The Plan Vivo System is a framework for developing and managing community-based land-use projects where communities generate long-term carbon, livelihood and ecosystem benefits.

Project participants are smallholders and forest-dependent communities in developing countries.

The Plan Vivo System works through projects following these key steps and processes:

Community-led design

Plan Vivo project design is community-led. Communities decide which land use activities (e.g. woodlots, agroforestry, forest conservation) will best address threats to local ecosystems and are of interest and value to them.

Eligible project activities include afforestation and agroforestry, forest conservation, restoration and avoided deforestation. Activities are implemented by smallholders or communities on their own land, or land where the community has long-term user rights.a

Writing plan vivos

Each ‘producer’ or ‘producer group’ (where the land is communally owned or managed) writes their own ‘plan vivo’, a land-management plan laying out activities that will be implemented.

Individual small-holders and community groups choose which system suits their circumstances and priorities, creating a mosaic of interventions across the project area.

Each plan vivo is evaluated by the project coordinator to check it is realistic and in line with technical requirements. Using the project’s approved technical specification (which includes a methodology for calculating carbon sequestered or emissions avoided), the ecosystem services generated from each plan vivo can be calculated.

Sale agreements

Producers and producer groups enter into sale agreements with the project coordinator, who agrees to make staged payments and provide continued technical support and training workshops. Producers then implement activities according to their plan vivo.

Monitoring and payments

The project coordinator monitors the implementation and management of plan vivos, and when producers meet their monitoring targets, the coordinator will make a payment (a payment for ecosystem services). This incentivises continued good management practices and helps cover establishment and labour costs. Monitoring indicators are designed to be simple and cost-effective to measure, particularly to enable the project to use local technicians for monitoring.