Just over a year ago, the Indonesian government officially approved the country's first REDD+ forest carbon conservation project: Rimba Raya, which aims to protect more than 64,000 hectares of peat forest in Central Kalimantan. The approval came after years of delays from the Ministry of Forestry and a substantial reduction in the project's concession area. It also coincided with a period of plunging demand and prices for carbon credits in the E.U., the world's largest market. But InfiniteEarth, the firm behind the project, pressed on. Now a year later, Rimba Raya's is not only still in business, but is scaling up its operations, including developing programs that support livelihoods that depend less on forest destruction and extraction.

Cognizant of the ups and downs of the carbon market, Todd Lemons, Founder of InfinteEARTH, says the project is about more than just selling carbon credits.

"We do not believe that it is responsible for us to facilitate making communities dependent on carbon revenue subsidies, particularly given the uncertainty of carbon markets. To do so would perpetuate the cycle of poverty," Lemons told Mongabay.com. "Instead, we are focused on using carbon revenues for income diversification programs that will be self-perpetuating in the short-term and be economically sustainable in the long-term. In short, on a local level, we are trying to move communities away from an unsustainable extractive model to a sustainable productive model."

But that said, carbon will pay a key role in financing the model.

"The use of carbon markets is the only current viable way to pay for successful large-scale forest protection in developing countries under constant pressure for economic growth," Lemons said. "REDD+ can and is successfully saving forests and Rimba Raya is one that has been saved due to carbon markets, as imperfect as they may be."

Lemons adds that he believes demand could come from industries that have historically driven deforestation through their consumption or production of commodities. He argues that REDD+ credits are a way for companies to help meet their climate commitments while simultaneously supporting forest conservation and forest-dependent communities.

"Corporate support for fully verified, community-focused, REDD projects is one way for these companies to make good on their commitments," he said. "For companies with large deforestation footprints such as the large palm oil consumers, it’s in their shareholders’ best interest that they begin using the available mechanisms for environmental mitigation."

"As yet, these mechanisms are not cost prohibitive since there are available assets with which to stock the land banks that will be later used for mitigation banking. Therefore, our outlook for the REDD+ market is overwhelmingly optimistic."

Rimba Raya is well-positioned if a broader market for REDD+ credits does emerge. The conservation area borders Tanjung Puting National Park, a swathe of peat forest that supports a large population of endangered Bornean orangutans. In fact, Rimba Raya has a partnership agreement with Orangutan Foundation International, a conservation group founded by Birute Galdikas, one of anthropologist Louis Leakey's famed "Trimates" or "Leakey's Angels" (Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey were the others). The area surrounding the park is also being fast cleared for oil palm plantations and mining activities, creating an urgency to protect what forest remains. Lemons estimates the effort could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 100 million tons over its 30-year life-span relative to what would happen if the area is left unprotected.