Fauna & Flora is considering supporting biodiversity credit initiatives in countries across the world, following an ongoing 500-hectare pilot in South Africa, Carbon Pulse has learned.

The UK-based organisation is exploring supporting biodiversity credits in sites across several continents, said Julieth Serrano, senior specialist in biodiversity at the UK-based organisation.

“We have an evolving portfolio of pilot projects. We are scoping for projects in Asia, Central America, and Africa. They are at different stages,” she said.

The initiatives of varying sizes span marine and terrestrial sites, Serrano told Carbon Pulse.

“We are looking to pilot in different areas to understand how the methodologies behave in different ecosystems, and also how they enable local leadership.”

A key goal of biodiversity credits is to help areas that would struggle to raise finance under existing mechanisms from carbon markets, in areas such as shrubland, she said.

The Cambridge-based non-profit works in almost 50 countries around the world across more than 120 conservation projects.

FINE PLANTS

Fauna & Flora has been trialling Plan Vivo’s PV Nature methodology for generating biodiversity credits in South Africa for over a year. Although the project is going well, it is too early to say the number of credits it might generate.

“We are working very closely with Plan Vivo to understand how the financial modelling will evolve. We see the greatest potential of biodiversity credits when it connects to ongoing, locally-led work,” said Serrano.

The pilot has a kind of shrubland called ‘fynbos’, meaning ‘fine plants’ in Afrikaans, that is significant for species and communities.

Launched in 2023, PV Nature uses five pillar metrics – three species-based and two habitat-based – to calculate changes in nature. One unit represents a 1% gain in biodiversity per hectare per year.

LOCAL LEADERS

A key part of the pilot is establishing how it can work with local communities, Serrano said. The organisation is still understanding the shape of local stakeholder engagement.

In September, Fauna & Flora published a paper on local leadership in the developing biodiversity credits market. The document stressed the need for methodologies to take time to engage with locals.

“We hope that [the role of locals] is not only collecting data, but taking an active role and being empowered to make decisions about the use of technology.”

“There will be places where technology might not be appropriate because local experts and communities or Indigenous People don’t feel comfortable with it.”

For example, drones could be seen as invasive due to their noise and potential for breach of privacy, she said.

The risk with biodiversity credits is they don’t empower local stakeholders, creating barriers to permanence and delivery, she said.

During the last year, several research papers have highlighted the importance of Indigenous Peoples’ roles in emerging biodiversity credit markets. Indigenous-led frameworks, like those developed by the Pollination Foundation, emphasise their unique expertise in nature stewardship.

Some Indigenous groups have expressed scepticism about credits being used to offset environmental damage elsewhere, calling instead for systems that prioritise ecological integrity.

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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