Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape

Inside the project

Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape is a community-based REDD+ forest-protection project on the Plan Vivo standard. Carbon Tanzania develops it and channels voluntary carbon market revenue directly to the communities who own and protect the land.

Established in 2011 with Hadza hunter-gatherer communities, the project has grown into a 110,500-hectare wildlife corridor in northern Tanzania involving 12 villages of Hadza and Datooga people.

Land tenure underpins the project: communities hold legal Certificates of Customary Right of Occupancy or Village Land Forest Reserves, and Village Game Scouts patrol the forests to prevent encroachment and deforestation.

Objectives

• Secure legal land rights for Indigenous and local communities as the foundation for lasting forest protection.
• Avoid emissions from deforestation by funding community-led patrols and land-use planning through carbon finance.
• Deliver carbon revenue directly to communities to support livelihoods, health, education and governance.
• Protect the wildlife corridor and its dryland forest.

Approach

• The project builds on legally secured community land tenure (CCROs and Village Land Forest Reserves) and applies the Plan Vivo standard, so payments flow to communities that demonstrably protect their forests.
• Community Village Game Scouts patrol forest boundaries and monitor deforestation and wildlife, and avoided deforestation is verified with Landsat satellite data.