Author: Brian Joseph McFarland
Recommended by CFA Member: Brian McFarland
With 15+ years of tropical rainforest experience and after 60+ interviews with leading practitioners, Mr. McFarland’s Conservation of Tropical Rainforests provides an historical overview of numerous conservation finance tools including debt-for-nature swaps, payments for ecosystem services, and ecotourism.
The book’s greatest contribution is 24 in-depth case studies spread across 15 countries and four continents. One such case study is of the Purus Project, a forest carbon offset project that Mr. McFarland has been involved with since 2011. The Project is the first ever REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) project in Acre, Brazil – one of the world’s leading jurisdictions working on subnational accounting of deforestation - to be independently validated and verified to the leading voluntary carbon certification standards known as the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and to the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard (CCBS). The Project also achieved CCBS Gold Distinction for exceptional biodiversity benefits.