How is delivery of Plan Vivo Certificates ensured (how do I know the trees won’t be cut down later)?
Risk management is built into every stage of the planning and delivery process. Projects are run by established in-country organisations with strong technical and social capacity. Approved project technical specifications contain comprehensive analyses of risk and prescribe risk management and mitigation measures (e.g. fire management, pest control). Participants sign long-term ’sale agreements’ committing them to their plan vivo (management plan). Sale agreements lay out a monitoring schedule where staged payments are received in return for meeting performance targets (the principle of ‘conditionality’). Each participant has a management objective, e.g. sustainable timber or fuel wood production or non-timber forest products like fruits or honey to ensure they benefit from the activity and the activity becomes embedded in the area i.e. it would not be economically rational for participants to discontinue the activity. Projects hold risk buffers (reserves) of unsold carbon credits to c
