San Jerónimo Coatlán is a community located in southern Oaxaca, Mexico, in the mountain range known as the Sierra Sur. It is a rural community of approximately 5,000 people, many of whom identify as Zapotec, one of Mexico's legally recognized Indigenous communities.

THE COMMUNITY

All the land within San Jerónimo Coatlán is communally owned, and for the past 20 years, they have collectively managed their forests to produce pine and oak timber. The community's forest management adheres to federal law regarding maximum timber volume allowances, but for the past 10 years, low timber prices and the challenging terrain have prevented the community from investing in forest restoration/reforestation and maintaining a ranger service to control forest fires and pests.

CARBON CAPTURE

The San Jerónimo Coatlán project began in 2021, and following the enhanced forest management protocol of the Climate Action Reserve, we successfully certified carbon offsets totaling 285,355 tCO2e in 2022 and 2023, and are currently in the process of certification for 2024. Annually, the project removes approximately 155,000 tCO2e, and we expect to remove even more in future years.

MONITORING

Every even-numbered year, we conduct a comprehensive inventory across 40% of the area, taking random samples from 400 capture points. Every odd-numbered year, we conduct a reduced inventory across 10% of the area, taking random samples from 100 capture points.

All our inventories are summarized in a findings report, which is publicly available on the Climate Action Registry website and is verified by an external auditor. These audits include field assessments for our overall inventory where they remeasure and verify data compliance at 2% to 10% of our capture points.