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Our approach

How a project is built

Four movements, in the order they actually happen. Each one produces something the next depends on.

  1. People looking out over a cultivated Andean valley
    01

    Understand the territory

    Soils, existing forest, native species, water, and the farming and grazing practices already in place. What the land can carry decides what gets planted.

  2. Two people working a field with a pair of oxen in the Andean highlands
    02

    Build the partnership

    Roles, commitments, decision-making and benefit sharing are defined with the community members involved, then written into clear agreements.

  3. Field worker digging a planting pit on a steep slope
    03

    Carry out the work

    Nursery production, site preparation, planting, maintenance. Assisted natural regeneration, diversified plantings and agroforestry, chosen to fit the site.

  4. A hand holding a diameter tape around a lichen-covered trunk
    04

    Monitor over time

    Field measurement, remote sensing and digital collection feed one MRV system, which guides decisions and prepares independent validation and verification.

Local anchoring

The work stays where the forest is.

Running nurseries, preparing sites, planting, maintaining and surveying a project mobilises real work and real skills, and we want as much of it as possible to be held locally.

Jobs, training, activities and benefit sharing are part of how a project is organised, not a side effect of it. They are tracked over time, like any other project indicator.

This is also what makes a project last. A forest that depends on an outside team returning every year is a forest with a deadline.

Seedling trays organised under a nursery structure
A farmer ploughing with oxen through dry golden highland grass
Aerial view of the high Andean puna, the terrain the monitoring system tracks

Measurement

Measured, reported, verified.

A project is only as credible as what can be checked about it.

Field plots, diameter and height measurements, survival counts, satellite imagery and remote sensing are combined into a single monitoring system. The same data guides technical decisions and prepares the certification file.

Orateva develops its carbon projects under the Verified Carbon Standard, administered by Verra. Design, independent validation, registration and verification of results are distinct stages, and we name which one a project has actually reached.

  • Forest cover and area change
  • Work carried out and maintained
  • Ecological indicators defined per project
  • Jobs, skills, local activity, benefit sharing
  • Development, validation and verification stages

Risk

What can go wrong, and what we do about it

A forest project runs for decades. Over that time, fire, drought, grazing pressure, land tenure disputes and changes in local priorities are not hypothetical.

They are identified at design stage, discussed with the community, and reflected in how the project is organised: species mix, planting density, firebreaks, grazing agreements, buffer allocation and a monitoring cadence that catches problems early.

Permanence is not a promise made once. It is a set of arrangements that have to keep working.

See this applied to a real territory.

Project Puna