Rimba Raya’s natural solutions to save orangutan lives and absorb carbon dioxide

Biodiversity and Community

Indonesia is losing forests at the rate of half a million hectares a year, which is one of the highest rates in the world. The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, the largest REDD+ project in the world, works to preserve these forests and stop development.

Reduced:

CO2

Carbon Dioxide

What it does

Reducing deforestation is one of the biggest opportunities for the cost-efficient and immediate reduction of carbon emissions. This project is preserving 64,500 hectares of tropical peatland forest on the southern coast of Borneo, a rich ecosphere supporting flora, fauna and species including the endangered Bornean orangutan. The local government had previously approved this land for conversion to palm oil plantations, but the project helped local communities find a different solution. Local residents have adopted sustainable alternatives to slash-and-burn farming and now with better economic opportunities these forests are being guarded and carbon sequestered.

How it works

To be effective, forest conservation must be balanced with the economic well-being of local communities. This project achieves that balance by demonstrating that conservation can be environmentally and economically advantageous.

It engages communities and supports the local economy by creating jobs, offering alternative income streams, providing new co-ops, and micro-finance programs. The project also provides access to clean water, health services and education. Local communities have become motivated partners in forest preservation. This project is avoiding 4.5 million tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions every year, and is the largest REDD+ forestry project in the world in terms of emissions reduced. It is also Indonesia’s first officially sanctioned REDD+ project.

Benefits:

Total CO2 emissions reduction for this project will exceed 130 million tonnes.

The project addresses all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Preserves shelter for 300 species of birds, 122 species of mammals, and 180 species of trees and plants.

The project created a women’s co-op for greater opportunity and community participation.

Challenges

There is a continual commercial demand for agricultural land.

It needs a significant amount of local support to survive.

Enforcement of forest protection requires constant vigilance.

Rural poverty can still push farmers to illegal logging and slash-and-burn farming.

Who it helps:

Planet Earth, by sequestering 4.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year. The endangered Borneo orangutan, by preserving an irreplaceable bio-habitat. The people of Rimba Raya, by creating jobs and new small businesses. And people everywhere, by demonstrating that forest conservation can be done effectively and lastingly.

Why we chose this project

This uninhabited lowland peat swamp forest preservation and regeneration project offers strong biodiversity and community benefits that are unequaled by most forest projects we review. It is located in a part of the world that is under high stress from unregulated agricultural practices and is eminently threatened by rising temperatures.