The Rarakau Programme

Carbon Partnership recently completed the design and development of the Rarakau Programme - a fair-trade styled carbon crediting programme for Maori owned, pre-1990 indigenous forests in New Zealand. This programme has been validated to the ISO14064-2 carbon standard, with elements validated to the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS).

The Rarakau Programme was developed by Carbon Partnership in collaboration with the Rowallan Alton Incorporation - a Maori incorporation with indigenous forests in Western Southland.

This work was funded by Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry of Maori Development) and Carbon Partnership, and involved the following project partners: Landcare Research Ltd, Aerial Surveys Ltd, Venture Partners, Ekos, and Sinclair Knight Merz.

The first project in the Rarakau Programme is the Rarakau Forest Carbon Project located on SILNA land in Western Southland. This land is owned by the Rowallan Alton Incorporation (RAI). The programme is named after this first project. This project passed its international validation and first verification audit late in 2012 and has its first batch of credits issued to its account in the Markit Environmental Registry in London.

Photo: Sean Weaver (Carbon Partnership) and Ken McAnergney (Rowallan-Alton Incorporation) during their work in developing the Rarakau Forest Carbon Project.

The Rarakau Programme is potentially ready for more wide scale roll-out, but first some policy issues need to be resolved. The Rarakau Programme initially operated outside the Kyoto Protocol carbon accounting boundary and thereby existed in the international voluntary carbon market space. But recent changes to the Kyoto Protocol rules, and the departure of New Zealand from the Kyoto Protocol itself, complicate things somewhat. As such, Carbon Partnersihp is currently undertaking discussions with the Ministry for Primary Industries to define the carbon accounting space within which this programme will operate. 

Rarakau Programme Technical Snapshot:

• Carbon Standard: ISO14064-2 & Verified Carbon Standard
• Guidance: VCS AFOLU
• Validator: Det Norske Veritas (DNV)
• Activity Type: IFM-LtPF Grouped Project
• Registry: Markit Environmental Registry
• Units: Verified Emission Reduction Units (VERs)
• Programme Operator: Ekos (a charitable trust)

The goal of the Rowallan-Alton Incorporation (RAI) is to use forest carbon credit revenues to help create high quality pasture blended with high quality forest.

Photo: This image shows RAI land with Fiordland National Park in the background.