Market interest in biodiversity projects led by Indigenous Peoples is surging as local leaders in the Amazon rainforest strive to scale up funding through voluntary credits, according to a project developer.

Drea Burbank, CEO and co-founder of Savimbo, told Carbon Pulse that native communities increasingly see biodiversity credits as a means to tackle threats to their territory coming from big companies, including the oil and illegal mining sectors.

“Right now, we have about 10 leaders that are absolutely desperate to start getting some catalytic capital so they can do some crediting,” Burbank said.

“Through voluntary credits, they want to show their communities that there’s no need to sell mining or petroleum in order to make money. It wouldn’t even need to be a lot of money as long as it is delivered quickly.”

The US-based biodiversity project developer produces credits under the guidance and advice of traditional leaders and smallhold farmers in the Colombian rainforest.

Burbank founded Savimbo in 2022 with indigenous activists Jhony Lopez and Fernando Lezama.

“We are definitely escalating in the last couple of months because people want direct sales,” Burbank said.

In the last few months, biodiversity credits have been drawing attention as a means to mobilise financing towards nature to reach global conservation targets outlined by the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

Indigenous-led units could ensure the high integrity required by companies and other potential buyers interested in the market, regarded as a key condition to bolster the demand.

“According to a third-party analysis, to date we are the only Indigenous-led company in the biodiversity markets,” she said, referring to material published by startup Bloom Labs. “There’s a lot of people who claim to be working with Indigenous Peoples, but it’s not the same as when you are actually Indigenous”.

CONTROVERSIES

While interest in nature conservation is growing, critics have argued that the biodiversity credit market is poised to harm native and local communities, as some say has happened in the voluntary carbon markets.

Earlier this month, Brussels-based Green Finance Observatory (GFO), an environmental finance-focused organisation, stated that Indigenous Peoples should entirely reject proposals for the biodiversity credit market as they will promote offsetting.

The claim was made in a document published in response to the draft recommendations on biodiversity credits released last month by the indigenous-led Community Advisory Panel (CAP) of the UN-backed Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA).

According to Burbank, biodiversity credits and offsetting are not the same, with the former giving Indigenous leaders a sustainable alternative to deals that often prove harmful to local environments.

“There are leaders who are actively dealing with petroleum companies that are trying to get permission to drill on their lands, or with illegal mining going on in the rivers and contaminating them,” Burbank said.

“Leaders are trying to get the community to say no, but they don’t have an alternative economy to show them.”

Nevertheless, according to Burbank, conservation efforts could also be funded by governments, charities, and individuals outside of a specific market.

“If the government wants to buy credits, it is even better because they should have been funding this all along. But you can also finance conservation through donations or public funding.”

UNITS

Last year, Savimbo developed the Indicator Species Biodiversity Methodology (ISBM), a methodology built around the conservation of so-called indicator species – certain species that can only live and thrive in an area if the ecosystem is healthy.

In the last six months, the company worked with Indigenous leaders to better define the notion of unit, a concept that they reckon to be crucial for shaping a high-integrity market.

“Units are not related to a specific methodology. The methodology is the coffee, while the unit is the cup that you sell,” Burbank explained. “You can put any methodology in the unit.”

The unit functions to track and trade any biodiversity action in any ecosystem. Since any unit is area-based, it corresponds to one hectare of land conserved for one month, with integrity measured on a scale from zero to one.

It is not directly linked to a price since the cost of a unit will be strongly dependent on project location and the effort of the actions involved.

“Showing the integrity of an area is different than showing its value,” Savimbo CEO said.

“You can have full integrity in an area, such as the Arctic Tundra, that doesn’t have a lot of value globally for biodiversity. Then, you can have deforested areas in the Amazon that have no integrity, but it’s a high-value area to restore.”

“Humans value nature differently than nature does. We will pay more for a restored ecosystem than a conserved one, even though a conserved one has more value to nature.”

As Burbank pointed out, the concept of units can also fit offsetting purposes, even if Savimbo strongly opposes this use and isn’t producing credits that involve compensation.

“We cannot prevent such uses of a public unit, but we are strongly opposed to the practice of biodiversity offsetting as it violates Indigenous Peoples values.”

To prevent any use that could harm Indigenous Peoples and their land, Savimbo advocates for increased engagement of international leaders in shaping the biodiversity market.

“They have been structurally excluded, intentionally or unintentionally, from every single meeting I attended,” Burbank claimed.

Global initiatives such as the UK-France led International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB) claim they are progressively including Indigenous Peoples in their consultations on biodiversity credit markets.

In the launch event of the IAPB second consultation process last week, co-chair Sylvie Goulard said that the panel has Indigenous Peoples on board and that it is working with them to provide the highest possible environmental integrity.

“Inviting them in the room is not enough, because they don’t want to be included in a market that doesn’t recognise their rights,” Burbank concluded.

In March, the CAP highlighted that the rights to consultation and participation in decision-making, as well as the rights to give or withhold free, prior, and informed consent to each relevant aspect of a proposal, are key to ensuring the market is not harming local and Indigenous Peoples.

By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com

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