During 2021, we continued to successfully perform our “Activity 7: Project Validation against international standards” and “Activity 8: Project Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) against international standards”, ensuring the integrity, quality, credibility, and transparency of the Project at a national & an international level.
Validation is the process by which an accredited independent auditor evaluates the Project and approves its design to obtain certification against a standard; thus, verifying that the Project complies with the scientific methodologies, rules, protocols, requirements, and that the expected results are, indeed, obtained by the Project Activities.
- Our project is validated and certified against the international standard “Verified Carbon Standard (VCS)” for 30 years (2013 – 2042). VCS is the most widely used carbon standard with over 1600 certified projects.
Once the Project has been validated and certified against a standard, its activities and results must be periodically monitored, reported, and verified by an approved and accredited independent auditor. Once the verification is successfully completed, the Project obtains a number of Verified Carbon Units (VCUs), which are sold in the carbon market and are (currently) our only source of income to guarantee the funding of the Project; and contribute to the mitigation of climate change and bring the benefits to Matavén indigenous communities.
During 2021, we started the validation and verification processes of the Project against the international standard “Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB)”; with the auditor: Colombian Institute of Technical Standards and Certification (ICONTEC).
***By obtaining validation and verification under the CCB standard, it is demonstrated/guaranteed, at an international level, that the Project provides exceptional benefits to mitigate climate change, safeguard biodiversity and improve the quality of life of Matavén indigenous communities.
- We visited different Matavén communities, lands, rivers, etc. to collect evidence.
- We prepared documents and evidence for the audits and the on-site visits.
- We led the on-site visits of the audits with Matavén indigenous communities.
REDD+ Matavén is an environmental & social project tackling climate change and multi-dimensions of poverty. We stop deforestation, we protect tropical forests in the Indigenous Reservation of the Matavén Forest (Vichada, Colombia), while safeguarding its biodiversity and improving their indigenous people quality of life.