Sabah Forestry has already done the work to make Sabah a carbon credit issuer, no need for Australian expertise and brokers, and Singapore private equity

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

Sabah's old BN Government undertook a state wide mapping of 

Sabah's forest in order to protect, regrow and conserve

Mongabay has reported that a small  Australian broker backed by a private equity backed funder has locked up Sabah's potential carbon credits for the next 100 to 200 years:

Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, have signed a profit-sharing deal to market carbon and other natural capital from more than 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of the state’s forests for at least the next 100 years. But the communities living in and around those forests know next to nothing about it.

The “nature conservation agreement,” brokered by an Australian consultancy called Tierra Australia, is aimed at the restoration of ecosystems. That would allow the sale of credits for carbon and other ecosystem services to companies seeking to meet sustainability goals, such as reducing their carbon footprints by offsetting their emissions.

Under the terms of the deal, Tierra Australia and its partners will receive 30% of the profits from the credits for natural capital sold for the next 100-200 years, according to Peter Burgess, the company’s CEO.

Burgess said Tierra Australia, along with its Singapore-based subsidiary, Global Nature Capital Sdn. Bhd., and the companies’ private equity-backed funder, Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., finalized the nature conservation agreement with the chief minister, deputy chief minister, and other cabinet members of Sabah on Oct. 30.

Hoch Standard is run by Singaporean Ho Choon Hou, the managing director of the private equity firm Southern Capital Group.

The deal is curious for the Sabah Forestry Department (SFD)has already done much of the hard work involved in creating carbon credits: 

The EU-REDD+ Tackling Climate Change through Sustainable Forest Management and Community Development project is a project funded by the European Union and implemented in three selected pilot sites across different areas in Sabah for a duration of four (4) years (2014 to 2017) plus a two (2) years no-cost extension (2018-2019) with a total amount of funding worth EUR4,157,179.80 or RM18,657,007.22.

The project is coordinated by the EU-REDD+ Project Unit based in SFD HQ under the directive of the Deputy Chief Conservator of Forests (Forest Sectoral Planning) office who is also the Project Director of the Sabah EU-REDD+ Project, Mr Frederick Kugan. The Unit also acts as the Secretariat for the REDD+ Programme and development for the State.

Programme Title: Tackling climate change through sustainable forest management and community development.

Project Title: Demonstration initiative on community-based forest management and REDD+ in Sabah.

Overall objectives:
To contribute to the sustainable and low carbon development of the State of Sabah.

Sabah has ventured into carbon-related initiatives as early as in 1992, when a carbon offset project through enrichment planting and rehabilitation of degraded logged-over forests (Ulu Segama-Malua FR) project took place, in-collaboration between the Sabah Foundation and Face Foundation).

Sabah has developed a REDD+ Roadmap in 2012, with the objectives to promote the elaboration and development of a sub-national REDD+ strategies towards the transformation of land use to sustainable development and sustainable forest management through equitable performance-based payment. The road map outlined the steps needed in order to become REDD+ ready.

SFD has taken the proactive steps in initiating a sub-national REDD+ development for the Sabah through the International Heart of Borneo (HoB) Conference on 'Forest and Climate Change- Decoding and Realising REDD+ with specific Focus on Sabah' in November 2010. In which, during the conference the Chief Conservator of Forests, Datuk Sam Mannan announced the decision of SFD in taking the lead role on a progressive step towards climate change mitigation through mechanisms offered by REDD+.

The development of REDD+ framework in Sabah is planned in four phases with 5 steps-wise approach as illustrated in the Figure 1 below:

Marketing the credits internationally is not hard given that the Sabah REDD project has been developed in conjunction with the EU.The European carbon market is one of the most advanced anywhere in the world, and will have capacity to absorb Sabah carbon credits.

There really is no need  for Sabahans to pay anyone to enjoy the profits of their carbon credits.

END 

SEE ALSO

Sabah's forest can capture even more carbon: Steps must be taken to ensure no more logging,and more areas are designated for maximum protection