“The protocol this project applies is easily replicated while maintaining the credibility of the project’s baseline and additionality. The emission reduction from improved forest management projects using the CAR Mexico protocol usually results in projects issuing less than 10,000 tonnes a year, but these are high quality and deliver real benefits to the community. More than 90% of the revenues from sale of carbon flow back directly to the community. We are impressed with the communities’ involvement in the protection and management of the forest.”

– Sid Yadav, Director of Project Research

Mexico’s 65 million hectares of forest are disappearing at the rate of 1 million hectares a year. In Oaxaca alone, there is an opportunity to improve forest management and conservation on 1 million hectares. Indigenous communities own most of the land, highlighting the opportunity to incorporate carbon offset projects and community-based Improved Forest Management (IFM) activities that provide ecosystem services, receive community support, and are sustainable for the planet. The sale of carbon offsets provides additional funds to further these communal activities.

This project mitigates forest exploitation by restoring areas impacted by severe erosion or those affected by disease, fire, and pests; and protects and prevents damage by fires, grazing, and illegal use of forest resources. By implementing Improved Forest Management (IFM) practices, the forest growth rate exceeds both the baseline and natural growth model. These techniques focus on surveillance tours to detect pests and diseases, destroy trees as needed, weed/invasive plant control, and pruning and thinning techniques to guarantee the natural regeneration of healthy and native species.

This community-based initiative will allow the community to diversify its income and contribute to reduced carbon emissions. All members of the community within the activity area are involved in a joint effort to sustainably manage and increase the carbon stocks in the forests.

• Protects several species of birds, orchids and other rare flowers, wild boars, white-tailed deer, and the puma—all threatened by deforestation.
• Creates a model for urgently needed forest conservation throughout Mexico and South America.
• Sustainably manages the forest with a minimal impact on the ecosystem but an extensive contribution to social and economic development.
• Creates jobs for local residents. Without the project, the main revenue source is agriculture with some cattle grazing.
• Provides education on forest management, monitoring and carbon revenue.
• Protects land ownership and revenue ownership rights of the communities and enables people keeps people in rural communities.
• Brings in additional resources to reinvest in the forest

• Under financial pressure, the forests are likely to be logged to the maximum possible extent
• Obtaining an agreement and a majority through a variety of community members can be difficult.
• The forest is at risk of fires or pests.
• Forest conservation is a low priority and not well understood in Mexico.
• The government is not very proactive with forest conservation.
• Providing long-term and sustainable income streams to forest dwellers and their families is challenging

“Before the project implementation, waste was left to rot in unmanaged areas with no provision for control of toxic surface water or release of methane gas from anaerobic decomposition of waste material.  The 60-hectare landfill project is located in the heart of the Amazon, near Manaus, home to 2.22 million people and the 7^th largest city in Brazil.   According to FGV Social, the Brazilian center for Political Sciences, 51.42% of the population of Amazonas State survive on $5.50 per month making it the second highest concentration of poor people in Brazil.

The project manages about 500,000 tonnes of waste annually, creating a more sanitary environment for residents, providing employment, and using waste gas to generate electricity for landfill operations.”

– Johanna Depenthal, Director of Project Research

Methane gas is a short-lived climate pollutant with a global warming potential 80 times greater than carbon dioxide in a 20-year period. Therefore, by cutting methane emissions, we can have a powerful effect on the urgent climate change problem in a short time frame. Brazil is the fifth largest emitter of methane gas in the world with no mandatory policies regarding capture or destruction of the gas in landfills.

The Manaus Landfill is a LFG recovery and destruction system. The project collects landfill gas (LFG) at the Manaus Landfill, transports it and combusts the extracted gas utilizing LFG engines and high-efficiency enclosed flares, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). The parts of the system are as follows:

• The LFG collection System: A grided horizontal collection system, centrifugal blower(s), and all other supporting mechanical, and electrical subsystems and appurtenances necessary to collect the LFG.
• Transmission Pipeline System: A horizontal collecting system and vertical wells avoid the emission of methane to the atmosphere. The system is connected to transmission pipelines to transport the LFG to the flare station.
• The Blowering System: The system blows the collected gas to the pipeline. To preserve the operation of the blowers, a dewatering system removes condensed vapor from the wet gas.
• The Flare System: Enclosed flares ensure high percentage of methane destruction (minimum 98%).

The biogas generator was installed at Manaus Landfill Gas Project on May 26, 2019. The generator uses biogas as fuel to generate electricity for demand from the biogas plant.

• Prevents emissions of methane gas into the atmosphere
• Improves local air quality and sanitation
• Improves Safety: gas is managed rather than subject to potential explosion
• Creates employment
• Creates electricity for the management of the plant
• Landfill Gas collection and flaring is unusual in Brazil

• Lacks financial liquidity.
• Needs to make planned improvements to infrastructure.
• Expensive infrastructure.
• Requires specialized personnel such as engineers and technicians with knowhow

“The stove passes routine testing by standard Kitchen Performance Tests, and the wood savings are verified. Support and interest in the stove in rural communities in Honduras are overwhelming to the point where it requires no marketing, the growing participation is from word of mouth.

After families get a cookstove, they receive three follow-up visits to ensure the stove was installed and working correctly. This project uses Salesforce CRM to collect usage and maintenance data to identify and solve issues quickly. As a nonprofit, 100% of the proceeds from carbon sales are applied to stove production in Honduras without administrative or operating costs for the staff supporting the project from the United States.”

—Sid Yadav, Director of Project Research

Local Hondurans call the stoves Dos Por Tres, slang for, “In an Instant.” Instantly, these stoves save wood, save time, eliminate toxic smoke from the household, and help the planet by saving miles of forests and reducing carbon emissions by about 3 tonnes per stove per year. To date, the project has avoided the emissions of more than 2 million metric tonnes of CO2 and equivalent gases (mtCO2e).

Cooking in Central America relies on traditional stoves that burn significant amounts of local wood and emit smoke into the home. The stoves are on for eight hours a day and when cooks stand directly over stoves to cook the family tortillas, they breath the smoke that covers the kitchen roofs and walls in soot.

Installed directly in the home, the improved cookstoves are built from locally available cement or adobe bricks. The stove features a thermodynamic rocket elbow design that provides more direct heat to the food with less wood, so food is cooked faster. Families save money by purchasing less wood or save time by gathering less wood, rid the house of smoke, cook faster and, in a Dos por Tres, help save our planet.

• Constructed 210,000 stoves to date, benefitting 874,000 people.
• Monitors each location with GPS & follow-up visits and stores the information in a Salesforce database.
• Saves the equivalent of ~5-9 trees per year per stove or 1.6 metric tonnes of firewood per year.
• Reduces carbon monoxide and particulate matter in the home by 79%.
• Provides 18,000 hours of stove maintenance training and fuel reduction tips each year.
• Created 22 microenterprises and 170 jobs to date.
• Families do not buy a stove; they co-invest in one. They provide bricks and mortar, the project provides construction, know-how, and specialized stove parts

• Working in Honduras can be dangerous due to corruption, drugs, and human trafficking making some areas difficult to access.
• Hurricanes and torrential rains continue to impact build schedules each year.
• In Honduras, the decision to get a cookstove is usually made by the man of the home, who may not think it is important. This restricts stove distribution to families in need.