Carbon credit is a hot topic these days, and a lot of businesses are buying carbon credits to make up for some of the damage they are doing to our ecosystems.
These carbon credit projects typically involve reforestation, with the idea that trees will absorb and store greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. There is a great deal of difference between these projects. Some use sound ecological principles, use native plants, focus on creating biodiversity and good wildlife habitat, and so on.
Other projects plant whatever wherever without much consideration for the native ecosystem. (It may be faster and more convenient since nurseries typically don’t have many native plants.) In an ecological context, these may do more harm than good.
CURRENT CARBON CREDIT REFORESTATION ORGANIZATION IN THE ANDES
Where I live in the Andes, there is such a carbon credit organization. They provide reforestation for free to the landowners and sell the carbon credits to corporations.
They seem to do good work. They have a good understanding of ecology. They use a variety of native species. They develop the design in close cooperation with the landowners, and they adapt it depending on the wishes and needs of the landowners. For us, they include food-producing trees along the main path to help create a food forest, and they plant more flowering plants along the same paths for scent and pollinators. For others, they plant trees that work well with grazing animals (silvopasture), or they design and plant to provide good conditions for growing cacao, and so on.
I am in full support of what they are doing. We have joined their project, are very grateful for their help, and actively encourage others to join.
EMPTY NICHES
Not all landowners want to join their particular project, so there are some empty niches and space for another entity to fill these.
Most of the people who join the current project are people who have moved into the area over the last one or two decades. They tend to be well educated and all for regeneration. In contrast, many of the locals are generally skeptical about these types of projects. They are concerned, likely based on past experience, that they will be taken advantage of, that they will lose control over their land and what’s done with it, and so on. This is a classic dividing line between newcomers and locals in rural areas.
Several people have their own reforestation projects, so joining this one makes less sense to them.
Also, while the current group is planting mostly native plants, they are using a relatively traditional approach. They are not using methods developed within permaculture, syntropic agriculture, and so on.
So why not create a new organization to fill the empty niches of (a) locals skeptical to joining a project run by outsiders, (b) people who already have their own reforestation project, and (c) people who want to use a slightly different approach, informed by permaculture, syntropics, and so on.
A REFORESTATION & CARBON CREDIT COOPERATIVE
It could be a cooperative, and the members would be local landowners who want to reforest parts of their land in exchange for carbon credits.
We will need a strong certification and monitoring process, likely overseen by an independent third party.
We will need full transparency about all parts of the process – to the members, the certification entities, the carbon credit buyers, and the public.
We would need clear guidelines and rules for the members.
MEMBER COMMITMENTS
The commitment for the members would likely include:
Timespan. Likely a commitment to allow the trees to grow for 20-30 years minimum.
Planting guidelines. Following certain design patterns, use a minimum percentage of native trees, use a minimum variety of trees and plants, and plant at the beginning of the rainy season.
Maintenance guideline.
Sustainability. Chemical-free, possibly other sustainability practices.
Focus on biodiversity and wildlife habitat.
Monitoring, reporting, and audits.
Membership fees. An initial membership fee and an annual percentage of their carbon credit income.
Legal agreements.
Agreement to a code of conduction.
Community support. Attend meetings, share knowledge and best practices, etc.
Transparency. Records, audits.
Accountability. Consequences of breaking agreements.
A NURSERY
With our own small regeneration/food forest project, we are seeing that the main challenge is finding enough seeds and saplings for native plants. The cooperative could have its own nursery, either in a central location or distributed on the land of several members. The people in charge of the nurseries would be paid by the co-op.
A WIN-WIN-WIN SOLUTION?
To me, this seems a win-win-win solution.
Corporations have one more place to buy carbon credits, and some would likely prefer to buy carbon credits from a cooperative using sound ecological practices.
The landowners benefit from the extra income.
One or more people may be hired by and work full-time for the co-op.
The co-op and/or individual landowners will hire people to do the planting, initial maintenance, audits, and so on.
The land and wildlife benefits.
It would be a good model for others. A part of the commitment for the co-op would be to share and train others in creating their own cooperative.
I also suspect it may not interfere much with what the current organization is doing. There is plenty of land in the area ready for reforestation. The ones joining their project will likely be a different set of landowners than would join the co-op.
The photo shows the canyon during a rainstorm, I took it when we first came to the area a couple of years ago.