Pledge overview

For all communities, from local to global scales, forests are crucial sources of life, food, inspiration, and resilience. As climate change accelerates, forest conservation and restoration - coupled with efforts to migrate away from fossil fuel use - have the potential to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

The National Indian Carbon Coalition (NICC) and Meta are joining together in a pledge to support and promote a model of carbon projects that centers the leadership, traditional ecological knowledge, and vision of Indigenous Peoples for themselves and the land they caretake. Such an approach uses these elements as the compass to develop projects that not only protect and sequester carbon, reduce climate impacts, and increase climate resilience, but also honor and center the relationship between Indigenous communities and their land.

The urgency of the climate crisis requires a fundamental re-imagining of how we live in relationship to our ecosystems and to one another. All facets of society must shift and pursue viable and equitable pathways to reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions.

Historically, the range of corporate engagement with carbon markets includes some examples of improper use of carbon credits as a substitute for other credible climate action. Too often, market actors exacerbate existing inequities by treating the Indigenous Peoples in communities where projects occur as ancillary stakeholders and beneficiaries of carbon market finance, sidestepping underlying issues of sovereignty and rights, and failing to center project design in the knowledge, wisdom, priorities, and leadership of these communities. However, when properly implemented with both buyer- and seller-side integrity, forest carbon projects and programs can tap into powerful natural climate mitigation while channeling financial resources to forest communities and unlocking an often overlooked yet critical piece of the climate change mitigation solution. NICC’s mission is to preserve tribal land ownership and reduce the effects of climate change by conserving the natural resources of tribal lands in order to minimize human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

The National Indian Carbon Coalition and Meta pledge to develop no fewer than three (3) carbon credit generating projects that protect and restore forest lands through Indigenous leadership. NICC has begun engagement with multiple Indigenous Communities including Tribal Nations in the continental United States, Alaska Native Villages and Corporations, and Native Hawaiian organizations to protect and preserve Indigenous forest lands through the development of carbon sequestration projects. Through the Tribal Land Conservation Initiative (TLCI), NICC engages with the Indigenous partners through the voluntary carbon market. NICC provides the funding to cover all third party expenses form a carbon feasibility study to forest inventory to project developer costs. Further, through the TLCI, NICC contracts for the entire duration of the carbon project, usually 40 years, to act as a trusted resource for the long term management of the carbon project. Finally, NICC works closely with the Indigenous partner to ensure that carbon credits are sold to socially responsible organizations in which the Indigenous partner approves to ensure that there are mutually aligned environmental values.

NICC views these projects as economic development opportunities that preserve tribal nation and tribal member land ownership while returning profits to reservations economies and communities.

Our co-investments in these projects will adhere to the following principles, in addition to best practices established by leading organizations in the climate mitigation space:

1. The projects will respect tribal culture and sovereignty over their lands through transparent development alongside tribal leadership, staff, and membership at all stages of the project. Indigenous Peoples will retain ownership over their carbon rights and will have discretion over credit sales.

2. The projects will be designed to optimize positive local impacts (water, biodiversity, air, social equity, economic impact) from forest and land protection and preservation, including a focus on climate change adaptation and resilience in addition to mitigation.

3. The projects will utilize a holistic systems approach that results in the development of trust amongst all stakeholders, creating equitable partnerships that inspire solidarity, ecological health, and tangible action in response to the climate crisis.

4. Project development will be closely tracked to support replication, offer the global community robust data on the true costs and benefits of community-led carbon projects, and drive the market towards properly valuing the critical work of safeguarding our planet.

Our ecologically and socially responsible approach

The National Indian Carbon Coalition and Meta pledge will adhere to best practices established by leading organizations in the climate mitigation space.

Our partners

National Indian Carbon Coalition

Our locations

We are working at locations across United States of America (USA).