Celebrating a year of impact: Carbon Tanzania’s 2024 Impact Report

The release of our 2024 Impact Report showcases the significant achievements and strategic advancements over the last year. The year was one of significant consolidation and planning, all aimed at strengthening our foundation and ensuring our long-term impact in protecting forests for communities, wildlife, and climate.

Our operational forest conservation projects continued to deliver outstanding results on the ground. We channeled over TZS 9.4 billion (3.7M USD) directly to some of Tanzania’s most remote communities. This revenue funds the protection of habitats essential for iconic wildlife including chimpanzees, elephants, wild dogs, and lions. Additionally, the communities use the carbon revenue to support their developmental goals such as improving critical health services, enhancing access to education, and developing essential infrastructure. These efforts, of course, also generate much-needed positive climate impacts globally.

We are particularly proud that by the end of 2024:

• 278,543 people had directly benefited from our three projects.
• 690,500 hectares of forest were protected, an area more than twice the size of Luxembourg.
• 18 threatened species (IUCN Red List) were protected.
• US$3,990,693 was earned by forest communities through carbon sales.
• 448 people were employed in forest conservation.
• 781,800 tonnes of CO2 reductions were verified as carbon credits, more than twice the annual emissions of the Cayman Islands.
• Our work contributed meaningfully to 12 out of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

A major highlight for 2024 was celebrating World Environment Day in Dodoma with Philip Mpango, the Vice President of Tanzania. We also updated agreements with our local community partners to align with Tanzania’s National Carbon Trading Regulations, ensuring renewed contracts are fully compliant and strengthening the foundation for continued collaboration.

Our commitment to best-in-class reporting: MEL and MRV

To maintain our competitive edge in the dynamic voluntary carbon market, we embrace innovation and integrate industry best practices into every aspect of our operations. This commitment is exemplified by our robust Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) strategy, which ensures our community-led conservation projects are effective, transparent, and adaptive. Underpinning this strategy is our Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system, essential for ensuring transparency and accuracy in tracking greenhouse gas emission reductions and conservation outcomes. Our MRV systems are vital tools for capturing the complex interplay between ecological health and human well-being, supporting communities in sustainably managing their natural assets and ensuring the long-term protection of Tanzania’s biodiverse landscapes.

Building on this foundation of comprehensive reporting, our commitment extends to truly understanding the lived experiences of our community partners. This led us to commission REFLECT for Nature (RfN), a social impact evaluation service designed to capture community perspectives and ensure the benefits of carbon finance are equitably distributed and aligned with local development goals, thereby grounding our MRV approach in social accountability. This approach centers local perspectives, expressing the true value of carbon revenue from the community’s point of view.

We are incredibly excited to continue our journey into 2025, working alongside our newly developed and expanded team, collaborators, and partners to make an even greater impact.