Unlocking Carbon Finance for Protected Area Management

Unlocking Carbon Finance for Protected Area Management

BioCarbon Partners and Lion Landscapes have established a project in the game management areas that link the Lower Zambezi and Luangwa Valley protected area complexes in Zambia. This is a key connectivity pathway and represents a significant block of wildlife habitat in its own right. Wildlife and lions in that area are threatened by habitat destruction and bushmeat poaching. BioCarbon Partners has verified the standing carbon in number of game management areas, including the West Petauke GMA and is planning to sell carbon credits to companies looking to make voluntary purchases of carbon credits, to off-set their emissions. These credits will be sold at a premium based on the fact that they will also come with a guarantee that they will be accompanied by significant biodiversity value-add. In addition to protecting forests, BioCarbon Partners and Lion Landscapes will under-take anti-poaching to protect lions and their prey and monitoring of both. They have requested funding from the LRF to help pay for law enforcement to prevent deforestation and to tackle poaching, to allow for the selling of carbon credits based on ‘avoided deforestation’ in three-years’ time.

Update: We granted additional funds to this project in 2019 to combine site security with a program to verify and sell lion-branded carbon credits to provide sustained conservation finance. The beauty of this project is that it generates novel financing streams for the protection of forests and the wildlife therein, and creates strong incentives for local people to protect those natural assets.