BBC Panorama documentary on the Keo Seima REDD project in Cambodia: “More than half of the credits from that project are not real offsets”
BBC Panorama documentary on the Keo Seima REDD project in Cambodia: “More than half of the credits from that project are not real offsets”
Deforestation is increasing both in the REDD project and in the forests immediately next to it.
The Keo Seima REDD project in Cambodia covers an area of 166,000 hectares and is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society. A BBC Panorama Documentary broadcast earlier this included a visit to the project.
This is my fourth and final post about the Panorama Documentary. You can read the other posts here.
The Keo Seima REDD project has generated a total of 21 million carbon credits. The credits have been sold to BlackRock, Disney, Boston Consulting Group, Boeing, Ecologi, PrimaKlima, and many other companies.
“Not reducing deforestation as much as claimed”
Panorama speaks to Thales West, an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In 2023, West was the lead author of a paper that examined 26 Verra-certified REDD projects. The research found that “most projects have not significantly reduced deforestation”. In the projects that did reduce deforestation, “reductions were substantially lower than claimed”.
West was recently lead author of a paper published in Global Environmental Change, that looks methodological issues with deforestation baselines in REDD projects. “These methodologies often rely on oversimplified assumptions about deforestation that remain overlooked by project developers, certification bodies, and buyers,” the authors write.
Panorama reports that West doesn’t think the numbers add up in the Keo Seima REDD project. West says that,
“What we found for the Keo Seima project is that the project itself is reducing deforestation. It’s simply not reducing as much deforestation as claimed by the project developers.”
Panorama asks West how big the discrepancy is. “Looking at our results,” he replies, “I would say that more than half of the credits from that project are not real offsets.”
Deforestation in the area next to the project
There are also concerns about what’s happening just outside the project.
Panorama shows a map of the project with an arrow highlighting the area. It reminds me of a map I produced in 2016 by overlaying Wildlife Conservation Society’s project map with Global Forest Watch’s satellite images of deforestation.
Panorama compares a satellite image of the area just next to the project area taken in 2011 two years after the project started with a 2024 satellite image. “Since the project started,” Panorama reports, “loggers have moved into the neighbouring area, where the forest is far less protected.”
Panorama visits the area next to the REDD project and speaks to two people living there. “For generations, they’ve protected this part of the forest themselves. But recently it’s become a losing battle,” the Panorama voice over says.
One of the villagers tells Panorama that, “Someone has cut down this tree to block the road and stop us going further. To stop us from patrolling.”
Because of the increased logging, their way of life is under threat. “Before, we lived with the forest but now everything has changed,” the villager says.
“The forest is being destroyed,” another villager says. Four or five years ago there was rich forest here. Now there’s almost nothing left.”
They walk to an area where the trees have been cut and burned. “They destroyed the forest,” she says. “So in the future I don’t know what the younger generation will do. It’s finished, it’s done. There’s no more hope.”
Wildlife Conservation Society told Panorama that third party audits “affirm the validity” of its carbon credits. And the rate of the project’s forest loss is “lower than other protected areas in Cambodia”. Any loss outside the project area is fully tracked and accounted for.
Wildlife Conservation Society added that it has “channelled nearly US$2 million to local communities and Indigenous Peoples since 2019”.
Deforestation inside the REDD project
The deforestation is not only outside the REDD project area. In September 2016, Timothy Frewer a researcher at the University of Sydney visited Keo Seima. He found that a timber company had been paying villagers to harvest timber within the project area.
Villagers told Frewer they were “entirely powerless to stop” the logging company.
Frewer visited two villages inside the REDD project area. He told REDD-Monitor that,
“I was shocked to find that barely anyone in either village had any idea about REDD+. I asked about 15 people all up – including the commune chief who said REDD+ ‘was yet to be implemented’ and was only ‘meetings so far’. Even worse, I talked to the deputy communal land manager – who supposedly forms the pillar of the REDD+ project in the villages, who said they were yet to receive any budget at all for activities. In fact he had only come into contact with people from the project twice.”
In 2021, Mongabay reported on increased deforestation inside the Keo Seima REDD project area.
The Mongabay article, written by Morgan Erickson-Davis, states that,
According to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) visualized on forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch, Keo Seima lost 32% of its primary forest between 2002 and 2020, with most of this loss occurring after 2011. While the biggest spike occurred in 2013/14 before tapering down in 2015, UMD data indicate the sanctuary’s deforestation rate is once again on the rise, with primary forest loss in 2019 doubling over 2018 – and 2020 higher still.
A company called Orbify uses satellite data to monitor carbon offset projects, to check compliance with EU deforestation regulation, and to make climate risk assessments.
In 2023, Orbify took a look at the Keo Seima REDD project.
Orbify’s analysis of the satellite data found significant deforestation inside the project area:
Orbify also found that deforestation has increased dramatically since the start of the REDD project in 2009:
Orbify concludes that, “it appears that this project still faces large challenges with respect to reducing deforestation rates within the project area”.
Ecologi’s due diligence?
Back in London, the Panorama team arranged a meeting with Ecologi, a carbon consulting firm that sold carbon credits from the Keo Seima REDD project. Panorama secretly filmed the meeting.
The Panorama team tells Ecologi that they are making a travel programme and want to offset the emissions from travelling. An Ecologi employee tells them in the meeting that once they’ve bought the offsets, “You can receive a carbon neutralities badge.”
Ecologi also sold carbon credits from the Southern Cardamom REDD project in Cambodia.
Following the documentary, Ecologi stopped selling credits from both REDD projects in Cambodia. Ecologi told Panorama that Keo Seima remains good quality, but it has no plans to buy more credits from the project.
Ecologi has since posted the following statement on its website:
At Ecologi we are committed to continuously improving our due diligence processes and the standards we set for the projects we support. This means that whilst project pages like this one are still available for transparency, occasionally projects which we historically supported – including this one – no longer meet our increasing standards for receiving funding. The last time we supported this project was in January 2024.
Great post, thanks! Regarding the quote: “They destroyed the forest,” she says. “So in the future I don’t know what the younger generation will do. It’s finished, it’s done. There’s no more hope.”
--- For "forest," substitute "Earth." That's what the financial types do to the whole planet.