Lower Zambezi REDD+

Inside the project

The Lower Zambezi REDD+ project is developed by BioCarbon Partners (BCP) to protect woodland in the Lower Zambezi landscape of Zambia.

It was the first African project to achieve CCB Triple Gold status and reports eleven consecutive VCS verifications, giving it an unusually long run of verifications.

It is distinct from BCP's separate Luangwa Community Forests project (VCS 1775), which operates in a different landscape.

Verra's registry describes the project area as 38,781 hectares of privately owned land in Rufunsa District, known as Rufunsa Conservancy; as viewed in September 2026 it shows 2,421,395 units issued and 2,399,399 retired, with a verification approval requested.

Objectives

• Reduce deforestation and degradation across the Lower Zambezi woodland landscape.
• Deliver benefits to communities living in and around the project area.
• Support wildlife habitat connected to the Lower Zambezi conservation area.

Approach

• Community forest agreements and land-use planning underpin protection of the woodland.
• Recurring VCS verifications provide a long series of independently checked results.
• As with other REDD+ projects, avoided-deforestation figures rest on a modelled baseline, so they are best read as verified estimates rather than measured counterfactuals.