Project
Lowering Emissions and Accelerating Finance Technical Assistance (LEAF-TA)
Funder: UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero
Project Timeline: October 31, 2023 - March 31, 2026
Program Areas: Climate Finance, Forestry & Natural Resource Management, Environment & Climate and Ecosystem Services
Contact: Pedro Piffer, Pedro.Piffer@Winrock.org
Through the LEAF Technical Assistance Program funded by the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Winrock’s Ecosystem Services team is supporting six jurisdictions: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nepal, and three Brazilian states (Acre, Mato Grosso and Pará), to advance their jurisdictional REDD+ programs and pursue results-based payments for reductions in deforestation and forest degradation in line with the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions’ (ART’s) The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES). ART is a global carbon crediting program that certifies high-integrity emission reductions and removals from jurisdictions that are protecting and restoring forests at scale. Certification under ART allows the governments to access large-scale finance via compliance and voluntary carbon markets.
Winrock’s technical assistance helps national and subnational governments build the technical systems, documentation and institutional capacity needed to meet the requirements of TREES, as well as navigate a market-based process that is new for most governments. This alignment enables access to high-integrity, performance-based finance through initiatives like the LEAF Coalition — a public-private partnership mobilizing large-scale payments to protect tropical forests.
Country highlights:
- Costa Rica: Winrock provided technical support in drafting TREES project documentation and preparing variance requests, and successfully addressed two rounds of Validation and Verification Body (VVB) findings through detailed responses and document revisions.
- Ecuador: Winrock reviewed and provided detailed feedback on TREES documentation, contributed to the development of a national nesting framework to align subnational programs with national accounting, and delivered targeted technical training on VVB audit procedures to build stakeholder capacity.
- Nepal: Winrock evaluated the technical components of the National Forest Inventory System, supported the development of TREES documentation, and contributed to the consolidation of a comprehensive national REDD+ Implementation Plan to guide strategic actions and investments.
- Brazil (Acre, Mato Grosso, Pará): Winrock delivered technical training on REDD+ and nesting principles, reviewed TREES documentation for consistency and conformance, collected and analyzed data on private REDD+ projects, and addressed accounting deductions to prevent double counting and ensure alignment within a nested system.
This foundational work is strengthening jurisdictional capacity for high-integrity forest carbon credits and paving the way for access to results-based climate finance.