Project title: Connecting the Ikalahan to Voluntary Carbon Market

Project contact: Dr. Rodel D. Lasco r.lasco@cgiar.org
Romnick S. Baliton r.baliton@irri.org

Timeframe: December 2010 – June 2012

Funding: FAO-RAP

Budget:

Location: Ikalahan Ancestral Domain (IAD), Nueva Viscaya, Philippines

Partners: Kalahan Educational Foundation (KEF), Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), WWF, DENR, and IFAD

Poster:
Brochure:
Main Activities:
Climate change has become a serious threat globally with potentially severe ecological and socio-economic consequences. For these reasons, interventions that can simultaneously contribute to sequestering greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate poverty are urgently needed. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—a body coordinated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—proposed a series of carbon-trading mechanisms aimed at assisting industrialized countries comply with their quantified emissions limitations and promoting sustainable development in developing countries. From these trading mechanisms emerged the voluntary carbon market, a scheme outside the compliance market that enables companies and individuals to purchase carbon offsets on a voluntary basis.
In Asia, the ICRAF through its project titled, “Rewards for, Use of, and Shared Investment in Pro-poor Environmental Services (RUPES) Phase 2”, is using a number of action-research sites to test environmental services’ rewards schemes. One of the RUPES sites is in Kalahan, where the Kalahan Education Foundation (KEF) is preparing a 900 hectare afforestation/reforestation project inside the indigenous Ikalahan people’s ancestral domain.
The main goal of the project is to help build the ability of the Ikalahan – the indigenous people of Kalahan – to negotiate and implement an equitable and efficient voluntary carbon-market scheme.

This project will work on three main objectives to prepare and link the Kalahan people to the voluntary carbon market. These objectives are:
  • Development of business portfolio - The project will develop a business portfolio for the Kalahan forest reserve that is consistent with with the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS), Carbon Fix Standard (CFS), and Voluntary Carbon Standards. As a first step, we are reviewing the abovementioned voluntary carbon-offset standards and are identifying important elements of the standards (see below for initial results). After this, we will compile available data on Kalahan from previous research on carbon, biodiversity, the watershed and socioeconomic conditions. We will use data from ICRAF’s previous and current projects in the Kalahan, among others. Information gaps between the standards and existing data will then be pinpointed. To fill the gaps, relevant data will be collected, both secondary and primary as necessary. Finally, we will develop a business portfolio for carbon project(s) for the Kalahan forest reserve. This will entail preparation of at least one Project Idea Note (PIN) which could involve activities on reforestation, agroforestry, enhancing carbon stocks, reducing deforestation and/or reducing forest degradation depending which are applicable.
  • Organize a national environmental service market buyers’ forum/market fair to link Kalahan to potential buyers - A carbon-market fair will be organised in Manila sometime during the first quarter of 2012 to promote the Kalahan’s carbon-offset scheme, as developed in component one above. We will approach potential partners who have experience in dealing with the corporate and private sector, such as Philippines Business for Social Progress (PBSP). Together with these partners, we will identify corporations and sensitise them to the concept of a carbon market. After these preparatory activities, we will organise a carbon-market fair consisting of a series of presentations about the importance of the private sector’s involvement in carbon offsets and promoting Kalahan as a potential project site.
  • Negotiation with potential buyers - The project will facilitate negotiations of the KEF with potential carbon buyers. Toward this end, we will organise a series of meetings of potential carbon buyers with KEF representatives. We will aslo facilitate their negotiations with these buyers.
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
PHILIPPINES Country Office
Khush Hall, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
Los Banos, Laguna
4031 Philippines
Telephone: +63 2 845 0563/70/75 ext 2544
Telefax: +63 49 536 2925