Katingan Mentaya Conservation

CNaught maintains a very high quality standard for all projects in the portfolios we manage. To ensure that a project meets this standard, we perform due diligence that’s backed up by third-party ratings agencies’ independent diligence. 

‍
Additionality
This project has high additionality, meaning it is very unlikely that this project activity could have occurred in the absence of carbon funding. Without the project, the forests would have been harvested and the peatlands drained, burned, and converted into acacia plantations for paper production and other industrial uses. There is no evidence of any regulations or financial incentives for the project activity. All ratings agencies agree that this project is highly additional, and Calyx Global even noted that Katingan is “among our highest rated REDD / Avoided Deforestation projects” because it is providing such critical forest protections.
‍Over-Crediting
This project has a low risk of over-crediting, which both BeZero and Sylvera attest to in their ratings. Calyx Global and Renoster consider that risk to be slightly higher, as forest conservation projects typically have some calculation risk associated with their baseline calculation methods. We reviewed this project’s baseline estimation methods and found that their baseline was conservatively calculated and should minimize the project’s risk of being over-credited. 
‍Durability
This project activity is durable as we are confident in its ability to provide permanent emissions reductions. Calyx Global and Renoster both give this project a medium risk score due to fire risk that could reverse the emissions reductions of the project. During our due diligence process, we found that the project has heavily invested in fire prevention and mitigation, which we believe is sufficient to minimize the project’s fire risk. 
‍Double-Counting
The project credits have a very low risk of being double counted. There are no regulatory obligations being met by the project activity and the project’s registry, Verra, has mechanisms in place to ensure that the project is not registered in any other programs. We also confirmed that the project does not overlap with any other REDD projects to ensure that its conservation credits are not claimed by other projects.