permanence

World Land Trust Carbon Balancing projects have a 20-30 year accounting period. There is, however, little point if the hard-won gains are to be lost as soon as the project is over. All work undertaken by World Land Trust and its partners is, therefore, designed to protect wildlife habitats, including those that have been restored, in perpetuity. To date this amounts to over 150,000 ha world-wide.

Frog in bamboo supports, REGUA, Brazil.
© Martyn Griffiths

Specific actions to ensure permanence include:

• Incorporation of the site in a nature reserve. These are usually private, but formally recognised;
• Capacity building for local partners to build up strong institutions for long-term protection and management;
• Concrete and recognised benefits to local communities to ensure social backing, reinforced by education, awareness and outreach programmes.

We will accept a certain level of risk at certain sites (which might include the risk of, for example, fire or land-slip), if there is an exceptionally high biodiversity conservation value and/or opportunity for innovative approaches, so long as the risk is balanced off by safe projects elsewhere in the project portfolio. 

Vulnerability to climate change impacts is also taken into account in the project selection procedure. Normally Carbon Balancing projects are not located in vulnerable areas such as mountain tops or low coastlines. We do make an exception for mangroves, however, as part of the rationale of mangrove planting is to buffer low coasts from storm and wave damage. This is also a forest type that can shift inland relatively well with rising sea-level.