April Salumei Rainforest Community Conservation Project (East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea)

The April Salumei Rainforest Community Conservation Project, in the Ambunti district of East Sepik Province, was Papua New Guinea's first forestry pilot project registered under the UNFCCC REDD+ framework.

Local landowners, organised into 164 land groups (clans) representing roughly 15,000 people and holding customary title through Hunstein Range Holdings Limited, placed a large area of rainforest under conservation management rather than the logging concessions previously planned for the site, with Rainforest Project Management Limited as project developer and Tasman Environmental Markets supporting carbon-market access.

Under the Verified Carbon Standard, the project's REDD (avoided deforestation, approximately 7,640 ha) and improved forest management (approximately 196,703 ha) components generated credits over its 2009-2019 crediting period. A renewed, five-year Sustainable Development Plan began in 2024, reinvesting carbon-market revenue into native eaglewood (agarwood) agroforestry, solar lights, local jobs and school improvements.

The project generated 4,093,738 verified carbon credits over its 2009-2019 crediting period, according to project registry records. The 2024 renewed plan reports reinvestment in over 10,000 eaglewood (agarwood) trees for village agroforestry, 1,000 solar lights for schools, health centres and homes, 18 local jobs and improvements to 15 schools. Industry sources now cite a larger, updated lifetime figure of 22.8 million tonnes of CO2 prevented (total managed area over 600,000 ha, crediting area over 200,000 ha).

The project was also certified to the Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) standard in 2011, but registry records show that this certification had expired and the project's status was listed as 'to be confirmed' as of a 2022 database update -- a real gap in continuous third-party biodiversity and community verification. The updated 22.8 million tonne lifetime figure postdates, and has not yet been cross-verified against, the older project-registry entry, so it should be read as the developer's own current reporting pending fresh third-party validation.