News and Activities

The validation audit in Samana took place from 27 July to 4 August, without any logistical problems and avoiding the increasingly frequent rain showers during this period. It had to be postponed from mid-June to the end of July due to Schneider Electric’s acquisition of EcoAct: Verra had requested changes to the project documents before opening the public consultation period prior to any audit (here are the documents: https://registry.verra.org/app/projectDetail/VCS/4870)  The mission involved 14 people: The two auditors from Earthood and their interpreter The two consultants from our partner EcoAct The Executive Director of GUIDRE and his right-hand man The director of arboRise Two drivers The GUIDRE field team consisting of four supervisors and one forester Nepolion and Manish, the two auditors from Earthood, visited 15 randomly selected plots in seven villages and interviewed more than 30 people: plot families, seed families, village chief, CGC, president of women’s groups, youth representatives,

Due to funding uncertainties, we had to postpone the date of the General Assembly of the Linko Family Land Cooperative from June to the end of July. During this period, Crédit Rural de Guinée visited each of the 290 land-owning families in their respective villages to open bank accounts into which arboRise will pay the first ‘carbon credits’. Unfortunately, the opening of these accounts has raised expectations, and some land-owning families have even gone into debt in anticipation of this payment (without knowing the amount…). The General Assembly finally took place on 31 July with a high participation, as all the cooperative members were eager to receive their first payment. Their disappointment was as great as their expectations when it had to be explained to them that the payment could not be made immediately after the Assembly, as planned, due to funding delays beyond our control. A second critical point

Reforestation projects are sometimes criticised for simply displacing the problem by causing deforestation on other land nearby. For this reason, this phenomenon, known as “leakage”, is measured precisely in every carbon certification project. In this context arboRise, as in 2024, launched a Design Project in collaboration with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). This research project was led by Etienne de Labarrière and Aurélie Sakic, under the supervision of Charlotte Grossiord, Tenure Track Associate Professor, from the Plant Ecology Research Laboratory. In the project region, farmers practise slash and burn agriculture: on these poor soils, cultivation quickly leads to a decline in fertility, requiring the land to be left fallow for several years to regenerate the soil. When the soil is once again fertile, the vegetation that has grown on the land is cut down and then burnt so that the ashes can transfer their mineral salts to the

The authorities of the Linko sub-prefecture have asked us to help them detect bushfires and thus facilitate the extinguishing of uncontrolled fires. As in 2024, we launched a Design Project in collaboration with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), led by Elena Thomas, under the supervision of Alexis Berne, Associate Professor, Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory. The remote sensing technologies used by arboRise to date, based on the Sentinel 2 satellite, were unable to identify all fire starts by far, due to the satellite’s long period of revolution (5 days). As for other warning systems (Global Forest Watch, Plant for the Planet’s Fire Alert), their resolution was too imprecise. To overcome these shortcomings, our researcher opted for an innovative approach: measuring burnt areas rather than fire starts. Based on Google Earth images from 2024, in which burnt areas are clearly visible, Elena trained software to recognize areas affected by fires

What will be the right distribution key for future carbon revenues? That’s the question the Cooperative Committee considered on 14 May. As you will recall, one of the main objectives of the Cooperative and its Cooperative Committee, made up of democratically elected representatives from each village (the majority of whom are women), is to draw up a key for distributing carbon revenues. It is certainly not up to arboRise to define how this income will be shared among the cooperative members. This choice must be made by those directly concerned, in accordance with local traditions and customs. To prepare for this discussion, we asked the people most directly concerned, the land families, to think about the issue during visits to each village. 88% of all cooperative members took part in this consultation, and they agreed on the following consensus: Compliance with the cooperative’s rules by each member should be rewarded

Potential investors frequently want to verify our activities on the ground. This is totally understandable, given the significant investment involved, and we greatly appreciate these visits, which allow us to continually reassess the quality of our project. In May, we welcomed consultants from Earthshot Labs, experts in assessing the compliance and integrity of nature-based carbon projects. The audit program was ambitious, as accompanied them to meet with communities in nine villages and assess tree growth on many many plots. At the same time, they analyzed in details all the data generated by our partners South Pole and EcoAct to compare this material with the reality on the ground. Each interaction and observation generally raises new questions, increasingly specific and relevant, and the conclusion is always that nothing replaces a field visit. On a 2022 plot of land in Borohila: In Kofilakoro, just after the welcoming dance by the village women:

In line with our commitment, we commissioned the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Ethique (CIRE) at the University of Lausanne to take a critical look at our actions and identify areas for attention. We were impressed by CIRE’s interdisciplinary approach, which brings together expertise in environmental ethics, health, education and care. With its contextualised approach, CIRE seemed to us to be the institution most likely to help us make progress. We certainly think we’re doing the right things and doing them well, but there’s always room for improvement. The CIRE report meets our expectations exactly. We are reassured that no new issues have been raised. And we are committed to finding solutions to the issues raised: We will be addressing the points of attention relating to carbon credits and the selection of investors to whom we sell them in subsequent news items.   As far as the promotion of women