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$0

/metric ton of CO₂e

Available via direct sales only
CO

Colombia


118,318 ha

Chocó-Darién Bioregion

Avoided Unplanned Deforestation

Protect community-owned tropical forest in a megadiverse region from mining and deforestation

$0

/metric ton of CO₂e

Available via direct sales only
Overview

Chocó-Darién Bioregion

CO

Colombia

118,318 ha


Developer: GO2 Markets

Avoided Unplanned Deforestation

The humid forests of the Chocó-Darién bioregion on Colombia’s Pacific coast are some of the most biodiverse in the world, known for their variety of ecosystems, including mangroves, estuarine forests, and lowland rainforests. Fully owned by six Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, this project was established to avoid illegal logging, deforestation, and land conversion for agriculture.

Registry

Registry ID: 1390

Certifications

Climate Community and Biodiversity Standards Logo

Methodology

VM0006

Pachama's project evaluation criteriaPachama rigorously evaluates every project listed on our marketplace to ensure that we're surfacing only the highest quality projects. Our Evaluation Criteria includes a series of checks that every project must pass as well as a number of informative insights on project quality. You can see a preview of these checks below.

01

Accurate

The project's emissions reductions have been conservatively quantified

  • Baseline

    The reported baseline emissions are less than or equal to Pachama's observed baseline emissions. There are some variations based on project type.

  • Past Project Emissions

    The reported emissions inside the project area are greater than or equal to Pachama's observed emissions.

  • Carbon Inventory

    The project estimated their carbon stocks using a field inventory or remote sensing approach that was statistically representative of the project area, and their carbon stock estimate included a confidence interval and had <15% standard error.

02

Additional

Emissions reductions would not have occurred without the incentive of carbon credits

  • Project Boundary

    The boundary has not been artificially manipulated to increase crediting.

  • Financial and Legal Additionality

    There was no funding for carbon project activities in the 10 years prior to the project start date, and there were no legal requirements for emissions reductions or removals.

  • Improved Forest Management Projects Only

    Forest Maturity

    The crediting period must extend at least 25% beyond the age of economic maturity for at least half of the project area.

  • Reforestation Projects Only

    Forest Cover

    There must be no deforestation within the project area and existing forest cover must be less than 10% in the 10 years prior to project start date.

03

Durable

The project delivers a long-lasting climate impact ensured by continuous monitoring and reporting

  • Recent Project Emissions

    Pachama observed project emissions are less than the leakage-adjusted baseline meaning the project continues to provide a net climate benefit since their last credit issuance.

  • Fire Risk

  • Other Natural Risks

  • Buffer Pool

04

Net

The project hasn't simply moved deforestation from one place to another, producing no net climate benefit

  • Leakage Summary

    Pachama currently examines and summarizes leakage calculations from registry-verified documents. Accounting for leakage is an inherently complex challenge with a range of methodologies. Pachama is using satellite observations to develop a consistent and easy-to-understand approach to quantifying leakage.

05

Beyond Carbon

The project causes no net harm and delivers biodiversity and community benefits

  • Free, Prior, Informed Consent

    The project sufficiently demonstrated proper community engagement and consultation, and a grievance and redress mechanism is in place.

  • Certifications

  • Forest Management

  • Reforestation Projects Only

    Ecological Impacts

    For reforestation projects, the forest composition must be a majority native species, there must be at least 5 different species planted, and the species assemblage and density should be similar to what would typically be found in the local ecoregion.

1/5


Tech-verified evaluationEvery forest project listed on the Pachama Marketplace must align with our Evaluation Criteria to ensure we're surfacing only the highest quality projects. To assess a forest project, Pachama uses remote sensing to review a variety of factors including forest cover loss in and around the project area. This project passes our emissions quality checks because the reported emissions are in line with what Pachama observed.

Contains modified data from Hansen Global Forest Change v1.9 (2001-2021).

Visual Description

The figure above shows the project area outlined in white, and observed forest loss in red. The project has been active since 2014. Pachama analyzes forest loss data and removes false positives during our project evaluation process.

Project story
Fostering sustainable development in one of Colombia’s poorest & most conflict-ridden areas

As a whole, the people in this region are in the process of recovering their lands after decades of violence and internal displacement. Loggers are still exploiting the region’s wealth of natural resources and residents’ lives are under imminent threat due to conflict as well as this external pressure to exploit the land. Locals formed a Community Council that is self-governing with its own customs, traditions, and Annual Operating Plan protected by the constitution in order to create this project and actively direct how revenues are used.

These brave communities refuse to stay silent and instead now leverage carbon credits to protect their forests and develop sustainable alternatives to logging.

50%

of total forest cover loss across Colombia is due to mining in Chocó.


6.1%

of the total Colombian deforestation rate comes from Chocó.

Families live close to or on the water for easy access to fishing. Rivers and other bodies of water enable transport for the community living in the remote Carmen del Darién area. (Photo Credit: Sixzero Media)

Families live close to or on the water for easy access to fishing. Rivers and other bodies of water enable transport for the community living in the remote Carmen del Darién area. (Photo Credit: Sixzero Media)

Impacts beyond carbon

“The community owns 100% of the project. We’ve traditionally cared for the forest and now we receive income for doing so.”

As the local community has shared, they fully own the project and direct how revenues are used via an assembly and an Annual Operating Plan. Thanks to capacity-building initiatives, community members can carry out project activities without outside assistance, including managing and protecting the forests and creating enterprises to expand, intensify, and diversify local crop cultivation. The project aligns with a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more about a few of their key initiatives:

05

Gender Equality

Hiring of 6 community corteros (loggers) for deforestation monitoring with a concerted effort to onboard more women.

12

Responsible consumption and production

Scaling sustainable agricultural activities for coconut, cocoa, and acai; fishing, management of harvesting equipment, processing plants.

08

Decent work and economic growth

Providing land-use management training for 107 families to learn sustainable activities such as banana/plantain cultivation.

04

Quality Education

Providing 600 community members with skills-based opportunities for topics like accounting, financial analysis, and project evaluation.

16

Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Training 288 indigenous landowners in land tenure, legal rights & ownership to safeguard their territory effectively.

biodiversity
One of the World’s 10 Megadiverse Hotspots

The Chocó-Darién project area is rich with biodiversity and includes several valuable ecosystem types such as mangroves, swamps, flooded forests, dry forests, cloud forests, and paramo. Plants associated with these ecosystems, particularly swamps and flooded forests, are highly susceptible to changes in water quality and ecosystem fragmentation.

biodiversity image
  • 50+

    Endemic animal species


  • 800

    Birds


  • 5,124

    Plant Species

Mangroves image
tree spotlight
Mangroves

~ 50% of old-growth mangrove forests have been lost over the past 50 years. The mangroves of Chocó provide a number of benefits including coastal resilience, biodiversity, and carbon storage.

how this project helps

Rangers are trained on species identification and data collection for monthly monitoring.

Spider Monkey image
animal spotlight
Spider Monkey

Colombian Spider Monkeys are critically endangered with an 80% reduction in population size due to habitat loss. Their preference for living in the upper canopy makes them essential to seed dispersal and forest diversity.

how this project helps

Humboldt Institute biodiversity plots are being implemented for biodiversity mapping. Conservation Zoning: Former loggers are engaged to demarcate conservation zones.

project files
  • Project Description

    pdf

    Download
  • First Verification Report

    pdf

    Download

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