Carbon credit certifying agency Verra announced on Sept. 10 that it has lifted the suspension of the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project in Cambodia following a roughly 14-month review of the project’s audits. Verified emissions reductions, better known as carbon credits, can now once more be issued by Cambodia’s flagship REDD+ project.
The 465,000-hectare (1.15-million-acre) REDD+ project in the dense rainforest of Cambodia’s southwest is jointly managed between New York-based NGO Wildlife Alliance and Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment, but has been mired in controversies that came to a head in February 2024 when Human Rights Watch released a 118-page report detailing abuses linked to the REDD+ project.
The allegations leveled against Wildlife Alliance and its partners focused around a lack of securing free, prior and informed consent from the 29 communities — totaling around 16,000 people, including Indigenous peoples — whose land was absorbed into the REDD+ project. Other abuses reported by community members included forced evictions, physical violence, the destruction of homes and property, and intimidation by rangers working for Wildlife Alliance, the Ministry of Environment and military police officers who often accompany the rangers.
