Climate Action 2011-2012

Climate-friendly coffee farming in Chiapas, Mexico
supported through CI-Starbucks partnership.
But REDD+ is much more than just about the carbon.
Intact native forests are home to many of the world’s most
threatened and rare plants and animals, and support the
livelihoods of millions of local subsistence communities by
providing critical ecosystem services such as maintaining
water supplies and soil productivity. Five years ago, CI worked
with a group of leading NGOs and companies to found the
Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) to
create new tools for promoting forest carbon activities that
maximise social and environmental co-benefits. The CCB
Standards are now being used by the majority of REDD+
projects around the world – often driven by investors, who
recognise the strong links between social and environmental
outcomes and project and reputational performance.
Building on their successes at the project scale, the
VCS and CCBA are now working with national and
state governments to develop new carbon, social and
environmental standards that can be applied to REDD+
policies and measures undertaken at the jurisdictional scale,
and showing how projects can fit or ‘nest’ within such
broader accounting frameworks. These emerging standards
are already generating interest from donors and regulators
looking to set up compliance markets for REDD+.
public-private partnerships
and green economies
Given that it may be years before a global climate deal can be
agreed, how can the various leadership efforts, such as those
mentioned above, be leveraged into a larger, cohesive whole
that will enable governments and agencies to tackle tropical
deforestation in the near term and at scale?
The CCB Standards are now being
used by the majority of REDD+
projects around the world.
It is important that the way societies value and use natural
capital is fundamentally changed. To make this happen, clear
demonstrations will be needed of how human well-being at
the local and global levels depends upon, and is enhanced
by, the critical services provided by healthy ecosystems.
With this in mind, CI is supporting the efforts of a few
pioneering governments to build healthy, sustainable
economies and demonstrate their effectiveness for achieving
local development objectives through wise land use decisionmaking
and planning.
Moreover, in collaboration with the US Agency for
International Development, CI is launching the Sustainable
Landscape Partnership to catalyse investment in REDD+
activities and low-carbon enterprises concentrated in select
landscapes in Indonesia. This innovative partnership model
seeks to change business practices and land use policies,
while strengthening community participation, as foundations
to holistic district-level development plans. We expect to
© CI/Sterling Zumbrunn
replicate this public-private model for supporting green
development in other key geographies around the world.
Given the magnitude of the climate, ecosystem
depletion and sustainable development challenges we face,
governments, NGOs and the private sector must work
together to develop and prove new economic and market
models that enhance human well-being over the long term
through the conservation of irreplaceable natural capital. The
fate of our planet and future generations depends upon it.
Toby Janson-Smith leads Conservation International’s Climate and
Land Use: Markets and Policy program, which develops standards,
shapes policies and creates model corporate partnerships that
support multiple-benefit forest carbon activities. Toby has played a
key role advancing REDD within US and California climate legislation,
secured major REDD investment partnerships with the Walt Disney
Company and Dell, and been instrumental in the development of the
Verified Carbon Standard and Climate, Community & Biodiversity
Standards. Toby co-edited the book ‘Climate Change and Forests
– Emerging Policy and Market Opportunities’ published in by the
Brookings Institute and Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Conservation International (CI) — Building upon a strong
foundation of science, partnership and field demonstration, CI
empowers societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature,
our global biodiversity, for the long term well-being of people.
Founded in 1987, CI has headquarters in the Washington, DC area,
and nearly 900 employees working in more than 30 countries on four
continents, plus 1,000+ partners around the world.
Conservation International
2011 Crystal Drive, Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22202, USA
Tel: +1 703 341 2400 | Web: www.conservation.org
Twitter: @ConservationOrg
Facebook: www.facebook.com/conservation.intl
53 climateactionprogramme.org