We’ve just posted an interesting story to Time.com about a group of monks in northern Cambodia who are lobbying for over a dozen protected forests to go onto the global carbon market.
This is exactly the kind of project that makes Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) so promising: protecting the forests in Oddar Meanchey province would be a win for the environment, a win for its sponsors and a win for the monks and other residents who rely on forest for their livelihood. It’s also the kind of project that makes policy makers so nervous about REDD: Cambodia’s track record on illegal logging has been called into question many times before, and the government of the southeast Asian nation — through which any carbon offset funds would be funneled — routinely ranks among the most corrupt in the world, according to Transparency International.
Read more from Brendan Brady here.