News
Celebrating the U.S. Return to the Paris Climate Agreement
February 25, 2021
On February 19, the United States officially became part of the Paris Agreement on climate change again, flowing from actions President Biden set in motion on his first day in office. President Trump announced he would remove the U.S. from the Agreement in 2017 and formally notified the United Nations of this decision in 2019. […]
ONE-SL Project Begins, Marks the Future of REDD+ Implementation
February 18, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. — February 18, 2021 — As businesses strive to achieve a carbon neutral footprint and demand for carbon offsets increases, developing countries are seeking new ways to finance efforts that reduce emissions, including from forest land use. The Offset National Emissions through Sustainable Landscapes (ONE-SL) project, funded by the U.S. Department of State […]
How Chocolate Can Help Save the Planet
February 12, 2021
You can count on the fact that chocolate will, as always, be a mainstay of Valentine’s Day. You can also count on the fact that cocoa bean cultivation is bad for the environment—especially for the rain forests of West Africa. That, along with concerns over child labor on cacao plantations is enough to make the conscientious consumer […]
Winrock’s Pearson is Guest Editor of the Journal Forests
February 8, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. — February 8, 2021 — Winrock Ecosystem Services Director Dr. Timothy Pearson is the guest editor of a recently published special issue of the journal Forests titled “REDD+: Protecting Climate, Forests and Livelihoods.” The issue includes 12 articles by leading practitioners in the field addressing the efforts taken under REDD+, with topics including […]
SWP to Hold Discussion about Mara River Basin Project
January 25, 2021
Join the USAID Sustainable Water Partnership (SWP) and its partners in Kenya and Tanzania for a discussion about the project’s achievements, lessons learned, and the future of transboundary water governance in the Mara River Basin. To attend the event, click here. Beginning in 2018, SWP worked with transboundary, national, regional, and local institutions and community organizations […]
Reuters article highlights SWP’s work to preserve springs in Kenya
December 23, 2020
A recent Reuters article has highlighted SWP’s collaboration with water resources users associations (WRUAs) in Kenya to protect and rehabilitate springs in the country’s portion of the Mara River Basin. Launched in 2018, effort aims to improve biodiversity and increase access to drinking water in an area where some people walk three miles for drinking water, having […]
How Winrock and Microsoft Worked Together to Manage Data in Vietnam
December 14, 2020
In 2018, under the USAID-funded Vietnam Forests and Deltas Project, Microsoft and Winrock began an exciting partnership. The goal: to harness data across environmental and social indicators to help the Government of Vietnam better understand the impact of its innovative Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) system. PFES pays upstream forest owners to maintain healthy […]
Making Forest Conservation Pay
December 4, 2020
By Chris Warren As a boy growing up on the outskirts of Vietnam’s Cat Tien National Park, Koren Gren spent his days surrounded by the natural world. Today, he still does. Gren is the leader of a group responsible for ensuring that a 30-hectare swath of trees remains healthy and intact. From Friday through Sunday […]
ART Approved to Supply Credits for Global Aviation’s Carbon Market
November 23, 2020
ARLINGTON, VA — November 23, 2020 — The Secretariat of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) is pleased to announce that national and subnational approaches to reducing forest loss have been approved as a means for international aviation to achieve carbon neutral growth after 2020. This decision marks the first time that these approaches have been […]
USAID and Winrock Provide Training on Using Mobile Phones for Quicker, Safer, and More Transparent Forest Protection Payments
November 10, 2020
Mrs. Dieu Thi Trang, a Chau Ma ethnic minority, grew up in the Cat Tien region in Lam Dong Province of Vietnam’s Central Highlands. From her childhood, and now as a married mother of two, Mrs. Trang and her family have relied on the Cat Tien forest for their income. To lessen dependence on forests […]