What happens if the forest burns down?
To help protect the program against this limited risk, the Conservancy is withholding a percentage of the carbon offsets from each project entered into the voluntary carbon offset program, and will not take offset contributions related to these “set-asides.” These offsets are pooled together to create a reserve for the overall program and provide a safeguard against catastrophic loss in any one project within the program. This strategy is required by the Voluntary Carbon Standard, and will be applied to the Conservancy’s voluntary carbon offset program. In the extremely unlikely case that a project suffers from a catastrophic loss, such as a fire, part of the reserve pool will be used to cover the loss. In the early stages of the voluntary carbon offset program, the Conservancy has built replanting into the budget of each project should the restoration work be hampered by a drought or other factor. Given our conservative estimates of forest growth, mortality in the first 5 to 10 years
