Afforestation of degraded grasslands in Caazapa and Guairá

Audit Analysis

This VCS afforestation project in Paraguay has a confirmed additionality assessment and a 14% buffer pool, but is undermined by a significant discrepancy between the PDD lifetime estimate (6.14 MtCO₂) and the validation report figure (0.51 MtCO₂), two corrective action requests, and a project-specific baseline. The project delivered roughly 43% of its pro-rata expectation for the elapsed monitoring period, indicating conservative crediting, but several key MRV parameters (FNRB method, usage monitoring) are absent from the record.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠ERR contradiction: the PDD (2021-07-15) states a lifetime estimate of 6,144,569 tCO₂ while the validation report (2021-07-17) records 505,913 tCO₂ — a 12-fold discrepancy that undermines confidence in the ex-ante baseline
• ⚠Two corrective action requests (CARs) in the verification report: missing environmental impact assessment summaries and an incorrect non-permanence buffer calculation (16% vs 14%)
• ⚠Reversal events contradiction: the verification report (Dec 2021) records 'reported' while the validation report (Jul 2021) records 'none reported'; the detail suggests a buffer-calculation correction rather than an actual reversal, but the inconsistency is unresolved
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0% justified only as 'deemed negligible' without a quantified assessment, which is thin for a 366 ha land-use change project

Credit Vintages