FAQ - Protocol

The Protocol for the Issuance of Biodiversity Units - Tebu is available in English and Spanish through the Information > Publications tab in the menu.

A project issued by Tebu can trade 20% of the potential credits/units once the ecological and management milestones initially set out in the Project Management Plan are met. Its focus should be to ensure biodiversity gains, based on a baseline and control of biodiversity stressors caused by human activities.

This scheme can be applied to any eligible conservation project. In the specific case of the protected areas of the National Natural Parks system, it is essential that the issuance of credits and the actions to be carried out are additional and that it would not be possible to carry them out without this mechanism. It is also important to ensure that the actions are complementary, that is, that they are in line with the protected area's Management Plan. Finally, it is important to clarify that the implementation of a conservation plan or strategy is important to have a base investment in order to execute actions that will generate biodiversity gains for a period of at least 3 years.

The protocol has been and continues to be reviewed by international experts in the field and its applicability to other global contexts is currently being validated. The Protocol includes more of our national and international references and standards, as well as the group of experts invited in the consultation process of the document. Some of the organizations that participated in the ideation and structuring of the protocol were the IDB Lab, P4F, Ecoregistry, XM, Cercabono, Climatetrade and WCS. Specifically, both the formula for the calculation of credits and the credit release scheme come from other crediting initiatives, targets and discussions at the global level such as Climate, Community and Biodiversity Project Design Standards (CCBA, 2005) and Mitigation banks and in-lieu fee programs (Code of Federal Regulation).

The protocol encourages the structuring of exceptional conservation projects, especially in threatened ecosystems and in areas where it is difficult to use other financing mechanisms or obtain resources. This includes areas with low demand for offsets and small properties where carbon projects are not viable. Consequently, projects wishing to issue credits must comply with the characteristics required by the protocol:

• Carry out restoration and/or preservation actions,
• Operate for at least 20 years,
• Generate additionality, i.e., demonstrate that the actions to be carried out would not be possible without the financing of the credits,
• Be complementary to governmental or larger scale plans (National Development Plan, POTs, Environmental Authorities Action Plan),
• Establish clear indicators that allow for the quantification of biodiversity gains,
• Have a management plan and monitoring plan,
• Have a credit release scheme based on the achievement of compliance milestones (management and ecological),
• Adopt or develop a mechanism for traceability of transactions,
• Make information on milestones and monitoring publicly available.

In this sense, conservation areas within or outside the SINAP, whether or not they are registered in the RUNAP, are eligible in the Colombian context.

The Protocol does not limit the area of projects that can issue credits. This allows small project owners and project structurers to estimate a price per loan that covers the costs of structuring, managing and operating the project over the long term.

The proposed connectivity factor for the quantification of Tebu results from the weighted sum of 3 metrics: one for Patch, one for Class and one for Landscape. The detail of this is found in section 7.1.2 of the Protocol.

Before registering the project, during the structuring phase, the project owner must establish the milestones (management and ecological) and the performance standards expected to be achieved. Based on these milestones, the credit release scheme is designed. Although each project and ecosystem is different, we recommend releasing all credits within 10 years, following a release schedule of 20% of credits every 2 years.

The Protocol recognizes that, for ecosystems with few native remnants, preservation actions are crucial to protect the composition, structure and function of mature ecosystems. However, it also considers the difference in resources needed to carry out restoration actions. The methodology seeks to mobilize sufficient resources to develop effective restoration actions to ensure that the intervened ecosystems recover their quality, integrity and health.

In this way, the Protocol not only promotes projects that preserve native remnants, but also encourages the structuring of projects that contribute to recovering and increasing the quality, integrity and health of biodiversity. This includes increasing the coverage of the most threatened ecosystems, avoiding a decrease in their geographic distribution. In addition, the Protocol assigns greater weight to restoration actions to encourage projects that create connectivity between native forest remnants, decreasing habitat fragmentation, which has increased rapidly in recent decades and is one of the main threats to biological richness and diversity.

Projects must ensure biodiversity gain over time. Therefore, they should avoid any action that would prevent the long-term goal from being achieved. That is, activities such as ecotourism, production of non-timber forest products and beekeeping activities are compatible with preservation and restoration, as long as they do not affect the fulfillment of milestones necessary for the proper release of credits.

In order to register the project, it is necessary to prepare and present the biodiversity baseline, using indicators that make it possible to know the current status and project long-term goals (at least 20 years). In addition, a monitoring plan must be presented, including the same indicators and monitoring frequency, so that biodiversity gains can be quantified. In summary, biodiversity indices are quantified continuously from year 0 (baseline), and should be monitored according to the specific periodicity that allows meeting the milestones of the credit release scheme.

There are two types of compliance milestones: management and ecological, which determine performance standards. The milestones are proposed by conservation project developers or project owners and are verified by the insurer.

The Protocol states that project developers must secure an audit by an informed and impartial third party to determine whether their conservation project can be registered on the selected platform. In addition, compliance with milestones and ecological performance standards must be verified in order to approve the release and marketing of Credits.

Underwriters, who are third parties in charge of monitoring and verifying conservation and restoration actions, as well as accounting for Credits issued by a project, ensure that the management of Credits is transparent and that their sale translates into demonstrable gains in biodiversity. For more details on the role of insurers, see section 10.3 of the Protocol.

Underwriters are independent third parties who carry out an initial verification of the application of the protocol to the project. This includes the definition of factors, the realization of the baseline, the definition of performance standards, and other requirements of the protocol, which allows the registration to be successful. Subsequently, in accordance with the monitoring plan, the release scheme and the milestones established, periodic verifications are carried out to endorse the release of credits to the market. The verifiers are independent third parties that guarantee the transparency of the processes and, therefore, the reliability of the information.

This protocol does not address the issue of pricing. Each project or project owner should establish the price of the biodiversity credit or Tebu, ensuring the permanence and sustainability of the project. This should include a fair distribution of benefits and consideration of all costs and expenses associated with the project.

The protocol does not make any recommendations on financial issues of cost or pricing as this depends entirely on the type of project.