Wildlife Works to list new REDD+ projects in Cambodia, Colombia
Quantum Commodity Intelligence - Wildlife Works, the US developer behind historical carbon projects such as Mai Ndombe and Kasigau Corridor, is planning to expand into Cambodia and Colombia soon as part of a plan to create 20 million mt of new carbon credits per year, its CEO told Quantum.
Last year, carbon trader Hartree Partners and Wildlife Works announced a landmark $2 billion deal to create 20 new 'high-impact' projects that will help tackle deforestation in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The announcement came as the price of nature-based carbon credits reached a historical record after years in the doldrums, prompted by increased interest from corporates looking to offset their operational emissions.
Prices rose further in the aftermath of COP26 before easing in the first half of 2022 due to the global energy and economic crisis.
Mike Korchinsky, who founded the company in the late 1990s before the VCM was even in its infancy, says some of the funds have already been put to work on the ground.
Wildlife Works currently operates three projects in Kenya and the DRC with 7.4 million mt of annual emission reductions.
It has hired staff in Cambodia and Colombia to work on new projects that have been submitted and accepted and will soon be listed under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS).
"Fifteen years of history will be dwarfed by the next 10-15 years... We need to get 10 times better," he says.
The company also plans to expand into Indonesia, one of the developing countries with the highest rates of deforestation, and already has a presence there.
"We are confident VCM projects will play a significant role in stopping deforestation in Indonesia while providing a source of conditional finance to help the country achieve its NDC commitments," says the company.
When the deal with Hartree was announced, the plan was to issue carbon credits in 2023 and Wildlife Works says this remains the goal, despite delays at carbon standards explained by a surge in interest.
The company's Mai Ndombe was one of the first REDD+ projects approved by Verra.
It was spurred by methodology VM0009 for avoided ecosystem conversion that was created for the project, but has since been used by 16 other schemes.
Recently, Wildlife Works announced its intention to slash credit issuance by one-third to 3.8 million mt per year at the site in response to its inclusion in the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility programme.
The scheme will pay $5/tCO2e for credits that can easily fetch $15 or more at current prices, but Korchinsky says nested projects within jurisdictional programmes are "the future of the carbon market".
