Owning land does not automatically mean owning the carbon stored on it. In many jurisdictions these are separate legal questions, and a project that assumes otherwise can complete validation and then discover it cannot transfer what it is selling.
Three Layers That Must Align
| Layer | Question | Common complication |
|---|---|---|
| Land tenure | Who holds rights to the land itself? | Overlapping statutory and customary claims |
| Resource rights | Who holds rights to trees and vegetation? | Often separate from land title |
| Carbon rights | Who may claim and transfer the carbon? | Frequently unlegislated or newly legislated |
Where all three sit with one party, the position is simple. Where they do not, which is common in forest landscapes, the project needs an agreement chain linking whoever holds each layer to whoever is selling the credit.
The Customary Rights Problem
Formal title and actual use frequently diverge. Land registered to the state, or to a concession holder, may be used and managed under customary arrangements recognised locally and, in some jurisdictions, legally.
A carbon project that secures the statutory position and ignores the customary one has a legal file that looks complete and an operational risk that is not. The people who will determine whether trees remain standing are the people using the land, which is why tenure clarity feeds directly into permanence risk assessment.
What a Buyer's Lawyer Examines
A traceable chain from the party holding rights to the party selling the credit, with each link documented. Evidence that customary claims were identified rather than assumed absent. And clarity about what happens to carbon rights if land title changes hands during the crediting period, which is a period that may run for decades.
Where This Is Moving
Jurisdictions building carbon frameworks are increasingly legislating carbon rights explicitly rather than leaving them to be inferred. That is broadly positive, and it creates a transitional risk: projects established under the old ambiguity may need to reconfirm their position under the new statute.
Worth checking rather than assuming, particularly in markets undergoing active reform.
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.
