The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

Project start date. Given the complex history of land usage andland rights in the Project Area, determining an exact project startdate is somewhat difficult. OFI, a partner in the project, hasstruggled for decades to protect this region and ensure theterritorial integrity of the adjacent TPNP (see Section G2.2) andhas been physically engaged in the area through active protrolssince 2005. Although project proponents secured national-­‐levelsupport for the project as early as March of 2008, they haveopted for a more conservative start date of November 2008,when the Bupati signed an official letter recommending theproject (see Section G5.2, below). As Project Area oil palmplantations relied on the Bupati’s support for their concessionclaims, this letter marks the date on which the project succeededin supplanting those claims, preventing them from continuing todeforest the project area and therefore began officially“conserving carbon” per the definitions under the VCS guidelines.Implementation Schedule for Major Project ActivitiesTable 28 below details key events and milestones for the firstthree years of project implementation.“The great use of life is to spend it forsomething that will outlast it”-­‐ Philosopher, William James149