Carbon aid plan for Congo gets funding

Published on Saturday 28 June 2008 17:05

A CARBON trading organisation is stepping up efforts to help save the Congo rainforest, after winning a multi-million-pound deal from the Department for International Development (DFID).

DFID has chosen Plan Vivo, based in Edinburgh, to work with the Rain Forest Foundation on the project which will have 100m of money pumped into it this year.

Plan Vivo is in discussion with the parties involved to find out how much access it will get to this investment.

Businesses, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Tetra Pak, buy Plan Vivo carbon certificates to help reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and the money is invested in sustainable environmental schemes across the globe.

Willie McGhee, of Plan Vivo, said: "We'll work in the Congo basin countries to assess whether it's possible to save the rain forest by applying our system to channel funds into the area to avoid de-forestation."

Plan Vivo was established in the mid-1990s, making it one of the first carbon credit schemes and the only one of its type being run in Scotland.

It has a number of other projects in the pipeline, including sustainable development work in Malawi and Rwanda.

The not-for-profit organisation based in Liberton Brae is planning to recruit another two or three graduates to work on its projects.