The publication of the CommuniTree Carbon Program’s 2023 annual report marks the end of another successful year. 2023 saw the program welcome another 914 farming families. Together, they planted more than five million trees across 3,720 hectares of land, bringing the total to 14,864 hectares of land being restored throughout Nicaragua. This is helping to restore six national watersheds, support 173 permanent local jobs, and direct over US$33 million to local communities.

These impacts are only possible due to the sale of Plan Vivo certified ex-ante carbon removals, a highly additional form of carbon finance. As noted in the program’s successful verification audit, which took place this year, participating farmers “would not have been able to reforest their land without the Project.” At a time when the validity of the voluntary carbon market is being called into question, we are delighted that CommuniTree continues to demonstrate how carbon finance can catalyze the restoration of the world’s forests to create impacts for climate, nature, and local communities.

Operational resilience in the face of El Niño

This year, CommuniTree continued to grow its impact across Nicaragua. The program expanded into three new regions, exceeded targets for new land planted, and completed planting verification in record time despite adverse weather conditions caused by El Niño. This success can be attributed to the program’s robust operations, which have been purposefully designed to build a resilient program which delivers on intended impacts, even when faced with operational challenges.

This resilience is testament to the culture of learning and continuous improvement instilled by both Taking Root and local project partner, APRODEIN, over the last 15 years. In 2023, the program’s expansion strategy focused on mitigating the risks posed by the climate crisis by diversifying operations across regions with different climatic conditions. This meant that while dry weather delayed planting in some regions, others with wetter conditions were able to progress. In addition, surplus land was planted to allow room for failures, with small teams of seasonal workers deployed to help farmers complete planting quickly when rains came so that the program could hit its restoration targets for the year.

Unparalleled transparency to enhance program performance

With the program now restoring forests across 6,082 parcels belonging to 4,202 farmers, a number of initiatives were launched throughout 2023 to enhance the program’s transparency and performance while operating at scale. This included the creation of a dedicated local quality department. The six-person team acts as independent internal auditors to ensure parcel, farmer, and technician performance across the program. Specialist local monitoring teams have also been introduced, meaning monitoring can now be conducted year-round. This resulted in 3,578 hectares of historically planted land being monitored – an incredible 350% increase from 2022.

Along with building the capacity of the local team, Taking Root leveraged its technology platform to create new reporting which enables more targeted and timely support for farmers and their forests. The release of a work logs feature in Taking Root’s mobile app now allows technicians to record the progress of parcel activities such as planting and weeding to identify parcels and farmers most in need of support. In addition, a planting verification feature was released which made the monitoring of newly planted land up to twice as fast, while simultaneously enhancing data integrity. By saving time spent collecting data, it meant more focus could be given through the year to helping farmers successfully grow and get value from their trees.

Building transparency across project operations has supported the timely completion of silvicultural activities to enhance parcel health and help farmers unlock value from their forests to create durable carbon removals. In 2023, this resulted in 101 farmers registering their parcels with Nicaragua’s National Forest Institute (INAFOR) for thinning in line with local regulations. Thinning some of the fast-growing species is essential to a parcel’s success, enabling optimal growth and survival by releasing nutrients, resources, and space for the remaining trees. The subsequent sale of thinnings generated over US$19,000 of new income for project participants while enhancing the health of their forests, helping their parcels to meet growth targets and remove more carbon from the atmosphere. With more thinnings slated to take place across 2024, a 10-person Pre-Commercial Thinnings team has been assembled to guide farmers through the process in a safe and sustainable way.

CommuniTree passes third-party verification audit

CommuniTree’s commitment to creating high-integrity impacts was on display to a number of external visitors throughout the year. The program successfully passed its third-party verification audit, conducted by Aster Global. The audit verified all Plan Vivo certified ex-ante carbon removals issued by the project between 2015 to 2021. Beyond carbon impacts, the auditor noted that CommuniTree is “successfully maintaining or enhancing biodiversity,” and is “decreasing negative impacts to water quality…improving degraded soils, and increasing the soil’s ability to retain water.” The completion of the audit triggered the release of CommuniTree’s updated Project Design Document, reflecting the project’s latest best practices for community engagement, forest restoration, and monitoring and verification.

In addition, CommuniTree welcomed 14 individuals representing all eight of Taking Root’s carbon retail partners. Partners visited parcels, met with farmers, and toured the processing facility for forest value chains to better understand how CommuniTree creates high-integrity carbon removals by supporting farmers to improve their livelihoods from growing native trees.

“It is truly incredible to see what Taking Root, together with APRODEIN, has achieved in the CommuniTree project. They have made and continue to make a tremendous difference in local communities, for biodiversity, and, most importantly, for the climate, with millions of trees planted and now growing into real forests.”

– Henrik Juhlin, CEO of ZeroMission

Looking ahead to 2024

Looking ahead, we are excited to build on the work completed in 2023 to help farmers successfully grow and unlock the benefits of growing thriving forests. The program is investing in its recruitment capacity to meet farmer demand and continue expanding the program for the 2024 planting season. As CommuniTree grows, Taking Root will continue to invest in the transparency and performance of the program. This includes further monitoring across historically planted land, re-developing Taking Root’s web platform to streamline access to real-time operations reporting, and investing further in developing sustainable forest value chains so that farmers reap the full benefits of the forests they grow.

We are at a point of time where action to implement and scale nature-based solutions is more time critical than ever to tackle the world’s climate and nature crises. Thank you to all CommuniTree’s partners, especially to our local partner APRODEIN, and participating farmers, for enabling the success and impact of 2023. With 2024 operations well underway, Taking Root is excited to continue working together to improve livelihoods, restore ecosystems, and mitigate the climate crisis.

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