Pacajai REDD+ Project
State of Para, Brazil
The main objective of the Pacajai project is to prevent and avoid unplanned deforestation in native forests, avoiding the net emission of 264.116tCO2e for a period of 40 years of the credit period of the project. This objective will be achieved by managing the land in the form of a "conservation reserve private sector”, developing and implementing a management plan. This plan includes rigorous monitoring and inspection plan based on existing experience of surveillance activities underway in the area since 2008. These expanded monitoring activities will be undertaken actively with the participation of local settlers who live within the project boundaries. The local population involved with this monitoring are receiving resources, training in forest management techniques and monitoring technologies.
The project is both VCS and Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) certified.
About the Pacajai Project
The project's mission extends beyond pure environmental benefits, and includes a number of community and biodiversity objectives.
Community Objectives
The Project will provide, as agreed with the landowner, land tenure security to villagers living within the project Boundaries. For those living outside the Project Boundary, capacity building workshops on land titling will be held to provide clear information about which steps villagers need to take in order to legally claim use rights and if possible ownership over free lands.
Additionally, the project will provide support to enhance the community’s organizational capabilities for better management of local resources. Finally, the project will provide capacity building on agroforestry systems and on implementation of energy-efficient cookstoves.
Biodiversity Objectives
The Project will protect local ecosystems by avoiding unplanned deforestation and will enhance ecosystem functionality by allowing areas of deforestation to regenerate, thus eliminating ecosystem fragmentation. In regard to monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), local villagers that wish to participate will receive training on biodiversity monitoring and identification so that they can be a fundamental component of the project activities.
Why Offsetra chose this project
The project has been certified with Verra's prestigious Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) standard, a testament to its strong positive social, environmental, and economic impacts. Offsetra's founding mission was to find innovative means to deliver climate finance to projects which not only produced environmental benefits but impacted the United Nation's sustainable development goals. In that regard, Pacajai is a powerful project and one we are thrilled to support.
Additionally, the project takes a conservative approach to estimate its carbon reductions, as the project will not claim carbon benefits from carbon sequestered through forest regeneration. Rather, the project only counts mitigation effects through protecting against deforestation. However, forest regeneration is seen as a secondary positive externality, one which includes improved forest connectivity and local ecosystem recovery.
Attractive to Offsetra was the fact that the project will not develop or implement extractive activities or activities that cause a significant reduction in carbon stocks. Furthermore, the project will not implement activities nor will it introduce invasive species into the area.
Additional Co-benefits
The project distributed 150 efficient cookstoves in the period from 2012 to 2017. These kitchen stoves have a tremendous benefit in the region for several regions. The local inhabitants in many cases have stoves utilizing gas, but they don't have the money to buy gas. In some cases, they had a fuel stove that was highly inefficient, rusty and that needed large amounts of wood to use and in other cases, they would balance their cooking pot between two pieces of wood and ignite fuelwood near their home. This woodstove-type arrangement causes both a serious fire hazard and a serious health hazard to individuals.
The unique benefits of the cookstove distribution project are several:
- Improved health with a fuel-efficient stove that doesn't generate as much smoke and uses so less fuel (i.e. pollution reduction).
- Better cooking time, less need to cut the forest for wood.
- Controlled fire, less risk of burning the house.
- Improved environment as trees don't need to be cut down to produce firewood for cooking.- Improved cleaning as it is easier to start the stove, easier to clean ash and easier to use in general.
- The primary benefactors are women, as it is not customary for men to cook in the region.
Climate
The Project is located in the northwest of Brazil, in the State of Para, micro-region of Portel, municipality of Portel. The state is crossed by the Equator, and the climate is equatorial. The average annual temperature is 78 °F (26 °C), with a range between the coldest and warmest months of between 2 and 3 °F (1.1 and 1.7 °C). Rainfall, which occurs throughout the year, and humidity are high. The average annual rainfall is more than 59 inches (1,500 mm).
Flora & Fauna
The Amazon is one of Earth's last refuges for jaguars, harpy eagles, and pink river dolphins, and it is home to sloths, black spider monkeys, and poison dart frogs. It contains one in 10 known species on Earth, 40,000 plant species, 3,000 freshwater fish species, and more than 370 types of reptiles.
