isramart : Australia goes into REDD

isramart news:
Australia has its first Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) project thanks to Sydney based project developer Redd Forests Pty Ltd. Redd Forests has met the international Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS) and received approval for its Tasmanian avoided deforestation pilot project “Creating a Safe Deposit Box for Carbon.” This is the first CCBS approved project in Australia.

“We are delighted to see this REDD Forests project in Tasmania breaking new ground by becoming the first project to be validated against the new Second Edition of the Climate Community and Biodiversity , or CCB Standards as well as being the first project to achieve approval in Australia,” said Joanna Durbin, Director of the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance. “This successful CCB Validation demonstrates the high quality of this project that is effectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also safeguarding habitat of great importance to Tasmania’s native plants and animals.”

The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Project Design Standards (CCB Standards) evaluate land-based carbon mitigation projects in the early stages of development. The CCB Standards foster the integration of best-practice and multiple-benefit approaches into project design and evolution. The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) – the organisation that has developed the standards, identify land-based climate change mitigation projects that simultaneously generate climate, biodiversity and sustainable-development benefits.

The Redd Forests project, on an 860 hectare private landholding in Tasmania, demonstrates the commercial viability of using the carbon market to reward landowners who, traditionally, have logged their land for income. Instead, landowners can now assign those same logging rights to Redd Forests in return for a percentage of the proceeds of sale of the resulting carbon credits. These credits are generated by Redd Forests “locking up” the land for a period of 25 or more years thus avoiding the release of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from logging and land clearing practices. In return the landowner commits to manage the land and promote the natural regeneration and growth of their native and old growth forests.

“This is a ‘win-win’ in the fight against climate change” says Redd Forests’ Managing Director Stephen Dickey; “the landowner can secure a healthy income for protecting rather than degrading his forest land, the emissions of greenhouse gas are avoided, and buyers of the carbon credits can take comfort that they have protected high conservation value land for a generation at least.”

Redd Forests will now expand their project to other, larger tracts of threatened forest land using the same methodology. “The goal is to protect half a million hectares across Australia within the next 5 years” said Mr. Dickey.