In 1997, The Nature Conservancy and Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN) created the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project to reduce climate change by protecting 1.5 million hectares that were threatened by degradation from timber harvesting and deforestation from agricultural expansion.

Together with the Bolivian government and three energy companies, the partners worked with concessionaires to discontinue logging operations in the project area and incorporated the land into a pre-existing national park.”

The partners also enforced a deforestation ban in protected areas within the park by reducing slash-and-burn agriculture and initiated a robust community development program for the surrounding communities, including alternative income opportunities. Noel Kempff Mercado is designed to simultaneously address climate change, conserve biodiversity and bring sustainable benefits to local communities. By avoiding deforestation and degradation from agricultural conversion and logging, the project is expected to prevent the release of up to 5.8 million tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. Project was designed before recent forest carbon standards were in existence, so verified against a standard created for the project based the CDM AR Rules, adapted for REDD.Between the years 1997-2005, over 1 million tons of CO2e were verified by an independent third-party.