Mitigating climate change by implementing the HCV Approach
Rod Taylor, Director of Forests at WWF, speaks about the importance of the HCV Approach in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding a dangerous rise in global temperatures.
The headlines from Paris this week show that world leaders recognize the important role of forests and farms in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding a dangerous rise in global temperatures. Without actions in the land sector, it will be impossible to keep global temperature increases to less than 1.5/2°C above pre-industrial levels.Sound land-use choices and management practices are the foundation of inclusive development, efficient production and a healthy environment. But assessing the soundness of a particular choice or practice is challenging. Any credible methodology, standard or safeguard that seeks to do so must take into account the variety of nature’s complex, interdependent systems. It must navigate competing aspirations, be sensitive to local traditions, and embrace the inherently political nature of land-use decisions.This is where the High Conservation Value (HCV) Approach comes in. It is essentially a systematic approach to identifying the features of habitats and cultural sites that must be maintained, no matter what. High Conservation Values are biological, ecological, social or cultural values that are considered outstandingly significant or critically important at national, regional or global scale.
The fundamental tenet of the approach is that land management should maintain or enhance such values. The HCV Approach presents a globally applicable concept that can be adapted to the circumstances of a particular place or commodity. High conservation value areas could be old-growth forests in Siberia, habitats of threatened orangutans in Southeast Asia, or the sacred burial grounds of Native Americans.Developed in 1999 by the Forest Stewardship Council, the HCV approach was originally used to define forest attributes that should not be depleted in logging concessions. Since then, the concept has evolved to include non-forest ecosystems. It has had strong uptake in sustainability standards for forestry, palm oil, sugarcane, soy, bioenergy, carbon and even aquaculture. The concept is cited in the purchasing and investment policies of many global banks, retailers and brands. Companies that have committed to taking deforestation out of their supply chains, such as Unilever and Cargill, prioritize the conservation of high conservation value forests.While the versatility and comprehensiveness of the HCV Approach are major strengths, they are also some challenges like the fact that it can be resource intensive and vulnerable to flawed interpretations and assessments.
Efforts are underway to integrate the assessment of high conservation values with other prevalent land-use safeguards. The first is “Free, Prior and Informed Consent”- the principle that a community has the right to give or withhold its consent to proposed developments that may affect the lands and waters they customarily own, occupy or otherwise use. The second is the “high carbon stock” approach to delineating forest areas that merit protection from conversion. This integration offers the prospect of efficient, cost-effective and robust pre-project assessments.So, how to take further advantage of the strengths of the HCV Approach in assessing the needs of people and nature in a specific place, and its traction in sustainability standards? A top priority is building the capacity of assessors to conduct robust assessments in countries where the agriculture frontier has not settled. This can be backed with guidance from the HCV Resource Network. The network runs an assessor licensing system aimed at improving the quality and clarity of assessments, and is uniquely placed to produce guidance on best practice to ensure consistent application of the concept across different commodities and geographies.There’s also a need for better integration of voluntary private sector standards, including the HCV Approach, and government permit allocation criteria and spatial planning. In some countries, current regulations directly bar or hinder land-use choices and practices consistent with maintaining high conservation values. In contrast, some jurisdictions explicitly reference high conservation values in their zoning criteria, and grant land-use permits conditioned on maintaining these values.
The HCV Approach is a tool well placed to deal with the complexity inherent in defining sound land-use choices and practices. By strengthening its application in practice we can protect the Things That Really Matter and help the land sector to realize its potential as a climate solution.
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Read MoreOur Partnerships
Alongside many global initiatives, our work with partners promotespractices that help meet the global Sustainable Development Goalsand build a greener, fairer, better world by 2030.
Femexpalma
In April 2022, FEMEXPALMA and the HCV Network signed a 5-year cooperation agreement to promote sustainable production of palm oil in Mexico. FEMEXPALMA is a Mexican independent entity that represents palm production at the national level and promotes the increase of productivity in a sustainable way.
With global markets becoming stricter, for Mexican producers to be able to export to key markets such as the European Union, they must meet strict requirements such as certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). To be certified by RSPO, the HCV Approach must be applied prior to the establishment of any new oil palm plantations. With this cooperation agreement, the HCV Network will support FEMEXPALMA’s members and allies to design better strategies to identify, manage and monitor High Conservation Values and support smallholders to achieve RSPO certification and implement good agricultural practices.
High Carbon Stock Approach
The High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA) is an integrated conservation land use planning tool to distinguish forest areas in the humid tropics for conservation, while ensuring local peoples’ rights and livelihoods are respected.
In September 2020, HCV Network and the HCSA Steering Group signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their collaboration to conserve forests and uphold community rights in tropical forests. The HCS and HCV Approaches are cornerstones of corporate no deforestation and conservation commitments, and increasingly for actors working at different scales. The collaboration aims to further support effective implementation of these commitments through increased uptake of the HCV and HCS tools.
Through this MoU, HCSA and HCVRN are pursuing two main strategic goals:
- Strive to promote the application of the two approaches in tropical moist forest landscapes and explore further opportunities for collaboration.
- Ensure that, where the two approaches are applied together, this happens in a coordinated, robust, credible, and efficient manner, so that HCS forests and HCVs are conserved, and local peoples’ rights are respected.
World Benchmarking Alliance
From May 2022, the HCV Network is an ally at the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA). WBA is building a diverse and inclusive movement of global actors committed to using benchmarks to incentivise, measure, and monitor corporate performance on the SDGs, and will assess and rank the performance of 2,000 of the world’s most influential companies against seven systems of transformation by 2023.
The scope of WBA’s circular transformation was expanded to cover nature and biodiversity as recognition of the need for greater understanding, transparency and accountability of business impact on our environment. The WBA Nature Benchmark was launched in April 2022, which will be used to rank keystone companies on their efforts to protect our environment and its biodiversity. As HCV Areas are recognised as key areas important for biodiversity, companies that publicly disclose their actions to identify and protect HCVs will contribute to the assessment of their performance against the benchmark.
Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures - TNFD
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is a global, market-led initiative, established with the mission to develop and deliver a risk management and disclosure framework for organizations to report and act on evolving nature-related risks, with the aim of supporting a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes.
In April 2022, the HCV Network joined the TNFD Forum. The TNFD Forum, composed of over 400 members, is a world-wide and multi-disciplinary consultative network of institutional supporters who share the vision and mission of the task force.
By participating in the Forum, the HCV Network contributes to the work and mission of the taskforce and help co-create the TNFD Framework which aims to provide recommendations and advice on nature-related risks and opportunities relevant to a wide range of market participants, including investors, analysts, corporate executives and boards, regulators, stock exchanges and accounting firms.
Aquaculture Stewardship Council
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is the world’s leading certification scheme for farmed seafood – known as aquaculture – and the ASC label only appears on food from farms that have been independently assessed and certified as being environmentally and socially responsible. In 2021, the HCV Network and ASC formalised their collaboration through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU represents the first step in a fruitful relationship aimed at conserving HCVs in aquaculture. Although, existing guidance on the use of the HCV Approach currently focuses mainly on forestry and agriculture, the HCV Approach is however generic, and in principle also applicable to aquatic production systems. Through this MoU, this is recognised by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in their ASC farm standard, in which the protection of HCV areas is mentioned in the context of expansion
Accountability Framework Initiative
The Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) is a collaborative effort to build and scale up ethical supply chains for agricultural and forestry products. Led by a diverse global coalition of environmental and human rights organizations, the AFi works to create a “new normal” where commodity production and trade are fully protective of natural ecosystems and human rights. To pursue this goal, the coalition supports companies and other stakeholders in setting strong supply chain goals, taking effective action, and tracking progress to create clear accountability and incentivize rapid improvement. In July 2022, the HCV Network joined AFi as a Supporting Partner. AFi Supporting Partners extend the reach and positive impact of the AFi by promoting use of the Accountability Framework by companies, industry groups, financial institutions, governments, and other sustainability initiatives, both globally and in commodity-producing countries.
Biodiversity Credit Alliance
The Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) is a global multi-disciplinary advisory group formed in late 2022. Its mission is to bring clarity and guidance on the formulation of a credible and scalable biodiversity credit market under global biodiversity credit principles. Under these principles, the BCA seeks to mobilize financial flows towards biodiversity custodians while recognising local knowledge and contexts.
The HCVN joined the BCA Forum in August 2023 to learn more from the many organizations already coming together to find effective pathways to opening up credit-based approaches, and how to contribute our knowledge and experience of years of working in a practical way, often with global sustainability standards and their certified producers, to protect what matters most to nature and people.
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Nature Positive Forum
Get Involved
Our Mission as a network is to provide practical tools to conserve nature and benefit people, linking local actions with global sustainability targets.
We welcome the participation of organisations that share our vision and mission to protect and enhance High ConservationValues and the vital services they provide for people and nature. By collaborating with the Network, your organisation can contribute to safeguarding HCVs while gaining valuable insights and connections that support your sustainability goals.
We are seeking collaborative partners to help expand and enhance our work, as well as talented professionals who can join the growing Secretariat team, and for professionals who can contribute to the credible identification of High Conservation Values globally.
Join us in securing the world’s HCVs and shaping a sustainable future.