Katingan Mentaya Peatland Restoration Project
2020
Carbon Removal and Avoided Emissions
Central Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia
The Katingan Mentaya Project protects and restores high-biodiversity peatland ecosystems in Indonesia, on the island of Borneo. Surrounding land has been ecologically degraded and converted to palm and acacia plantations, whereas natural peatland habitat within the project boundary is a vitally important and dense carbon sink that reduces atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. This highly regarded avoided-deforestation project has been active for more than decade, achieving both Community and Biodiversity Gold Standard certifications, and is certified to continue restoration and carbon removal efforts until 2070.
Project Timelines
Vintage: 2020
Years Active: 2010 - 2020
Project Lifetime: 2010 - 2070
Why this matters
Peatlands represent only ~0.3% of Earth’s surface area, but their destruction contributes 2-5% of annual human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Katingan Mentaya protects and restores a massive peatland area with the equivalent effect of removing 1.4 million cars from US roads per year, setting an excellent example of the scale and quality of conservation and restoration projects that must be implemented across many native ecosystems worldwide, while providing sustainable livelihood for local communities.
Carbon credit purchases provide economic incentive to prevent deforestation and protect habitat, by supporting peatland restoration, forest monitoring, community engagement, and sustainable livelihood development.
Impact
Estimated to remove or avoid 7,450,000 tons CO2e per year.
Conserves and restores 370,000 acres of forest and peatland habitat.
Wider project boundary protects habitat and livelihood for 35 local villages (~45,000 people).
Over project lifetime, estimated to remove or avoid 447,000,000 tons CO2e.
Sources: Verra, Katingan Mentaya Project
Co-benefits
Protects critical habitat and local biodiversity.
Employs hundreds of people from local communities, and supports traditional livelihoods.
Provides microfinance loans for local business development and public health improvements.
Supports scientific research and monitoring of sensitive peatland ecosystems
This project’s activities meet the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:
Sources: Katingan Mentaya
Benefits
Maintains carbon sink: forests, and especially tropical forests, are critical carbon sinks that must be protected to continue to hold carbon.
Biodiversity conservation: tropical forests, like Katingan, are home to about 50% of the world's species, conservation maintains critical habitat.
Sustainable livelihoods: project revenues support improved public health, education, and work opportunities, while supporting traditional ways of life.
Watershed protection and security: wetlands and peatlands, like Katingan, serve as natural filters improving water quality and retaining water during availability fluctuations.
Soil quality and agricultural benefits: ecosystem maintenance ensures soil fertility and nutrient recycling for surrounding regions, and reduces harmful effects of erosion.
Local climate stabilization: large projects, like Katingan, have the capacity to influence temperature and rainfall, thereby improving regional climate stability.
Climate justice: carbon projects in developing nations help address global inequities by transferring resources from developed nations, creating economic benefits while improving the environment.
Risks
Additionality concerns: Some avoided deforestation projects may overestimate baseline deforestation rates to claim larger emissions reductions or protection of forests not genuinely at risk.
Durability and reversal concerns: There is the potential for illegal forest clearing, wildfires, natural disasters and effects of climate change, or other human activities to release carbon stored in the forest.
Leakage: While forest projects may succeed in their avoidance or removal goals, economic, social, and/or regulatory factors may result in displacement of deforestation to other locations.
Measurement and verification challenges: Many nature-based solutions face the inherent challenge of accurately measuring sequestered or avoided carbon, as well as their changes over time, requiring sophisticated expertise and technologies to minimize uncertainty of carbon offsets.
Carbon market volatility: All projects face the inherent risk that technological, social, and market forces impact the price of their carbon credits, adding uncertainty to additionality, leakage, and overall impact.
Ratings
Registry
Attributes
Durability
Additionality
A
C+
Neutral
AA
ID 1477
Good
Independent technical analysis estimates that the climate benefits will last at least 100 years.
Overall the project is reaching its reduction and removal targets, with little forest loss due to fire, incursion, infestation, or extreme weather.
Estimates vary, but somewhere between 1-7% of the projects avoided carbon emissions from 2010-2020 were released back into the atmosphere due to fire, however, the project has invested heavily into fire prevention and mitigation.
Project includes 3.6 million tons CO2e buffer pool against forest losses.
The project exists on government owned land, protecting it against incursion. However, the government has been somewhat capricious in its land-use taxation, adding uncertainty to project longevity.
Sources: Calyx Global, Carbon Pulse, Renoster, Verra
Very Good
The project exists in an economic and regulatory context that requires sale of carbon credits to achieve climate impact targets.
Since 2001, much of the surrounding land has been drained and burned for agriculture; therefore funds from credits create the economic incentive for forest / peatland protection and sustainable livelihoods.
No evidence that baseline estimates were manipulated to inflate additionality; estimates were often conservative.
Reassessment of additionality should occur if local economic or regulatory context changes.
Sources: Calyx Global, Renoster, Verra
Verifiability
Very Good
The project meets all national and international standards for issuing carbon credits via this avoidance mechanism.
A total of four independent third-party rating agencies scientifically evaluated the project and assigned medium to high confidence that project credits represent a unique and permanent emission reduction of 1 metric ton.
The project uses peer-reviewed methods for calculating carbon stored in forest biomass.
Multiple rating agencies found low risk for over-crediting and/or double-counting of credits.
Technical documentation and carbon credit transaction records for this project are available on public registries. registries.
Carbon Protocols
Central Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia
Photos
