SINGAPORE – Local communities will have greater incentive to prevent deforestation with a new tool developed by a Google-backed coalition of environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
NGOs working directly with local communities will now find it easier to quantify the benefits of forest conservation from carbon projects by using the Nature-based Solutions (NbS) tool. It was launched by the South-east Asia Climate and Nature-based Solutions (Scene) Coalition at the Conference of Parties, or COP28, in Dubai on Dec 2.
Speaking to The Straits Times, Ms Dewi Ratna Sari, project manager in charge of the team developing the NbS tool, said: “There is still a very limited number of carbon projects, because not many front-line NGOs doing forest protection or restoration have the capacity to document their information and to generate project documentation.”
There are more than 100 front-line NGOs in Indonesia that are keen to use the Web-based tool, which was also demonstrated to NGOs in the Philippines.
Carbon projects reduce, capture or avoid carbon emissions. They can involve renewable energy installations, sustainable agriculture practices or nature-based solutions like forest conservation and restoration.
To start developing a carbon project, NGOs must first quantify the potential amount of carbon that will be offset. To calculate this, they must use methodology or protocols specific to the type of project. Project activities are then detailed in a design document certified by internationally recognised organisations, including Verra, Gold Standard, American Carbon Registry and Climate Action Reserve.
Prior to the tool, the process of documentation was cumbersome because front-line NGOs typically found it difficult to access data such as the area of forest covered by the project, or the amount of carbon stored by the forest, said Ms Dewi.
“With this tool, what they need to do is draw the area, and then we will flesh out all the data,” said Ms Dewi, who is also the Innovative Forest Financing Project lead with the World Resources Institute (WRI) Indonesia, one of the eight NGOs of the Scene Coalition.
Using data analysed by Google Earth Engine from satellite images, the NbS tool maps out land that is covered by the forest and provides historical data on deforestation and carbon stored by the forest.
The tool also forecasts the deforestation risk from the amount of carbon lost should a carbon project fail to take place. Additionality – a term financiers use to justify the impact of a carbon project – would be the difference between what is calculated to be the carbon currently stored by a forest and the loss from potential deforestation. Buyers would then purchase carbon credits, with one credit equivalent to one tonne of carbon emissions, to offset their own carbon emissions.
In line with Scene Coalition’s focus on forest conservation to mitigate climate change while benefiting local communities, the tool also features metrics measuring benefits to the communities in the area covered by the project. These include income, education and employment in forest-related sectors.
In June 2023, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, provided US$1 million (S$1.3 million) to develop the NbS tool.
Apart from WRI Indonesia, other NGOs that are part of Scene Coalition include Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, IDH-the Sustainable Trade Initiative, BirdLife International, WWF-Singapore (World Wide Fund for Nature Singapore), Wildlife Conservation Society and Mandai Nature.
