Forest projects around the world are working to confront the practical challenges of reducing emissions and providing local benefits. To facilitate the development of forest carbon projects, the Katoomba Incubator at Forest Trends has compiled strategic guidance to emerging best practices. Drawing on practical experiences, this series of documents includes a Step-by-Step Overview and detailed guidance documents on issues, tools and resources covering an array of project development needs.

Step-by-Step Overview and Guide -  Jacob Olander and Johannes Ebeling
REDD Guidance: Technical Project Design  – Joerg Seifert-Granzin
AR Guidance: Technical Project Design – Johannes Ebeling and Alvaro Vallejo
Carbon Stock Assessment Guidance: Inventory and Monitoring Procedures – David Diaz and Matt Delaney
Community Engagement Guidance: Good Practice for Forest Carbon Projects – Tom Blomley and Michael Richards
Legal Guidance: Legal and Contractual Aspects of Forest Carbon Projects – Slayde Hawkins
Business Guidance: Forest Carbon Marketing and Finance – Phil Covell
Social Impacts Guidance: Key Assessment Issues for Forest Carbon Projects – Michael Richards
Biodiversity Impacts Guidance: Key Assessment Issues for Forest Carbon Projects – John Pilgrim, Jonathan Ekstrom, and Johannes Ebeling

Download full report at http://www.forest-trends.org

Carbon righteousness: how to lever pro-poor benefits from REDD+

This briefing discusses the opportunities and challenges involved in the creation of a new form of private property that can be bought and sold in domestic and international markets — the ‘carbon right’. It looks at how equity and fairness can be built into this new commodity so that carbon trading schemes and REDD+ projects support the rural poor who rarely hold formal land ownership or tenure rights but are key players in putting sustainable forest management into practice on the ground.

Download the paper at IIED 

Biodiversity conservation usually builds on strategies involving a wide range of policy instruments. Within these policy mixes, the use of economic instruments for biodiversity policies and maintaining the provision of ecosystem services has gained increasing attention, not least in the context of the recent TEEB initiative on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. However, what is the role of economic instruments vis-à-vis regulatory approaches in biodiversity policies? How can the various instruments be assessed in their contribution to conservation objectives, cost-effectiveness, social and distributional impacts as well as institutional requirements?

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Can Markets Protect Biodiversity? An Evaluation of Different Financial Mechanisms

This report discusses the strengths and weaknesses of increased use of market-based mechanisms in protecting biodiversity and its associated services. It has been written in response to the latest call by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity (COP 10, Nagoya) where Parties were invited to submit information concerning to what extent innovative financial mechanisms could be used to support the three objectives of the convention. Read report .

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The fifth annual “State and Trends of the Voluntary Carbon Markets” report is available for download (see link at the bottom)

This year’s survey finds that the voluntary carbon market shrugged off policy failures and the closure of the Chicago Climate Exchange in 2010 to post a 34% surge in volume to a record 131 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) worth at least $424 million.

REDD accounted for 29% of all emissions reductions documented, thanks in part to new REDD methodologies published by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), which provided project guidance for creating a full third of all credits documented in 2010.

The surge of REDD activity led to unprecedented market activity in the developing world.  This included a doubling of credits from Latin America, as well as more than doubling of the number of project developers and buyers headquartered in Asia, Latin America and Africa – thus laying the foundation for long-term growth in the Global South.

Published jointly by Ecosystem Marketplace, an initiative of Forest Trends, and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the report is based on input from nearly 300 market participants and provides an atlas of voluntary carbon markets for NGOs, policymakers, and project developers. It includes a comprehensive analysis of project types, locations, and the motivations of buyers, as well as volume and price data. It  is sponsored by Carbon Trade Exchange, together with ClimateCare, Climate Friendly, Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and Emergent Ventures International (EVI).

Download full report at Ecosystem Marketplace