The Nanga Lauk Village Forest (NLVF) covers a total area of 1,430 ha, 58% of which is covered by peat swamp forest and riparian forest (the rest being occupied by lakes; see Figure 1), and, together with surrounding Limited Production Forest of 9,169 ha, supports the livelihoods of 195 households. The area of interest has been shown to include HCVs 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 including five species of critically endangered mammals and birds. In the absence of effective management, Nanga Lauk Village Forest and the surrounding Limited Production Forest is expected to be affected by deforestation and degradation from unsustainable harvesting and agricultural encroachment. However, the Nanga Lauk community have developed a management plan that will enable them to effectively protect and sustainably manage their Village Forest, and the Limited Production Forest within their village area to maintain its conservation value and enable them to make use of its natural resources for sustainable livelihood activities.
The Nanga Lauk Village Forest is legally secured under license and has an established Village Forest Management Institution (LPHD), and a 35-year management plan approved by MoEF. Support for establishing the LPHD including provision of training and resources has been provided by the local NGO, PRCF-Indonesia through an ADB-funded technical assistance programme.
The Nanga Lauk community have also expressed an interest in extending their village forest to include some or all of the Limited Production Forest within their village area. The Limited Production Forest is currently under a timber concession license, although the concession is not currently active. Initial enquiries have been made with MoEF into the potential to extend the village forest licence and the LPHD intends to extend its forest protection and sustainable management activities into this area while it pursues the process for securing management rights.
To finance forest protection and sustainable management activities in the village forest and surrounding area of limited production forest, PRCF-Indonesia and the Nanga Lauk LPHD submitted project design documents to the Plan Vivo Standard (a third-party certification standard for community forest projects) which enables the project to generate Plan Vivo certificates representing verified reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and associated benefits to biodiversity and local livelihoods. The Plan Vivo project has been validated, but is yet to secure the certificate sales needed to finance implementation its management plan and conservation activities.
To enable the project to achieve its conservation objectives and produce verified Plan Vivo certificates, Cargill will support Nanga Lauk by providing the finance required to implement the village forest management plan and conservation activities for the first 25 years of the project. All Plan Vivo certificates generated during this period will be purchased and retired using the finance from Cargill’s conservation liability, so the project will be fully funded from this source.