The Guardian visits the Peruvian Amazon as part of a continuing investigation into forest-based carbon offsetting
ometime towards the end of the 2021 wet season, Abel Carrasco’s home in the Alto Mayo protected area was razed to the ground with chainsaws, axes and ropes, he tells the Guardian. The 39-year-old coffee farmer, his pregnant wife and eight children were instructed not to return by park authorities.
But there were also rumours of trouble at the project. It might have been achieving positive results in stopping deforestation, but ain 2020 had found that the project appeared to have sewn conflict and disharmony among the communities there. launched a massive conservation effort. The model is based around discouraging more people from moving to the forest while encouraging residents to sign conservation agreementsand has generated around $45m so far from the sale of the credits. The Guardian visited beekeeping and birdwatching projects part-funded by the credits by Conservation International, along with an orchid husbandry scheme in isolated villages on the edge of Alto Mayo.
Even though many Alto Mayo residents have lived in the forest for decades, they have no formal right to be in the protected area. Many moved from the Andes before Alto Mayo became a protected area or bought land not knowing it was protected before the creation of the offsetting scheme. It is a profoundly complicated situation, as the teams running the project acknowledge.
“I have a disabled boy, he is special. He was screaming and crying when they tore the house down. There were others before me. Mine was one of three houses they demolished. They threatened us and said they had warned us,” she says. Sernap said that accusations of human rights abuse did not correspond with reality and were based on errors. It added that parts of the protected area had experienced illegal logging and land-grabbing, and it was its duty to protect the area.
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