Improved forest management to help the land and local communities of Mexico
Mexico’s green cover is at risk. The central American country loses almost 45,000 hectares of forest cover each year to make way for agricultural land. For scale, this is equivalent to the same area occupied by one of the largest islands the country has.
Local communities and cultures are also impacted by deforestation, which affects the social fabric of the richly diverse country.
This climate project aims to have a two-fold impact: Improved forest management and supporting the local Mayan community. By combining three projects (CAR1863, CAR1864 and CAR1865), over 70000 hectares of rainforests will be restored in the state of Quintana Roo.
Through improved forest management practices such as selective thinning, density control, fire risk reduction, and the enhancement of unstocked areas, these projects increase carbon sequestration, conserve ecosystems, protect biodiversity, and strengthen the involvement of local communities. This enhances soil stability, supports water regulation, and protects habitats for species like the sacred jaguar.
As a result, the local Mayans gain economic resilience. By engaging with ejidos, which is the country’s unique system of communally owned and managed land, the projects have been able to generate economic opportunities that directly benefit local families.
With a multi-pronged approach to restoration, these bundled projects don’t just support the present, but also invest in the future of the land and its local inhabitants.
Project Standard
The project contributes to the the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
Improved forest management for climate action and biodiversity
Forests are true superheroes: they prevent desertification, purify water and air, store carbon, and are an important habitat to roughly 50 percent of all animal and plant species. Forests also play a key role in the fight against the climate crisis. Around 15 percent of global CO2 emissions result from deforestation, making forest protection one of the most cost-effective solutions to mitigate climate change.
Improved Forest Management (IFM) aims to increase the forest's capacity to store carbon, conserve the forest and reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.
Depending on the project, different IFM measures are implemented:
Extended rotation: Increasing the time between harvest cycles allows trees to grow larger, accumulate more biomass, and store more carbon.
Reduced-impact logging: Selective removal of individual trees preserves the forest structure, and promotes natural regeneration.
Build-up of timber stock: Less wood is harvested than naturally grows back, resulting in a continuous increase of forest biomass.
Forest reserve: In natural forest reserves, all logging activities are entirely prohibited within a designated area. This significantly increases biomass and promotes high biodiversity.
The project aims to contribute to these United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Four criteria for projects to meet quality thresholds
The life cycle of a climate project
A climate project has a set life cycle consisting of various phases, from the feasibility assessment to the retirement of Verified Emission Reductions (VERs).
The project developer reviews the general feasibility of the project, the project design, and the financing. Then, the Project Design Document (PDD) is prepared, which contains all the basic information about the project, such as the objective, location, timeline, and duration.
In this phase, independent auditors examine the PDD and the information it contains. This phase often also involves field visits with on-side interviews and analyses. Auditors are accredited, impartial assessors who have to be approved by the relevant standard as a validation and verification body (VVB). TÜV Nord/Süd, S&A Carbon LLC., and SCS Global Services are examples of VVBs."
Once validated, the project can be registered with a standard such as the Verified Carbon Standard or the Gold Standard. All high-quality climate projects are based on international standards. They provide the framework for project design, construction, carbon accounting, and monitoring. Recognised standards make the climate project system and the projects themselves resilient, traceable, and credible.
After the climate project has been registered, the monitoring begins. Here, the project developers monitor and document the data of the project activities and progress. The duration of the monitoring phase varies from project to project: it can cover two years, but documentation over five or seven years is also possible.
At the end of each monitoring phase, a VVB checks and assesses whether the values and project activities stated in the monitoring report are correct. As with validation, visits to the project site are often part of the verification process.
Once verified, the emission reductions that were confirmed in the verification phase can be issued as VERs. The steps of monitoring, verification, and issuance of VERs are repeated regularly and are therefore considered as a cycle.
Once a VER has been used, it must be retired. This process is also reflected in the registry. If the financing of a climate project is done through ClimatePartner, the VERs are bundled in a system certified by TÜV Austria and then retired on a regular basis. This ensures that each VER can no longer be sold and is only used once, preventing double counting.
Explore our projects
Biochar for Climate Action, Healthy Soils, and Better Harvests
A certified climate project combined with additional commitment
Expansion of renewable energy generation in Asia
Ceramic water filters save CO2 and improve health
Improved cookstoves worldwide – for better health and cleaner air
A certified climate project combined with additional commitment
Powering access to renewable energy in Africa
A certified climate project combined with additional commitment
Restored ecosystems remove carbon
Turning degraded farmlands into healthy ecosystems
Improved cookstoves - better for health and the environment