Bayano-McGill Reforestation Project

The General Congress consists of the traditional authorities of the Ipetí- and Piriatí-Emberá communities in eastern Panama. They help ensure free, prior, and informed consent of the communities and participating households. 

AMARIE is a non-governmental organization founded by women of the Indigenous community of Ipeti-Emberá in eastern Panama. The organization produces and sells handicrafts.  

In the Alto Bayano watershed, Emberá women walk for hours to the remotest parts of the Panamanian jungle to collect plants that give natural colour and life to their hand-crafted art. The tradition of craft-making symbolizes and preserves the essence of Emberá culture and has been passed down through generations of women artisans. 

AMARIE also supports research in eastern Panama in collaboration with McGill and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). 

PFSS is a joint venture between McGill University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). Students live for up to four months in Panama, taking courses that specifically address Latin American social and tropical environmental issues. By bringing students in contact with another reality, we help them build a new, more pluralistic vision of the world’s environment and help prepare them to play a positive role in tomorrow’s society. 

McGill will provide funds to AMARIE for a fixed minimum volume of offsets from 2020 to 2022. Trees planted in that time will be maintained for 25 years. After 2022, the parties can renew the original agreement up until 2045. 

Carbon offsets are reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are typically achieved when an institution purchases and thereby claims the carbon sequestered by a third party. Offsets are generated and sold through the voluntary market; purchasing them is not a regulatory requirement. Investing in offsetting projects is a way for an organization to reduce its net emissions, beyond its own direct emission reduction efforts, and can often lead to co-benefits for partner communities. 

Carbon credits are instruments typically linked to regulated, cap-and-trade markets, whereby countries or companies have an allowance of credits that can be used toward their cap (limit). These credits can be sold, held, or traded to other entities that are producing emissions above their cap. Credits represent reductions in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) achieved via company activities. 

Both offsets and credits reduce an organization’s emissions and help mitigate climate change. 

References: Difference Between Carbon Offsets and Carbon Credits; How Carbon Credits and Offsets Help the Environment

As part of the project agreement, various levels of verification are planned to ensure project integrity. Local project coordinators were tasked in Year 1 (2020) to verify measurements of sampled trees and calculate carbon accumulation for each plot following regular visits to reforestation sites. Student researchers also participate in monitoring activities and ensure that project participants’ involvement is compliant with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) through free, prior and informed consent. A representative of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute brings additional scientific perspectives on local carbon modalities to the Governance Committee. Finally, further opportunities to have part of the project verified internally or by third parties are under investigation.

Tropical forests grow at a much faster rate than northern, temperate forests, such as those in Canada, and have a greater potential for storing carbon (Beer et al. 2010; Locoselli et al. 2020). Meanwhile, globally, most deforestation is occurring in the tropics (Ritchie & Roser 2021).  

Professor Potvin’s Neotropical Ecology: Science for Empowerment lab has developed a collaborative relationship over 25 years with the Emberá of eastern Panama, studying biodiversity and conservation, forest carbon stocks, and Indigenous land uses and livelihoods via participatory action research. Thanks to these long-term collaborations, McGill researchers have become key research partners with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. Students visit and conduct research in Panama via the Panama Field Study Semester (PFSS) undergraduate program, and the Neotropical Environment Option (NEO) and Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Sustainability (BESS) graduate programs.

Currently, it is only possible to contribute to the Bayano-McGill Reforestation Project via interfund transfer. See how to contribute on our Offsetting Program page.