A response from Charles Mauro about REDD credits from Mato Grosso: “The credits were withdrawn”

Last week, REDD-Monitor wrote about an offer posted on LinkedIn of 1.5 million vintage REDD credits from Mato Grosso, Brazil. The REDD credits were being offered by Charles Mauro, the CEO of two companies, REDD-Carbon and Iceus Global. REDD-Monitor asked Mauro some questions about the REDD credits.

While Mauro has replied, his response unfortunately fails to answer most of REDD-Monitor’s questions. In fact it raises several more.

But first the good news. REDD-Monitor pointed out that another of Charles Mauro’s websites, that of the Aleatoric Media Group Inc had a very similar design and layout to that of REDD-Carbon. Not any more. Aleatoric Media Group’s website has been redesigned. The company is no longer “The Carbon PR Specialist”, it is now “The PR Specialist”. Mauro’s name has been removed from Team AMG. And REDD-Carbon’s header photograph, which showed a forest in Australia (which would not be eligible for REDD credits), has been removed.

Here’s Charles Mauro’s response to REDD-Monitor’s ten questions about the REDD credits he was offering for sale:

From: Charles Mauro
Date: 27 March 2012 12:59
Subject: Re: REDD in Mato Grosso
To: Chris Lang

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your letter of enquiry in regard to REDD credits from a Brazilian project.

The LinkedIn discussion group post you refer to was back on 19th January 2012. These credits were withdrawn from the market shortly thereafter under a request from the project owner.

For clarification the 19th January reference to “heavily discounted” with respect to the price of the credits was a reflection of the heavily discounted nature of the price of all carbon credits in the global market at that time.

The website reference to “Gold Standard CERs” was not referring to REDD credits, which as you correctly point out only exist in the voluntary market, but rather other credits in a broader carbon project portfolio that ReddCarbon may market in the future.

For general interests sake, Iceus is a company working in the sustainability management area and is hoping to launch a number of new initiatives in 2012.

Thanks again for your enquiry.

Regards,

Charles Mauro

So no information about the project in Mato Grosso. Nothing about whether a process of free, prior informed consent took place. No project design document.

In fact, Charles Mauro’s post on LinkedIn in January 2012, wasn’t his first about the carbon credits from Mato Grosso. His first was in October 2011:

The VCS project database website lists two forestry and land use projects in Brazil. Both are reforestation projects: Multi-Species Reforestation in Mato Grosso, Brazil and Carbon Project in the Emas-Taquari Biodiversity Corridor, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil”. One has an estimated 15,512 VCUs a year, the other 6,870 VCUs a year.

A week ago, I replied to Mauro’s post on LinkedIn and asked him to provide a link on the VCS website to the project in Brazil that is generating “1.56 million Brazilian REDD carbon credits with ISO certification, VCS registration”. He has not replied.