Prospects for durable conservation

The Cajambre REDD+ Project is designed to deliver three interlocking goals: (1) large-scale emission reductions by protecting 60,316 hectares of tropical forest in Colombia’s high-biodiversity Pacific region; (2) conservation of the exceptional ecosystems of the Chocó-Darién bioregion, including rich forests, mangroves, and coastal systems; and (3) improved livelihoods and stronger governance for the Afro-Colombian community of the Consejo Comunitario del Río Cajambre.

The project is well positioned to achieve these objectives thanks to a strong institutional foundation and over a decade of participatory development. The project developer—the community council itself, supported by Fondo Acción, and previously by USAID’s BIOREDD+ and Páramos y Bosques programs—has combined legal recognition, community governance, and sustainable production into a coherent territorial strategy, as laid olut in the Propject’s ToC:

•  Secure collective land tenure: The community holds collective title to its ancestral territory through Resolution No. 04116 (1998) issued by INCORA, providing a solid legal foundation for forest protection and ensuring genuine community ownership of the REDD+ process.
• Deep and continuous community participation: A thoroughly conducted FPIC process—spanning more than thirteen years—has strengthened local legitimacy and built confidence in forest conservation as a viable and fair economic alternative. After years of out-migration and external pressures, REDD+-funded governance activities are now helping families return, rebuild homes, and reinvest in their riverine villages.
• Economic diversification and livelihoods: The Cajambre territory is transitioning from dependence on extractive activities such as logging to a diversified, sustainable economy centered on naidí (açaí), coconut, river shrimp, and piangua (mangrove shellfish). Through carbon finance, the project funds technical assistance, production training, and market access—for instance, the naidí value chain, which enables local producers to sell frozen pulp to national markets. Traditional products such as “viche”, a local sugarcane-based spirit, have also benefited from improved processing technology and commercialization support.

Together, these efforts position the project to deliver material and lasting impact. By reducing deforestation and degradation, Cajambre contributes significant avoided emissions while maintaining habitat connectivity in a globally important biodiversity hotspot. The integration of sustainable livelihoods and forest governance shifts the local economic calculus—making forest conservation more profitable and socially valuable than extraction.

Nonetheless, the project’s long-term success will depend on continued enforcement, transparent benefit-sharing, and robust territorial governance. Transitioning from a subsidy-driven model to one based on self-sustaining value chains remains a gradual process. Yet the Cajambre REDD+ Project is credibly structured to transform the fundamental economics of a living forest—by linking community income, social cohesion, and governance capacity directly to conservation outcomes.

The model has already inspired neighboring communities such as Naya and Timbiquí, which are adopting similar approaches. Looking ahead, there is clear potential for geographic and thematic scaling—expanding into adjacent Afro-Colombian collective territories with comparable ecological and institutional conditions, and developing new value chains such as açaí, coconut processing, non-timber forest products and eco-tourism.