Katingan Mentaya

Inside the project

The project area spans about 157,875 hectares of peat swamp forest sitting on a waterlogged peat dome reaching around 13 metres deep, accreted over some 26,000 years and storing hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon below ground.

Katingan works by avoided deforestation and degradation plus active peatland protection: blocking drainage canals, keeping the water table high, suppressing fire and rewetting and replanting degraded areas. This prevents the emissions that would follow conversion to oil-palm or acacia plantation and the resulting peat collapse.

The forest is a stronghold for biodiversity, holding a significant share of the world's remaining wild Bornean orangutans alongside proboscis monkeys, Sunda pangolins and dozens of threatened species. Around 45,000 people across roughly 39 villages benefit through participatory development programs.

Verra's registry lists the project as VCS 1477, registered, with PT Rimba Makmur Utama as proponent; as viewed in September 2026 it shows 49,474,977 units issued and 37,290,255 retired.

Image credit

Charlsmile, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (representative landscape)Image source ↗

Expand image

Objectives

• Avoid deforestation and degradation across the peat-swamp landscape
• Prevent peat drainage, oxidation and fire to keep stored carbon locked in
• Restore degraded areas through rewetting and replanting
• Improve livelihoods and wellbeing across partner villages

Approach

• Verified under Verra's VCS plus CCB Triple Gold, with comprehensive annual third-party verification. The project supplements certification with internal field-reporting on peat water-table management, fire monitoring and community-program tracking.