GuateCarbon

Summary

GuateCarbon began in 2007, making it the first REDD+ activity in Guatemala and one of the first worldwide. It is also the largest and most advanced of the projects in Guatemala and the one that involves most partners.

GuateCarbon has developed in parallel to the national REDD+ process and has spurred much of the progress that has occurred at the subnational and national levels.

GuateCarbon is located in the Maya Biosphere Reserve (Reserva Biosfera Maya; RBM) in Petén Department, Northern Guatemala (bordering Mexico and Belize). The RBM is the largest protected area in Mesoamerica covering 2.1m Ha of which 717,000 Ha form the project area. GuateCarbon aims to reduce emissions from unplanned deforestation by approximately 57m tonnes over a 30-year period.

GuateCarbon prepared its project reference level in 2010. The different stakeholders in the project decided to use the opportunity to establish the first sub-national reference level. The resulting reference level, for the Northern Lowlands (Tierras Bajas del Norte; TBN) covers 40% of the country and has been adopted by the two other early REDD+ activities in Petén (Lacandón and Laguna Lachua).

GuateCarbon seeks VCS and CCB certification and completed the preparation of Project Design Document (PDD) in May 2012. In July 2013 an expert from Rainforest Alliance carried out a pre-verification study with positive results. Project activities to reduce deforestation have already begun in some of the concessions. The crediting start date will be 01 January 2012.

Between 1994 and 2002, the National Council for Protected Areas (Consejo Nacional de Areas Protegidas; CONAP) granted 25-year concessions to two private companies and 12 community organisations for usufruct rights to timber and non-timber products (community concessions only). Concessions range from between 7,000 and 83,000 Ha and total more than 500,000 Ha. Many donors including USAID, the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank, KfW and the Ford Foundation provided significant support to the establishment of the concessions, estimated at US$92m between 1990 and 2003 (over half from USAID).

Two of the community concessions have subsequently been cancelled for excessive deforestation within the concession area and as of September 2013 two more are in the process of being canceled for the same reason. The project proponents are CONAP and the remaining ten concessionaries and the project area is made up of these concessions.

The main drivers of deforestation in the project area are the conversion of forest for cattle (often associated with money laundering from drug trafficking) and oil palm. Invasion for subsistence agriculture plays a lesser, though still significant role.

GuateCarbon began formally in 2007 with the signature of a technical cooperation agreement between the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Rainforest Alliance (RA): The “Programme for Ecoystem Services in the Maya Biosphere Reserve”. This in turn evolved from RA's work with the concessionaries to produce certified (FSC) timber as part of its TREES (Training, Extension, Enterprises and Sourcing) Programme.

RA and the IDB have remained closely involved with the project from the start. Other national and international organisations have also provided support including the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and AGEXPORT, a Guatemalan company dedicated to promoting Guatemalan exports.

Government institutions actively involved in GuateCarbon include the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Ministerio de Recursos Naturales e Ambiente; MARNA), the National Council for Protected Areas (Consejo Nacional de Áreas Protegidas; CONAP) and the National Forestry Institute (Instituto Nacional de Bosques; INAB).

At the time of writing (September 2013) GuateCarbon has two key hurdles to overcome: (i) The issue of carbon tenure and the mechanism for sharing benefits between CONAP and the concessionaries; and (ii) the potential re-validation of the TBN using VCS’ jurisdictional and Nested Reporting framework.