Luangwa Community Forests Project

Inside the project

LCFP protects over 2.1 million hectares of miombo and mopane forest on communal land in the Game Management Areas that buffer Zambia's national parks, forming a wildlife corridor along one of Africa's longest free-flowing, undammed rivers, home to elephants, leopards, African wild dogs and one of the world's last great lion populations.

The project works through 30 chiefdoms, paying communities for avoided deforestation. It is verified under Verra's VCS and CCB Triple Gold standards and estimates emission reductions on the order of 3 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year, with roughly 80 million credits anticipated over its 30-year life.

More than 222,000 people benefit through cash distributions, livelihood activities, capacity-building, employment and forest protection; average household income rose around 220% between 2016 and 2022. The project was named Best Individual Offsetting Project in the Environmental Finance VCM Awards in 2021 and 2023.

Image credit

Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsImage source ↗

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Objectives

• Reduce deforestation and degradation across the Luangwa Valley dryland forests
• Protect a critical wildlife corridor and its iconic species
• Channel carbon revenue into community benefit-sharing across 30 chiefdoms
• Maintain rigorous, independently verified carbon and community performance

Approach

• Verified under Verra's VCS grouped-project methodology with annual independent third-party verification plus CCB community and biodiversity monitoring. Community scouts support on-the-ground forest protection.
• Some critics, including REDD-Monitor and Greenpeace, have disputed the project's baseline and additionality; BCP stands by its verified results and its benefit sharing.