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CO

Colombia

140,650 ha

Chocó-Darién Bioregion

Avoided Unplanned Deforestation

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

Overview

Chocó-Darién Bioregion

CO

Colombia

140,650 ha

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

Verra Logo

Registry ID: 1390

Certifications

Certification - 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

Additional

Does the project have a net additional climate benefit?

  • Net additional climate benefit

    Emissions reductions are calculated based on the difference between baseline, project, and leakage emissions. Pachama analyzes emissions claims to confirm that the project has a net additional climate benefit, and each credit represents at least one metric ton of carbon.

02

Conservative

Is the climate benefit based on sound and conservative claims?

  • Baseline claims

    Pachama analyzes baseline emissions accounting to confirm that the reported baseline emissions are less than what Pachama observes with remote sensing.

  • Project claims

    Pachama assesses the project boundary, project emissions accounting, carbon inventory, and financial and legal additionality.

  • Leakage claims

    Pachama summarizes the project's reported leakage emissions accounting.

03

Durable

Is the climate benefit long-lasting?

  • Ongoing monitoring

    Pachama quantifies emissions since the last verification to ensure the project continues to deliver a climate benefit.

  • Project risks

    Pachama characterizes fire and other natural risks and summarizes buffer pool contributions.

04

Beyond Carbon

Does the project deliver benefits beyond carbon?

  • Social impacts

    If a project occurs on community-owned land, Pachama confirms the community is fully informed of the project activity and impact, consent is given without coercion, and a grievance and redress mechanism is in place.

  • Ecological impacts

    For ARR projects, Pachama analyzes native species planting, species diversity, regional suitability, and reforestation practices.

  • Certifications

    Pachama provides a summary of the project's awarded certifications.

1/4

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.

Learn more

12

Responsible consumption and production

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

Learn more

08

Decent work and economic growth

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

Learn more

04

Quality Education

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

Learn more

16

Peace, justice, and strong institutions

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

Learn more

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

  • First Verification Report

    pdf

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