A US-based consulting and engineering services company has been awarded $24 million by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to preserve biodiversity and natural resources, and promote blue carbon initiatives in Cambodia, it announced Thursday.
Tetra Tech is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange and provides engineering services to solve water, environment, sustainable infrastructure, international development, and renewable energy issues across the globe.
The company said it would use the funding awarded by USAID Conserve Activity to support Cambodian partners to protect critical ecosystems using a community-led natural resource management approach.
Partnering with local communities, the company said it would conduct robust and transparent monitoring using mobile data collection tools to combat illegal logging and wildlife poaching – activities that are rampant across the Southeast Asian nation.
Tetra Tech said its technical specialists would support USAID to implement programmes that would stimulate economic growth and promote climate-smart, community-based enterprises.
This will include ecotourism as well as longer term sustainable solutions such as blue carbon credit programmes in flooded forests and coastal areas in partnership with the Cambodian government, conservation organisations, and the private sector.
“Healthy and sustainable forests and ecosystems provide essential climate and economic resiliency for communities and nations in the face of climate change,” Tetra Tech Chairman and CEO Dan Batrack said.
“Tetra Tech is pleased to use our data-driven, leading with science approach to support USAID in providing environmentally sustainable development solutions and helping Cambodia reach its goal of being carbon neutral by 2050.”
Tetra Tech has previously worked with USAID in Cambodia to implement its now-defunct Greening Prey Lang programme, which partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Conservation International to promote conservation-friendly, resilient, and low-emission sustainable economic development in the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, according to its website.
The company has advanced three REDD+ projects in the country, which it said had mobilised investment, however its website does not disclose which specific projects it is involved with.
The Greening Prey Lang programme was wound up by USAID in 2021, after the US government decided to move funding away from Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment as commercial scale illegal logging continued apace in the Prey Lang area, Mongabay reported.
One carbon and conservation initiative that works alongside the Cambodian government has been in the spotlight recently, following human rights abuse allegations being levelled at Wildlife Alliance at its Southern Cardamon REDD+ project which has been developed in partnership with the Ministry of Environment.
An investigation by Human Rights Watch on the project is expected to be published early this year.
Meanwhile, Tetra Tech was one of 60 companies identified by the Science-Based Targets initiative for failing to meet a deadline in submitting their emissions reductions goals for validation.
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By Mark Tilly – mark@carbon-pulse.com
