REM Mato Grosso — Results-Based Payments for Avoided Deforestation

The REDD Early Movers (REM) programme in Mato Grosso, Brazil's largest agricultural frontier state, is a bilateral results-based payment mechanism in which Germany (via KfW and BMZ) and the United Kingdom pay the state government for independently verified reductions in deforestation-linked greenhouse-gas emissions, measured against a historical reference level. Mato Grosso's state environment secretariat (SEMA-MT) implements the programme with GIZ technical support, as part of the wider 'REM Brasil' initiative that also covers the state of Acre.

Phase 1 (2016-2023) targeted avoided emissions of roughly 9 million tCO2e against the historical reference level.

SEMA-MT, with GIZ technical support, disbursed results-based payments largely by funding sustainable-production and monitoring initiatives for family farmers, rural producers and traditional communities.

Independent verification found the state achieved about 18 million tCO2e in reduced deforestation-linked emissions in Phase 1, more than double the 9 million tCO2e target. The programme disbursed R$247 million (about EUR 78 million) in results-based payments by mid-2023, reaching 12,400 smallholder families and helping conserve close to 300,000 hectares of forest.

The World Rainforest Movement has criticised the REM approach as rewarding past reductions without necessarily changing the underlying economic drivers of deforestation, and notes that Mato Grosso's earlier (2004-2012) drop in illegal deforestation is not always fully recognised in later crediting baselines. REM's KfW-verified bilateral payments should be distinguished from the state's newer, separate voluntary carbon-market activity under the ART/TREES standard and LEAF Coalition, which faces its own scrutiny over baseline methodology and Indigenous consultation.