The WALD Innovation Facility provides grant funding to ground-breaking projects that drive sustainable growth, biodiversity conservation and enhanced livelihoods to local communities. In 2025, six projects demonstrated promising scalable, high-integrity approaches that combine carbon sequestration with biodiversity conservation and local livelihood benefits. These projects will be awarded a total of €5.9 million by the Facility to support the implementation until June 2027.
With the provision of technical support on carbon, biodiversity and social, the Innovation Facility ensures that its grantees deliver high-integrity carbon projects that go beyond carbon standards requirements, closing the gap between market readiness and the need for innovation in international carbon markets. The flagship projects highlighted below represent the Facility’s pivotal step in scaling nature-based initiatives that deliver measurable improvements for climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods.
Agroforestry for Carbon, Ecosystems and Livelihoods. With the support of the Innovation Facility, the Agroforestry for Carbon, Ecosystems, and Livelihoods project introduces a regenerative farming model that integrates coffee production and pasture areas with native trees and diverse crops in a layered, forest-like system based on the principles of syntropic agriculture. This approach restores degraded lands, improves soil health, and enhances biodiversity while reducing dependency on chemical inputs and irrigation. In both coffee and pasture systems, the establishment of multi-strata vegetation increases climate resilience, protecting crops and forages against recurrent droughts and temperature extremes. Tree cover and ground vegetation contribute to carbon sequestration in biomass and soils, while improving water retention and microclimate regulation. The generated carbon credits will be certified under Gold Standard, ensuring transparency and measurable environmental impact. Additionally, the project supports rural families by strengthening their long-term resilience, diversifying income sources, and creating opportunities for sustainable livelihoods. Beyond its socioeconomic benefits, the regenerative agroforestry model expands and connects natural habitats for wildlife, providing ecological corridors for vulnerable species such as the Crowned Solitary Eagle and the Blue-winged Macaw which dwell in the nearby Key Biodiversity Areas namely Parque Estadual da Serra do Papagaio and Parque Nacional de Itatiaia.
ECOSAFE Seagrass Restoration Project. The Gulf of Gabès, a critical hotspot for marine biodiversity in Tunisia and the Mediterranean, is home to extensive seagrass meadows of Neptune Grass. However, seagrass meadows face growing threats from abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) floating in the shallow waters and de-rooting seagrass plants. This pressure is jeopardising both marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities dependent on marine ecosystems. The Gulf of Gabès contributes 40% of Tunisia’s national fish production and around 17,000 fishers rely on it for their livelihoods. With support from the Innovation Facility, the ECOSAFE Seagrass Restoration Project will systematically remove ghost nets from the shallow waters of the Gulf. The project works with fishermen to prevent the loss of fishing gear in the future. This will allow seagrass beds to recover naturally. Carbon sequestration in the seabed is a side effect allowing to raise funds from carbon markets, where carbon gains are reported using Verified Carbon Methodology.
Batang Asai Forest Restoration (B-FOREST). Located in the unprotected buffer zone of the Kerinci Seblat National Park on Sumatra Island, the B-FOREST Project the B-FOREST Project area is home to the critically endangered Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and Agile gibbon (Hylobates agilis), among others. With support from the Innovation Facility aims to restore 17,000 ha of dense rainforest, while protecting more than 121,000 ha of dense rainforest. The project activities are focus on tree planting and reducing wildfires, which are frequent during the dry season and pose a major barrier to forest regeneration.
The main beneficiaries of the project are the indigenous people and local communities (IP&LC) that lives around the project area. More than 15,000 IP&LC in the 16 villages around the project area are expected to be benefited through active participation in the project. The project will also strengthen land access and tenure through participatory land-use planning, trainings and capacity building in sustainable agriculture and better land management.
Pahang Peatland Restoration Project. The Pahang Peatland Restoration Project focuses on restoring and conserving approximately 100,000 hectares of peatland and marshland in Pahang State, Malaysia. Support from the Innovation Facility will enable targeted restoration measures, including rewetting to improve the water table, reforestation of degraded patches, and the establishment of monitoring systems to track ecological recovery. Currently under validation by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the project is set to issue 3.1 million carbon credits per year. Local people, including indigenous communities benefit from payments for their participation in conservation and restoration activities, as well as from access to community development funds. Beyond these direct gains, the ecological improvements achieved through the project will help safeguard long-term livelihoods by reducing fire risks, preventing floods, and enhancing the resilience of both the environment and the communities who depend on it. Beyond carbon sequestration, the project also benefits an important biodiversity area, which hosts 244 plant, 68 mammal, 279 bird, 70 fish, 50 amphibian, and 15 reptile species
Located on formally recognised lands of 16 communities, the Zanzibar Community Restoration Project will, with the Innovation Facility support, bend the curve of degradation by scaling to 3,500 ha restoration of mangroves and the rare coral rag forests. The project seeks carbon certification following Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodologies VM0033 for mangroves and VM0047 for forests and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard (CCBA) to ascertain its positive impacts on climate, local communities and biodiversity. Communities will benefit from the sale of carbon credits and will receive support to strengthen their livelihoods including resources for climate-smart agriculture and the development of forest-based enterprises such as beekeeping, ecotourism, poultry rearing and the production of artifacts and curios.
EAGLE Project. Heavy logging, recurrent fires and subsequent invasion by non-native species – this is the lamentable degradation trajectory of many South-East Asian forests over the last decades, including the Mindanao island of the Philippines. The critically endangered Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) lends its name to the EAGLE restoration project, which aims to restore 7,500 ha invaded by the Matico tree (Piper aduncum), a small tree native to Central and South America. The Manobo-Matigsalug indigenous community leads the EAGLE restoration project, which is deploying local tree species such as Laurel Maple (Acer laurinum) and various Podocarpus species. Against the background of challenged food security due to unstainable use of the forest resource, the EAGLE project supports 660 Manobo-Matigsalug households to establish abaca- and coffee-based agroforestry systems. Carbon finance is the enabler of the restoration project; carbon credits will be certified against the Gold Standard methodology for Afforestation/Reforestation.