Natural High Forest Rehabilitation Project on degraded land of Kibale National Park

Audit Analysis

A long-running (60-year) forest rehabilitation project in Kibale National Park with VVB-confirmed additionality, a 15% buffer pool, and no reported reversals, but burdened by an extensive list of material findings including a methodology deviation in biomass conversion factors, a significant planting-area shortfall (4,025 ha vs. 6,000 ha planned), a mid-project proponent change, and documentation that was formally deemed incomplete and non-conforming. The project over-delivered relative to its pro-rata ex-ante expectation (≈175 %), which is reassuring, yet the project-specific baseline, unquantified 0 % leakage deduction, and low extraction confidence across 49 source documents limit confidence in the underlying data.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Planting area shortfall: actual planted area of 4,025 ha is 33 % below the 6,000 ha planned in the PDD, raising over-crediting risk if the ex-ante estimate was not proportionally revised
• ⚠Methodology deviation: incorrect fresh-to-dry-weight conversion factors (branch factors used instead of stem biomass factors) led to underestimation of carbon stock in earlier periods; correction applied but historical credits may be affected
• ⚠Project proponent changed from Face the Future to GreenChoice during the monitoring period, with additionality implications not fully clarified
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0 % justified only as 'deemed negligible' without a quantified assessment, which is thin for a 6,000-ha forest project in a high-biodiversity national park
• ⚠Documentation formally deemed incomplete and of insufficient quality; joint CCB-VCS verification template used instead of separate VCS templates; two Forward Action Requests remain open

Credit Vintages