Ten thousand hectares of fallow Jhum land in Nagaland, restored by Naga communities inside the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot. Land held under Article 371A. A 40-year crediting period inside a century of stewardship.
Fallow Jhum land restored across Tseminyu and Longleng
Net issuable carbon credits over forty years
people in cohort villages, across eight districts
Native species across four canopy layers, chosen village by village
Tseminyu and Longleng — two districts of Nagaland, held by clan, village, and household under customary law. Two restoration models run in parallel, 5,000 hectares each, alongside livelihood pilots. Carbon credits fund the patience the work requires; the stewardship outlasts them.
Patkai range · 800–2,000 m · the warm corner of Nagaland
Short-rotation income continues from year one; perennial understory crops — coffee especially — begin producing by year five. Livelihood pilots (poultry, piggery, terrace cultivation, fishery) woven in alongside.
Degraded slopes stabilised, intact-forest corridors reconnected. Livelihood pilots — coffee nurseries, livestock, terrace cultivation, fishery — structured around restoration, not displaced by it.
Methodology
VM0047v1.1Co-benefits
Developers
A 40-year crediting period on a six-year planting ramp. The stewardship continues well past it.
Pilot
30 ha · 15 ha agroforestry in Tseminyu, 15 ha restoration in Longleng · June–September
First cohort
1,500 ha planted · livelihood pilots underway
First issuance
Credits begin issuing from the pilot cohort
Full scale
10,000 ha under community management across both districts
Peak yield
117,248 tCO₂e annual issuance · 11.72 tCO₂e/ha/yr
Crediting closes
40-year period ends · the forest stands · stewardship continues
A pilot of thirty hectares begins this June. By 2031, the model carries ten thousand. The story sits in three beats — read each, then read the whole.
Tseminyu and Longleng — Naga homelands inside the Indo-Burma hotspot. Land held under Article 371A: not the state's to lease, the village's to honour.
Read
A polyculture of forty crops in one plot. Fallows that once lasted twenty years now last four. Elders distinguish thin soil from fat soil; the project is the path back.
Read
Trees between crops, not instead of them. Half of net cash flow flows to the community fund — reviewed at every verification.
ReadThe project's outcomes map to seven of the United Nations' SDGs — climate, biodiversity, livelihoods, equity, and the partnerships that hold the work together.
01 · No Poverty
02 · Zero Hunger
05 · Gender Equality
08 · Decent Work
13 · Climate Action
15 · Life on Land
17 · Partnerships
Baselines are derived from matched Jhum control plots, not an assumed business-as-usual. Sentinel-2 canopy cover with NDFI supports a ground-plot network that calibrates against AGB in this biome. The methodology, the carbon pools, and the governance approach all sit in one place.
In 1963, the Constitution recognised that the forests of Nagaland were never the state's to lease away. Sixty-three years later, the same protection is what allows a village in Longleng to issue a carbon credit. The land has not changed hands. It will not change hands. That is the project.
Two project proponents and two local-led implementation partners — one per district — operate under a single carbon framework and a single benefit-sharing approach.
Project proponent
Carbon-market infrastructure, registry interface, credit origination, buyer relationships, and the financial backbone that absorbs establishment cost.
Co-project proponent
Project design, dMRV architecture, methodology engineering, investor relations, and the knowledge system that holds the project together.
Local-led · grassroots
An award-winning community steward of the Tseminyu landscape. Leads agroforestry at 600–700 trees per hectare with coffee, cardamom, pepper, and annual crops between rows. Holds the line on FPIC and Gram Sabha governance.
Local-led · grassroots
An award-winning community steward of the Longleng landscape. Leads full-scale restoration at 1,000–1,200 trees per hectare across degraded slopes, with alternative livelihoods woven in from year one.
Eight chapters. The land, the rhythm of Jhum, the Morung as the first ecological school, the carbon bridge, the pact, and what a hundred-year horizon looks like from the village square.
Read the storyCarbon-project documentation can be overwhelming. Tell us who you are; we’ll curate the pack relevant to your role and send it via email — financial model, legal agreements, partner briefs, the PDD draft.
Get in touch