faqs

The Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART), is a global initiative that seeks to incentivize governments to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), as well as restore forests and protect intact forests (+). ART’s mission is to serve as a global quality benchmark for jurisdictional REDD+, providing the confidence needed in the integrity of emission reductions and removals from forest protection and restoration to unlock finance at scale for ambitious climate action and to incentivize governments to achieve those results.

Under ART, countries will generate verified emission reduction and removal credits.

Once issued, these serialized credits can be sold into voluntary or compliance markets, can be transferred under the Paris Agreement towards meeting NDCs and increasing ambition, or can be used as a donor pay-for-performance mechanism, providing financial incentives to the country to continue reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation and increasing removals.

Countries need to attract significant finance to fund the transition to sustainable land use without deforestation. And REDD+ funders need a credible and transparent way to ensure results.

The Warsaw Framework was developed under the UNFCCC to promote, recognize and reward reductions in emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; however, the framework itself was not designed to meet market requirements to secure large-scale financing for forests.

As a result, investments in REDD+ to date have largely been bilateral, or multilateral via the World Bank Carbon Fund and the Green Climate Fund. These structures have been invaluable to set the stage for REDD+, and establish significant norms and capacity. However, they were also not designed to meet market requirements to drive finance at scale.

Significant new sources of government and private-sector finance can be mobilized with more rigorous jurisdictional approaches to REDD+ that meet the highest technical, environmental and social standards and are aligned with Paris Agreement commitments. ART aims to provide confidence in the environmental integrity needed to unlock finance for REDD+ at national scale.

ART provides a credible, independent program overseen by a Board and Secretariat including a rigorous Standard to quantify emissions reductions from REDD+ activities at a national scale and a comprehensive process to transparently register, verify and issue serialized credits that represent the highest environmental and social integrity and are fungible with emissions reductions units from other sectors.

ART aims to create a pathway for forest countries and jurisdictions to have their REDD+ emission reductions and removals verified as meeting international standards for high environmental and social integrity. The rigor and transparency of ART is a global best-practice stamp of approval for REDD+, providing confidence to policy makers, donors and other market participants that will help channel new sources of large-scale finance to reward countries for reducing deforestation.

ART’s standard for measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification, The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard, known as TREES, is based on a decade of learning and evolution of REDD+. TREES is fully aligned with the Paris Agreement by requiring that forests be included in the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC); addressing ambition through a regularly updated, conservative crediting level that cannot increase; and including UNFCCC-aligned safeguards and putting measures in place to avoid double counting with Paris Agreement targets and international compliance carbon markets such as under the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO.

ART emission reductions and removals credits (TREES Credits) may be purchased by organizations as part of their voluntary climate plans and companies in hard-to-abate sectors beyond their net zero commitments. They could also be approved for use by companies in regulated carbon markets. For example, ART has been approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to supply credits for airlines to meet emission reduction obligations under ICAO’s Carbon Offsetting Scheme for International Aviation ( CORSIA). ART credits may also be transferred between countries to meet Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and raise ambition.

ART participant jurisdictions have unique access to a guaranteed source of demand for the purchase of TREES Credits: the Emergent Forest Finance Accelerator. Emergent aims to catalyze new capital flows into tropical forest protection by streamlining access to a wide range of REDD+ buyers of TREES Credits. The LEAF Coalition, launched in April 2021 and coordinated by Emergent, is a public-private initiative that has already mobilized $1 billion in results-based finance for tropical forest countries that successfully deliver REDD+ results as evidenced by ART certification.

Yes, ART has been approved or endorsed by a number of organizations and initiatives including the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the LEAF Coalition, the International Carbon Reduction & Offset Alliance (ICROA) and the Commodities Jurisdictional Approach (CJA).

ICAO
In 2020 ART was approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to supply TREES Credits to airlines for their compliance under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). In 2021, ART’s approval by ICAO was expanded to include TREES Credits issued after 2020. The ICAO Council decision signals an exciting milestone for protecting the world’s remaining forests. Although global forest loss contributes approximately 20 percent of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, credits from REDD+, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, have been disallowed in all major carbon markets including the U.N. Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol and the E.U. Emissions Trading Scheme. The CORSIA is therefore the first international regulated carbon market to approve REDD+ – a critical category of emission reduction crediting.

LEAF Coalition
Also in 2021, ART was endorsed by the LEAF (Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance) Coalition as the REDD+ Standard to ensure the integrity of results in the $1 billion Call for Proposals for jurisdictional REDD+ results. At COP26, the LEAF Coalition announced that 23 jurisdictions had submitted eligible proposals to deliver TREES Credits. The jurisdictions collectively have the potential to protect up to half a billion hectares of forest, greater than the area of the European Union, and their estimated emission reductions amount to several times LEAF’s initial goal of 100 million tons. LEAF includes the governments of the U.S., the U.K and Norway and corporations including Amazon, Airbnb, Bayer, BCG, BlackRock, Burberry, Delta Air Lines, E.ON, EY, GSK, Intertek, Inditex, McKinsey, Nestlé, PwC, Salesforce, SAP, Unilever and Walmart.org.

ICROA
ART is a provisionally approved offsetting standard under the International Carbon Reduction & Offset Alliance, ICROA. ICROA member firms, which currently provide carbon offset and management services to thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of individuals, must only use offsets verified under the most widely respected standards as approved by ICROA. ICROA member companies follow a code of best practice that provides confidence that resulting offsets are real, verified, permanent, additional and unique and that sets guidelines for how such offsets are sold.

Commodities & Jurisdiction Approach (CJA)
ART is one of only two pre-qualified global standards under the CJA which means that jurisdictions approved under ART are eligible to join the CJA through a streamlined process. The CJA aims to link ambitious jurisdictional forest and climate programs with companies who want to reduce deforestation and associated risks in their commodity supply chains.It offers a standardized assessment of jurisdictional programs that are reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions at scale, based on six criteria which are in line with the provisions for REDD+ institutionalized in the Paris Agreement. The CJA originated in 2015, inspired by a commitment by two leading companies and subsequently backed by a multi-stakeholder consortium to generalize for more companies’ uptake. The CJA is a collaborative initiative being coordinated by Climate Focus, WWF, and Meridian Institute.

There has been significant REDD+ implementation under other early action and pilot initiatives. ART built on this work, aiming to promote greater ambition and to include more precise technical, verification, safeguard and registration requirements to create emission reductions and removals credits that are fungible with those from other sectors.

ART’s governing Board and Secretariat oversaw the development and implementation of a Standard and comprehensive registration process to ensure emissions reductions of high environmental and social integrity. ART is consistent with UNFCCC decisions under the Paris Agreement, Warsaw Framework and the Cancun Safeguards, including social safeguards to recognize, respect, protect and fulfill the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities and to promote sustainable livelihoods.

ART includes requirements for enhanced ambition, independent third-party verification by an accredited organization, the issuance of serialized jurisdictional scale REDD+ emission reductions and removals credits (TREES Credits) on a transparent registry system, and full, verified implementation of the Cancun Safeguards.

ART was designed to enhance confidence. ART is a standalone program independent of governments or donor countries with standardized procedures for all participating jurisdictions. It includes an inclusive, transparent process governed by globally recognized experts and operated by an independent Secretariat, supported by expert technical committees.

ART credits only at the jurisdictional level, to national governments and large subnational jurisdictions. This is important not only for achieving results at scale, but also because it provides incentives to governments of supplier jurisdictions to do what only governments can do: regulate land-use, enforce laws, and recognize Indigenous Peoples’ land rights. Working at a jurisdictional level also helps to mitigate some of the key risks inherent in project-based approaches to REDD such as leakage – which is the displacement of activities that cause emissions – and reversals.

While ART does not directly credit project-level activities, they can be implemented under a jurisdictional REDD+ program through a variety of scenarios. ART fully recognizes the important role that projects can play in implementing a jurisdictional REDD+ Strategy.

Upholding an extremely high standard of environmental and social integrity is at the center of ART’s mission. Integrity is the key to scaling the market for jurisdictional emission reductions and removals; not only delivering climate impacts, but also a range of other social and environmental benefits.

TREES includes rigorous requirements for establishing a crediting level based on verifiable data and for monitoring and reporting on emission reductions and removals, all subject to third-party verification. These requirements apply to all Participants ensuring consistent, transparent accounting methodologies buyers can easily understand and count on for comparability of results among jurisdictions.

TREES’ environmental, social and governance safeguard requirements directly align with the safeguards defined by the UNFCCC for the implementation of REDD+ activities – known as the Cancún Safeguards. TREES unpacks these safeguards into themes and specific indicators to ensure consistent implementation and reporting by Participants, while maintaining flexibility to respect countries’ autonomy for design and implementation based on their own REDD+ activities.

Several of the themes focus specifically on ensuring the recognition, respect, protection, and fulfilment of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Conformance with safeguards is also verified during the independent audit process.

ART upholds full transparency in both design and implementation of its program. All comments received during public consultations of TREES are published on the ART website with individual responses. Documents are published describing key updates to TREES as well as the rationale behind the ART Board’s decisions through the Statement of Reasons. Participant documents that are submitted to ART are made publicly available on the ART Registry providing stakeholders with an opportunity to submit comments and concerns to ART. The ART Registry includes public reports of TREES Credit status, including issuances and retirements.

Yes. ART fully recognizes the important role project-level activities may play in implementing a national REDD+ Strategy. While ART does not directly credit project-scale activities, they can be implemented under a jurisdictional REDD+ program through a variety of scenarios, including those listed in the Primer (above).

No, ART does not and cannot prohibit project-scale activities from participating in other GHG crediting programs. ART has no authority over projects, other voluntary or compliance GHG programs, or over whatever agreements are reached between jurisdictions and project-scale activities.

This is not determined by ART, but rather by the agreement reached between the jurisdiction and the owner of the carbon rights or benefits. According to the potential scenarios for nesting project-level activities, we would expect the following:

In Scenario 1, underperformance of a jurisdiction as a whole may impact the number of TREES credits or revenues available to be shared per benefit-sharing agreements. The agreements may be negotiated to address this concern from stakeholders, however.

In Scenarios 2-4, the project-scale activities are not being registered under ART so the performance of the jurisdiction may or may not impact the project’s performance, depending on the requirements of the GHG program being used by the project-scale activities.

If the GHG program does not require nesting, the performance of the jurisdiction would not impact the performance of the project.

No, there is no requirement under ART that the jurisdiction must have rights to all emission reductions and removals (ERRs) generated within the accounting area.

Stakeholders are free to negotiate with jurisdictions as they see fit.

TREES does not prescribe an allocation method that must be used. Jurisdictions can use an existing tool that they have developed jointly with projects, an existing tool from other GHG Programs, or any other approaches.

Yes, agreements and benefit sharing plans must be developed and implemented using a participatory process in line with the TREES safeguards requirements.

TREES safeguard requirements directly align and comply with the social and environmental safeguards defined by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the implementation of REDD+ activities – known commonly as the Cancun Safeguards.

In terms of land tenure, TREES safeguards require that participating jurisdictions first describe their procedures for the recognition, inventorying, mapping, and securing of customary and statutory land and resource tenure rights where REDD+ actions are implemented. (These procedures may be directly related to REDD+ or may be part of other applicable frameworks or policies.) Then, the participating jurisdiction must demonstrate that resources have been/are being allocated to implement these procedures. Finally, the participating jurisdiction must demonstrate that stakeholders had access to, use of, and control over land and resources in line with their rights.

No credits will be issued unless the participating jurisdiction can demonstrate ownership of the credits or the right to receive payments for credits or other negotiated benefits. For example, in the case where rights to the ERRs are granted to private landowners within the accounting area, the government would need to have an agreement with the landowners either to receive the payment for the ERRs or to have rights to the credits that would allow for the transfer of title.

Yes. ART understands that this will require work from the jurisdictions, but the requirement is critical for upholding the integrity of TREES. Confirming rights to the ERRs or the benefits from the ERRs will be confirmed as part of the validation and verification process. The same proof of rights to the credits or the benefits must be demonstrated for all credits regardless of the intended use. ART does this to ensure standardization and consistency across the program.

Why does ART have the same requirements for credits that are transferred or sold as for results based payments? Couldn’t there be a less stringent requirement when credits are not being transferred or sold?

ART will issue serialised carbon credits representing one metric ton of CO2 equivalent emission reduction or removal. The carbon credits are an asset that can be transacted in many different ways, and therefore, the entity to which credits are being issued must demonstrate ownership of the asset regardless of the nature of the transaction.

ART has the same requirements regardless of the end-use of the credits to protect the rights of landowners (and those that own the rights to the carbon). For example, if a landowner has rights to the ERRs, then the landowner legally should receive payments for the results or credits from activities on that land.

If ART issues credits directly to a government that does not have clear ownership rights to them, the issuance infringes on the landowner’s right to the TREES credits and associated payments, or the right to register the ERR benefits on that land with another GHG program (which would result in double issuance).

Yes. Ensuring the recognition, respect, protection and fulfilment of the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities is one of ART’s immutable principles.

TREES requires that participating jurisdictions:
– Identify indigenous peoples and local communities, or equivalent
– Respect and protect traditional knowledge
– Respect, protect, and fulfil rights of Indigenous peoples and/or local communities, or equivalent.

Each of these themes includes structural, process and outcome indicators that will need to be validated and verified.

Yes. TREES requires that all stakeholders – including private landowners, project developers, IPLCs and others – participate in the design, implementation and monitoring of the REDD+ activities.

This ensures these stakeholders participate at every step including implementation, gathering data, and assessing the success of the programs, providing additional opportunities for input and feedback. Specifically, TREES requires that participating jurisdictions:

– Respect, protect, and fulfil the right of all relevant stakeholders to participate fully and effectively in the design and implementation of REDD+ actions.
– Promote adequate participatory procedures for the meaningful participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, or equivalent.

While TREES does not require a national level benefit sharing plan from participating jurisdiction, it does ensure the fair and equitable use of the proceeds from REDD+ revenue. TREES does this in the following ways:

– By promoting transparency and preventing and combating corruption
– By requiring participating jurisdictions to respect, protect and fulfil land tenure rights
– By requiring participating jurisdictions to respect, protect and fulfil human rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities, or equivalent. These rights include benefit sharing.
– By requiring participating jurisdictions to respect, protect and fulfil the right of all relevant stakeholders to participate fully and effectively in the design and implementation of REDD+ actions
– By requiring participating jurisdictions to promote adequate participatory procedures for the meaningful participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities, or equivalent.
– By incentivise the enhancement of social and environmental benefits.

These criteria and their associated indicators ensure that all stakeholders are part of the REDD+ activity development process, and that agreements are adhered to and implemented as agreed. Benefit sharing plans may be developed as part of these processes, but may be at a program level rather than national. The verification guidance also says that benefit sharing plans, if developed, can be forms of evidence the verifiers should review.

In addition, traditional benefit sharing plans tend to focus on monetary compensation. In many instances, stakeholders may prefer to receive non-monetary benefits such as land tenure rights, education and training opportunities, access to markets, improved governance, carbon rights or other benefits. These broader benefits would be identified as part of a participatory REDD+ activity development process.

ART respects the sovereign rights of governments to choose whether or not to support or ratify international agreements. However, through its safeguards, TREES does require that REDD+ activities be consistent with the objectives of any relevant international conventions and agreements that the Participant or its national government has ratified or otherwise officially agreed to implement. In some instances, a country may not have ratified an agreement but may have adopted certain provisions in its legal framework, which would be included by reference.

For the 23 countries that have ratified the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (International Labor Organisation – ILO 169), this agreement’s requirements would be included by reference. For the 148 countries that support the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), any UNDRIP requirements that have been codified in their legal framework would be included by reference and other requirements would be the expected best practice.

TREES ensures that all stakeholders have access to justice, requiring dispute resolution mechanisms at all relevant levels and in a manner that is non-discriminatory and not cost prohibitive.

In other words, a grievance mechanism is required, but TREES does not specify a specific grievance process that must be followed. At a national or subnational scale, it might be appropriate to have multiple grievance systems addressing different concerns or at different levels.

In addition, it is important to recognize and allow flexibility given the differences between legal frameworks from country to country.

TREES includes outcome indicators for each theme ensuring that parameters are defined, monitored, reported, and verified. In this way, the most appropriate parameters will be used to ensure the programs and activities are adhering to TREES’ safeguards.

Every participating jurisdiction will be implementing a unique set of REDD+ activities in a unique set of locations with a unique set of stakeholders.

It is not possible to establish a common set of monitoring parameters to define “successful” implementation of all safeguards.

To do so would undermine the participatory planning process where monitoring parameters specific to the circumstances and planned activities will be defined.

Arbitrarily defining parameters in TREES may also force some participating jurisdictions to implement activities that no stakeholders desire simply to have data to include for a specific parameter. This is not consistent with the objectives of ART.

TREES requires the participating jurisdiction to first describe procedures for the recognition, inventorying, mapping, and securing of customary and statutory land and resource tenure rights where REDD+ actions are implemented.

These procedures may be directly related to REDD+ or may be part of other applicable frameworks or policies.

Then, resources must be allocated to implement the procedures and finally the participant must demonstrate that stakeholders had access to, use of and control over land and resources in line with their rights.

As outlined in TREES, no credits will be issued unless the Participant can demonstrate ownership to the credit or the right to benefit from payments for the emission reduction or removal (ERRs).

For example, in the case where rights to the ERRs are granted to private landowners within the accounting area, the government would need to have an agreement with the landowners either to receive the payment for performance for the ERRs or to have full rights to the credits which would allow for the transfer of title.

TREES Safeguard Theme 2.3 explicitly requires FPIC when relocation is proposed as part of the REDD+ activities. There are additional circumstances which also require FPIC and other decisions for which a consultation is more appropriate.

We expect this to be transparently outlined as part of the participatory design process developed by the Participant which will be available for public comment and part of the validation and verification process.

The TREES Safeguards guidance document includes additional resources for Participants to aid in making these decisions (for example, the UN-REDD Programme Guidelines on Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) which includes guidance on when FPIC is appropriate, how to conduct FPIC and how to document the process).

HFLD is the acronym for “High Forest, Low Deforestation” and refers to jurisdictions that still have very high levels of forest cover and also experience low rates of annual deforestation.

It is important to recognise the contribution of HFLD jurisdictions to climate change mitigation because forests are critical to meeting Paris Agreement goals of limiting the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees.

These large areas of forests contribute both climate mitigation and adaptation benefits by storing carbon, regulating local and regional climate, supplying critical moisture to agricultural lands, and resisting wildfire.

Also, providing incentives to HFLD jurisdictions lowers the risk of cross-boundary shifting of deforestation emissions (i.e., leakage).

No. The HFLD approach was developed to incentivise jurisdictions to achieve and maintain high forest and low-deforestation (HFLD) status.

TREES includes an HFLD score threshold that jurisdictions must meet to qualify as HFLD and be permitted to use the optional HFLD Crediting Approach.

The HFLD Score is based on the percent of forest cover and the rate of deforestation in the accounting area. Jurisdictions calculate their HFLD Score for each year of the 5-year historical reference period, and if it is higher than 0.5 for each year, the jurisdiction qualifies as HFLD for the entire crediting period.

The HFLD Score calculation is validated by the independent third-party auditors as part of the validation and verification process.

To qualify as HFLD, the HFLD score must be greater than 0.5 for each year of the five-year historical reference period (i.e., the period directly prior to the TREES Crediting Period).

Participants that qualify as HFLD can maintain that status for a full five-year crediting period even if their forest cover and deforestation rate change during the crediting period.

However, they must then re-assess the HFLD Score when they begin a new crediting period. It is possible for a jurisdiction to gain or lose HFLD status between crediting periods based on its performance.

TREES credits that are issued based on the HFLD crediting approach are labeled in the ART Registry as such for full transparency.

Yes. HFLD credits under TREES 2.0 constitute additional climate action. Published projections are that future deforestation will extend into intact, high carbon forests, resulting in greenhouse gas emissions of an estimated 170 billion tons of CO2 by 2050,2 equivalent to four times annual global CO2 emissions (2019). TREES 2.0 incentivizes jurisdictions to protect intact forests since guarding the carbon sequestered in these forests is essential to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

It is an Immutable Principle that ART shall “Embody high environmental integrity, including accounting for the uncertainty of data and the risks of leakage and reversals, the avoidance of double counting, and result in issued units that are interchangeable with emission reduction units from other sectors.” Therefore, although a different crediting approach is used for jurisdictions that qualify as HFLD, in light of the growing threats to all tropical forests, a conservative approach to HFLD crediting that includes reporting annual emissions from deforestation and degradation, accounting for leakage, uncertainty and reversals, avoiding double counting and adhering to the same rigorous environmental and social safeguards requirements, yields credits that are fungible with those generated by the approach used for non-HFLD jurisdictions.

Like all other ART participants, TREES requires action from HFLD jurisdictions. Under TREES, all HFLD jurisdictions must have a jurisdictional REDD+ implementation strategy that establishes the actions they are taking to mitigate the drivers of deforestation and degradation. These actions have contributed to low deforestation rates in their jurisdictions, and without financial incentives, it is less likely that forests in HFLD areas will remain effectively protected. Moreover, providing incentives to jurisdictions with intact forests to maintain those forests lowers the risk of deforestation shifting to these countries as nearby jurisdictions with high deforestation begin reducing their forest-related emissions.

We recognise that views on fungibility are not uniform in the marketplace, and TREES credits that are issued based on the HFLD crediting approach are labeled in the ART Registry as such for full transparency.

Removals crediting is available to any jurisdiction that can demonstrate that its emissions from deforestation and forest degradation are below their TREES Crediting Level for the year they wish to claim removals credits. Claiming removals credits is optional under TREES.

TREES credits that are issued based on the removals crediting approach are labeled in the ART Registry as such for full transparency.

No. The ART Board and Secretariat recognize the important role that enhanced removals from forests remaining forests play in combating climate change; nonetheless, the ART Board decided not to include crediting for enhancement of carbon stocks from forests remaining forests in this version of TREES based on the difficulty in establishing a credible crediting level at jurisdictional scale.

The ART Board and Secretariat will actively monitor technological advances that could improve the accuracy of this type of accounting, for consideration in future versions of TREES.

TREES credits progress against climate change in the forest sector recognizing that the atmosphere is seeing the carbon sequestration benefit regardless of natural forest or commercial forest, and thus, both should be eligible for crediting.

ART provides an incentive for natural forest restoration activities that provide the biodiversity and other ecosystem benefits of native forests by allowing all areas of natural forest restoration in a given year to be eligible for crediting. In comparison, removals in areas of new commercial plantations in a given year are credited only to the extent that they exceed a historical reference level.

No. For a given year, jurisdictions are only eligible to credit removals when emissions from deforestation and forest degradation are below the TREES Crediting Level for that year.

TREES includes a safeguard that prohibits the conversion of natural ecosystems and forests. As with other safeguards, participating jurisdictions must demonstrate conformance by reporting against indicators. Adherence to all safeguards is verified and TREES Credits are not issued if safeguard requirements are not met.

Removals that are eligible under TREES must occur on lands that have been non-forest for a period of five (5) years prior to the start of planting or restoration activities.

No. TREES includes a safeguard that prohibits the conversion of natural ecosystems and forests. As with other safeguards, participating jurisdictions must demonstrate conformance by reporting against indicators.

Adherence to all safeguards is verified and TREES Credits are not issued if safeguard requirements are not met.

TREES 2.0 creates a new opportunity for Indigenous Peoples to benefit from markets for jurisdictional REDD+ credits.

TREES 1.0 allows subnational jurisdictions that wish to aggregate to meet the scale threshold to do so through an agreement to establish a subnational accounting area under a national submission.

In TREES 2.0, this option has been expanded to also allow for Indigenous Peoples’ territories to participate in aggregate and/or join with one or more non-indigenous subnational jurisdictions through an agreement to establish a subnational accounting area for a national submission.

In this manner, ART creates a new opportunity for Indigenous Peoples territories of any size to contribute to and benefit from the carbon market.

In addition, in TREES 2.0 Indigenous Peoples territories are eligible to qualify as “high forest, low deforestation” (HFLD) and therefore use the (optional) HFLD crediting approach, which may better reflect and reward their historical performance in protecting their forests.

Yes. Ensuring the recognition, respect, protection and fulfilment of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities is one of ART’s immutable principles.

Consistent with the UNFCCC Cancun Safeguards, TREES requires that participating jurisdictions:

– Identify Indigenous Peoples and local communities, or equivalent
– Respect and protect traditional knowledge
– Respect, protect, and fulfil rights of Indigenous Peoples and/or local communities, or equivalent.

Each of these themes includes structural, process and outcome indicators that will need to be validated and verified.

Yes. TREES requires that IPLCs and other stakeholders participate in the design, implementation and monitoring of the REDD+ activities.

This ensures these stakeholders participate at every step including implementation, gathering data, and assessing the success of the programs, providing additional opportunities for input and feedback.

Specifically, TREES requires that participating jurisdictions:
– Respect, protect, and fulfill the right of all relevant stakeholders to participate fully and effectively in the design and implementation of REDD+ actions
– Promote adequate participatory procedures for the meaningful participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, or equivalent.