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THE SECOND “D”:
certifying avoided
fire degradation
in tropical forests
Francisco Bidone, Technical Director, Ecora
Virgílio Vianna, Strategic and Scientific Counsellor, Ecora
Ecora, launched at COP30 in Belém by Bradesco, prevailing methodologies credit avoided
BNDES and Fundo Ecogreen, is a Brazilian carbon deforestation but exclude fire degradation
credit certification body and climate and carbon or treat it only conceptually. Savanna fire
tech infrastructure. Aimed at high-integrity management, as practised in northern Australia,
carbon credits through the latest technological relies on early dry-season controlled burning,
advances, it develops methodologies calibrated potentially applicable to the Brazilian Cerrado
to tropical realities, aligned with global best but ecologically inverse to humid tropical forests.
practices and international protocols, and Jurisdictional REDD+ programmes increasingly
subject to independent review. account for degradation, so projects must be
nested from the outset.
Ecora’s proposed fire-degradation module
Ecora intends to develop a fire-degradation
module within its REDD+ methodology, running on
its dMRV platform, with four components.
1 Degradation is quantified through canopy
damage and tree mortality, combining
satellite, lidar and field data over several
years, as burned trees keep dying.
2 A climate-aware baseline, driven by an
ignition and spread model incorporating
drought, forest edges, roads and ignition
sources, estimates expected burning each
year; credits reflect expected minus observed
outcomes, so wet years yield no windfall and
El Niño years do not erase genuine effort.
A growing source of emissions 3 Brigade operations (dispatch, response times,
Fire is a structural driver of carbon loss in forests containment) are logged to evidence impact
and savannas worldwide. In the Amazon, whose beyond existing public programmes.
humid forests evolved under low fire frequency, 4 Each pixel is classified as intact, fire-degraded
the evidence is unequivocal. Brazilian Amazon or deforested, preventing double counting.
fire emissions averaged 454 MtCO per year
2
in 2003–2015, rising to 989 MtCO in drought Ecora acts solely as certifier: it designs the module,
2
1
years . Fire-driven degradation released 791 ± accredits data and model providers and audits,
2
86 MtCO across Pan-Amazonia in 2024 alone . but neither develops projects nor profits from
2
Degradation now rivals deforestation as a carbon credit sales. The baseline model must be open,
3
source , and fire-induced tree mortality persists versioned and reviewed by an independent
4
for years . The 2026 El Niño drought brought scientific panel. Indigenous and community
severe smoke to Manaus. brigades, engaged through free, prior and
informed consent, are central, remunerated for
An unoccupied methodological gap verified effort rather than penalised for climate-
The second “D” of REDD+, forest degradation, driven fires. Nesting with states, alignment with
5
remains largely uncredited at project level: Brazil’s SBCE and data partnerships with INPE
20
