Protecting, Connecting & Restoring Perak’s Rainforest: Enabling Carbon Financing for Biodiversity Conservation

About The Project

With support from Yayasan Hasanah, we are working together with key stakeholders, partners and experts to undertake a State-wide mapping of forest carbon and biodiversity in Perak, with long-term goals of providing an enabling environment for carbon financing projects and conserving biodiversity.

Over the next three (3) years, the project will also include a major outreach element to build the capacity, awareness as well as key relevant skills among the main State agencies – primarily to enable carbon financing through the voluntary market-based approach. Click here to read the project summary in Bahasa Malaysia.
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Key project focal areas:
  1. Build carbon financing awareness and capacity among project beneficiaries
    At the start and mid project, a series of engagements through meetings and workshops to outline the key elements of carbon financing mechanisms and the requirements for projects to meet the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard, as well as carbon assessment training will be conducted.
  2. Identify areas for optimal carbon financing
    Areas that have the greatest potential for carbon financing will be identified through discussions with key partners and cutting-edge modelling i.e., forests outside of the existing protected area network in the State of Perak, where maximum additionality – either through avoided deforestation or restoration – would be available.
  3. Identify high conservation value habitat of particular importance to rare, threatened and endangered (RTE) species
    Existing data and records will be collated for the use in novel modelling approaches to identify critical habitats required to support populations of key RTE species – with the aim of enhancing connectivity and improving ecological resilience.
  4. Generate a State-level protected area, connectivity and restoration recommendations
    A State-wide prioritisation to maximise future carbon financing and biodiversity opportunities and initiatives will be carried out and the output from this will be presented at a Closing Workshop to the Project Beneficiaries.

Awareness is the first step towards change and building capacity is the bridge that takes us there.

Capacity and Awareness Building to Enable Carbon Financing in Perak

This project will undertake a series of capacity and awareness building programmes together with project beneficiaries and stakeholders. At the project outset, several workshops will be designed that will introduce and deliver key components, steps and processes to enable the development of a carbon financing project in Perak.

Project beneficiaries will also be introduced to the key elements of the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) Standard; standards administered by VERRA through voluntary carbon market approaches – to certify carbon credit from emission reduction of greenhouse gases and to ensure that any carbon offset project delivers significant climate, community and biodiversity benefits, thereby promoting sustainable and equitable development.

At the project mid-way, field staff among project beneficiaries will be trained by a team of experienced research assistants in a field-based setting. The trainees will be involved in the establishment and enumeration of carbon plots, as well as data management and basic descriptive analyses training.

Furthermore, in this project, mapping exercises will be conducted to identify high conservation value habitat and optimal areas for carbon financing in the State of Perak as well as a State-wide prioritisation to maximise carbon financing and biodiversity opportunities with a focus on rare, threatened and endangered (RTE) species.

Resources

We will undertake a State-wide mapping of forest carbon and biodiversity in Perak.

Project Updates

Additional Info

For more information, contact SEARRP’s Science Impact Manager, Nur Ili Alia Ab Doroh at ili.searrp@gmail.com.