The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

negative. In this scenario, net biodiversity impacts will depend onexactly where such licenses are established, and subsequentcomparisons of biodiversity gains in the Project Area compared tobiodiversity losses where the new licenses are issued. Theproject has a clear plan for tracking the future business activitiesof the companies whose licenses will be retired in the ‘withproject’ scenario.From a biodiversity perspective, both oil palm and illegal loggingare environmentally unsustainable options, to be minimized oravoided wherever possible. By creating and protecting a largearea of natural habitat contiguous with TPNP, the project will behelping to maintain and enhance biodiversity in a region thatwould otherwise be degraded or lost to these two activities.Maintaining biodiversity in rain forests is highly dependent onmaintaining ecosystem dynamics between species, and retaininglarge enough tracts of habitat for species with the largest ranges.Oil palm plantations completely uncouple ecosystem dynamicsand illegal logging can heavily disturb the dynamic and makeforests susceptible to fire, which results in vast losses ofbiodiversity.B2.2. Mitigation of Negative Offsite BiodiversityImpactsDocument how the project plans to mitigate these negative offsitebiodiversity impacts.To gauge off-­‐site impacts to biodiversity that may be caused bythe project, project proponents will monitor the movements andbusiness activities of oil palm companies that will retire theirlicenses in the Project Area as a result of project activities. Tomitigate the potential off-­‐site impacts of oil palm displacement,project proponents will attempt to cooperate with displacedcompanies via leakage contracts to shift their operations to non-­peatlandthat has already been deforested.The project will also document the political economic dimensionsof illegal logging activities in the Project Zone (e.g., where loggersoriginate, who is funding the illegal logging) and report theactivity to appropriate authorities. Alternative job opportunitieswill be sought for local residents involved in the illegal loggingthrough community development initiatives. The project will alsoattempt to track where illegal logging operations relocate, in aneffort to monitor off-­‐site impacts to biodiversity.It should be noted, finally, that any potential off-­‐site negativeimpacts to biodiversity will be more than offset by the projectsrole as a physical buffer to Tanjung Puting National Park and theprotection that the project will offer to the park’s biodiversity.B2.3. Demonstration of Net Positive BiodiversityImpactsEvaluate likely unmitigated negative offsite biodiversity impacts againstthe biodiversity benefits of the project within the project boundaries.Justify and demonstrate that the net effect of the project on biodiversityis positive.The evaluation of on-­‐site biodiversity benefits of the project incomparison to potential off-­‐site unmitigated negative impactscan be framed as follows:There is a risk that disturbance to remaining biodiversity inneighboring areas may intensify more quickly than it wouldwithout the project (off-­‐site negative impacts), which may266