Japan will next month certify 63 more Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) that businesses can choose to support financially in exchange for biodiversity support certificates, the environment ministry announced Tuesday.
The government will formally certify the locations, totalling 8,000 hectares, on Mar. 8, the ministry said.
That follows the initial batch of 122 sites across 77,000 ha that were certified in October.
OECMs, defined as areas that don’t formally have protected status but still conserve nature by the way they are managed, have been chosen by the government to play a major role in the country’s efforts to meet its Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) target of protecting 30% of its terrestrial and marine areas by 2030.
Once certified as an OECM, corporations can apply to support that area financially, and in turn be given a biodiversity support certificate by the government designed to be aligned with biodiversity reporting requirements under the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).
In December, the government arranged a first process where interested businesses could shoot a video explaining why they were interested in supporting a specific OECM, and government officials would then pick those found worthy based on the videos.
The government has yet to announce the outcome of the December round.
Most of the 63 sites to be certified next month are owned by local governments, farms, or academic institutions, but some private corporations will also be awarded OECM status.
Those include Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan and whiskey producer Suntory, which both maintain forested areas to source quality water from.
Also included were a high-tech science forest owned by Hitachi, a nature forest maintained by Toyota Iron Works, an area operated by Sumitomo Forestry, subsidiary of the big trading house of the same name, and a separate forest owned by Mitsubishi Corp.
While those funding the OECMs can earn biodiversity certificates eligible for use for reporting purposes, they can’t be traded, and each certificate merely states the amount of money spent and size of the area protected, there are no efforts to quantify a biodiversity outcome.
Japan plans to approve around 500 OECMs by 2026.
The environment ministry said that OECMs that do not overlap with protected areas will be registered in the international OECM database, making them eligible to count towards the GBF target.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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