REDD+ is an idea that has launched a thousand projects. It’s essentially a way to monetize forests’ ability to store carbon and put that money in the hands of communities who can protect them.
Blue Ventures, a U.K.-based NGO, saw the U.N.’s reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) program as an opportunity to finance conservation in Madagascar. It was an attractive proposition, tackling two of the African nation’s most debilitating problems — forest destruction and poverty — at once.