S1E94: Forest carbon offsets – the view from a project developer

Indonesia's Rimba Raya project developers explain how rigorous
the verification and auditing process is.


Synopsis: Every first and third Monday of the month, The Straits
Times analyses the beat of the changing environment, from
biodiversity conservation to climate change.


Forests soak up large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and halting
deforestation and replanting forests make sense as a strategy to
fight climate change – and save nature, too. Investors who do
this, want to earn a return for their efforts by selling
tradeable “offsets” representing a tonne of CO2 removed, or
avoided from being emitted, such as protecting a forest under
threat from clearing. 


But a recent investigation by The Guardian concluded that
rainforest carbon offsets issued by Verra, the world's main
certification body for offsets, were mostly worthless. The
conclusion has been widely panned as inaccurate. 


So what are these projects really like on the ground? How
difficult are they and how much work goes into creating and
running them? 


In this episode, we speak to Todd Lemons and Jim Procanik, who
developed the Rimba Raya project in Central Kalimantan in
Indonesia more than a decade ago. The project saved a large area
of peat swamp forest from being chopped down to grow oil palms.


Lemons and Procanik explain more about Rimba Raya, the forest
area and the projects to help save the forest and boost local
livelihoods. 


Highlights of conversation (click/tap above):


1:31 What is the Rimba Raya project and why is it important?


4:05 The project’s impact on the forest area


8:29 “The forest is our most efficient mechanism for fighting
climate change.”


12:57 There are fears forest carbon projects can be damaged by
fire or logging. How to address this?


17:45 “These forests have so many other benefits other than CO2
sequestration (which is the process of capturing and storing
atmospheric carbon dioxide)


Listen to Pt 1 - Forest carbon offsets - scam or climate
saviour?: https://str.sg/ikxn


Produced by: David Fogarty (dfogarty@sph.com.sg), Ernest Luis,
Hadyu Rahim & Fa'izah Sani


Edited by: Hadyu Rahim


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Special edition series:


The Unsolved Mysteries of South-east Asia (5 eps):
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Invisible Asia (9 eps): https://str.sg/wuZn


Stop Scams (10 eps): https://str.sg/wuZB


Singapore's War On Covid (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuJa


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