When carbon offsets have everything to do with the Amazon Forest conservation

Located inside Island of Marajó, in one of the regions with the highest social vulnerability and a very low Human Development Index in Brazil, the Marajó Amazon REDD project actively contributes to the reduction of deforestation, generation of alternative income for local communities and with the sustainable development of the region. In just the first decade of the project, the region had 60% less forest loss than the surrounding area.

June 2020 Update

In June 2020, the 2nd verification of the Marajó Amazon REDD Project was completed. This means that the project meets all the requirements of the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and can generate carbon credits until 2022 at least.

SDGs met by Marajó Project:

Social and environmental benefits: the Marajó Amazon REDD Project differential

The Marajó Amazon REDD Project has already prevented the deforestation of 3,513 hectares of land, that is, about 37,940,400 m2 of area and, therefore, we have stopped emitting 1,623,272 tCO2e to the atmosphere.

The project provides support to approximately 450 local families and is evaluated according to the social-environmental aspects by the Social Carbon certification standard. Through this methodology, we prove the social-environmental evolution in the following criteria:

• Frequent consultations with the communities, co-operatives and other stakeholders at the local level, which provide synergistic communication between the technical team and the people impacted by the project.
• The project also strengthens income-generating alternatives for local communities, such as Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs).
• Marajó Amazon REDD Project has also enabled the creation of the COAMA co-operative composed of more than 30 families from local communities. This co-op is in charge of trading the production of the small açaí producers of the communities from Island of Marajó.
• Today, the local community conducts a biannual certification of the açaí and organizes the production thanks to the project.
• Marajó has also made it possible to build a tree nursery for the production of native seedlings with economic value.
• The community also has the opportunity to participate in courses such as sustainable agriculture and fishing, organic production and açaí certification, organic practices, sustainability, health and safety in the production process, fire control training, beekeeping, among others.
• The project also allocates monthly donations essential for the operation of the single school in the region, called Casa da Família Rural (CFR).
• Marajó also funds scholarships for community members (undergraduate courses).

The graph below shows the evolution of almost 30% of the social-enviromental indicators that have been monitored, reaching an average score of 3.7 out of 6.