In December, during the UN Confence on Climate Change, one of the most discussed subjects by negotiators in Copenhagen was the strategy to use REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) as an official carbon credits generating mechanism. But, as with the other subjects discussed in that meeting, the decision was postponed. In the absence of any official consensus, a volunteer market begins to flourish, seeking the difficult conciliation between the standing forest, emissions reduction and social development. In answer to this movement, a partnership with Latin America and the Caribbean environmental projects financings funds, spearheaded by the University of Columbia in the United States and by the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (Funbio), intends to create a standardization of the projects and devise rules in order to implement REDD initiatives.

The Platinum Standard, as the set of standards was called, should be ready by the end of this year and is sponsored initially by Cargill. “Current guidelines were devised in the Northern hemisphere mostly considering the demand and without any integrated notion of the countries that have forests and their own needs. We must address a North-South sort of dialogue so that it can also serve the interests of communities, private owners and so forth”, evaluates Ângelo Augusto dos Santos, in charge of coordination within Funbio.

Once ready, the document will have a guardian institution responsible for promoting its use in the Amazon Basin. Teams belonging to the participating environmental funds, including Brazil and also Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and the US, will be trained to apply and control the rules with efficiency. They will also be able to certify other organizations to do the same.

“One difference of this standard is the principle of social and environmental criteria connected to Amazonian community interests. It will have, for instance, a conflict- solving protocol, aside from financial mechanisms to share the carbon credit benefits generated. It is also necessary to devise robust methodologies capable of measuring the greenhouse gases that were avoided, after all, the major issue is whether the derived credits can be measured, reported and verified. This is ensured by the system’s robustness”, says Ângelo.

The researcher claims that, possibly, REDD will be implemented after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol’s term expires. It is proceeding in the Climate Convention. For this reason, investments are great in projects of this kind, because companies have an interest to purchase cheap credits to sell them at a greater price – or use them as future compensations. It is true that there is a risk: there is no certainty whether they will be valid when the market is in full swing.

“REDD has an expiry date and its nature will change. There will still be payments for environmental services to then preserve forests. In other words, those who have deforested will win twice: for selling the wood and then for leaving the trees intact. This is the perverse logic of this system that, however, represents the change into a new economy, of good soil usage practices”, concludes Ângelo dos Santos, of Funbio.

The Juma experience

In the Amazon, based on other standards, REDD projects already exist. The most famous of them is the Juma Sustainable Development Reserve, located in the state of Amazonas. It is a partnership between the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS), the Marriot chain of hotels and local government. It is a volunteer program and it compensates emissions from the chain’s guests who are invited to donate a dollar per daily lodging rate. These resources are sent to a fund that also counts on capital forwarded directly by the hotel company which are then applied back in the reserve. In Brazil, different states already begin to shake a leg to create climate policies, including with REDD activities. But only Amazonas has a defined legislation, with environmental services regulated within conservation units. Even so, Brazil has seven REDD projects underway (undergoing different implementation stages).

In Latin America, there are ten more, spread throughout Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay (one in each), Guatemala (three) and Peru (four). This information comes from the “Casebook of REDD Projects in Latin America”, a study conducted by the Amazonas Sustainable Development and Conservation Institute (Idesam) in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) http://www.idesam.org.br/noticias/cop15/casebook-web.pdf

Many of these projects are already functioning within international standards. “In September 2008, we received validation from CCB (Climate, Community and Biodiversity), an international standard that controls the use of the soil and generates additional benefits for biodiversity and the community, aside from the climate. Now we are undergoing a phase of validation by the VCS (Voluntary Carbon Standard), actually connected to carbon issues and the generation of credits”, evaluates Mariana Pavan, researcher of Idesam’s Climatic Changes Program.

The existence of these activities leaves a question unanswered: is a new standard necessary or can we use existing ones? Mariana Pavan does not know about the scope of the work being developed by Funbio and its partners, but she believes that it is interesting that there should be a consensus between its principles and criteria to avoid the risk of duplication of efforts – since existing ones, says she, complement each other in the sense of finding the most complete and inclusive set of notions as possible.

One of the creators of the Juma project, forest engineer Virgílio Viana, director of FAS, explains that this North-South dialogue is already occurring. After assembling a strictly national intelligence team for the development of Juma, he has just signed a partnership with the Amazonian National Research Institute (INPA) to inventory the carbon stocks. The goal is to find a precise estimate for the sequestering of greenhouse effects gasses promoted by the preserved forest. “We will also enter a phase of greater detailing of the vegetation covering, with support from Google”, adds he.


Felipe Lobo is an environmental journalist from Rio. Together with friends he created the website Oikos Já, for communicating environmental issues to the youth.