Plan Vivo producers in Uganda (above) and Mexico (below)

What is the Plan Vivo System?

Plan Vivo is a framework for community-based land use projects. Registered Plan Vivo projects support communities in activities that improve livelihoods, conserve and restore local ecosystems, and help to fight and adapt to climate change through payments for ecosystem services (PES).

A practical, bottom-up approach to land-use

Land-use change is a major cause of CO₂ emissions and also accelerates degradation of ecosystems, undermining the well-being of rural communities. Deforestation and poverty are inextricably linked, creating a strong need for a system that helps to provide rural communities with the tools and resources they need to establish better land management.

Plan Vivo provides a robust, practical system for land-use change projects that deliver quantifiable benefits.

What do Plan Vivo projects do?

Small-holders and communities ('Plan Vivo producers') design and implement land-management plans called plan vivos, incorporating one or more of the following:

• Afforestation and reforestation
• Agroforestry
• Forest restoration
• Avoided deforestation and forest conservation

The first plan vivo drawn up by farmer Antonio Gomez Demesa in 1996 in Mexico