Avoiding deforestation and its climate impact
Luangwa Community Forest project, Zambia
In Zambia’s Luangwa Valley, the Luangwa Community Forests Project protects community-managed forest areas that would otherwise face increasing pressure from deforestation without targeted measures.
By maintaining these community-managed forests, carbon stored in trees, vegetation, and soils remains sequestered within the ecosystem over the long term. By avoiding deforestation, large volumes of CO₂ do not enter the atmosphere in the first place—emissions that would otherwise have been released through clearing and subsequent land-use change. The project’s climate impact therefore results from verifiable emissions avoidance based on existing carbon stocks.
Forest protection is part of a long-term, community-based management approach implemented in collaboration with local communities. This approach aims to reduce deforestation pressure and secure the long-term stability of forest landscapes. In this way, the project combines the protection of existing ecosystems with clearly defined and measurable climate mitigation effects and demonstrates how local forest conservation can contribute effectively and over the long term to global climate mitigation.
Technical project data – VCS1775
Key facts about the forest conservation project at a glance.
| Parameter | Description | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Project location | Zambia; Luangwa Valley (Eastern Province) | Project Description (PD), Section 1.9 |
| Project type | REDD+ project to avoid unplanned deforestation (Avoided Unplanned Deforestation, AUD) in the AFOLU sector | Project Description, Section 1.2 |
| Project standard | Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) | VCS Program |
| Additional standard | Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standard (CCB) | CCB Project Documents, Summary |
| Project developer | BioCarbon Partners (BCP) | Project Description, Section 1.3 |
| Project area | Multiple community-managed forest areas (total area > 900,000 ha) | Project Description, Section 1.9 |
| Technology / approach | Community-based forest conservation through local forest management, monitoring, governance structures, and measures to reduce deforestation pressure | Project Description, Sections 1.2 & 2 |
| Baseline scenario | Continued unplanned deforestation driven by agricultural expansion, fuelwood use, and resource pressure, with significant CO₂ release | Project Description, Section 2.3 |
| Methodology | VM0006 – Methodology for Avoided Unplanned Deforestation | Monitoring Report, Section 2 |
| Project start | Start of the crediting period as per project registration (2015) | Project Description, Section 1.6 |
| Crediting period | Multi-year crediting period as per VCS registration (ongoing) | Monitoring Report, Section 1.7 |
| Project status | Registered VCS project with regular verifications | Verra Registry |
| Annual emission reductions | Project-specific per monitoring period; reported in monitoring and verification reports | Monitoring Reports |
| Main impact mechanism | Avoidance of CO₂ emissions by preserving existing forest carbon stocks in biomass and soils | Project Description, Sections 2 & 3 |
| Monitoring & verification | Regular monitoring using remote sensing, field checks, and community monitoring; independent verification by accredited VVBs | Monitoring & Verification Reports |
| Additionality | Implementation of protection measures financially enabled by revenues from the voluntary carbon market | Project Description, Additionality Section |
| Permanence & risk management | Safeguarding of climate impact through the VCS AFOLU buffer pool, based on project-specific risk assessment | Non-Permanence Risk Report |
| Carbon Credit Rating | No external carbon credit rating published | Verra Registry & project documentation |
| Carbon Credit Rating Type | No project-specific external rating (e.g. BeZero, Sylvera) | – |
| Article 6 Authorization (Paris Agreement) | No authorization under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement | Verra Registry |
| CCP Status (ICVCM) | No CCP classification published | ICVCM |
| Handling of double-counting risks | Clear allocation of VCUs within the Verra Registry | VCS Rules |
| Risk management (AFOLU) | Systematic assessment of non-permanence risks (incl. deforestation, fire, resource-use pressure) and coverage via the VCS buffer pool | Non-Permanence Risk Report |
| Monitoring approach | Combination of remote sensing, GIS analyses, community monitoring, and model-based emissions quantification in line with VCS requirements | Monitoring Reports |
| Project longevity / long-term perspective | Long-term, community-based forest conservation project with a multi-year crediting and monitoring structure | Project Description, Section 1.6 |
| Contribution to national climate strategy | Contribution to emission reductions in the AFOLU sector without national accounting under Article 6 | Project Description, Section 1.10 |
What the project can contribute
Here we summarize the concrete impacts of the Luangwa project and the changes it helps make possible.
- 1
Strengthening community-based forest conservation
The Luangwa project relies on forest protection led by local communities. Clear use rules, monitoring, and community participation reduce deforestation and secure long-term forest conservation.
- 2
Preserving large-scale carbon stocks
The existing forests in the Luangwa area store significant amounts of carbon in biomass and soils. Protecting them prevents emissions that would be released through logging or degradation and preserves these stocks over the long term.
- 3
Targeted reduction of deforestation pressure
Alternative income opportunities, improved land use, and complementary measures reduce economic pressure on forests. This lowers the risk that forest areas are converted into cropland or other land uses.
- 4
Safeguarding ecological stability at landscape scale
Protecting contiguous forest areas supports the stability of entire ecosystems. This includes functions such as soil protection, water regulation, and the preservation of habitats for numerous animal and plant species.
- 5
Securing climate impact over time
Avoided emissions are safeguarded through regular monitoring, independent verification, and AFOLU-specific risk management. In addition, the VCS buffer pool addresses non-permanence risks in a systematic way.
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Global climate relevance
Protecting a connected carbon landscape
The forests in the Luangwa area are part of a large-scale forest–savanna mosaic in southern Africa. Conserving them not only safeguards local carbon stocks but also stabilizes connected carbon landscapes with relevance beyond the project boundaries.
Avoiding emissions where they would occur
The project operates in a region facing growing land-use and population pressure. By preventing deforestation proactively, emissions are avoided precisely where they would be highly likely to occur without protection measures.
Strengthening natural climate buffers
Intact forest landscapes buffer climatic extremes, influence water availability, and reduce temperature peaks. Protecting these functions supports the climate resilience of ecosystems and regions in the face of climate change.
Long-term impact enabled by community stewardship
Engaging local communities creates durable incentives for forest conservation. This results in a climate impact that is not only technically safeguarded, but also socially anchored—an important factor for long-term emissions avoidance.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – The relevant and the complementary contributions
Beyond avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, the Luangwa project contributes to protecting large-scale forest and savanna landscapes, stabilizing ecological functions, and engaging local communities in long-term forest conservation. By avoiding unplanned deforestation, essential climate, biodiversity, and landscape functions are maintained. The most material contributions relate to SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). Other goals are supported in a complementary or indirect way. Some SDGs should be considered peripheral, as they are not part of the project’s core focus.
The Luangwa project contributes to climate mitigation by preventing deforestation in a region facing increasing land-use pressure. As a result, large amounts of carbon stored in biomass and soils remain sequestered over the long term and are not released into the atmosphere as CO₂.
The climate impact arises from the preventive avoidance of emissions that would otherwise be released through logging, fuelwood use, and land-use change.
Contribution:
Avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions through the protection of existing forest and savanna carbon stocks.The project protects contiguous forest and savanna ecosystems in the Luangwa area that provide habitat for numerous plant and animal species. By maintaining these landscapes, ecological functions such as habitat connectivity, soil stability, and natural regeneration processes are preserved.
Protecting large, minimally fragmented areas strengthens ecosystem resilience to climatic and human pressures.
Contribution:
Preservation and stabilization of terrestrial ecosystems through long-term landscape conservation.The Luangwa project creates income opportunities in forest conservation, community work, monitoring, and project management. These activities provide economic alternatives to deforestation-intensive land uses and strengthen local value creation.
Contribution:
Support for local employment and income sources in the context of forest and nature conservation.By promoting sustainable land-use practices and reducing deforestation-driven activities, the project supports a more responsible long-term use of natural resources.
The focus is on conservation rather than short-term exploitation.
Contribution:
Promotion of resource-efficient land use and long-term conservation strategies.Intact forest and savanna landscapes in the Luangwa area contribute to stabilizing the regional water balance. They influence runoff, infiltration, and erosion control, thereby supporting natural hydrological processes.
Contribution:
Indirect support for stable water regimes through the preservation of natural vegetation structures.Landscape conservation can indirectly help stabilize rural livelihoods by maintaining ecological foundations and long-term land-use perspectives. However, there is no direct link to urban development.
Contribution:
Indirect support for stable rural regions without an explicit focus on cities.The project establishes long-term structures for landscape management, monitoring, and community-based conservation approaches. These organizational and institutional structures support sustainable land use, but they are not the project’s central focus.
Contribution:
Contribution to developing durable management and monitoring structures in nature conservation.
How CO₂ savings are generated
Forests and soils store carbon. When they are protected, reforested or managed more sustainably, this carbon remains stored and does not enter the atmosphere as CO₂. These avoided emissions can be measured and form the basis for CO₂ certificates.
Land use and forestry projects change how an area develops over time. Without the project, forests would degrade or be cleared, or soils would store less carbon. With the project, more carbon remains stored — or additional carbon is captured, for example through newly planted trees.
Depending on the region, vegetation and soil type, there are established factors that indicate how much carbon a forest or soil can store on average.
For each project, the expected development of the area without the intervention (baseline) is compared with the carbon that is retained or additionally stored through the project activities. The difference represents the avoided or newly captured emissions. These values are verified, regularly updated — and form the basis for issuing CO₂ certificates.
Context and transparency
The Luangwa Community Forests Project is registered under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and is subject to regular monitoring and independent verification. The reported emission reductions are based on audited monitoring and verification reports and on approved methodologies for quantifying avoided greenhouse gas emissions resulting from prevented deforestation.
Carbon offsetting, legal certainty, and defensible evidence in the forest conservation context
Carbon offsetting is no longer a “goodwill topic”—it is a question of evidence and legally robust communication. If you use claims such as “offset,” “climate-neutral,” or “carbon-neutral,” you need a clear foundation: a sound carbon footprint and traceable documentation showing which emissions are being compensated—and on what logic the climate impact is based.
A robust approach starts with the data base. We support companies in preparing a Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF)and—where products are concerned—a Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) in line with international standards. This forms the basis for sustainability reporting (e.g., under VSME) and for communication that remains defensible even as environmental claims are assessed more critically (keyword: Green Claims).
For carbon offsetting via forest conservation and land-use projects, it is particularly important that climate impact is transparently documented, methodologically sound, and independently verifiable. In practice, this includes monitoring and verification, additionality, risk management (e.g., non-permanence), and an appropriate approach to double-counting risks. What matters in the end is not a “big story,” but a clear claim logic: what is being compensated—and what is not?
natureOffice helps you embed carbon offsetting into your carbon management in a way that is technically sound and does not become a liability in external communication—from footprinting to project and credit logic, and defensible wording for websites, proposals, and reporting.