Documenting nature projects: baseline, monitoring and traceability

What is a baseline?

A baseline is a record of the condition of an area of land at a specific point in time, typically before a project begins. It is later used as a basis for comparison. It must be dated, linked to a location and clear enough for someone else to repeat the recording process.

Five requirements for robust documentation

• Location: every photograph and measurement has a recorded position.
• Time: the date and time are shown, and the weather on the day is noted.
• Source: public data is identified by name and retrieval date.
• Assessment: a named specialist has confirmed or rejected each point.
• Integrity: the report is locked to a specific version, for example with a SHA-256 hash, so that subsequent changes can be detected.

Monitoring and follow-up flights

Once the project has started, recording is repeated from the same points. This provides before-and-after images that can genuinely be compared, rather than random photographs taken from different angles.

MRV and nature projects

MRV stands for Measurement, Reporting and Verification. The term is used particularly in relation to climate impacts. Freyra does not calculate climate or nitrogen impacts. We document the starting point and subsequent changes, giving calculations carried out elsewhere a firm basis.

Who uses the documentation?

The municipality as the authority and project owner, the landowner, foundations that need to see what their funding is being spent on, and the local tripartite partnerships that track progress. Because their needs differ, the documentation should be readable without specialist tools, for example as a PDF with a list of sources.