carbon balanced history

The World Land Trust has been committed to addressing climate change for over a decade:

Betel-nut Shoot © Gareth West &
Stacey Manley

Between 1995 and 1999 WLT was closely involved in the sustainable forestry work associated with the Rio Bravo Carbon Sequestration Pilot Programme, working in partnership with Programme for Belize, The Nature Conservancy and a consortium of North American energy sector companies. It was a pioneering project combining CO2 emissions mitigation, biodiversity conservation and sustainable forest management, in advance of even the signing of the Kyoto Protocol. The Rio Bravo project is still going strong, and has, over the years, been instrumental in conserving thousands of acres of Belizean tropical forest and rehabilitated pine savannah, together sheltering a wealth of threatened wildlife. In the process many tens of thousands of CO2 emissions have been sequestered, and continue to be so.

In 2002, WLT hosted a seminar at the Linnean Society of London, introducing to the corporate sector the need to provide individuals and organisations with a means of assessing and offsetting their CO2 emissions. As a result of this the website was developed and the Trust launched its Carbon Balanced audit and offset programme in early 2005.

Restoration area within Atlantic Forest, Brazil.

WLT has been clear from the outset that the emphasis is placed on the conservation benefits of providing offsets through restoration ecology. This concept has been embraced by individuals and businesses alike. The first field projects were developed in Ecuador following an exploratory field expedition in 2005 which was co-sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society in conjunction with students from Quito University and staff from WLT's Ecuadorian partner NGO: Fundación Jocotoco (FJ). These restoration projects were up and running by the end of the year at FJ’s Buenaventura and Yanacocha reserves. Offsets are delivered through re-establishment of forest cover, in areas that have previously been cleared, and new projects are constantly being initiated and developed as the portfolio expands. For instance a second site at Buenaventura and a new one in the upper Andean slopes at Tapichalaca are being restored and a new project has recently been started in Mexico, at Sierra Gorda in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Querétaro.

In 2006 WLT signed an agreement with Scottish and Southern Energy as part of a major undertaking to plant over 450,000 native trees on behalf of their customers, in conjunction with WLT's local project partners. Although not strictly speaking a carbon-balanced initiative, this major tree planting commitment is closely linked with the Carbon Balanced Programme and acted as a catalyst for the creation of the WLT Restoration Ecology Programme. Tree-planting is currently in full swing in Ecuador, on FJ's reserves at Buenaventura, Tapichalaca and in the dry forests of Jorupe, and also at the Fundación Pro Bosque reserve Cerro Blanco. Tree planting is also taking place in the Atlantic rainforests: in Brazil where we are working with Reserva Ecologica de Guapi Assu (REGUA), and at San Rafael, in south-eastern Paraguay, where we are working with Guyra Paraguay. We are also developing planting initiatives in India with Wildlife Trust of India and mangrove plantings in the Philippines with the Philippine Reef & Rainforest Conservation Foundation.