Updated statement: Recent article on the Carbon Tanzania Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape Project, published by Dutch newspaper Trouw

Update: Carbon Tanzania submits complaint to Netherlands press council. 

Update (7 February 2025): 

Following attempts to engage constructively with Dutch newspaper Trouw a small number of factual inaccuracies have been corrected by the editors. However, the vast majority of factual and bias issues outlined in the below statement Trouw is unwilling to engage on. Therefore, Carbon Tanzania has taken the significant but important step of filing a formal complaint with the Raad voor de Journalistiek (RvdJ), the Netherlands press council. 

RvdJ guidelines require that a) journalists report truthfully, verifiably, and as completely as possible, avoiding one-sided and biased reporting, and b) journalists must ensure that those who are accused must be given ample opportunity to respond to the accusations. We are confident that as the article stands, it is egregiously misaligned with these requirements. 

We expect that it may take many months for RvdJ to review our case but in the absence of meaningful voluntary engagement from Trouw’s editors, we feel this is the only practical route to resolve this issue and we are hopeful that Trouw will follow the recommendations made by RvdJ. 

Full details of the complaint can be found [here]. 

Original statement (7 January 2025): 

Carbon Tanzania statement: Recent article on the Carbon Tanzania Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape Project, published by Dutch newspaper Trouw

This statement follows the publication of an article on the Carbon Tanzania Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape Project by Dutch newspaper Trouw in December, which has been extensively referenced in a review article posted in REDD-Monitor. Carbon Tanzania has made ongoing attempts to engage constructively with journalists and editors, and is now pursuing legal routes to ensure a factually accurate version of the article is posted in place of the original. 

Trouw is against the use of carbon credits and the voluntary carbon market in general. They are entitled to that view however, the Carbon Tanzania Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape Project is not a political pawn. Thousands of community members rely on this project for their economy. That does not exempt it from fair and robust scrutiny, but Carbon Tanzania will not allow shoddy, biased, and wantonly destructive journalism to put these communities at risk.

Trouw’s recent article about the Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape Project is egregiously incorrect and clearly violates both media law and basic journalist standards. As such, we have written to the editor to insist the article be removed from their website and to cease any syndication immediately, pending the full resolution of the issues we have raised with them. Currently, the editors have taken no substantive action, so are now working with lawyers to resolve this issue through the Dutch media regulatory system. 

The original article has now been referenced extensively in a REDD-Monitor post and we have requested that it be removed until the factual issues are resolved with the original Trouw article. 

At the end of this statement, we have included an exhaustive list of factual issues with the article, but there are a number of overarching failings of the article that we hope will help stakeholders understand why we are taking such robust action. 

1. The article contains many points that are simply factually incorrect. Often these errors are in spite of the correct information being provided to the journalists during the interviews for the article.
2. The article contains no quotes, analysis, or opinions from members of the community directly involved in the carbon project – all are from NGOs and scientists, mainly from the Global North all of whom have no working knowledge of the project or specific expertise in the field of REDD project implementation. This is despite Carbon Tanzania arranging multiple interviews for Trouw with the local community. It is extremely irresponsible to write a piece focused on the community and not include any comments from community members or project managers. 
3. Trouw has not included a right of reply statement from Carbon Tanzania, despite this being explicitly provided and our insistence this be included in full. 
4. Trouw has cherry picked quotes and research from anti carbon markets organisations. They have made no attempt to show there are two sides to this issue. 
5. Trouw has made absolute statements, exaggerated, and extrapolated based on subjective analysis or opinions throughout. 

For 40,000 years, the Yaeda Valley has been the home of Hadza hunter-gatherers and more recently Datooga pastoralists. But their traditional ways of life were threatened by shifting agriculture and habitat conversion. In response to these threats, and following the securing of land rights by the communities of the area with the support of the local rights-based CBO Ujumaa Community Resource Team, the Yaeda-Eyasi Landscape project was established in partnership with the local communities. Today, it protects 110,500 hectares of forest in northern Tanzania and in 2023, generated almost US$ 600,000 in carbon revenue for local communities. This project has been hugely impactful for local people, Tanzania’s conservation strategy, and global climate action – we will not let its future be put at risk. 

Specific issues raised with Trouw by Carbon Tanzania: 

“Carbon Tanzania presents itself as a ‘local company,’ but is based in Britain.” 

• Carbon Tanzania is a trading name of CT Limited, a limited liability company incorporated under Tanzanian law. 
• CT Limited is registered in the Tanzania Trade Register under number 102026. Its head office is located near Arusha, Tanzania. 
• This information is independently verifiable in the Tanzania Companies Register.

“But trading in ‘voluntary’ carbon credits, meant to offset emissions that remain, has no government oversight. Anyone can sell these carbon credits and there is no limit on the number of credits that can be created.” 

• In Tanzania, where Carbon Tanzania is based and the project area is located, this trading is regulated. Legislation on carbon credit trading (the Tanzania Carbon Trading Regulations) was passed in October 2022. As a Tanzanian company, Carbon Tanzania is bound by these regulations,  meaning the Yaeda-Eyasi project is too.
• Other countries also have regulations. Government guidelines are in place in the UK  and the US, and regulations are under development in the EU. 
• Moreover, from the technical requirements set by the Plan Vivo Standard (under which the Yaeda-Eyasi project is registered), there is a limit on the number of carbon credits it can issue us. The number of credits that can be issued annually is determined by the application of this standard, and these issuances have been verified by an independent third-party auditor, again as per the requirements of the Plan Vivo Standard.

The company hires so-called village game scouts to monitor the area so that local authorities and UCRT can act if illegal logging is taking place. 

• Carbon Tanzania does not hire village game scouts. The communities Carbon Tanzania works with (including several Hadzabe communities) are themselves responsible for implementing forest protection activities, which they finance with revenue from the sale of carbon credits. Village game scouts are therefore hired directly by the community. 
• UCRT has no authority in the case of violations if the forest is illegally cleared. The power of enforcement lies solely with the local authorities (the village ward and district governments). 

The Hadzabe have been a minor player in the since 2021. 

• Although Datooga communities in some of the villages added to the project in 2021 now also participate, the Hadzabe continue to play a central role in the Yaeda-Eyasi landscape project. They still manage their own forest conservation operations, enjoy income from their activities and have full autonomy over how that income is spent. 

“Billionaires use hunter-gatherers to offset carbon emissions. ‘New form of colonialism’.” and “‘Very few Hadzabe fathom the carbon project,’ says a contributor from a local NGO, which wants to remain anonymous because of possible repercussions. ‘This is  a new form of colonialism.'” 

• The assertion that Carbon Tanzania’s project is “a new form of colonialism” is not substantiated anywhere in the article – neither by the contributor, the writers or any other cited source. 

“It is also questionable whether the Hadzabe will get a fair share of the proceeds. Carbon Tanzania earned over €1.4 million for the indigenous communities involved, such as the Hadzabe. That is 60 per cent of the proceeds, they say. But Carbon Tanzania sells most of the carbon credits to a middleman. That sells the credits on to end users for more money. So the final yield is higher, but how much is not clear.”

• This text insinuates that Carbon Tanzania makes more from the sale of carbon credits than it claims. The addition of the words “says the company” gives the impression that this is merely an assertion by Carbon Tanzania, and that Carbon Tanzania is not telling the truth. 
• This impression is reinforced by the “but” at the beginning of the sentence that immediately follows. However, there is no contradiction: Carbon Tanzania’s revenues consist of carbon credits sold directly, and credits sold to brokers. Revenues from those two streams make up the company’s total revenues. Of this, 60% is paid to the participating communities, including that of the Hadzabe. The allocation of this proportion is audited by third-party auditors during the regular validation and verification processes demanded by the Plan Vivo Standard.
• In concluding that the final revenue is higher, the article wrongly suggests that Carbon Tanzania benefits from the intermediary’s higher selling price, and that is damaging to its reputation. Its revenues are limited to those mentioned above, and of this, 60% is always remitted to the participating communities, including the Hadzabe. 

“The Plan Vivo label, one of many private labels for carbon credit projects” and “Private label organisation Plan Vivo.”

• The use of the word “private” wrongly gives the impression that this is a commercial organisation, while Plan Vivo is a foundation. 
• Moreover, the impression is given that it is a specific feature of this label – or of carbon project labels in general – that it is private. This is by no means the case: almost all labels, such as sustainability and animal welfare labels, are issued and controlled by private organisations. 
• In this way, the value of the label is questioned without reasonable grounds. Readers might, for example, become under the impression that a private organisation’s label is worth less than other labels. 

The entire last paragraph, under the headline “All holy places have disappeared” 

• The outlined demise of sacred sites and Hadzabe culture is sadly not untrue, but by posting in this article it suggests that Carbon Tanzania has played a role in it. This is incredibly misleading, not least because Carbon Tanzania aims to do exactly the opposite and preserve the habitat and culture of the Hadzabe and other groups of original inhabitants in the area, such as Datooga. 

“But an outside reviewer who reviewed the project in November 2012 wrote that these Hadzabe representatives felt they lacked the knowledge and skills to do so. ‘Prominent members of the Hadzabe community, and Carbon Tanzania field coordinators, feel they do not understand carbon projects well enough to advise others,’ the audit report said. The Plan Vivo accreditation scheme, one of several private accreditation schemes for carbon credit projects, nevertheless approved the project.”

• The article here leans heavily on a report from 12 years ago when the project was still in its infancy. However, Carbon Tanzania explained to journalists in one of the interviews that it had addressed these issues in response to the report – as is usual in the development of a project. 
• In 2023, social science researchers generated an independent social impact study convincingly showing that a fair proportion of community members are aware of the project, its operational model and its results.
• That Plan Vivo approved the project despite the objections is incorrect. Only after the concerns of the said prominent members of the community were addressed did Plan Vivo approve the project.  This process took many meetings and information sessions as we worked with the local community to build confidence. among all members of the community – Plan Vivo approved the project. 

Other journalistic standards violated 

• Although Carbon Tanzania cooperated fully with the article from the beginning and spent a lot of time answering questions and giving an interview, their response was given virtually no place in the article. Carbon Tanzania contradicted or refuted many of the allegations mentioned above, but only in a limited number of cases were they included in the article. In doing so, Trouw violates the standard that those accused should be given adequate space to respond to the allegations in the same publication. 
• Underscoring this, the statement provided by Carbon Tanzania before publication was not included in the article, whereas it is very common in larger articles of this kind to make room for a statement by the accused party.