Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve (REDD+)

The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project, an initiative by InfiniteEARTH, aims to reduce Indonesia’s emissions by preserving some 64,000 hectares of tropical peat swamp forest. This area, rich in biodiversity including the endangered Bornean orangutan, was slated by the Provincial government to be converted into four palm oil estates.

Located on the southern coast of Borneo in the province of Central Kalimantan, the project is also designed to protect the integrity of the adjacent world-renowned Tanjung Puting National Park, by creating a physical buffer zone on the full extent of the ~90km eastern border of the park.

Arguably the most famous project REDD+ project in the world, the Rimba Raya project was the first ever validated REDD+ project, the first ever REDD+ forest-carbon project in the world to receive triple-gold CCB validation and the first REDD+ project to meet the SD VIsta standard. Rimba Raya, nearly the size of Singapore, protects one of the most highly endangered ecosystems in the world and partners with local communities to develop solutions which provide sustainable growth of the economy while protecting and preserving limited and vulnerable natural resources.

In the absence of the Rimba Raya Project, the project area would be converted to palm oil plantations by logging, burning to clear unused felled trees and remaining forest, and systematic draining of the peatland area. This would result in the release of both above and belowground carbon deposits. As a result, millions of tons of GHG emissions would be released into the atmosphere over the lifetime of the plantations.

Increasingly scarce forest habitat supporting orangutans and more than 50 other endangered species would disappear completely. The 14 local forest communities along the eastern edge of the reserve would also face the threat of their land being appropriated by palm oil companies.