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Orchestrating Change
PACKAGING PALM OIL, TIMBER AND CARBON OFFSETS
Project POTICO is designed to circumvent the economic incentive to clear rainforests when establishing oil palm plantations.
Many oil palm companies already have concessions to clear cut large tracts of virgin rainforest and convert them into oil palm plantations. Under POTICO, oil palm companies will retire the concession—preserving the rainforest—and utilize previously cleared, degraded lands for establishing plantations.
With WRI assistance, companies will locate a similar sized tract of degraded land. Working with the appropriate local agencies, companies will obtain concessions to convert degraded land into oil palm plantations. Palm oil produced from these sites will be developed to meet the certification requirements of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
Such land swaps essentially will save virgin forests and their biodiversity from being cut. Instead, virgin rainforests will remain intact, either managed under a sustainable timber certification system such as FSC or as a conservation forest. WRI will engage in multi-stakeholder processes to ensure the highest standards of free, prior, and informed consent are met.
By avoiding deforestation, land swaps will avoid greenhouse gas emissions. The project will take steps to ensure that POTICO can credibly satisfy eligibility criteria for emerging carbon offset markets.
Project POTICO will create multiple sources of revenue that, when combined, make oil palm plantations developed on degraded land an attractive alternative to clear cutting rainforests.
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