Due to COVID we suffered a severe delay in getting the final step done in carbon certification, the field validation of the writings in the approved Project Design Document (PDD). Trips to the field by Indonesian validators had to be cancelled several times over the past 6 months due to the worsening Indonesian COVID situation.
So we thought of how we could overcome this situation, knowing that there is quite some interest in buying our credits once certified. So we thought of solutions, and came up with a different approach to do the validation which was finally approved last month. AS travel restrictions continue to exist in Indonesia, flights are the main hurdle. AS most consultants live in and around Jakarta, they were unable to fly to West Sumatra.
So we proposed to have a main validator (who resides in the Jakarta area) to go through the PDD, and do distant supervision (zoom comes in very handy) of a good consultant living in Jambi province, close to West Sumatra province. The person in Sumatra is fully vaccinated, to avoid issues on COVID infections in the field. We proposed to have the FGDs outside in the field as much as possible, or if necessary indoors (rainy day)... by splitting up farmer groups, while adhering to our COVID protocols as much as possible. The pictures show the ways this was done.
The fieldwork finished a few days ago. Great!
We hope to receive the report soon, so we can respond and answer questions, and where needed d improve the PDD writings where necessary. Hopefully by the end of September, we have responded to whatever they may come up with for clarification or improvement, and we look forward to register and start selling carbon credits by the end of October. Fingers crossed.