Dear John,
Hope you are doing fine. Since you have already published the article dated 9th January 2024, perhaps it is time for us to reply to you instead of waiting for you to amend the article by correcting your wrong statements and misrepresentations. Some of the aspects and points we are writing to you today were already communicated to you earlier.
You have written the article dated 9th January 2024 with an intention to discredit and create harm to us. It’s prejudiced and one sided. You did not care to mention even a single aspect of the good works done by KMS on the subject REDD+ projects despite we provided you lots of information since May 2022, evidenced as per emails shown below.
Your statement that we never responded to your queries is wrong. We have provided adequate information to you on the subject projects since May 2022, but you never reported the facts. Blatant disregard to the basic principles of journalism. Your articles have been completely one sided with misleading, derogatory, and unprofessional statements. You never really cared to read the project documents in detail but took other persons opinions prominently. At the same time, you are asking some questions which are under the purview of the certification body. The relevant project specific aspects are already taken note of by the respective certification bodies. Please understand that you are not the certification body, let the certification bodies do their own job please, which they are very much competent of doing.
- Detailed reading provided to you in the past about one of our REDD+ project in DRC and one of our REDD+ project in PNG.
https://kms-group.com/news-media/
After reading this information, you should have adequate clarity on the facts and evidence related to the subject REDD+ projects.
- We will never tell you not to write about us or our projects. Very well you can, but not with prejudice and biased reporting with an aim of demotivating project stake holders. Your choice of words does not look professional and rather disappointing and shows your character and jealousy. What’s your problem? Are you paid to do this biased and one side reporting or you are simply falling on us out of jealousy because we are from a particular country and the projects are located in the least developed countries? Trying to sabotage this kind of community-based REDD+ projects in an illegal manner is out right inhuman and criminal. Are we going to these countries to loot the people or to indulge in human rights violations or trouble the people? Dear Mr.John, let us be realistic. We are going there to bring value to the stake holders, local communities, and the nation at large. Please be aware of that. But you are sitting in office and judging us the way you like it and writing without any sort of ethics and control on choice of words.
We respect you as an independent and professional journalist, and you have all the right to write facts related to REDD+ projects. But intentionally showing a project in bad light by selecting topics where there is no clarity and using words like “scam” is not looking very professional dear John. Why did you not mention any developmental work we did in the projects in your article? Did you not see the project specific website we have mentioned above before you wrote that article? Please understand that we are ready to improve our processes and enhance our technical rigour if we are short of in any specific areas. We are continuous learners. We are always ready to improve our systems and processes if need be. We have no problem at all, we are always willing to correct our shortcomings. But this kind of discouraging articles and malicious attacks with mala fide intentions are not productive and useful for the planet.
- You may appreciate the fact that right from day one of our company operations and until today, we never took any external loan or grant or advance payments from anyone whatsoever. We have not even opened a credit line in our banks until today. We always ran our company based on our savings from our company operations and sometimes if required some short-term loan from the Directors. We do not spend money on PR and propagandas. We have no money to pay for writing or not writing about us. We have literally no presence or very scant presence in the social media with literally no activity. We work closely and diligently on our projects. That’s our focus. If there are any shortcomings in our approaches, we are always eager to correct, learn and improve our processes and approaches on a continuous basis.
- DRC REDD+ project: Please note that the DRC REDD+ project Verra 2320 (Status: Rejected by Administrator) was published on Verra web site for the public comments in the month of July 2021. In the published PD/MR (VCS+CCB) of 2021 itself the project specific domain https://nationalreddplusprojectdrcongo.org/ is mentioned. You can check the document even right now. This domain is active all throughout since 2021.
You can reach this project specific website by typing https://reddplusprojectdrcongo.earth/ also.
Please check the documents which are publicly visible on the Verra website at https://registry.verra.org/app/projectDetail/VCS/2320.
As a responsible journalist you should wait until you get the correct information before writing publicly on any organization or project. You did immense damage to the subject REDD+ projects and our company’s reputation. When you are damaging a project’s reputation without any proper reason by writing like this, you are damaging local community developmental prospects and their children future also, which is the paramount objective in any REDD+ project activity. This is not fair from you Mr John. We are sure that you have never pursued effectively to seek relevant information about our DRC project and even PNG project but went on to write false statements, which are misleading and injurious to the projects and our company’s reputation. Are you doing this for attracting attention or with some motive? You have never checked the DRC REDD+ project PD/MR, in spite of providing you the details. You did not even see the project specific website before writing your 2022 article. This is not fair. Is writing a fair and unbiased informative article is your objective or you are interested in writing some eye catching, misleading, incorrect, derogatory, and malicious statements? Your ill intentions are very clear from the day one of your reporting on our projects, which is quite unfortunate.
- DRC REDD+ project: We clearly explained to you already that we have conducted several stake holder meetings in the project areas, pictures available on project website and we have documents signed with communities in all chiefdoms fully addressing FPIC requirements. Already submitted the relevant evidence and documents to the Ministry. Absolutely fine and no concerns at all. Have you not seen some of the community stake holder consultation meetings pictures on the project website? We cannot put all pictures on the project website, as it is we have put more than a thousand pictures on this website Please note that many meeting’s pictures were not taken due to non-availability of working and adequately charged smart phone with our focal point team at the time of meetings. It happened many times during the last several years in DRC, due to the nature of country specific conditions and ground realities. Still, what else you want to know about FPIC? Without doing elaborate FPIC, will the host government administration ever give five different approvals for the project? Please use some common-sense Mr John. We have obtained homologation certificates, attestation identification certificates, compliance certificates, CN REDD certificates issued by Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MEDD) and Certificate of positive environmental clearance issued by Congolese Environmental Agency (ACE). Some of these approval documents have mentioned the project areas explicitly in the approval document itself. Details of which can be seen in the PD/MR hosted publicly on Verra project page. You are simply trying to create confusion on some feature of the project which has fundamentally and structurally happened for sure.
- DRC REDD+ project: Have you ever seen a carbon credits project with five different approvals from the host government and did so much extensive developmental work before the REDD+ project even started the validation process? Any carbon credits project in any standard. Our DRC REDD+ project is certainly one such lone example. Look at the work done by us which is evident from the project specific website. Many REDD+ projects post pictures sourced from internet on their project specific websites. We did post only our project specific original photos and videos.
- DRC REDD+ project: FPIC is done in a way FPIC is to be done as per local and Verra guidelines. Our FPIC process for this project is just perfect because we covered all 200+ sectors/chiefdoms in all six provinces. We have met not only sector Chiefs many times, but we also met village heads and community members many times. There is nothing like limited FPIC process. It is comprehensive and all-encompassing process. Our local representatives speak local language.
Please understand, even if we get all population, every single person to come for a meeting and agree for the REDD+ project implementation, one week after such meeting some individuals may say FPIC is not done in a proper way. There is no way we can ensure that no one speaks badly about FPIC during or after FPIC is done consistently over a period of time in a permanent manner. No way. Everyone is having their own agendas and motives. Please understand we are working under tremendous pressure in some of our REDD+ projects due to some unprofessional interventions by some vested interests, who have scant regard and interest in the long-term benefit and upliftment of the local communities. We are working hard on the ground to meet the project objectives, host country expectations and aspirations of local communities. Dear Mr.John, please think from our angle also while reporting. We in fact followed a proper process for FPIC and it worked very well in this REDD+ project and with our other REDD+ projects as well. Your source went and met some CFCL representatives in some areas and you have accordingly written in your 2022 article that the project itself has not followed FPIC. Out of the total project area, the area related to that misinformation case is negligible. However, it is not true that we did not conduct FPIC in that area and we did sign the agreements in a hurry. Some disgruntled elements must have given wrong information to your source.
This is nothing but a totally irresponsible journalism, to say the least. Your article titles are also misleading and defamatory. Is this a fair and unbiased reporting?
- DRC REDD+ project: You may download the PD/MR from the Verra project page and search for the developmental works done by us including the number of communities and individuals impacted by the project activity.
- We did see you reporting and writing articles on some AFOLU carbon credits projects at project initial stage itself, meaning before even the project started implementation forget the start of validation, if I’m right. You find them perfect! Wonderful. We are unable to comprehend your motives and objectives. At the same time, you find our DRC REDD+ project as a scam even though we had five different approvals from the host country, did so much work on ground and extensive technical documentation? Similarly, our PNG REDD+ project. Developmental works and improved cook stoves distribution related pictures and documentary evidence pertaining to our PNG REDD+ project is yet to be placed on our website publicly. We will do that shortly. But we have covered such developmental activity details and related evidence in our updated project description and monitoring reports already.
- Please visit government of India websites and access information about our company details
https://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/showCheckCompanyName.do
https://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/viewPublicDocumentsFilter.do
Any additional information you need about our company, and or its financials can be sent to you by email. Please let us know.
- We are always ready to engage in discussions with potential partners and investors to develop and sustain carbon credits projects in the best interest of the stake holders involved including the local communities and host country administration. You asked this question; hence we are replying.
- You wrote in the recent article dated 9th January 2024 that some persons in PNG call KMS and other developers as ‘carbon cowboys”. With what name those persons who said this are called in the country? Did you find out? With what name we can call you for damaging genuine REDD+ projects reputation and tacitly supporting the elements which are against the local community’s development in host countries and are only interested in furthering their personal goals, financial aspirations, and political ambitions? Can you make those persons names public who said these words? If you do not make the persons names public, we must construe that you are fully responsible for making these personal and indecent comments.
- PNG Oro REDD+ project, VCS 2760: The emission reduction calculations estimated to be submitted to the standards body is considerably lower compared to the numbers mentioned in the initial published PD/MR in view of the changes in technical approaches and latest guidelines of the standards body. You asked this question; hence we are replying.
- Revenue from the carbon credits sales will be shared among the stake holders as per the host country stipulations and directions with full transparency which is auditable at any point in time. You asked this question; hence we are replying.
- You may appreciate the fact that right from day one of our company operations and until today, we never took any external loan or grant or advance payments from anyone whatsoever. We have not even opened a credit line in our banks until today. We always ran our company based on our own company savings generated from our company operations and sometimes if required the company took some short-term loans from the Directors of the company itself. We do not spend money on PR and propagandas. We have no appetite for paid news. We do not pay journalists. We fully respect independent journalists and honest journalism. Our social media presence is almost nil. We work closely and diligently with our clients and projects. If there are any shortcomings in our processes and approaches, we are always eager to correct, learn and improve our processes and approaches on a continuous basis.
Let us do a better job Mr. John. We have absolutely nothing personal with you, but it is time we all work together for a better living for the deprived local communities and for improving sustainable development processes. Look forward to the future interaction with you. Thank you for your kind understanding.