Carbon Credits and Tree Planting

by Dexter B. Dombro

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

© 2017 Plantación Amazonia el Vita S.A.S.

Constructing a Biochar Oven

by Dexter B. Dombro

Getting the foundation right is an important first step

We are very grateful for the funds donated by A. Raymond Tinnerman Europe towards our biochar program in the La Pedregoza Natural Reserve. This helped with the construction of a biochar retort and with the promotion of this technology in the region. Biochar is a valuable way of improving the nutrient retention of poor tropical soils and thanks to this oven we can produce biochar in an environmentally friendly manner. This article is a photo essay showing what we did and why it is important, if one wants to preserve soil microfauna while fertilizing trees and crops. Biochar is charcoal that has been produced using pyrolysis or a low oxygen burn, then is crushed and charged with compost or other organic fertilizers. 

There is a lot of metal work involved

The biochar oven not only consists of bricks and mortar, but also of metal work that has to be carefully measured and welded. The retort has to be airtight, and yet easy to open in order to fill it with biomass and to later remove the biochar after the burn has completed. The whole idea of this process is to eliminate damaging greenhouse gas emissions while making charcoal, as well as also improving the amount produced. Traditional charcoal making releases all the gases into the atmosphere and only produces 100 KG of charcoal per metric ton of biomass, whereas a biochar oven doesn´t release any greenhouse gases and produces between 350 KG to 400 KG of charcoal per metric ton of biomass.

Next we embed a 5 mm steel sheet.

We took the basic design from Chris Adams, a German designer, giving this type of biochar oven its name: the Adam´s Retort. Student interns at La Pedregoza from EberswaldeUniversity for Sustainable Development in Brandenburg, Germany, did much of the work, with special thanks to Florian Kleinschroth for the construction phase of the project and to Renke de Vries and his brother Wilko for developing the operational protocol that will allow local people to achieve the maximum output, if they follow all of the steps we have detailed. The retort we built has a 1 metric ton capacity and uses wood from pruning and culls in our tree plantations as the chosen biomass, however it can operate with other types of biomass, such as rice husks or coconut shells.

We're only missing the firebox door.

The retort has two chimneys; one is used when the oven initially heats up. The other is used to allow the moisture in the biomass to escape in the form of steam. The heat used to drive the process is created in the fire box, which doesn’t use a lot of wood to get the process started. The entire burn becomes self-sustaining once the biomass reaches a certain temperature, at which point the gases are funneled into the firebox and burnt off, making most of the charring process self-fueling. The fastest results are achieved when the biomass or wood is pre-dried, as wet wood will slow down the charring process. At La Pedregoza we air-dry the biomass for three months before using it. The biomass should also be cut into small pieces before being placed in the charring chamber of the oven. 

The retort can hold 1 metric ton of biomass.

The woody biomass is placed in a criss-cross pattern inside the oven, allowing the heat to penetrate everywhere. The biomass chamber is a sealed area in which the wood is converted to charcoal. We use sand or soil to seal off the lid once the oven is filled with biomass, as it can’t be burnt and is easy to find on most farms. Our retort has a double wall, with insulation between the layers, as well as an insulated lid, which allows the heat to build up quickly inside the oven. The idea is to keep the entire process simple, so that local subsistence farmers can use this type of oven without a lot of special requirements. The only way we could improve on this is if we had a metal biomass basket that was lifted in and out of the oven by a small crane, so that manual loading and unloading wouldn’t be necessary. 

Biomass converted to 350 KG of charcoal.

Once the burn is completed the biomass is converted to charcoal, but looks just like the wood that went into the oven. We remove the charcoal and soak it with a compost tea to extinguish any lingering embers. The pieces are put in large vinyl bags, after which we drive over the filled bags with a truck or tractor in order to crush the charcoal into little pieces, as they are better in the soil. Workers have to wear masks to protect their lungs during the unloading of the oven and the crushing of the charcoal. Next we mix the charcoal into our compost, and then we let it sit for at least 2 weeks. This converts it into biochar, ready to be added to the soil.

The goal is to bring the oven to about 500°C

So why are we doing this? Tropical soils have significant nutrient retention problems, with a high rate of lixiviation or filtration, causing organic fertilizers to leach out or to be washed down out of reach of the tree or plant. The biochar becomes a retaining agent, allowing organic material to accumulate (compost, leaves, twigs from dead-fall etc.), slowly creating a layer of black soil. This phenomenon was first reported out of Brazil, where it was observed in ancient indigenous villages with soils that were way better than the areas around them. In Portuguese it is called Terra Preta or black soil, and is still working 500 years after the Europeans arrived. 

Steam changing to smoke: pyrolysis begins.

One of our objectives is to create an affordable and environmentally friendly method for producing biochar that local people can adopt, in order to improve their soils using readily available resources. Our La Pedregoza Environmental Corporation, a non-governmental, non-profit entity or NGO is working to hold a number of workshops and seminars in the region to promote organic practices and natural silviculture. That is why the next step in the process was to prepare a detailed protocol that can be followed by local people for best results, and also to insure the health and safety of biochar oven operators in the region. 

Compost pile with biochar at La Pedregoza.

One of the interesting facts about biochar is that once it has been placed in the soil it has a half-life of 1,000 years, which means that this is an extremely cost-effective method of amending poor soils so that they can be more productive. It also means that it helps to sustain the microfauna of the soil, which in our opinion is really important, since soil is the most biodiverse eco-system on the planet. Creating healthy soil also means that the forester or farmer has a much greater choice of possible species they can cultivate, while at the same time protecting and enhancing local biodiversity. Needless to say this is also an amazing way of sequestering carbon in the soil for centuries, as that carbon would otherwise cycle into our atmosphere in just a few short decades. 

Chopped palm leaves and biochar.

ARaymond Tinnerman Europe´s donation to La Pedregoza Environmental Corporation’s soil improvement program is a wonderful step towards our ability to help improve the livelihoods of campesinos or small farmers in the Orinoco River basin of Colombia. It is also an important contribution to our tree planting activities, which we have been carrying out together with Tree-Nation for several years now. We are calling the organic practices we are developing in the region natural silviculture. We are sure that the employees and management of A Raymond Tinnerman Europe can be very proud to have contributed to this effort with their gift. Thank you so much, we can and we will build a better world together!