ACA’s Executive Director Cesar Moran Speaks Before the Peruvian Congress

November 22, 2009

On September 7, 2009, ACA/ACCA’s executive director Cesar Moran along with Augusto Mulanovich, ACCA’s environmental services specialist, gave a presentation on REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and payment for environmental services to members of Peru’s Congress in Lima, Peru. Cesar and Augusto were the only representatives of a Peruvian NGO invited to speak at the event, which was intended to show what Peru can learn from early experiments in payments for environmental services such as carbon markets and conservation banking. Their speech focused on the opportunities for REDD in Peru and described ACA’s experience developing a REDD project at our Los Amigos Conservation Concession.

Later in the forum, Peruvian congressman Franklin Sanchez introduced draft legislation for national policy on environmental services, and a representative of Costa Rica’s National Forest Financing Fund (FONAFIFO) gave a presentation on the success of similar measures in that country. At a technical meeting the next day, Cesar and Augusto had the opportunity to discuss the potential benefits and limitations of the draft legislation with members of the Peruvian Congress, representatives of the Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, and conservation think tanks. It is expected that Peru will pass an environmental services law sometime during 2010, setting the groundwork for opening the country to REDD projects and markets.