Case Study

The Rewilding Company is at various stages with projects in Sierra Leone. Those being:
Terrestrial reforestation – Most advanced with trees planted and PDD approaching finalization.
Mangrove restoration – Trial plots and draft PDD stage
Mangrove conservation – Feasibility stage
Terrestrial conservation – Very early stage

Terrestrial reforestation:

This is the most advanced project with pre-feasibility, feasibility, draft PDD and near final CCB PDD completed. Some Landowner Agreements have been concluded and lease agreement will be concluded for the first phase area soon, through a comprehensive Participatory Mapping and FPIC process.

In 2022 200ha of indigenous species of seedlings were planted and in 2023 up to a further 1,000ha will be planted, some of these seedlings reared in an own nursery.

As part of the assurance process the Rewilding Company makes use of technology designed and developed by BEXT360, Carbon Done and Tree Counter:

BEXT360 is an application based product that allows every planted tree to be geolocated and then monitored as it grows. Together with the other technologies mentioned, carbon sequestered per tree can be accurately measured at any stage of its development. This is critical for the validation and eventual verification of carbon credits to be traded through Verra.

Practically what this means is that each planted seedling is capture with regards:

Date of planting
Species
Location
Photographed
Planting conditions Landowner detail
Etc.
This is then repeated as ground truthing in future years as required.

This information is captured via mobile devises, securely stored and used, also within the other technology platforms.

Projects explanation:

The Rewilding Company is a project developer based in Sierra Leone that develops nature based carbon projects. The company employs local expertise to manage the projects. These include specialists in the fields of:

Silviculture
Nurseries
Seed collection
Community engagement
Land surveying
Carbon markets
Finances
Government engagement
Forestry
Biodiversity
And other required skills, some supplemented internationally.

Funding is sources internationally and deployed locally. Communities benefit significantly in various ways including:

Lease income on unproductive land
Employment opportunities. Staff are always employed from local communities.
A wide range of CDAP initiatives including:
- Education
- Access to clean water
- Agricultural training and input provision
- Efficient energy initiatives like cookstoves
- These initiatives are identified through community engagement and deployed through community involvement.
Direct benefit sharing
Community based nursery development
Locally sources supplies
And many more secondary benefits

Effectively what this means is that smallholder landowners are given access to international carbon markets while the capital required to facilitate this is sourced and provided by the project developer.

In addition to the community benefits detailed above biodiversity, environmental and climate benefits result from the project as does the Government of Sierra Leone.