'We don't know where the money goes': 'carbon cowboys' make millions from credit schemes

In a feature for the Guardian, biodiversity and environment reporter Patrick Greenfield and Nyasha Chingono, a freelance reporter from Zimbabwe, report on "carbon cowboys" - groups that "select and sign large tracts of land in the developing world" for nature's carbon markets. The article focuses on a series of schemes carbon offsets in the districts surrounding Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe. Most people "have no idea that their villages have been at the center of a multimillion-dollar carbon boom," the article says: "These communities are part of a massive, lucrative Kariba conservation project that covers an area almost the size of Puerto Rico. it is among the largest in the portfolio of forest compensation systems approved by Verra, the world's largest certified entity. Since 2011, this project alone has generated more than €100 million (£85 million) in revenue from the sale of carbon credits equivalent to Kenya's national emissions in 2022 to Western companies. (carbonbrief.org, More at theguardian.com)