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| Dexter Dombro (middle) is panelist at VCS event. |
December caused something of a celebration at
Amazonia Reforestation, as the agent for our plantation company successfully sold 46,000
carbon credits from our grouped certification under the Latin American Icontec
standard to a Colombian oil company. While we have made voluntary carbon market
sales before, this was the first one our La Pedregoza plantation has accomplished on a carbon
exchange. Nevertheless, carbon markets and carbon offsets still have a long way
to go to act as true incentives for tree planting.
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| Doing a VCS workshop with La Pedregoza plantation workers |
La
Pedregoza has been certified under 2 different standards. The first is known as
the Verified Carbon Standard or VCS. It is internationally recognized and
follows a 2 year grouped certification process that was managed by the Fundacion
Natura in Bogota, Colombia, involving 5 different tree plantations. The grouped
approach significantly reduced certification costs, and happened simultaneously
to the establishment of a carbon exchange on Colombia´s stock exchange, where
the credits are now listed. Readers may wish to follow our Twitter account at @co2tropicaltree.
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| Labour policy posted at La Pedregoza. |
All the participating plantations have their
credits in a common purse, with sales divided between them, based on the
percentage of hectares of trees managed by each plantation. La Pedregoza made
the decision to participate in a second certification under the Latin American
Icontec standard. That standard is the same as the one employed by VCS or by
the Gold Standard, but is managed by a different organization. The decision to
do both was in order to access different markets for the carbon credits
produced by the trees at La Pedregoza. Obviously, we cannot sell the same
credits twice under different schemes, so there is a separate protocol for
managing that aspect.
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| More than 50% of a tropical tree's biomass is carbon. |
Carbon certifications have 2 principal
components. The first is good management, meaning compliance with all local
labour laws, no child labour, technical training for workers, good
environmental policies, conflict resolution policies, worker health and safety
compliance and the like. The second is more
technical, evaluating the age of the plantations, that the cultivations are not
in areas that previously had natural forest, and that measurement parcels are
established to track growth and carbon sequestration by the trees in each lot.
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| Residual waste management and recycling is one of the certification issues. |
At present the international price for a ton of
carbon is very low, around $3.50 USD. At the same time, the cost of
certification remains high. Costs include not just the initial certification,
but also the ongoing audits and verifications required by each standard, with
no guarantee that there will be a buyer. Colombia signed the Paris Climate
Accord, which means the country will start to regulate its carbon emissions in
2021. This is good news, because it will allow carbon sequestration projects to
have a more reliable market for the carbon credits they are producing.
Companies that do not voluntarily offset their carbon footprint may find
themselves paying a carbon tax, so there is incentive to support tree planting
and carbon reduction strategies.
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| Measuring tree growth and carbon capture in parcels is part of the certification process. |
By way of criticism, the high cost of
certification, and the large number of issues being certified, that do not
pertain directly to carbon capture, make current mechanisms complicated and for
many, unrealistic. There is a popular belief that carbon credits are some sort
of bonanza for tree plantations, but in truth they are risky business with a
lot of questionable extra costs that many can´t afford or will never recover,
especially small producers. This means that tree planting has to rely on other
means of income to be sustainable, as the sale of carbon credits is neither a
reliable activity, nor a very lucrative one.
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| Every tree in a measurement parcel has a unique tag for carbon capture tracking |
To truly battle climate change, many countries
may have to consider regulated carbon markets that are fair to producers,
accessible by all, and that don’t rely on voluntary participation. Many of the
standards now being employed are basically designed to make the certifier look
like they are doing something. Some of the rules make little sense, for example
cashew trees as cultivated in Vichada generally are no more than 5 meters high,
but have thick trunks and large canopies; however they are not evaluated as
trees, because somewhere there is a rule that a tree needs to be 5 meters tall,
even if it looks like a bean pole. Nevertheless, La Pedregoza will continue to
plant trees to help the planet, protecting soil, conserving biodiversity,
fighting climate change, whether there is a carbon credit at the end of the
rainbow or not.
