The ArBolivia Project was established to tackle these multiple problems, following a pilot pro-ject in 2002 funded by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the European Union and the Belgian government together with support from the regional govern-ment in Bolivia. After 6 years of monitoring and research ArBolivia successfully registered the project as a Carbon Development Mechanism, selling the credits for the years 2008 – 2012 to the Belgian government.

Following the failure of Copenhagen the Bolivian government withdrew its support for the CDM convention and as a result ArBolivia has now verified its credits for the voluntary market, where host country approval is not required. 1500 hectares of trees have now been planted, with a target of 5,000 hectares. These comprise small, isolated parcels owned by roughly 1000 smallholders to date who belong to farmer co-operatives. A further 1,200 hectares will also be planted purely for...