Uruguay’s first carbon offset project

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Greenoxx Global Environment Program - Exchange Forestry Offsets

Project Uruguay’s first carbon offset project to generate credits for carbon markets

The 2007 IPCC WG III Report: Mitigation of Climate Change, reported that “forestry can make a very significant contribution to a low-cost global mitigation portfolio that provides synergies with adaptation and sustainable development.” In an effort to seize the opportunity that forestry projects provide - to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while also providing social and economic benefits - Chicago Climate Exchange has developed a range of forestry rules that recognize the four forestry mitigation options as outlined by the IPCC. These include afforestation/reforestation projects that maintain or increase forest area; avoided tropical deforestation that maintain carbon stored in forests; forest management that increases stand- and landscape- level carbon density and increased off-site carbon stocks in wood products.

In accordance with CCX sustainably managed forestry protocols, Greenoxx Global Environment Program of Montevideo, Uruguay, developed the Banking Pension Fund’s Sustainably Managed Forest Offset Project (BPF). The project was established on 15,187 hectares (37,528 acres) of land that was previously unforested in the Municipality of Paysandú, Uruguay. The lands would have most likely remained as grazing land for cattle in the absence of the project. As such, the forestation conversion of this land has directly improved environmental conditions, not only through the sequestration of carbon but also through the natural regeneration of native forests, and increased control of soil and water erosion. The BPF project is Uruguay’s first offset project of any kind to generate carbon credits for either voluntary or regulatory carbon markets.

Registered in 2008, the project’s carbon baseline was established based upon a forest inventory that was conducted in December 2002. Net annual change in carbon stocks is determined by annual in-field inventories, which records forest growth, plantings, harvests and if any, natural disturbances. The project follows CCX’s equation for measuring annual net change in carbon stocks: annual increases in carbon stocks due to volume growth, less the annual quantity by which carbon stocks decreased due to harvest, thinning, catastrophic events, etc. Greenoxx established 53% of the planted forest as a forest buffer area to ensure project permanence.

Multiple benefits are achieved as a result of the Greenoxx BPF project. The initial goal of the project was to incorporate a sustainably managed forest and timber project into the BPF investment portfolio that would generate high quality, measureable and verifiable GHG reductions through the long term sustainable management of forest plantations. The project has been certified by a CCX approved certification program, the Forest Stewardship Council, resulting in the issuance of tradable CCX CFIs that generate the additional revenue stream that is essential to the project’s ability to sustain its environmentally and socially-oriented model. In addition to direct benefits to the project proponents, the project has led to quality of life improvements for nearby villages by increasing accessibility to electricity, and providing economic opportunities such as employment, job training and income for local communities. The project also provides financial support for education, social and sport institutions in the local community.

CCX’s Sustainably Managed Forestry protocols were developed to define activities required for the sustainable management of forests that would benefit the environment, society and the economy. Such benefits include additional forest carbon stocks by planting after harvest or natural disturbances, engaging in harvest systems that maintain partial forest cover, reducing soil erosion and avoiding destructive harvesting practices.

Greenoxx Global Environment Program, a CCX Offset Aggregator, has been declared to be of National Interest by the Presidency of the Republic of Uruguay, as well as of Ministerial Interest by the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Source: www.chicagoclimateexchange.com