Carbon offsets are helping protect B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest. But is that sustainable?

By Brad Badelt
CBC News
January 7, 2024
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Guardian Watchmen is an Indigenous-led conservation program in the Great Bear Rainforest. …Watchmen programs operate in seven communities along the coast and on Haida Gwaii, employing some 150 local Indigenous people. …Guardian Watchmen are partially funded by an unusual source: carbon offsets. …In the case of the Great Bear Rainforest, the carbon offsets are being sold by Coastal First Nations — an alliance of nine First Nations along B.C.’s coast — in exchange for protecting forests that would otherwise have been logged. …But to date, the annual revenue from carbon offsets has been only half of what had been expected. …One of the criticisms of the … project is that old-growth logging has continued despite the protection of more forested areas. …when the agreement was signed, the carbon offset market was flooded with cheap offsets for projects done elsewhere that lacked proper oversight. The result was a big dip in the price of carbon credits…

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