Carbon & Forests Initiative now includes northern Espírito Santo state, Brazil

BVRio, working with Ecosecurities and CICLOS International Sustainability Congress, is supporting Conservation International (IC) in the development of a financial mechanism and investment strategy to attract funding from the voluntary carbon market, which can generate forest restoration and protection in the region called by IC as ‘Abrolhos Land and Sea’. The project also covers land and marine areas located in southern Bahia.

In addition to the mosaic of Protected Areas of the Extreme South of Bahia – including the national parks of Abrolhos, Pau Brasil, Monte Pascoal and Descobrimento, the indigenous lands of the Pataxó ethnic group and about forty Private Reserves of Natural Heritage (rural properties) – the project will cover land and marinem areas located in the north of Espírito Santo. The region is one of the areas of greatest biodiversity within the Atlantic Forest biome and is home to more than one million people – including fishing communities, indigenous and small and medium-sized cities.

The first phase of the project will be completed in August 2021 and will result in the development of a platform to attract investments from the voluntary carbon market. “The idea is to generate ways to finance actions to restore and reduce deforestation in the target territory, including a management and governance mechanism and guidelines for prioritising areas, multisectoral cooperation and impact monitoring,” comments Beto Mesquita, BVRio’s Director of Policies and Institutional Relations.

The strategy aims to protect more than 15,000 hectares of forest, and aid the recovery of at least 1,500 hectares of degraded areas over the first five years, starting in 2022.