Its one thing to plant trees and help restore rainforest as an effective carbon offset method, but what about the quality control that ensures these forest offsets achieve a maximum offsetting potential you can trust?

The Scientific Foundation

It is a scientific fact that healthy ecosystems represent the ONLY means known to science to remove CO2, the principle greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere. Worldwide, over 60% of ecosystems services, including climate regulation, are degraded (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, 2005). There are manifold opportunities to restore degraded ecosystems in North America. This is particularly the case in Western Canada, where historical unsustainable land use practices, urban development as well as insect infestation (eg Pine Beetle) due to climate conditions have resulted in a patchwork of non-functional and unproductive lands. These lands may be severely impaired in their climate regulation capacities, and are often invaded by exotic species "squeezing out" native plants and animal species.

Climate Change is considered to be the greatest challenge to humankind, and "fixing" it will require a range of measures, including the protection of forest ecosystems from degradation. Approximately one third of all CO2 that has been added to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution is a result of deforestation (IPCC 2000 Report). In 2009, global emissions from deforestation exceed those from all of the vehicle, aircraft, rail, and shipping emissions combined.

We believe it is an essential part of the formula to address climate change and believe in the quality of verified and validated emission reductions from reforestation and avoided deforestation. This is why:

Our high quality carbon offsets are:

• Additional
• Permanent
• Create secondary environmental or social benefits
• Accurately measured and quantified
• Validated and verified by independent 3rd parties
• Registered

Additionality

Carbon offsets are only generated with new forests or restored ecosystems on privately owned, marginal agricultural or pasture land and establish strict legal protection for the forest and carbon stocks.

We do not work on land where an obligation to reforest the land exists.

Our offsets have a very small development footprint. It doesn’t take significant energy or resources to plant and care for a tree, meaning very small amounts of leakage per tonne of carbon dioxide absorbed.

The projects we support do not infringe on land with aboriginal cultural heritage value nor do they unnecessarily cut down viable, healthy trees to plant new ones or create new forests on land where a legal OR moral obligation exists to reforest.

Permanence

Permanence is achieved in at least three ways:

1. We only support projects that ensure the forest is developed on land where legal protection of the forest and carbon stocks are in place through strict land covenants or direct ownership.
2. Project managers must protect against natural disturbance such as fire, insects or disease. They must use best practices in silviculture, including the use of mixed, native species, to limit the risk of natural disturbance and to protect against mortality as well as self-insures the new forest against natural disturbance with a reserve fund capable of replanting at least 50% of the trees and by planting at a 25% buffer on each hectare.
3. The long term integrity of the forest and the carbon stock must be protected by applying sustainable management practices that not only allow the forest to continue absorbing carbon, but that guarantee the long term health of the forest ecosystem.

Secondary benefits

The offset generating projects we support must provide a number of secondary social and environmental benefits, including:

• Restoration of native bio-diversity, including the creation, restoration, maintenance and protection of wildlife habitat & fish bearing streams.
• The creation of economic opportunity, employment and diversification.
• Respect for, and protection of, aboriginal cultural heritage.
• Availablity for ongoing academic research on carbon sequestration.

Quantification

The projects we are affiliated with use the Canadian Forest Service Carbon Budget Model 3 to estimate carbon stocks because it is the most accurate model available for Canadian forests and because it provides transparency in use. CBM CFS3 is open, auditable and publicly available. Data is submitted to the model using the advanced TASS (Tree and Stand Simulator) program, a more comprehensive successor to TIPSY (Table Interpolation Program for Stand Yields).

As the sites are prepared the carbon content of soils as well as above ground carbon pools are measured to create a baseline carbon stocks and flows. The carbon stocks are modeled in alignment with a planting prescription, then plotted and recorded with GPS coordinates to accurately reflect what trees are growing, where. This provides appropriate data for project validation and verification.

As required additional carbon modeling may be used to estimate changes in carbon stocks fifteen to twenty years after planting to confirm our initial estimates.

Independent validation and verification

Various protocols are employed to develop, validate and verify the projects we support. This includes:

• The Greenhouse Gas Project Protocol and the Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) Guidance for GHG Project Accounting produced by the World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
• The UN IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry.
• The CDM Additionality Tool produced by the UNFCCC under the Kyoto Protocol.
• Validation is independently measured against ISO 14064-2 using ISO 14064-3 (guidance for project validation and verification).
• Depending on the project additional validation against 14064 standards is by the Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Institute (NRESI) at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in Prince George. NRESI will validate our projects to ISO 14064 standards.
• Alternative verification and validation is performed by Bodo von Schilling, RPF CEA(SFM) EMS(LA), an environmental Auditor highly experienced in the forest ecosystems of B.C.

ISO 14064-2 Standard

ISO 14064-2 as the most rigorous and pertinent Greenhouse Gas accounting standard available for ecosystem restoration projects.

ISO 14064-2 is part of a new voluntary series of standards developed through an international consensus-based approach involving stakeholders from industry, government, NGOs and service professionals. Developed and approved by more than 50 countries, ISO 14064-2 has been approved as a National Standard of Canada. ISO 14064-2 specifies principles and requirements and provides guidance at the project level for quantification, monitoring and reporting of activities intended to cause greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions or removal enhancements. It includes requirements for planning a GHG project, identifying and selecting GHG sources, sinks and reservoirs relevant to the project and baseline scenario, monitoring, quantifying, documenting and reporting GHG project performance and managing data quality.

Registration

The purpose of a registry is to assign serial numbers to each tonne of offset produced, and track it through from creation to retirement. In this fashion, offset buyers can be certain that they are receiving unique, verified offsets with which to counterbalance their emissions.

Registries include:

• Canadian Standards Association GHG Clean Projects TM Registry
• Markit Environmental Registry
• Globe Carbon Registry (currently in development)

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