This is the third article in our five-part series on forest carbon credits and the voluntary market. Read Part One and Part Two. Part Four and Part Five will be published later this month. LUMI, Papua New Guinea — When Andrea Babon learned about what a company called Kanaka Management Services (KMS) had been up to in Papua New Guinea, she was aghast at the apparent incoherence of its plans. The India-based carbon credit consultancy had scoped out a forest conservation project in Oro province that would, KMS claimed, reduce millions of metric tons of annual carbon emissions that could then be sold as credits through the voluntary carbon market. “I find it hard to believe they are legitimate carbon project developers based on the poor quality of their project design documents,” Babon told Mongabay in an email. In 2022, the Australian researcher and expert on the forest conservation scheme known as REDD+ worked with colleagues in PNG and beyond to bring KMS’s plans to the attention of the PNG government and Verra, the world’s largest carbon credit certifier. Verra had listed the project on its website as “Registration and verification approval requested,” a distinction that means the project was — and still is, as of late 2023 — under review. REDD+, short for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, is a forest conservation strategy that, in one iteration, seeks to monetize the emissions of carbon “reduced” as a result of a project. Part of that money is then…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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