Cases / Carbon credits · Brazil · 2003–2008
Rabobank co-financed a Brazilian eucalyptus carbon plantation contested by locals
Short record: the main facts, with sources. A full case file has not been prepared.
Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
Not on record
- The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
Rabobank co-financed the Plantar eucalyptus plantation in Minas Gerais, Brazil, whose carbon credits were sold to a World Bank fund. Local communities say they were dispossessed, and offsets built on contested land raise questions for forests and the people who live on them.
What?
Rabobank co-financed Plantar, a eucalyptus plantation whose carbon credits were sold to a World Bank fund; local communities say the land was not abandoned. TNI and FIAN
Where?
Minas Gerais, Brazil (Plantar); Netherlands (Rabobank) TNI and FIAN
When?
Plantar carbon project from 2003; loan repaid 2008 according to Rabobank; Biomas founded November 2022 TNI and FIAN
Who?
Gained
- Rabobank — Co-financed the Plantar carbon project and held shares in the World Bank fund that bought its credits TNI and FIAN
Lost
- Local communities in Minas Gerais — Say they were dispossessed of land they did not regard as abandoned TNI and FIAN
Harmed
None on recordWhy?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
How?
Credits from a plantation on contested land were sold through a fund in which the financier held shares. TNI and FIAN
6 of 6 questions answered from the record
What happened
The record, in order.
Rabobank co-financed the Plantar carbon project in Minas Gerais from 2003, a 35,000-hectare eucalyptus plantation whose carbon credits were sold to the World Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund, in which Rabobank was a shareholder, according to TNI and FIAN.
Local communities told TNI and FIAN that the land was not abandoned and that they had been dispossessed; Rabobank said the loan was repaid in 2008.
In November 2022 Rabobank was among six companies that founded Biomas, a restoration initiative with a target of 4 million hectares over 20 years.
Rabobank's Rabo Farm Europe Fund, with 315 million euros, bought and leased farmland in Eastern Europe, according to TNI and FIAN.
In court and with insurers
Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.
Lawsuits and rulings
No court case on record. No court has ruled on this case.
Insurers
No insurer decision on record.
What we don't know
Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.
Nature
- Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.
Record
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: ING, Rabobank and ABN AMRO lent 3.1 billion euros to deforestation-risk commodities in 2016 to 2021, according to Milieudefensie and Profundo.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: Dutch consumption uses about 2.5 times the country's land area, more than 80% of it abroad (2013 data).
- None on record The sources reviewed do not give the volume of Plantar's carbon credits or the price paid.
Did the harm stop?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Who paid?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Sources
Voices on record: — Company or project— Government and regulators— Courts— Press and investigations✓ Communities and civil society— Researchers
Communities and civil society
- The Netherlands and the Global Land and Water GrabTNI and FIAN · 2013
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