Page 42 - 2417

Page 18 of 23 Chaib et al. Carbon Footprints 2026, 5, 23

characterizing the community rather than providing statistically representative estimates for all sub-groups.
Third, the empirical application is restricted to a single Quilombola territory, which limits direct
extrapolation of the observed LVI profile, baseline behavior and finance implications to other smallholder or
traditional-community settings with different socio-ecological configurations.

Additional limitations arise from the baseline and finance components. As discussed in Section “Accuracy
assessment and dynamic deforestation baseline”, the annual ex post baseline is more responsive to observed
deforestation dynamics than multi-year averaging, but this same responsiveness may generate interannual
variation in baseline levels, credit volumes and expected revenues, which can complicate long-term financial
planning in community-based projects . Baseline robustness also remains conditional on the stability and
[28]
classification performance of the adopted land-use product, even when conservative accuracy adjustments
are applied . In turn, the climate-resilience analysis in Section “Climate-resilience finance” is intentionally
[29]
illustrative: it does not fully internalize certification, transaction, monitoring and organizational costs, and
therefore likely overstates the share of gross revenues that could be effectively appropriated for livelihood
recovery and adaptation. The same applies to the regenerative-agriculture component, which is framed as
exploratory and order-of-magnitude only, rather than as a project-crediting estimate. Taken together, these
limitations do not invalidate the proposed framework, but indicate that its strongest contribution at present
lies in structuring a credible and socially targeted entry point for smallholder forest carbon initiatives, rather
than in offering a fully generalizable or financially complete implementation model.

CONCLUSION
The Curiaú case study shows that a vulnerability-based eligibility approach can be effectively operationalized
within a Quilombola territory in a technically rigorous manner, while maintaining social equity as a central
component of project design. The application of the Livelihood Vulnerability Indexes confirms Curiaú
within the moderate vulnerability range according to commonly adopted classifications in the literature,
while also meeting the module-defined thresholds for social eligibility. The results indicate that this approach
is particularly suited to smallholder and traditional-community contexts where livelihood vulnerability,
exposure to climate-related disturbances, and measurable forest-use pressures coexist, as observed in Curiaú,
provided that a representative household-level survey is available to compose the LVI and that accurate
high-resolution land-use and land-cover data are available to construct a dynamic baseline. In practical
terms, this means that the approach is most applicable to forest-oriented communities with predominantly
conservationist land-use dynamics, where baseline deforestation is limited or absent, but where the
surrounding reference still presents sufficient deforestation pressure, as in the Amapá state.

Importantly, the LVIs provide a robust foundation for diagnosis and evaluation of the effectiveness of
interventions, serving as a baseline against which changes in vulnerability can be tracked through repeated
assessments over time. These assessments following interventions - such as the implementation of carbon
credit schemes - can enable the measurement of impacts on community resilience. In this way, the LVIs
function not only as a diagnostic instrument but also as a framework for assessing additionality and project
effectiveness.

Additionally, the construction of an ex post dynamic deforestation baseline using open 10-metre land-cover
data, independent accuracy assessment and design-based area estimation indicates that high-integrity
avoided deforestation accounting is feasible in relatively small, heterogeneous landscapes dominated by
smallholders and traditional communities, such as Quilombola territories. These procedures contribute to
current debates on the integrity and transparency of baselines for small-scale REDD+-type initiatives. In
combination with the LVI, the approach is consistent with core additionality and integrity expectations