Anew - 100-Mile Wilderness Forestry Project

Audit Analysis

The 100-Mile Wilderness IFM project in Maine demonstrates solid structural safeguards including a VVB-verified combined additionality test, a 40% quantified leakage deduction, and an 18% buffer pool. However, eight material findings—including a 0.15-acre overlap with a CARB-registered project, incorrect site-index equations, and shelterwood harvest triggers not implemented as described—raise meaningful concerns about baseline accuracy and operational compliance. The project over-delivered relative to its pro-rata expectation, but the project-specific modeled baseline and absence of FPIC limit confidence in the integrity of the claims.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠0.15 acres of project area overlap with CARB IFM project CAFR5304, creating a potential double-counting risk that required a corrective action to remove the overlap from boundary and RMZ files
• ⚠Eight material findings in the verification report, including use of incorrect Lake States site-index curves instead of Northern Maine curves, shelterwood harvest triggers not always implemented as described in the GHG Plan, and discrepancies in acre values and decay-class definitions
• ⚠Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) was not conducted, and no grievance mechanism is documented in the available records
• ⚠Reversal events are explicitly noted as 'not addressed' in the verification report, despite the 40-year permanence claim

Credit Vintages