A forest carbon project developer plans to launch its first voluntary biodiversity units by mid-2024 in three African countries spanning a total area of 435,000 hectares, Carbon Pulse has learned.

Sylva has partnered with US-headquartered non-profit Great Plains Foundation to create three biodiversity credit projects in sites across Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Kenya.

“We should be ready in three or four months,” Sylva founder Marc Maleika told Carbon Pulse. “Right now, we are in the project development phase, trying to understand the context, the ecosystem community, and the conservation targets.”

“We prefer to tread carefully and slowly because there’s no real advantage of going fast other than saying we have a contract,” he added.

Activities in projects will include restoring grassland, reducing invasive species, protecting keystone species such as rhinos and elephants, improving cattle management, and hydrology.

However, a decision on the indicators and methodology to be used under the framework has not been made yet.

“We’ll determine what we need to prioritise in the next phase, where we will also figure out the costs and start conversations with standards to see which makes more sense for us,” he added.

“It will most likely be Verra or Plan Vivo.”

TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN

The framework will use artificial intelligence and satellite imagery to assess the potential for generating nature-based credits by measuring the biodiversity gains.

“Technology is the most important layer in the entire biodiversity credit space. To date, the conservation sector hasn’t really embraced technology the way it could,” Maleika said.

Sylva has developed Earth observation-based technology to enable initial landscape assessments through cross-mapping data from public and commercial providers.

The company intends to provide local communities with the tools to conduct landscape analysis independently.

“The technology developed by our company will help them understand the ecosystem integrity and biodiversity potential of their land,” he added, while stressing that local communities will be at the core of these projects from the early stages.

“They need to be put into the driver’s seat,” Maleika said. “Making them partners in a project is not enough. They need to be recognised as actual project owners.”

Sylva’s initiative has been well received so far.

“Local communities welcomed the involvement, the possibility of having a voice, and being compensated for their efforts. We need to create better projects. And ultimately, the best people to do that are the stewards of the land.”

While the voluntary biodiversity credits market is currently estimated at around $8 million, global demand could reach as much as $180 billion in a radical future scenario, the World Economic Forum (WEF) recently said.

LEASED LANDS

The Sylva projects will be hosted on lands owned by local communities and leased to the Great Plains Foundation.

Since its launch in 2006, the Great Plains Foundation has been involved in a number of conservation projects, including the restoration of depleted lands in the Sapi Reserve, Zimbabwe, and the protection and monitoring of wild rhinos in countries in Southern Africa.

“We’ve all seen the many mistakes that were made on the carbon market and how landowning communities were ripped off,” Maleika concluded. “Nature conservation projects must make sure those mistakes are not repeated.”

Engaging with Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and delivering reliable measurements of the ecosystem uplifts, are regarded as critical issues to ensure the integrity of the nascent voluntary biodiversity credit markets, as the WEF underscored in a white paper in December.

In recent months, technology-based monitoring tools, such as remote sensing and satellite data-driven software, have emerged as go-to solutions for many developers aiming to make their first foray into the market.

For example, in November, the Italian-headquartered tech company 3Bee received grant funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator to apply its monitoring approach based on bioacoustics and remote sensing to biodiversity credits.

3Bee is set to start piloting its methodology in spring across four European countries, with technology playing a central role in the attempt to help scale the market.

By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com

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