The objective of the proposed Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) Carbon Fund REDD+[1] Emission Reductions Program is to achieve roughly 26.8 million tCO2e of emission reductions (ERs) from the Amazonian regions of San Martin and Ucayali during 2020-2024. Peru expects to transfer 6.4 million tCO2e of measured, reported and verified ERs to the Carbon Fund for payment of US$32 million, to be distributed in accordance with an agreed benefit sharing plan (BSP). The ER Program has two components: (1) ER Verification – verification of and payment for measured and reported ERs generated by the Government’s ER Program; and (2) Benefit Sharing – distribution of the ER payments according to a Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP).
[1] REDD+ stands for "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”; the “+” signifies the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
BIC worked with Forest Trends and three Indigenous organizations in Peru: Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), the Coordinadora de Desarrollo y Defensa de los Pueblos Indígenas de la Región San Martin (CODEPISAM), and Organización Regional Aidesep Ucayali (ORAU). With BIC, our partners reviewed the Carbon Fund’s proposed ER Program prepared by Peru’s Ministry of the Environment (MINAM) in conjunction with multiple national and regional agencies and negotiated with the Carbon Fund Facility Management Team, managed by the World Bank. Our partners identified the following concerns, which BIC assisted them in sharing with the World Bank, Peruvian government, and the Carbon Fund Participants (CFPs):
This project is financed by the FCPF Carbon Fund, managed by the World Bank.
In October 2020, BIC and our partners organized a webinar to present our main concerns and recommendations about the ER Program. Several World Bank staff, donor representatives, and government officials attended the virtual event, facilitating greater dialogue about implementing and including several of the recommendations and changes suggested by Indigenous groups to improve the program. In October and November, the Indigenous organizations had several meetings with MINAM, while the ER program implementing agency and the World Bank discussed how to include those changes. After those rounds of meetings, 125 changes suggested by AIDESEP, CODEPISAM, and ORAU were incorporated to the ER program and 9 complementary safeguards documents.
Among others, Indigenous organizations recommended the program be amended to:
The Peru ER Program was officially dropped from the FCPF Carbon Fund portfolio in February 2021. The official communication recognized that the Government of Peru made efforts to advance the preparation of the ER Program during 2020, including on the several dialogues with the Indigenous Peoples and CSOs related to the ER Program. However, despite these efforts, Peru continued to lag far behind in the completion of key documents such as those related to safeguards, benefit sharing plan, etc. According to the official communication, Peru also failed to share their initial expectations from the ER Purchase Agreement (ERPA) by the initial ERPA signing deadline of November 30, 2020. As a result the World Bank and Government of Peru mutually agreed to cancel the ER Program.
