Jari Pará REDD+ Project

Audit Analysis

The Jari Pará REDD+ project is a long-running VCS avoidance project with a verified additionality test and an 11% buffer pool, but it is burdened by unresolved land-ownership disputes, a project-specific baseline, a zero leakage deduction whose justification was initially unclear, and a first-period delivery of only about 53% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation. The extensive list of material findings and corrective actions—particularly around land titles, baseline calculations, and non-permanence risk—undermine confidence in the robustness of the credit claims.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Unresolved land-ownership dispute (Gleba Jari I) between the Jari Institute and the state of Pará, with pending court decisions on land titles and an administrative blockade, directly threatens the legal basis for carbon rights.
• ⚠First monitoring period delivered only ~53% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation (900,752 vs ~1,693,000 tCO2e), suggesting the project-specific baseline may be overly optimistic.
• ⚠Zero leakage deduction was initially unexplained in the monitoring report (CAR 7 required the VVB to demand a justification), raising questions about whether displacement was adequately assessed.
• ⚠The Non-Permanence Risk Report did not reflect ongoing land-tenure disputes at the time of verification, and reversal events were marked as 'not addressed' in the 2019 verification report.
• ⚠The Jari Institute's financial difficulties were flagged as a risk to compliance with social and biodiversity actions.

Credit Vintages