18 March 2016
In Petén, Guatemala, the GuateCarbón REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of forests) project covers about a third of the massive Maya Biosphere Reserve, the largest uninterrupted tropical forest north of the Amazon. The project is estimated to avoid almost two million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually but is still undergoing validation with the Verified Carbon Standard and has not sold any offsets yet. Instead, the project has recently relied on subsidies from partner organizations and the government. “No one has bought [the offsets] because we don’t have them yet; the process that guarantees them is long and strict, and we haven’t wanted to make any advance commitments,” Sergio Guzmán, the project manager, told Mongabay.
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