Community guidelines for accessing forestry voluntary carbon ... - FAO

Community guidelines for accessing forestry voluntary carbon markets
To contribute towards these goals, communities may focus on specific
forest management objectives, for example:
• Income generation from forest products;
• Watershed management; or
• Promotion of ecotourism, etc.
The goals and objectives, and their broader impacts, should be
defined by the community members directly concerned with forest
management as well as all other groups and individuals who will be
affected by the activities. The choice of project activity also depends
largely on the existing vegetation. For instance, if the area is already
covered by forest, but is being constantly degraded due to poor forest
management practices, the activities to be implemented will fall under
the IFM category.
ARR and REDD are relatively straightforward in terms of defining the
activity to be implemented. However, the enabling conditions required
to undertake the activities may be quite challenging. IFM projects may
take many different forms, as discussed below. However, in all cases,
potential project developers must first ask themselves: “Is a forestry
project viable?” Regardless of the VCM, forestry must compete with a
number of other potential land uses. In some cases, such as governmentsanctioned
infrastructural developments, the decision is taken out of
the hands of the community and the VCM has little relevance. In other
cases, different sets of stakeholders may have very different ambitions
for the same piece of land, leading to prolonged conflict and social
tension. As discussed in Chapter 6, some risks to project development
can be identified very early on. Others may become clear only at a later
stage.
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