How Wildlife Works Became the First REDD+ Project and Changed Forest Finance - Mike Korchinsky

In this episode of This Week in Carbon, we speak with Mike Korchinsky, founder of Wildlife Works and a pioneer of REDD+.

Mike shares the remarkable origin story of Wildlife Works, how it became the first REDD+ project certified under Verra, and what it took to bring market-based conservation to life—long before carbon finance was mainstream. We explore the early conflicts between wildlife and communities in Kenya, the role of the private sector in scaling solutions, and the current state of the carbon market.

We discuss:

- How human-wildlife conflict led to a market-based solution

- The creation of the first REDD+ methodology under Verra

- Why philanthropy and government alone won’t solve deforestation

- Market criticism, reform, and what went wrong with baselines

- The rise of Equitable Earth and what comes next for forest finance