Tabu dakbus (Protected forest)

It was a Chief’s vision for conservation that lay the groundwork for Loru’s forest carbon project

By Nakau

January 4^th, 2023

In the east of Vanuatu’s Santo Island, nestled between farmland and the Loru rainforest, is the village of Khole.

It’s here that Chief Skip Ser is pointing out the new developments in the village paid for with carbon credit sales from the Loru Forest Carbon Project.

His son’s house is nearly built too – paid for with his salary from working as a Ranger on the project for six years. Just some walls and the interior left to go.

Under the Rangers’ care is close to 300 hectares of tropical rainforest, home to the rare and endangered coconut crab and the threatened Vanuatu megapode. The forest is also habitat for several endemic birds including kingfishers, flycatchers and Golden whistlers.

In the nursery by the Ranger’s office, new seedlings sit grouped ready for planting. These are native trees destined for a section of farmland next to the rainforest where merremia peltata — an invasive vine weed — has taken over.

As part of the Loru project, Rangers and the community are investing in their own livelihoods by clearing merremia and reforesting old agricultural land as productive agro-forestry plots.

“The Loru project is a great example of how forest carbon projects can address climate change and support Indigenous landholders at the same time.”

"The Loru project is a great example of how forest carbon projects can address climate change and support Indigenous landholders at the same time," says Nakau Project Manager Alex McClean. “The Serakar Clan are paid to employ Rangers to undertake conservation work protecting the forest."

"Globally, we all benefit from the carbon sequestered in the forest, and the whole local community benefits through the reinvestment of carbon credit income in community projects and livelihoods, and through their own strengthened climate resilience.”

The Loru Forest Conservation Project is a collaboration between the Serakar Clan, Nakau and Live & Learn Vanuatu that started in 2013, using the Nakau methodology.

An official community conservation area was established under Vanuatu law in 2015.

“Loru is a signature carbon project in the Pacific, and a great leader for others in Vanuatu now embarking on carbon projects,” says Alex.

The community has been receiving income from credit sales since 2016, and currently employs three Rangers from the Serakar clan to protect the forest and run the family’s conservation business Serthiac.

This income also pays for all the children’s school fees, has purchased water tanks for their houses, solar street lights for the community and new roofs for the church and nakamal (traditional Melanesian meeting hall).

But it’s witnessing a community become fiercely committed to conservation that is one of the most rewarding outcomes of this project.

“If I organise a workday to cut merremia vines in the forest, everyone comes, even all our kids,” says Chief Skip Ser. “This wasn’t always the case, especially when people didn’t understand the benefits of conservation.”

A legacy for Loru

Protecting and restoring the Loru forest was part of a legacy left by Skip’s late father Chief Kaleb Ser.

It was in the 1990s — pre-dating both the introduction of Community Conservation Area legislation in Vanuatu, and the carbon market.

Kaleb was the Serakar clan Chief at that time, and he decided to develop a customary protected area, known as Tabu, over a section of the remaining forest at Loru, with the support of British naturalist and bird specialist Roy Hills.

At the time, Skip was not convinced his father’s initiative was a good idea.

“I remember telling Dad, ‘You must be crazy. How do you know we won’t lose our land to this foreigner?’” says Chief Skip.

“One thing Dad said in reply that really stuck with me later was ‘Look around, if we are not careful with the forest and birds and marine resources we have, we might lose them’.”

Chief Skip explains nobody was doing any conservation at the time — the forest was disappearing, cleared for timber, cattle, coconut plantations and gardens.

“But we also didn’t really know what a ‘conservation project’ was, or if it was a good thing or not,” remembers Chief Skip.

Despite Skip’s reservations, which were shared by other family members, the Tabu area was established under Chief Kaleb Ser. This helped protect the forest to some extent — but cattle grazing and land-clearing continued to encroach on the forest, especially after Chief Kaleb passed away.

It was the community working with the Nakau Programme and Live & Learn that finally cemented Kaleb’s vision. They committed to renewed conservation efforts and the forest became a formal Community Conservation Area under Vanuatu law — the very same protected rainforest now forms the Loru Forest Carbon Project.

“I look back now and think I was the one who must have been crazy, not Dad,” says Skip. “It’s very hard for me to tell this story. Every time I think of it, I feel sorry. Dad had a vision — we just couldn’t see it at the time. He was thinking about all of us, not himself.”