An HCV assessment identifies values in a landscape that must be maintained or enhanced regardless of what else the project does. It is usually treated as a compliance document. It is more usefully treated as a design input, because its findings constrain where activities can happen.
The Six Categories
| HCV | Value |
|---|---|
| 1 | Species diversity — concentrations of biological diversity, including endemic and threatened species |
| 2 | Landscape-level ecosystems — large intact areas with viable populations |
| 3 | Ecosystems and habitats — rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems |
| 4 | Critical ecosystem services — watershed protection, erosion control |
| 5 | Community needs — sites fundamental to local subsistence |
| 6 | Cultural values — sites of cultural, archaeological or religious significance |
The first four are ecological and identified through survey and existing data. The last two require engagement with the people who hold those values, and cannot be determined remotely.
Why It Belongs Early
An assessment run after project design is complete frequently identifies values in exactly the areas the design intended to intervene in — a planting area that is community grazing land, or a harvest block containing a culturally significant site.
Run before design, the same information shapes where activities go. The cost difference between these two sequences is substantial, and it is entirely avoidable.
The Link to Carbon Accounting
HCV findings can reduce the creditable area, because areas set aside for conservation values may not support the planned activity.
That is not a loss to be minimised quietly. A project that documents a reduced but defensible project area is in a better position than one that claims the full area and has the exclusion identified at validation which raises questions about everything else in the file.
Check the land before you commit
Eligibility turns on land history and forest cover at a cut-off date. TREEO Eligibility runs satellite-based forest cover detection on your area of interest, before a single seed goes into the ground.
