InfiniteEARTH's Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Becomes World's First REDD+ Project verified under the Verra Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard and achieves highest rating, contribut...

HONG KONG, Sept. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- InfiniteEARTH, LTD., a leading developer of tropical conservation land banks and REDD+ carbon credit supplier, announced today that its Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project, a 64,977 hectare (160,000 acre) orangutan reserve in Indonesian Borneo, is the first project to receive verification of Verra's Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta).

Verra, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization, known for developing and managing the world's most widely used voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) program, the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). In January 2019, the organization launched SD VISta to serve as the first set of rules and criteria for the design, implementation, and assessment of projects that aim to deliver sustainable development benefits.

Under SD VISta, projects must quantifiably demonstrate, to a third-party assessor, which of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) the project contributes to. The SDGs relate to reducing hunger & inequality, and improving education and promoting human and environmental well-being.

The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project, developed by InfiniteEARTH, reduces over 120 million tonnes of emissions by conserving 64,977 hectares of tropical peat swamp forest in Indonesia, which was slated for conversion to oil palm plantations, a process resulting in the large scale loss of of biodiversity through the loss of habitats off over 100 threatened and endangered species, including the endangered Bornean orangutan.

InfiniteEARTH has created economic incentives for the preservation of tropical peat land forests through its development and sales of carbon credits. The sustainable revenue stream from carbon credit sales supports local community development, provincial government infrastructure, and project area protection. The programs funded from carbon revenues aim to improve the quality of life for the local communities through the creation of community enterprises, sustainable living, including increased access to healthcare, early childhood development, access to education, and access to water filtration systems. The project is also intended to protect the biodiversity of the adjacent Tanjung Puting National Park by creating a physical buffer along the eastern border of the park.

AENOR, the Spanish Association for Standardization and Certification, was commissioned to conduct an independent assessment of the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project design in order to determine its compliance with the requirements of the SD VISta Program.The scope of the verification was the review of the sustainable development impacts generated by the project and their contribution to the (SDGs).

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SOURCE InfiniteEARTH, LTD.