Background San Jerónimo Coatlán is a community located in the south of Oaxaca, Mexico, in the mountain range known as “Sierra Sur”. It is a rural community, consisting of close to 5,000 people many of which self identify as zapotecs, one of Mexico’s legally recognized indigenous communities. All land inside San Jerónimo Coatlán is communally owned, and for the last 20 years they have exploited their forests communally to produce pine and oak wood. The community’s forest management follows federal law on maximum wood volume allowances, but for the past 10 years low wood prices and its difficult terrain have not permitted the community to invest in forest restoration/reforestation and maintaining a forestry rangers service to control wildfires and plagues. Goals and objectives The San Jerónimo Coatlán sequestration project enables the community to improve its forest management health and fire prevention projects by hiring and equipping full time rangers, creating an environmental and sustainable forestry practices education program, and investing in social projects to improve health and water access for its population. Certification and project activities San Jerónimo Coatlán follows CAR’s improved forest management protocol, where communities are encouraged to exploit their forest resources sustainably, with harvesting restrictions and a forest net groewth. Our community has around 3,603 ha of its forests dedicated exclusively to conservation, 4,104 ha to farmland, 4,185 ha to grazing pastures and 32,398 ha to sustainable exploitation. This 32,398 ha are divided into 44 subdivisions which are rotated in a 10 year sustainability program, which allows them to grow and sequester carbon permanently. There are around 1,000 ha that have degraded because of land use, plagues or wildfires, and are the first areas to be worked on in the next 5 years. This will increase the forest's overall health and carbon sequestration for current project activities. Over the next ten years, the community hopes to expand its forest by reconverting grazing pastures (up to 2,000 ha) through sustainable silvopasture projects. Carbon sequestration The San Jerónimo Coatlán project started in 2021. Following the Climate Action Reserve improved forest management protocol, the project has successfully certified the vintages of 2022, 2023 and is in the process for 2024, carbon offsets totalling 285,355 tCO2e. Annually the project is removing ~155,000 tCO2e. Monitoring Every even year, we conduct a general inventory on 40% of the surface where we randomly sample 400 capture points. Every odd year, we conduct a reduced inventory on 10% of the surface where we randomly sample 100 capture points. All our inventories are summarized in a findings report which is publicly available in the Climate Action Registry webpage, and they are verified by a third party auditor. These audits include field assessments for our general inventory where they remeasure and verify data compliance of 2% to 10% of our capture points. Additionality Current community earnings in wood production allow for only 10% of the reinvestment necessary for minimum forestry protection activities and salaries. Financial analysis of conservation costs and equipment needs show that carbon credit revenue allows the community to fulfill all forestry protection activities and salaries by 2025 and expand their sustainability program by 2027. The San Jerónimo Coatlán community, through an internal referendum, has committed 70% of carbon offset income to be dedicated exclusively to conservation and social efforts, with the remaining 30% to be equally distributed to their population. Co-benefits While the main objective of the project is to improve forest health and carbon sequestration, the San Jerónimo Coatlán territory is also important in other ways. We know of at least 21 species of animals, 47 species of birds and 15 species of reptiles that depend on the SJC habitat to survive. SJC also includes 6,666 ha of cloud forest which is one of the most vulnerable habitats in Mexico (it has lost over 42% of its surface in the last 30 years). The SJC community is also part of the zapotec region and encourages the protection of the zapotec language and culture.

Co-benefits certification