Cordillera Azul National Park REDD Project

Initiative

Summary

Peru’s Cordillera Azul National Park is a natural protected area created in 2001 with a core zone totaling 1.35 million hectares and a buffer zone of 2.3 million hectares. Since 2003, the Centre for Conservation, Research and Management of Natural Areas (CIMA), in collaboration with The Field Museum, has implemented a series of measures designed to protect the area, including developing a viable park management infrastructure, stabilising land use and tenure in the buffer zone by working with local communities and officials, and collaborating with regional and national government to design more biodiversity-compatible development strategies (including preventing a road from crossing through the northern section of the park). These actions have led to effective protection of the park and its ample and valuable biodiversity. Moreover, the protective actions of CIMA have led to a significant reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases through prevention of deforestation.

Since 2006, CIMA has been working to develop a REDD+ project to ensure long-term funding of critical park management activities. The project has received funding from a variety of sources including grants awarded to the Field Museum and CIMA from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the JRS Biodiversity Foundation Exelon Corporation, the Frankel Family Foundation, and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID).

The project's crediting period commenced in August 2008 and will continue until August 2028.The project has been designed according to the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard. In February 2013, the project achieved validation to the CCB Standards Second Edition, Biodiversity Gold Level, and was undergoing verification. The project has also been validated and verified to the VCS, howvever has, as of December 2013, not issued any Verified Carbon Units (VCUs).

MRV

TerraCarbon designed and led a forest inventory that covered more than 600,000 hectares to develop a baseline for the project. The carbon pools measured included above and below ground biomass, and dead wood. TerraCarbon conducted field training on measurement protocols over a week-long period providing training to local consultants and park guards, with all training materials prepared in Spanish.