Campeche, Mexico
Conhuás: Forest Carbon Sequestration and Ecosystem Conservation
To ensure the long-term conservation of the forests and jungles of southeastern Mexico, this project produces carbon credits that benefit not only the ecosystem, but also the communities that reside in it.
The Issue
The Conhuás ejido, the name for communally-held land in Mexico, is located in the center of the municipality of Calakmul, Campeche, and has more than 50,000 hectares of forest. Among other borders, to the east it limits with the ejido Kilómetro 120, with whom we also have a forest carbon sequestration and conservation project, as well as with the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, therefore, it is an ejido of great ecological importance and with an enormous potential to act as a biological corridor. Sadly, the rate of deforestation and land-use change is an ever-increasing situation that threatens to harm both ecosystems and human groups in the region.
The Goal
The forest carbon sequestration project that we implemented together with the community of Conhuás ensures the permanence of forest cover and biodiversity by financing the conservation of ecosystems and generating carbon removal offsets. The offsets will be available on the voluntary carbon market to mitigate emissions from national and international entities with climate objectives to meet. The project improves the landowners' living conditions by allowing them to receive a fair alternative to other potentially detrimental economic income sources, instead benefiting from safeguarding their natural resources and their territories.
Conhuás Ejido, Calakmul, Campeche state, Mexico.
About Conhuás Ejido
The Conhuás ejido is located in the state of Campeche, Mexico, and has an extension of 58,493 hectares where 757 people live, 8% of which are considered indigenous. It is part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, an area known for its natural and cultural heritage, as well as its proximity to the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, which contains a high biological diversity of ecosystems. The characteristic vegetation within the ejido ranges from low to high semi-evergreen forest. 96% of the ejido's surface area is considered forested and only 3.25% is used for different productive and economic activities, including rainfed agriculture and beekeeping. Ecotourism, another economic activity, is carried out in other areas of the ejido.
Representative tree species include sapodilla (Manilkara zapota), breadnut tree (Brosimum alicastrum), and logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum), among others. In addition, there is a great diversity of fauna, as there are reports of jaguar, tapir, white-tailed deer, white-lipped peccary, opossum, puma, toucan, ocellated turkey, and other organisms.
The Social Issue
According to the last population and housing census, 757 people live in the Conhuás ejido. The average education of the inhabitants is 7 years. Within the parameters of quality of life and housing, there are 177 homes, of which only 80% have access to information or communication technologies. According to the UN, this is a community with a degree of marginalization, whose quality of life can be described as precarious.
The project we are jointly developing seeks to reverse these precarious conditions by providing the landowners with the greatest proportion of the benefits from the sale and purchase of carbon offsets: economic incentive that allows them not only to safeguard their territories, but also to improve their quality of life through the conservation and protection of their resources.
The Environmental Issue
The Conhuás ejido is embedded in the most extensive forest area in the Mexican tropics; however, some of the natural disturbances that threaten the biodiversity that this ejido protects on a daily basis are hurricanes, fires, and droughts. In addition, according to the Zoh-Laguna weather station, it has been documented that the region is suffering a gradual process of aridity. On the other hand, the main anthropogenic factors that have modified the region are illegal logging, as well as increasing deforestation due to the expansion of productive activities, mainly agriculture and livestock farming. farming.
The project we are developing together seeks to conserve biodiversity and restore local resilience to climate change and natural disturbances; likewise, as part of our long-term sustainability strategy, we seek to develop sustainable economic and productive activities, as opposed to those that put the locality at risk.
Activities implemented
From the first talks with the ejidos to fully operational projects conserving natural resources.
Achieving forest carbon sequestration and ecosystem conservation involves developing other activities such as territorial analysis, environmental management and monitoring, restoration and conservation activities, sustainable resource management, as well as workshops and trainings. These activities are chosen according to the community's needs and the reinvestment mechanism established in the agreement signed with the ejido members, where the population participates in the selection, design, and implementation of additional climate action activities.
Let us explain all of the above! Select the category of activity you want to learn more about.
In this section, we will discuss two key steps: Territorial Analysis, and Environmental Management and Monitoring. Territorial Analysis is the previous and fundamental process for the design of any project. This is complemented by land tenure analysis and local socioeconomic dynamics, which gives us the variables that frame the territory. Environmental Management consists of the carbon baseline survey. At the end, we can know the amount of carbon stored in each Activity Area (AA), and with this information, we can measure in subsequent years the growth of the forest and therefore, its carbon storage capacity.
The subsequent steps that involve the surveillance and constant protection of the carbon stocks are known as environmental monitoring, and are activities in which the ejido members of Conhuás are involved in safeguarding the permanence of their natural resources.
Activities
carbon monitoring sites surveyed
hectares of project area
hectares of activity area
estimated annual carbon offsets
What makes this project with Conhuás ejido one of high-quality and high-integrity standards?
All of our carbon sequestration projects are registered, verified, and certified by accredited entities. We are committed to making the change real, far-reaching, additional, and permanent.
The Conhuás project is registered and certified by the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) under the project ID CAR1674, which is a global initiative that certifies and verifies voluntary conservation and ecological restoration projects around the world. In the Conhuás project we strictly adhere to the CAR Forest Protocol for Mexico version 3.0, which is verified by Ruby Canyon, a verification body that seeks year after year to corroborate the climatic, environmental, and social benefits that our projects generate; in this way, hand in hand with Conhuás ejido members we have achieved territorial climate action of high-quality and integrity.
Registry and certification
CLIMATE ACTION RESERVE
Protocol
MEXICO FOREST PROTOCOL VERSION 3.0
Verification
RUBY CANYON
Image gallery
Conhuás, Campeche. February 2023.
Ejidal assembly
We meet your needs, tailor-made!
If you are interested in acquiring carbon offsets, consultancy on territorial climate action, or propose an idea, contact us. Toroto has the capacity and experience to develop tailor-made restoration and ecological conservation projects, always hand in hand with the landowners and under the highest quality and integrity standards.
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