework for payments for Blue Carbon projects. A challenge for REDD+ projects is demonstrating that local people living in and or adjacent to the project areas have been meaningfully engaged in the design of the projects, support the projects, and will benefit significantly from project implementation. The expectation of carbon standard organizations is that  the  developers of  such  projects  can  credibly  demonstrate  local  communities’   free, prior, and informed consent (commonly referred to as FPIC). Often, project developers and local  communities  have  difficulty  agreeing  on  what  constitutes  a  community’s  fair share, given differences of opinion regarding the returns that should be associated with the risks that the developers incur, as they typically pay for all the upfront development costs and do not have assured carbon credit purchase agreements in place prior to developing the projects in question. Even when an agreement is reached, ensuring that such local communities obtain a fair share of the future credits, in recognition of their historical stewardship roles, and or the opportunity costs they incur in not utilising the project areas, is often complicated by a lack of clarity regarding land tenure, ownership of forest resources, the associated carbon rights, and or the legal ability to enter into commercial agreements regarding such rights It is important for those interested in developing Blue Carbon projects to devote adequate attention to these and other issues and to seek to address these early during the due diligence and design process. One approach that helps address the transparent and accountable disbursement of carbon credit revenues is the creation of community trust funds, ideally with a professional board and fund manager, who provides regular, detailed reporting on the receipt and use of such funds.

Building Blue Carbon Projects An Introductory Guide

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