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Savimbo Indicator-Species Biodiversity Credits — Villagarzón, Putumayo (Colombia)
Colombia · Villagarzón · See the Colombia profile
Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 89% 27/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice
Savimbo pays 70 smallholder families across 3,184.5 ha of Colombian Amazon rainforest for camera-trap-verified jaguar sightings, issuing 36,952 voluntary biodiversity credits since 2019 under Cercarbono's first certified biodiversity methodology.
70
Smallholder/Indigenous families participating
3,184.5 hectares
Rainforest area covered
36,952
Total biodiversity credits issued (August 2025)
3,183
Gold credits issued
33,769
Platinum Innovation credits issued
Details
- Maturity
- Pilot
- Promoter
- Savimbo Inc.
- Period
- 2019–2024 (monitoring/crediting), certified 2025, ongoing
- Keywords
- biodiversity credits, indigenous-led conservation, forest monitoring, camera-trap verification
Context
Savimbo, a for-profit social enterprise co-founded by Kichwa community leader Fernando Lezama, pays 70 smallholder and Indigenous families across 3,184.5 hectares of primary rainforest in Villagarzón, Putumayo, Colombia, for camera-trap-verified jaguar sightings used as an indicator of ecosystem health.
Activities
Under the Indicator Species Biodiversity Methodology (ISBM v1.2), monitored since September 2019, each verified jaguar sighting on a hectare generates a tradable Voluntary Biodiversity Credit tracked on EcoRegistry's blockchain registry; community contracts run one year at a time (renewable) rather than the 30-year land-lock typical of carbon-offset agreements.
Results
The project generated 3,183 "Gold" and 33,769 "Platinum Innovation" credits (36,952 total) by the time Cercarbono issued them in August 2025 — the first credits certified under its Biodiversity Certification Programme.
Conclusions
Savimbo itself acknowledges ISBM cannot yet meet Colombia's stricter additionality standard for regulatory offsets and only supports voluntary credits; independent commentators caution that voluntary biodiversity-credit markets risk weak buyer demand, greenwashing and predatory middlemen, and that using a single indicator species (the jaguar) is a methodological simplification not independently validated outside Savimbo/Cercarbono's own framework.
Implementation
- Indicative cost
- Low (< €50k)
- Time to results
- Medium (1–3 years) — Monitoring since September 2019; credits certified August 2025; contracts renew annually.
- Staffing & skills
- Savimbo social enterprise coordinating with 70 smallholder/Indigenous families, Camera-trap monitoring managed by participating farms/communities
Conditions for success
- Community-selected indicator species (jaguar) with local buy-in
- Short renewable one-year contracts allowing families to opt out, contrasted with 30-year carbon-offset land-locks
- Blockchain-based credit tracking via EcoRegistry for transparency
Common failure modes
- ISBM does not yet meet Colombia's additionality standard for regulatory offsets, limited to voluntary credits
- Weak buyer demand and greenwashing risk common to voluntary biodiversity-credit markets
- Single indicator species is a methodological simplification not independently validated outside Savimbo/Cercarbono's framework
Commonly funded by
Own resources / municipal budget
Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.
Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
- C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-09-09
- Savimbo Inc. — accessed 2026-09-09
- Cercarbono — biodiversity credits issued — accessed 2026-09-09
- Mongabay — Indigenous-led biodiversity credit scheme in the Colombian Amazon — accessed 2026-09-09
Attachments
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