One of the world’s highest-rated forest carbon projects has credits verified by Verra following completion of a scheduled review of its underlying scientific assumptions and the reopening of Indonesia’s international carbon market.
The Katingan Mentaya Project has verified approximately 20 million carbon credits (17.3 million VCUs after buffer contribution). These credits are AA-rated by BeZero and Sylvera; certified under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Climate, Community, Biodiversity Standards (CCBS) programmes; and represent 2021 to 2023 vintages.
The project was established in 2010 to protect and restore 157,875 hectares of tropical peatland forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. It is home to threatened and endangered species, including Bornean Orangutan, and Sunda Pangolins. The project works with 41 village communities to improve livelihood opportunities, and support health and wellbeing.
The credits mark the project’s return to issuance following a period in which PT. Rimba Makmur Utama and Permian Global, the companies that manage the initiative, undertook a comprehensive review of the project’s baseline assumptions. Consistent with the methodology, this work happened 10 years after the project started and involved rigorous testing of the original calculations and assumptions against the latest scientific knowledge and regulations.
“This credit issuance is a milestone for us,” says Dharsono Hartono, Chief Executive Director, PT. RMU, “certainly because it will allow us to generate the revenue needed to maintain the high standard that we are working to, but importantly it validates a huge piece of work that our team has been involved in over the past few years. The baseline renewal helped ensure that the climate assumptions remain scientifically accurate and the project is operating in the best way possible.”
“We see the result of this work every day when we are out in the field, and we are grateful that carbon credit buyers are increasingly demanding this level of rigour from the projects they work with.”
The occasion also signals the reopening of Indonesia to international carbon trading, following the country’s carbon market regulatory review and the October 2025 mutual recognition agreement signed between Verra and the Government of Indonesia.
Since the last credit issuance from the Katingan Mentaya Project in 2022, work on the ground has continued uninterrupted.
- During the COVID pandemic, the project assisted regional public authorities to support the government’s vaccine rollout among the project communities.
- The fire prevention strategy continued to evolve and improve with trained community fire patrols, data-driven risk mapping, high-resolution satellite hotspot monitoring, and a rapid response unit. Zero fires have been recorded during this period.
- Restoration work has seen 1,660 hectares of degraded land replanted with 210,000 seedlings, and 17 canals blocked to support peat rewetting.
- The project has run a floating health service to deliver health services to remote villages via waterways. 2,417 people accessed the service during the monitoring period.
- Renewable energy has replaced diesel generators for the riverine village of Tampelas through the development of the Tampelas Solar Panel Project.
Urvesh Kotecha, Chief Commercial Officer at Permian Global, says: “This is an important milestone for us and, we believe, for the broader carbon market too.
“At the project level, it reflects years of on-the-ground work that is delivering measurable benefits for the climate and biodiversity, while also providing genuine improvements to the lives and livelihoods of the people living in the region.
“For the voluntary carbon market, the verification of the Katingan Mentaya Project’s 2021-2023 credits represents much-anticipated supply of high-quality nature-based carbon credits that buyers have been demanding.”
The Katingan Mentaya Project is an Avoided Planned Deforestation initiative, which was established in 2010 to prevent the conversion of the 157,875 ha peat swamp forest to industrial acacia plantations for pulp and paper production.
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Full technical details of the design and running of the project and its complete MRV history can be found https://registry.verra.org/app/projectDetail/VCS/1477