The new methodology, approved by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Association, will allow projects in the voluntary market to calculate avoided emissions by reducing deforestation either on the edge (“frontier”) of large cleared areas, like agricultural zones, or in a patchwork (“mosaic”) within standing forests.
14 July 2011: The World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund, the Brazilian NGO Fundação Amazonas Sustentável (FAS), with the technical support of Carbon Decision International (CDI), the Institute for Conservation and the Sustainable Development of Amazonas (Idesam), and with financial support from Marriott International, have jointly developed a methodology to allow projects in the voluntary market to calculate avoided emissions by reducing deforestation either on the edge (“frontier”) of large cleared areas, like agricultural zones, or in a patchwork (“mosaic”) within standing forests.
The new methodology was officially approved by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Association. The “Unplanned Deforestation” Methodology took three years to develop, and will help quantify emission reductions from projects that reduce unplanned deforestation. It merges two methodologies that were being separately developed by the World Bank and FAS to address both frontier and mosaic deforestation, filling an important niche in methodologies for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD) as it is more broadly applicable and aims to apply to REDD projects in the voluntary carbon market. [World Bank Press Release]