Mongabay · Natuur

Indigenous communities in Panama explore biodiversity credits for conservation funding

Four Indigenous Wounaan and Emberá-Wounaan villages in Panama's Darién forest are pioneering a new conservation funding model by participating in the emerging biodiversity credits market. They are using data from a biodiversity monitoring project to document their forests' status and seek economic viability for their conservation efforts amidst threats from illegal logging and agricultural expansion.

The biodiversity monitoring project, guided by Indigenous knowledge, documented over 200 species across 18,000 hectares of threatened forest. This data serves as a baseline for entering the biodiversity credits market, a nascent part of the nature finance industry aimed at funding conservation.

The project involved camera trapping and bioacoustic monitoring, revealing a rich array of species, including jaguars, Baird's tapirs, and crested eagles, some of which are threatened. This initiative is among the first in Central America to leverage such data for biodiversity credits.

Indigenous communities in the Darién face significant deforestation pressures and often lack legal land rights, leading to encroachment by loggers and farmers. Scant economic opportunities and poverty exacerbate these issues, sometimes pushing individuals towards unsustainable practices.

The communities partnered with Savimbo, a biodiversity credits company, after previous offers from carbon credit companies raised concerns about community autonomy. Savimbo's approach emphasized transparency in contracts and revenue distribution, and its co-founder's Indigenous heritage was also a trust-building factor.

While the methodology for quantifying biodiversity credits is considered robust, questions remain about the market's long-term effectiveness and the credibility of third-party certifiers, like Cercarbono, which has faced controversy in past carbon credit projects. Savimbo maintains Cercarbono has updated its processes for accountability.

Communities will receive payments through a collective system with safeguards against misuse. Despite the pioneering nature of this initiative, experts caution that it is too early to fully evaluate its success, with the jury still out on its environmental and social impacts.

AI-samenvatting op basis van de bron.