The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

G3. Project Design and GoalsG3.1. Summary of Project Climate, Community, andBiodiversity ObjectivesProvide a summary of the project’s major climate, community andbiodiversity objectives.The Rimba Raya project represents a new model in for-­‐profitconservation. The project was designed to attract conventionalprivate sector funding, successfully compete with commercialinterests for the project area’s natural resources, and attract ahigh caliber of NGO and private-­‐sector management.In selecting the project area, InfiniteEARTH and OFI have set outto save a vast swath of peat swamp forest flanking the entire ca.90 km eastern boundary of Tanjung Puting National Park fromimminent deforestation at the hands of palm oil concessionaires.The overarching goal of the project is to utilize funds from thesale of carbon credits generated by the Rimba Raya project toengage the surrounding communities in park-­‐wide conservationefforts, thereby creating a physical and social buffer to the parkand providing effective protection to significant carbon stocksand the park’s unique biodiversity.TPNP, situated on the southern coast of Borneo, has naturalborders to the west and south along the Java Sea. While thereare a number of communities inside the park along its westerncoast, OFI has been active in engaging and integrating themsustainably into the park’s management. The park’s northernborder has been the subject of disputes for a number of years,but OFI has been relatively successful in working withcommunities there to prevent illegal logging and to limitpollution from nearby gold mining operations.Along TPNP’s eastern border, however, OFI has met with littlesuccess in defending the park. The combination of impoverishedcommunities and valuable timber in the past and the resurgenteconomics of the palm oil industry have created clear financialincentives for the exploitation of this land to the detriment of thepark and surrounding communities. Palm oil companies havepushed into the Rimba Raya project area and have even madeillegal inroads into the park proper. For years there has beenserious discussion of reclassifying portions of the park along thiseastern boundary for conversion to palm oil plantations, setting adangerous precedent with ominous consequences for the park’scarbon stocks and biodiversity.The Rimba Raya project’s climate objectives are two-­‐fold. First,to stop encroachment by palm oil plantations in the project areaitself, thereby avoiding over 80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-­equivalentemissions over the life of the project. Second, tocreate a physical barrier between the palm oil plantations andTanjung Puting National Park, thereby safeguarding the park’scarbon stocks in a calculated model of positive leakage.With respect to biodiversity, the project objectives are also two-­fold.The first is to expand the contiguous habitat of the nationalpark eastward all the way to the Seruyan River, a natural anddefensible boundary. The current border, which falls betweenthe park and the Rimba Raya Reserve, is both artificial andecologically arbitrary, and consequently has been subject tocontroversy and breach. The practical extension of the park willalleviate much of the external pressure that has driven habitatloss, thereby benefiting all of the park’s flora and fauna. The126