This post responds to a recent report published by The Oakland Institute, Evicted for Carbon Credits: Norway, Sweden, and Finland Displace Ugandan Farmers for Carbon Trading. This report about the Kachung Forest Project omits some important facts with regards to its CCB certification that result in inaccurate statements.
As mentioned in the report, the Kachung project was validated to the CCB Standards in 2011. However, in order for emissions reductions to be reported as coming from projects that meet the CCB Standards, the project must be both validated (which entails an approval of the design of the project) and verified (which involves the systematic, independent and documented process of evaluating a project’s delivery of net climate, community and biodiversity benefits in accordance with the project’s validated design and monitoring plan and the CCB Program Rules). Verification must occur within five years of validation.
After its initial validation to the CCB Standards in 2011, the Kachung project was never verified, so its validation expired in June 2016 and the project was never eligible to issue credits with a CCB label. At CCBA’s request, Green Resources has removed all mention of CCB Standards status from their web page about the Kachung project.
CCB Standards Second Edition used by this project in 2011 requires the following: “If any relocation of habitation or activities is undertaken within the terms of an agreement, the project proponents must demonstrate that the agreement was made with the free, prior, and informed consent of those concerned and includes provisions for just and fair compensation”. The Project Design Document indicates that there was an agreement between the project proponents and local people conducting activities in the project area and the validation report indicates that compensation was made to these people: “Existing grazing and cropping activities have been assessed in the course of the leakage assessment during the CDM audit assessment. The mentioned activities will be relocated as a result of the project implementation; in case of perennial crops like banana compensations were paid even though these activities were not allowed on the reserve.”
In 2011, a CCB-accredited auditor visited the project site to conduct the 2011 validation, checking that the information in the project design document was accurate at that time and met the requirements of the CCB Standards.