Media release of La Vía Campesina | GRAIN | ETC Group
7 November 2013. Farmers produce food, not carbon. Yet, if some of the governments and corporate lobbies negotiating at the UN climate change conference to be held in Warsaw from 11-22 November have their way, farmland could soon be considered as a carbon sink that polluting corporations can buy into to compensate for their harmful emissions.
“We are directly opposed to the carbon market approach to dealing with the climate crisis,” says Josie Riffaud of La Vía Campesina. “Turning our farmers’ fields into carbon sinks – the rights to which can be sold on the carbon market – will only lead us further away from what we see as the real solution: food sovereignty. The carbon in our farms is not for sale!”
Carbon trading has totally failed to address the real causes of the climate crisis. It was never meant to do so. Rather than reducing carbon emissions at their source, it has created a lucrative market for polluters and speculators to buy and sell carbon credits while continuing to pollute. Now the pressure is increasing to treat farmland as a major carbon sink which can be claimed as yet another counterbalance to industrial emissions. The governments of the US and Australia, the World Bank and the corporate sector have long argued for this, and for the creation of new carbon markets where they can purchase land-based offsets in developing countries. Agribusiness is well positioned to profit from these, and some developing country governments hope that offering their forests, grasslands and farmland to polluters in the North could earn them revenue.
The November United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Warsaw risks pushing us deeper into this carbon market mess. Marcin Korolec, Poland’s minister of the environment and main organiser of the event, proudly announced that for the first time ever, representatives of global business will be formally part of the negotiations. A look at the list of official partners of the conference shows that they are amongst the most polluting industries of the world.
Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, but Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN points out that: “It is the industrial food system – with its heavy use of chemical inputs, the soil erosion and deforestation that accompanies monoculture plantation farming, and the ever-growing drive to supply far away export markets – which is the main culprit behind the climate crisis. Rather than promoting this with carbon markets, the world’s leaders should support peasant farming and agroecology as the solution.” GRAIN’s research has shown that a sustained focus on peasant-based agroecological practices oriented toward restoring organic matter to soils could capture 24-30% of the current global annual greenhouse gas emissions.
A week after the climate negotiators have flown home from Warsaw, most likely without having agreed to any meaningful action on the climate crisis, the World Bank and the governments of the Netherlands and South Africa will convene an international conference in Johannesburg to promote ”climate smart agriculture”, and set up a new alliance to achieve it.
But a look at the proposals on the table shows that it entails nothing more than business as usual: new genetically modified seeds developed by biotechnology corporations, more chemical fertilisers and pesticides by the agrochemical giants, and more ‘bio-intensive’ industrial plantation farming. “Climate smart agriculture has become the new slogan for the agricultural research establishment and the corporate sector to position themselves as the solution to the food and climate crisis,” says Pat Mooney of the ETC Group. “For the world’s small farmers, there is nothing smart about this. It is just another way to push corporate controlled technologies into their fields and rob them of their land.”
At the same time, these very corporations are developing other high-risk technologies, ranging from synthetic biology, to nanotechnology and geoengineering. There is no clear understanding of their impacts and these new dramatic technologies will wreak more havoc on our already fragile planet than cure the climate and environmental crises.
Agriculture’s central role of feeding people and providing livelihoods to smallholders around the world should be defended, says Elizabeth Mpofu, from Vía Campesina. “Rights over our farms, lands, seeds and natural resources need to remain in our hands so we can produce food and care for our mother earth as peasant farmers have done for centuries. We will not allow carbon markets to turn our hard work into carbon sinks that allow polluters to continue their business as usual.”
* La Via Campesina is the global movement of peasant farmers struggling for food sovereignty. GRAIN and ETC Group are international organisations that fight the industrial food system and support peasant based alternatives. They have joined forces in a partnership to advance peasant based agroecology.
* For GRAIN’s paper on the role of the industrial food system in the climate crisis, and how peasant led agroecology is the real solution, see: “Food and climate change, the forgotten link”
San Francisco, Oct. 17 – Governor Jerry Brown of California was slated to receive the Blue Green Alliance’s Right Stuff award for environmentalism in San Francisco this evening but did not show up perhaps because he knew it was going to be protested. Outside of the awards ceremony at the Parc 55 Hotel, people protested including Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network who read the following statement.
PRESS STATEMENT OF TOM GOLDTOOTH
Behind the backs of the People of California, Gov. Brown advances a policy harmful to Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth
Contacts: Tom Goldtooth
Indigenous Environmental Network (218) 760-0442 ien@igc.org
Pennie Plant, Idle No More Solidarity Bay pennie@gatheringtribes.com
Photo Credit: Mending News
Despite being awarded, as I speak, for his supposed environmentalism, Governor Brown is moving ahead with a policy that grabs land, clear-cuts forests, destroys biodiversity, abuses Mother Earth, pimps Father Sky and threatens the cultural survival of Indigenous Peoples.
This policy privatizes the air we breathe. Commodifies the clouds. Buy and sells the atmosphere. Corrupts the Sacred.
This policy is called carbon trading and REDD. REDD stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. But REDD really means Reaping profits from Evictions, land grabs, Deforestation and Destruction of biodiversity. REDD does nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at source. And REDD may result in the biggest land grab of the last 500 years.
The State of California is ALREADY using national forests and tree plantations as supposed sponges for its pollution instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at source. The infamous oil giant Shell is using forests in Michigan to offset its refinery in Martinez, California.[i] California is at the vanguard of REDD in the world and posed to do REDD internationally.
REDD is bad for the climate, bad for the environment, bad for Californians, bad for human rights and bad for the economy.
REDD-type and carbon offset projects are already causing human rights violations, land grabs and environmental destruction.[ii] California, you do not want Indigenous Peoples’ blood on your hands. You do not want to be complicit in the Continent Grab of Africa.[iii] Governor Brown, you do not want to contribute to the destruction of the climate by allowing corporate criminals like Shell and Chevron off the hook.[iv] California must not include REDD in its climate law. It is matter of life and death for communities and the climate, and, ultimately, even for Californians.
Officially, California is telling us there is no date to make a decision about international REDD. However, meanwhile behind the backs of the good People of California, the State of California is charging ahead with this false solution to climate change that will render the planet uninhabitable and threaten YOUR future. The Governor recently returned from China where he talked climate and REDD. Behind your backs, California is negotiating the fine print of REDD risk insurance with oil giant Chevron.[v] Yes, Chevron, California’s biggest polluter, infamous for its destruction of the Ecuadorian Amazon and sending 15,000 Californians to the hospital last year after the explosion in its Richmond refinery.
Indigenous Peoples, environmental justice organizations and human rights advocates requested a meeting with Governor Brown to explain our grave global and local concerns with REDD but haven’t received even an acknowledgement of our request. But we are here right now!
REDD is bad for the climate because it lets climate criminals like Shell, Chevron and fracking companies off the hook.
REDD is bad for the environment because it includes clear-cutting, logging and tree plantations which destroy biodiversity.
REDD is bad for Californians because it allows polluters to not reduce their pollution and cause more asthma and cancer.
REDD is bad for human rights. REDD-type projects are already resulting in massive land grabs, violent evictions, forced relocation and carbon slavery.
REDD is bad for the economy because the carbon market is crashing and investing in it is bad business.
Over a century ago, Chief Seattle asked “How can you buy and sell the sky?” Well, that is exactly what California is doing. That is what Governor Jerry Brown is allowing to be done. This does not deserve an award.
Sitting Bull says that ‘the warrior’s task is to take care of the future of humanity.”
The future of humanity is precisely what is at stake.
Do we want more pollution?
Do we want more cancer and asthma?
Do we want more climate change?
Do we want carbon trading?
Do we want REDD?
It is time to defend Mother Earth and Father Sky. Your future depends on it.
Thank you.
[i] Reuters Point Carbon, Shell to buy 500,000 California forest carbon credits http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2224348
[ii] A Dozen of the Worst REDD-type Projects http://www.ienearth.org/docs/REDD-A%20Dozen-of-the-Worst-REDD-type-projects.pdf
[iii] The Worst RED-type Projects in Africa http://no-redd-africa.org/index.php/16-redd-players/84-the-worst-redd-type-projects-in-africa-continent-grab-for-carbon-colonialism
[v] California To Put Buyers On The Hook For Forest Offsets http://www.forestcarbonportal.com/content/california-to-put-buyers-on–the-hook-for-forest-offsets?preview=13090906
INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK, IDLE NO MORE SOLIDARITY SF BAY & FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, USA in Solidarity With:
CALIFORNIA STATE AND NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
ASIAN PACIFIC ENVIRONMENT NETWORK – COMMUNITIES for a BETTER ENVIRONMENT – GREENACTION for HEALTH and ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE – WEST COUNTY TOXICS COALITION – P.O.D.E.R SAN FRANCISCO – INTERNATIONAL INDIAN TREATY COUNCIL – GLOBAL EXCHANGE – GLOBAL JUSTICE ECOLOGY PROJECT – SEVENTH GENERATION FUND FOR INDIAN DEVELOPMENT, GRASSROOTS FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE, CLIMATE JUSTICE ALLIANCE
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
CARBON TRADE WATCH/EU & LATIN AMERICA – CENSAT AGUA VIVA/FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, COLOMBIA – OTHER WORLDS, INTERNATIONAL – WORLD RAINFOREST MOVEMENT, INTERNATIONAL – JUSTICE IN NIGERIA NOW!, NIGERIA – CORNER HOUSE, UK – HEALTH OF MOTHER FOUNDATION, NIGERIA – GLOBAL ALLIANCE of INDIGENOUS PEOPLES and LOCAL COMMUNITIES on CLIMATE CHANGE AGAINST REDD and for LIFE, INTERNATIONAL – JUSTICA AMBIENTAL, MOZAMBIQUE – FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, MOZAMBIQUE – NO REDD IN AFRICA NETWORK, AFRICA – RAINFOREST RESOURCE AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRE, CROSS RIVER TATE, NIGERIA – TIMBERWATCH, SOUTH AFRICA – COECOCEIBA, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH – COSTA RICA, THE RULES- INTERNATIONAL , FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, INTERNATIONAL
October 07, 2013
RE: Request for a response and meeting with Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. and Mary Nichols Chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board concerning AB 32 and Jurisdictional forest offsets abroad – REDD.
Dear Governor Brown,
We, the undersigned [and aforementioned] Indigenous peoples organizations, environmental justice and environmental non-governmental organizations, urge you not to include forest carbon offsets known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32. Similar REDD-type projects are already adversely affecting forest dwellers, particularly Indigenous peoples abroad, violating human rights and leading to huge land grabs and environmental destruction. i Mary D. Nichols as the Chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) also plays a key role in our concern with California REDD, as her priorities as chairwoman include moving ahead on the state’s climate change program (AB 32). CARB must not include REDD in AB 32. It could result in a situation of life and death for Indigenous and local forest dependent communities.
As you know, REDD is a carbon offset mechanism whereby the State of California proposes using forests in Mesoamerica, the Amazon, Africa, and other sub-national “partner jurisdictions” with tropical forests as “sponges” for the carbon pollution of polluting industries such as Chevron and Shell. For communities such as Richmond, California, this only furthers environmental justice issues for people living close to the Chevron refineries who have to endure more pollution in their communities, causing long-term health problems such as asthma, birth defects, cancer and depression. REDD prolongs these impacts by making offsets available to these polluting companies, allowing them to avoid reducing their polluting emissions.
The REDD forest definition and California’s REDD Forest Protocols could allow for clear-cuts, logging and monoculture tree plantations, including with non-native species such as palm oil, the resultant massive loss of biodiversity, as well as the loss of lands, subsistence and cultures of Indigenous peoples. REDD fails to stop forest destroyers and the drivers of deforestation.
As the UN REDD Framework Document predicted, REDD and forest carbon projects are already resulting in “loss of land” in the form of massive evictions, as well as “new risks for the poor” in the form of servitude, multi-generational slavery, persecutions and threats to the cultural survival of Indigenous peoples. According the New York Times, over 22,000 farmers with land deeds were violently evicted for a forest carbon project in 2011 and Friday Mukamperezida, an eight-year-old boy was killed when his home was burned to the ground.
Environmentalists are already being persecuted and criminalized for resisting REDD including in Cross River State, Nigeria where the State of California has signed a MOU to do REDD projects. Mr. Odey Oyama, Executive Director of the Rainforest Resource and Development Centre (RRDC) in Cross River State, Nigeria suffered police harassment and intimidation and had to flee his home for several weeks in January and February 2013 for opposing REDD activities aimed at dispossessing indigenous communities and other similar land grab operations. “My reason for rejecting the REDD programme is because it is geared towards taking over the last vestiges of community forest that exist in Cross River State of Nigeria,” denounced Mr. Oyama.
Please be mindful of the letters and petition documents submitted to you and Chair Nichols this past April and May 2013 on similar concerns with the release of the recommendations put forward by the California REDD Offsets Working Group (ROW). A number of the organizations signed on to this letter submitted comments at that time. There has been no response from your office or from CARB on these comments or on the status of the ROW recommendations for implanting REDD. Given the gravity of REDD impacts for Indigenous peoples and local forest dependent communities and since it could ultimately result in widespread and egregious human rights violations, we are requesting a response on your position on REDD, taking into consideration issues we are submitting.
First, we are encouraged by the outpouring of support by California legislators and organizations to limit international offsets through Senator Lara’s bills SB 605 and SB 726 in this year’s legislative session. We agree that international forestry offsets should not be counted under California’s AB 32 because it does nothing to reduce emissions in California.
Secondly, we would like to respectfully request a meeting with you and CARB Chair Mary Nichols if possible, on either October 15th or 16th, to discuss these concerns. We will have representatives of the organizations signed on to this letter able to meet with you. The human cost of REDD is too high as is the political cost of supporting it. Do the right thing, Governor Brown. Please reject REDD in AB32. REDD is bad for the climate, bad for communities, and bad for California.
Please respond at your earliest opportunity.
Sincerely,
Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director
Indigenous Environmental Network
ien@igc.org
218.760.0442
Pennie Opal Plant,
IdleNoMore Solidarity SF Bay
510.390.0386
Jeff Conant,
International Forests Campaigner
Friends of the Earth, U.S.
jconant@foe.org
510.900.0016
i A Dozen of the Worse REDD-type Projects http://www.ienearth.org/docs/REDD-A%20Dozen-of-the-Worst-REDD-type-projects.pdf i New York Times, (2011) In Uganda, Losing Land to Planted Trees – Slide Show http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/09/22/world/africa/22uganda-3.html
New York Times, In Scramble for Land, Group Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/africa/in-scramble-for-land-oxfam-says-ugandans-were-pushed-out.html?_r=1
A few civil servants in California are about to make a decision that could affect every one of us. With the help of big business like oil giant Chevron, they have proposed a change to California’s climate change law that would let polluters grab huge areas of land in developing countries and use them as an excuse to keep polluting. Instead of reducing their carbon emissions, they want to use a UN initiative – known as REDD – as an excuse to start treating ancient forests like commodities to be bought and sold for profit. They claim this will actually lead to less carbon emissions over time, although the evidence suggests the opposite. Sign The Petition!
A new documentary, “Carbon Crooks”, will be broadcast on 9 September 2013 in Denmark. The film is directed by Tom Heinemann and documents the failure of carbon trading to address climate change and investigates some of the fraud in the carbon markets.
A trailer of the film has been released [watch below], and it looks great. The first interview in the trailer is with Daniel Butler, who was a carbon trader between 2004 and 2011. He broke the story about the stealing of €10 million worth of European Union emissions allowances (EUAs) from the Czech Republic’s carbon registry in January 2011. “In the early days it was a good business. I could make roughly €50,000 in five minutes,” Butler says.
The documentary team also interviews Ritt Bjerregaard, an EU Commissioner who was in Kyoto in 1997 as part of the EU team negotiating the Kyoto Protocol. The interview is available here (in Danish). Bjerregaard explains that the EU would have preferred a tax on carbon, coupled with guidance on reducing emissions and removing some coal-fired power plants. “It was an attempt to change our way to use our energy,” she says in the interview.
But it wasn’t to be. Al Gore led the US negotiating team and pushed carbon trading into the Kyoto Protocol. More than 15 years after Kyoto, greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are higher than ever. Bjerregaard comments,
“Although I only have my knowledge from the media, it is clear that our scepticism about the market system has proved to be correct. The trouble is that the world is so dependent on energy, there is no desire to change anything. Apparently there must be truly great disasters in order to get the necessary changes.”
The documentary looks into crime in the carbon markets. Marius-Christian Frunza is a lecturer at Sorbonne and Dorphine University. He’s written a book titled, “Fraud and Carbon Markets” (which REDD-Monitor will be reviewing in the coming weeks). He points out that,
“If you want to do crime and you want to be fast and untraceable, carbon is one of the perfect candidates.”
I’m very much looking forward to seeing more of the next part of the trailer. Two men are walking down a street on a brick-built housing estate, presumably in Denmark. One of them is talking:
“Who is Mirza Ghalib? He’s India’s national poet. India’s H.C. Andersen and also his contemporary. He died in 1869. But is registered as a carbon trader at this address.”
The documentary also looks projects that generate carbon credits in the global South. At “smokeless” factories in Bangladesh, where the air is so bad the film crew can hardly breathe. And water purification filters that were handed out in Kenya supposedly to reduce the amount of firewood used to boil water, but which few people actually use.
There’s also an interview with EU Environment Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard. The interview is available here (in Danish). Hedegaard is still in favour of carbon trading and argues that Kyoto is a success, “because the alternative would have been worse”.
“I actually think that Europe went home and implemented what was agreed at Kyoto, and it has been shown to have an effect. We are more advanced than we otherwise would have come – even if there are many problems in the system.”
But as Kevin Anderson, Professor at Manchester University points out,
Many billions, possibly even hundreds of billions of pounds of carbon is getting traded. That has nothing to do directly with climate change.
During its meeting on 9th June, the Guna General Congress in Panama took the historic decision to reject all REDD+ projects in the Gunayala territory. Alongside this rejection of all RED+ projects, the Congress took the specific decision to reject a proposed REDD+ pilot project in the region, after 2 years of public consultations.
For more information, click here to read the Congress’ resolution (only available in Spanish).
UN-REDD seeks to calm row with Panama indigenous body
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The United Nations’ scheme for preserving forests has said it will learn lessons from disagreements with indigenous forest communities in Panama, which have left the Central American nation’s programme in disarray.
The U.N.-backed initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) launched an independent investigation and evaluation after the National Coordinating Body of Indigenous Peoples in Panama (COONAPIP) announced it would pull out of the programme in March.
The group accused the government and U.N. agencies of not including indigenous groups in decision making, nor offering enough funding to support their participation and gain legal security for their territories.
Two investigators – an anthropologist and a lawyer – carried out a fact-finding mission in Panama for two weeks starting in late May and will return for a second visit in July. They said in a preliminary report, seen by Thomson Reuters Foundation, that clear procedures had not been put in place to involve COONAPIP in consultation, dialogue and decision making, and funds of only around $300,000 were offered to help the group, compared with the $1.78 million requested for its activities.
“All this has resulted in a situation where the dialogue has failed both institutionally and personally, and apparently there is no confidence in the good faith of the parties involved,” the report said.
Relations between COONAPIP, UN-REDD and the Panama government were harmonious when the three-year, $5.3 million programme was launched at the beginning of 2011, but they subsequently deteriorated to the point where the indigenous body withdrew this year, causing new activities to be suspended, according to the report.
The Panama REDD programme is being implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme, together with the Panama National Environment Authority. In 2000, Panama had almost 45 percent forest cover, down from about 70 percent in 1947, according to UN-REDD. Losses to logging, ranching and infrastructure development highlighted the need to conserve forests, it said.
Betanio Chiquidama, COONAPIP president and chief of a reserve that is home to more than 33,000 people in the east of the country, said the report demonstrated that “UN-REDD is a programme with problems, and that it has been rejected with reason by indigenous peoples”.
“(The report) makes clear that in the future there must be a system in place that allows for the comprehensive, effective and meaningful participation of indigenous peoples, in accordance with the rules and laws that protect our rights,” he said in a statement released at the weekend.
“More than half the country’s forests are on the lands of indigenous people in Panama. How can an effective plan to save these forests be negotiated if the indigenous leaders are not at the table?” he added.
On a more positive note, the report indicates that COONAPIP would be willing to restart dialogue with UN-REDD if certain conditions are met, and calls on the U.N. Resident Coordinator in Panama to convene a high-level meeting between the two sides to explore how they can better collaborate in the future.
‘THINGS MAY HAVE GONE WRONG’
Mario Boccucci, head of the Geneva-based secretariat for the UN-REDD Programme, said he could not comment on the report’s specific findings as he had not yet seen it, and the investigation was ongoing. The report is due to be presented to the UN-REDD policy board in late June.
But Boccucci said his office had taken “very seriously” the issues raised by COONAPIP, and wanted to ensure “a proper and thorough investigation of what has happened”, as well as a mid-term evaluation of the programme.
“We want to really understand what worked and what did not work, then find a way to ensure that the programme fully delivers on its commitments,” Boccucci told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We will build on (the investigation’s) recommendations and the lessons that have been learned, and apply them in Panama and everything else we do in every other country.”
UN-REDD was not “discounting the fact that things may have gone wrong, may go wrong, will go wrong in the future, but it’s important that we have really totally committed to learn and see what went wrong so that we can find a way to better deliver,” he added.
Chiquidama said COONAPIP respected “UN-REDD’s speedy response to our call for help”.
“We have great hope that the agency will act on the results of the investigation,” he added.
Boccucci described the REDD+ programme and its activities in forest-rich countries as an experiment in sustainable development, where economic growth must be accompanied by social and environmental benefits. And he emphasised the initiative’s commitment to bringing such benefits to the indigenous communities who manage many forests on a day-to-day basis.
“The UN-REDD programme is based on and adheres to a human rights-based approach and is committed to promoting the rights of indigenous peoples,” Boccucci said.
TEST OF U.N. RIGHTS DECLARATION?
COONAPIP believes its complaint against Panama’s REDD programme marks the first major test of a key provision in the 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, under which they have the right to refuse projects and investments affecting their natural resources.
COONAPIP said the programme had so far excluded them from full participation in planning activities in Panama, and failed to guarantee their rights would be respected.
The investigation team’s report noted, however, that the programme had not had a “significant negative impact” on indigenous people’s collective or individual rights, as no legislative or administrative measures had yet been adopted. But it had added to the pressures on indigenous peoples and their resources in an already difficult environment, the document said.
Susan Kandel of the Salvadoran Programme for Research on Development and Environment (PRISMA), which has recently completed a study on the impact of REDD+ in Panama, said its findings echoed those of the U.N.-appointed investigators.
“Our research suggests that despite the development of laudable principles for safeguarding the rights of indigenous people and forest communities in the UN-REDD Programme, there are very few concrete measures that have been put into place that would ensure that these safeguards would actually be respected,” she said. “The absence of such measures turned out to be critical in Panama, and we hope that this experience can help REDD processes correct this critical flaw.”
New York City, New York – “The United Nations is violating Indigenous Peoples rights” denounced Indigenous Peoples attending the 12th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in New York, which concluded yesterday. In particular, indigenous leaders condemned UN-REDD for violating their right to free, prior, informed consent, a fundamental principle enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation) is a carbon market offset mechanism whereby industrialized countries and corporations use forests, plantations and land as sponges for their pollution instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at source.
“UN-REDD is violating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” stated Chief Betanio Chiquidama, President of the National Coordinating Body of Indigenous Peoples of Panama (COONAPIP). The traditional authorities of the COONAPIP collectively withdrew from UN-REDD on February 25, 2013. A delegation of COONAPIP meet with the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya at UN headquarters during the Permanent Forum to denounce abuses committed by UN-REDD.
“We call upon all the Indigenous Peoples of the world to proceed with caution and to take the necessary measures to avoid being tricked by United Nations bodies and officials, who have the legal obligation to comply with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” states the COONAPIP resolution on UN-REDD, which COONAPIP delivered to the Special Rapporteur.
According to Hector Huertas, legal counsel of COONAPIP, “UN officials and the Panamanian government are dividing indigenous communities with money from the Programme to force supposed consultations. This unethical and reprehensible procedure prompted COONAPIP to stop participating in a process whose objective is to privatize the forests of Panama in violation of the Panamanian constitution and laws, and allows the State to cash in on carbon credits in utter contempt for the rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
But the Indigenous Peoples of Panama are not the only ones whose rights are being violated by UN-REDD. According to a preliminary survey by Carbon Trade Watch, of the sixteen countries with UN-REDD National Programmes, at least ten countries have violated the right to free, prior and informed consent and the right to participation of civil society and Indigenous Peoples in processes related to REDD. Other countries where these rights have been violated include Indonesia, Ecuador, Paraguay and the Democratic Republic of Congo where civil society groups have suspended engagement with the National REDD Coordination Process.
In addition to the rights to participation and consent, a host of other rights enshrined by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and other international and national human rights instruments are being violated as well. Of the 46 articles of the UN Declaration, more than 15 including the right to self-determination may be violated by carbon credit projects. Human rights organizations like Survival International are concerned about the growing number of abuses from carbon offset projects and REDD-type initiatives.
For this reason, in 2012, indigenous organizations requested that the UNPFII study the adverse impacts on Indigenous People’s rights of REDD-type projects and policies. However, during the 12th session, the Indigenous leaders were dismayed that the UNPFII’s report on “Indigenous People’s Rights and Safeguards in Projects related to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+)” characterizes carbon market REDD as an “opportunity” for Indigenous Peoples.
The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, the Indigenous Peoples’ caucus, has consistently and categorically rejected carbon market REDD, as all its statements to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change demonstrate.
“The report is misleadingly optimistic about the so-called “opportunities”of REDD-plus projects for enhancing indigenous rights and interests and demonstrates a pro-REDD bias. There is no real evidence that there will ever be legally binding REDD safeguards that guarantee the prevention of human right abuses,” says Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network who also attended the UNPFII. “There is no safe REDD. There is no human rights REDD. The UN itself recognizes that REDD can “lock-up” forests. REDD-type projects are already taking over indigenous customary and traditional lands. For emerging REDD-readiness initiatives, our analysis says there can be no pro-indigenous REDD.”
Dr. Blessing Karumbidza of the Ngorima Chieftaincy, from the Shangani branch of the Nguni communities of Southern Africa is also skeptical about the efficacy of REDD both as a climate change solution as well as its professed contribution to development. “Evidence from exchange visits and research through the Timberwatch NGO Coalition based in South Africa, with Indigenous Peoples such as the Masaai in Kenya and Tanzania have shown beyond a doubt that these projects have negative social, economic and environmental impacts, ” says Dr. Karumbidza.
Meanwhile, “In the United States, the State of California is on the verge of implementing a global REDD program that lets climate criminals like Chevron and Shell off the hook by using the forests of Mexico and Brazil as sponges for their greenhouse gases and toxic pollution. This is an international human rights issue,” according to Alberto Saldamando, a veteran human rights lawyer.
“REDD allows polluters to continue to dump toxics on people-of-color and low income communities in California causing sicknesses such as asthma and cancer, and has fueled social conflict in Chiapas, Mexico. The provisions of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the principle of free, prior and informed consent are already being violated in these emerging REDD initiatives as well. The UN should be protecting the health, human rights and the well-being of all our brothers and sisters of the forested regions of the South and local communities in the North, but they aren’t and this is wrong,” Saldamando said.
Of the sixteen countries with UN-REDD National Programmes, at least ten countries have violated the right to free, prior and informed consent and the right to participation of civil society and Indigenous Peoples in processes related to REDD.
BOLETIN DE PRENSA: 1 de junio 2013
ONU viola los derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas:
ONU-REDD viola el derecho al consentimiento libre, previo e informado
Contacto: Tom Goldtooth (218) 760-0442 ien@igc.org
“Las Naciones Unidas está violando los derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas”, denunció los pueblos indígenas que asistieron a la 12ª sesión del Foro Permanente de las Naciones Unidas para las Cuestiones Indígenas (UNPFII) en Nueva York, que concluyó ayer. En particular, los líderes indígenas condenaron ONU-REDD que viola su derecho al consentimiento libre, previo e informado, un principio fundamental consagrado en la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas.
REDD (Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación Forestal) es un mecanismo de compensaciones del mercado de carbono mediante el cual los países industrializados y las empresas utilizan los bosques, las plantaciones y la tierra como esponjas por su contaminación en lugar de reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en el lugar donde se origen.
“ONU-REDD está violando la Declaración de la ONU sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas”, declaró el Jefe Betanio Chiquidama, Presidente de la Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas de Panamá (COONAPIP). Las autoridades tradicionales de la COONAPIP retiraron colectivamente de ONU-REDD, el 25 de febrero de 2013. Una delegación de COONAPIP se reunió con el Relator Especial de la ONU sobre Pueblos Indígenas, James Anaya en la sede de la ONU durante el Foro Permanente para denunciar los abusos cometidos por ONU-REDD.
“Hacemos un llamado a todos los pueblos indígenas del mundo para proceder con precaución y tomar las medidas necesarias para evitar ser engañados por los órganos y funcionarios de las Naciones Unidas, que tienen la obligación legal de cumplir con la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas “, afirma la resolución sobre ONU-REDD, que COONAPIP entregó al Relator Especial.
Según Héctor Huertas, abogado de COONAPIP, “funcionarios de la ONU y el gobierno panameño dividen comunidades indígenas con dinero del Programa para forzar supuestas consultas. Este procedimiento inmoral y reprobable llevó a la COONAPIP a dejar de participar en un proceso que tiene como objetivo la privatización de los bosques de Panamá, en violación de la constitución y las leyes de Panamá, y que permite que el Estado saque ganancias con los créditos de carbono en un total desprecio por los derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas. ”
Sin embargo, los pueblos indígenas de Panamá no son los únicos cuyos derechos están siendo violados por el ONU-REDD. De acuerdo con una encuesta preliminar de Carbon Trade Watch, de los dieciséis países con programas nacionales de ONU-REDD, por lo menos diez países han violado el derecho de consentimiento libre, previo e informado y el derecho a la participación de la sociedad civil y los pueblos indígenas en procesos relacionados con REDD. Otros países donde se han violado estos derechos incluyen Indonesia, Ecuador, Paraguay y la República Democrática del Congo donde grupos de la sociedad civil han suspendido su participación con el Proceso de Coordinación Nacional REDD.
Además de los derechos a la participación y el consentimiento, una serie de otros derechos consagrados en la Declaración de la ONU sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas y otros instrumentos internacionales y nacionales de derechos humanos están siendo violados también. De los 46 artículos de la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas, más de 15, incluido el derecho a la autodeterminación puede resultar violado por los proyectos de créditos de carbono. Organizaciones de derechos humanos como Survival International están preocupadas por el creciente número de abusos por parte de los proyectos de compensación de carbono e iniciativas tipo REDD.
Por esta razón, en 2012, las organizaciones indígenas solicitaron que el UNPFII estudiara los impactos negativos sobre los derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas de proyectos y políticas tipo REDD. Sin embargo, durante la 12ª sesión, los dirigentes indígenas se consternaron a comprobar que el informe del Foro Permanente sobre “Derechos y salvaguardas de los pueblos indígenas en los proyectos relacionados con la Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación Forestal (REDD +)” caracteriza el mercado de carbono REDD como una “oportunidad” para los pueblos indígenas.
El Foro Internacional de Pueblos Indígenas sobre el Cambio Climático, el conclave de los Pueblos Indígenas, ha rechazado sistemáticamente y categóricamente REDD del mercado de carbono, como todas sus declaraciones a la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático demuestran.
“El informe es engañosamente optimista acerca de las llamadas” oportunidades” para que los proyectos de REDD-plus mejoren los derechos e intereses indígenas y demuestra un sesgo pro-REDD. No hay evidencia real de que habrán salvaguardias jurídicamente vinculantes para REDD que garanticen la prevención de los abusos de los derechos humanos “, dice Tom Goldtooth de la Red Ambiental Indígena, que también asistió al Foro Permanente. “No hay REDD seguro. No hay REDD con un enfoque de derechos humanos. La propia ONU reconoce que REDD pueda resultar en la “clausura” de los bosques. Proyectos tipo REDD ya se están despojando tierras ancestrales y tradicionales indígenas. En el caso de las nuevas iniciativas de REDD, nuestro análisis indica que no puede haber REDD pro-indígena”.
Dr. Blessing Karumbidza de la Jefatura Ngorima, de los Shangani de las comunidades Nguni de Sudáfrica también se muestra escéptico sobre la eficacia de REDD, tanto como una solución al cambio climático, así como una supuesta contribución al desarrollo. “La evidencia de intercambios e investigación de la Coalición de ONGs Timberwatch con sede en Sudáfrica, con los Pueblos Indígenas, como el Pueblo Masai de Kenia y Tanzania han demostrado más allá de toda duda de que estos proyectos tienen impactos sociales, económicos y ambientales negativos”, dice el Dr. Karumbidza.
Mientras tanto, “En Estados Unidos, el Estado de California está a punto de implementar un programa mundial REDD que permite a los criminales climáticos como Chevron-Texaco y Shell esquivar su responsabilidad [de reducir emisiones] mediante el uso de los bosques de México y Brasil como esponjas de sus gases de efecto invernadero y la contaminación tóxica . Este es un problema internacional de derechos humanos “, según Alberto Saldamando, un veterano abogado de derechos humanos. .
“REDD permite que los contaminadores siguán vertiendo sustancias tóxicas en las comunidades de afros y latinos, y ha agudizado conflictos sociales en Chiapas, México. Las disposiciones de la Declaración de la ONU sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas y el principio del consentimiento libre, previo e informado ya están siendo violados en estas iniciativas emergentes de REDD. La ONU debería proteger la salud, los derechos humanos y el bienestar de todos nuestros hermanos y hermanas de las regiones boscosas del Sur, así como de las comunidades locales en el Norte, pero la ONU no lo está haciendo, y esto es malo “, dijo Saldamando.
De los dieciséis países con programas nacionales de ONU-REDD, por lo menos diez países han violado el derecho de consentimiento libre, previo e informado y el derecho a la participación de la sociedad civil y los pueblos indígenas en procesos relacionados con REDD.
International Outcry against California’s Forest Offset Scam
Global civil society rejects REDD in climate law
Contacts: Miya Yoshitani, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (510)-417-1775 miya@apen4ej.org Tom BK Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network (218) 760 0442 ien@igc.org Anabela Lemos, No REDD in Africa Network, Friends of the Earth-Mozambique +258 21 496668 anabela.ja.mz@gmail.com
Indigenous Peoples and allies from Chiapas and the Amazon protest California REDD in Sacramento in front of the capital building, after a California Air Resources Board hearing where they testified on the adverse impacts that the possible inclusion of REDD was already having on communities. October 18, 2012 Foto: Jeff Conant/Friends of the Earth-US
From Africa to the Amazon, from Chiapas to Siberia, global civil society is raising an international outcry to resoundingly reject California’s proposed forest offset scam called REDD, which would let climate criminals like Chevron and Shell off the hook, cause human rights abuses and worsen global warming. May 7, 2013, was the last day for public comments on the draft California REDD Offset Working Group recommendations regarding linking California’s cap-and-trade program with a program to supposedly reduce deforestation in Chiapas and Acre, Brazil.
California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32, is posed to include REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), a false solution to climate change, whereby California polluters could use the forests of Chiapas, Mexico and the Brazilian Amazon as sponges for their pollution instead of reducing greenhouse emissions at home. California REDD is considered a model for the world and if launched will probably be replicated both nationally and internationally.
“The global movement against REDD has been born!” cried Susannah, a delighted volunteer with the No REDD Group Initiative as she tallied letters from all over the world to California Governor Jerry Brown and the California Air Resources Board demanding that REDD be immediately stopped in its tracks. “The world is uniting against California REDD because it may unlock an avalanche of REDD-type projects around the world.”
INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK COMMENTS TO THE CALIFORNIA REDD OFFSETS WORKING GROUP (ROW) DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS
Re: Recommendations of the REDD Offsets Working Group for Subnational REDD crediting in California’s Cap-and-Trade Program
The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) was formed in 1990 by community-based Indigenous Peoples to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ) as they affect Indigenous-Native Peoples. Since that time, IEN’s outreach and activities have grown and now include building the capacity of indigenous communities in North America and globally to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
In that role, IEN addresses the recommendations of the REDD Offsets Working Group (ROW)[1] to the Governments of California, Acre and Chiapas (including the California Air Resources Board, as the responsible State of California authority) in its implementation of AB32. AB32 is considering creating a sub-national Cap and Trade scheme, meant to reduce the carbon emissions of certain California industries, which would allow them to buy carbon credits to mitigate their emissions. IEN addresses the recommendations relevant to the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Forests (REDD), and more specifically, the issue of Social, Cultural and Environmental Safeguards.
[1] Draft, California, Acre and Chiapas, Partnering to Reduce Emissions from Tropical Deforestation, Recommendations to Conserve Tropical Rainforests, Protect Local Communities and Reduce State-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Redd Offsets Working Group, 2012.(hereinafter,” Recommendations”)
Hundreds Sign Petition to California REDD Offsets Working Group
The following petition was sent to the identified recipients by over 750 citizens from across Mother Earth:
Dear Honorable Jerry Brown, Governor of California
Dear Mary Nichols, Chairman, California Air Resources Board
I urge you to reject the inclusion of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) in the State of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32.
The four main reasons for rejecting California REDD are:
1. REDD is a false solution to climate change, which makes global warming worse.
2. REDD lets climate criminals like Shell and Chevron off the hook because it allows polluters to use forests as supposed sponges for their greenhouse gas and toxic pollution, instead of reducing pollution at source.
3. REDD lets polluters keep polluting and sickening Californians with asthma and cancer.
4. REDD has no guarantees to prevent human rights abuses. REDD is already causing social conflict and land grabs in Chiapas, Mexico, and violating Indigenous Peoples’ rights including the right to free, prior and informed consent.
California must not let climate criminals like Shell and Chevron off the hook, sicken its citizens, nor contribute to human rights violations. California must reject REDD now. Mother Earth depends on it.
CC:
Ashley Conrad-Saydah, Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy,
Arsenio Mataka, Subsecretary for Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs,
Ronda Bowen, Ombudsman,
Jason A. Gray
Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD+ and for Life
The Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD+ and for Life joins its voice to the international outcry against the inclusion of REDD in the State of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32.
We, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, peasant farmers and fisherfolk are not fooled by the carbon trading system, and in particular, the State of California’s goal to develop protocols to implement sub-national REDD in California’s cap-and-trade program. As people of the land, we know colonialism when we see it. Regardless of its cynical disguises and shameful lies, colonialism always results in the rape and pillaging of Mother Earth, and the slavery, death, destruction and genocide of her peoples. REDD+ along with the implementation of green economy models of commodification and trading of ecosystem services constitutes a thinly-veiled, wicked, colonialist planet grab that we oppose, denounce and resist. There is no safe REDD. All REDD initiatives, current or future, cannot guarantee safeguards to prevent human rights abuses.
Just as historically the Doctrine of Discovery was used to justify the first wave of colonialism by alleging that Indigenous Peoples did not have souls, and that our territories were “terra nullius,” land of nobody, now these green economy initiatives such as California REDD and other REDD+ projects are inventing similarly dishonest premises to justify this new wave of colonialization and privatization of nature. REDD-type and forest carbon projects, are resulting in Indigenous Peoples and peasants being relocated, criminalized, and blamed for climate change. Our land is being labeled “unused,” “degraded” or in need of “conservation and “reforestation,” to justify massive land grabs for REDD+, carbon offset projects and biopiracy.
We see the link between California REDD and the green economy, which is as nothing more than capitalism of nature; a perverse attempt by corporations, extractive industriesand governments to cash in on Creation by privatizing, commodifying, and selling off the Sacred and all forms of life and the sky, including the air we breathe, the water we drink and all the genes, plants, traditional seeds, trees, animals, fish, biological and cultural diversity, ecosystems and traditional knowledge that make life on Earth possible and enjoyable.
The green economy is the umbrella for all kinds of ways to sell nature including REDD+, the Clean Development Mechanism, carbon trading, PES (Payment for Environmental Services), the financialization of nature, the International Regime on Access to Genetic Resources, patents on life, TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), natural capital, green bonds, species banking and state and business “partnerships” with indigenous peoples. Under the green economy, even the rain, the beauty of a waterfall or a honey bee’s pollen will be reduced to a barcode price tag and sold to the highest bidder. At the same time, the green economy promotes and greenwashes environmentally and socially devastating extractive industries like logging, mining and oil drilling as “sustainable development.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
Por favor firmen esta petición para ponerle un Alto a REDD en California en Chiapas y la Amazonia que es el modelo para implementar REDD en todo el mundo.
Participen en esta lucha histórica y rechacen REDD (Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación forestal), esta falsa solución al cambio climático que despoja nuestras tierras y territorios. REDD es malo para la Pachamama y malo para los Pueblos y que en realidad no protege los bosques.
¡Alto a REDD de California! ¡Alto a REDD en todo el mundo!
During the week of October 22, 2012, The Mending News released a 7:25 minute video on the basics of an international carbon offset mechanism called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its link to California’s cap and trade regulations that currently include a “placeholder” to allow sub-national REDD carbon credits to enter into its cap and trade system.
A Governor’s Forests and Climate Task Force is working with several states/provinces – most notably Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil – to potentially supply California with REDD credits. Some NGOs are saying this California REDD project will become a model for implementing REDD internationally. IEN and other groups in California support California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, but REDD credits should not be accepted into California’s carbon trading system.
The film makes note that: REDD credits lack environmental integrity; REDD projects pose high risks to Indigenous Peoples and forest dependent communities; and REDD offsets are risky in terms of fraud, land grabs, evictions and human rights abuses.
Watch the video to get the real story of REDD, the deceptive climate ‘solution’ being proposed in California and being implemented within the UN climate negotiations and the World Bank. It sounds good on paper, but the reality is that REDD enforces the global colonization of Mother Earth; allows the polluting industry to expand its toxic emissions creating local toxic hotspots in faraway places; and creates a stolen future for Indigenous peoples, local forest dependent communities, communities living next door to a fossil fuel polluting industry, and a stolen future for the environment and all life.
As California lawmakers prepare to launch the state’s cap and trade program as part of its Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB32, indigenous leaders traveled to Sacramento to urge officials not to include an international forest-based carbon offset mechanism, known as REDD, in the law.
REDD, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, is a controversial market-based policy mechanism that proposes to protect tropical forests in order to capture and store carbon dioxide pollution. But REDD-type projects have led to serious human rights violations, and many indigenous leaders have denounced REDD projects as a false solution to climate change, the delegation charged.
Members of the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD and for Life traveled from Mexico, Brazil and Ecuador to Sacramento last week to testify before the California Air Resources Board and meet with officials from Governor Jerry Brown’s office and the state Environmental Protection Agency. Alliance members have experienced persecution and threats for speaking out against these programs, the group’s spokespeople said.
According to Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, “REDD is a perverse forest offset scam that allows polluters like Chevron to keep destroying the environment. The United Nations recognizes that REDD may result in ‘the lock-up of forests,’ the majority of which are on Indigenous Peoples’ land. REDD is potentially genocidal.”
In 2010, California signed agreements with Chiapas, Mexico; Acre, Brazil, and other states that may bring REDD into AB32, linking California’s climate policy to these tropical regions. The visitors to Sacramento told lawmakers that they are suffering harassment, intimidation and vandalism of their homes and offices for rejecting REDD-type projects.
José Carmelio Alberto Nunes (Ninawá), president of the Federation of the Huni Kui people of Acre, Brazil, says he and his wife have received anonymous phone calls warning them, “be careful what you say and who you talk to, or you may have an accident.”
“I think my coming to California threatens those interests that hope to make money from REDD,” the Huni Kui leader said. “Anyone who speaks out against REDD in Acre is persecuted.”
As the policy moves forward, Ninawá says he is not afraid to speak out. “If I am assassinated for resisting REDD and defending my land, other Ninawás will continue the struggle.”
Despite voluntary safeguards, REDD-type projects are already resulting in deaths, violent evictions, forced relocation, imprisonment, armed guards and prohibitions to access and use land essential for the survival of Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities.
Rosario Aguilar, a health promoter from Chiapas, Mexico, and a member of the delegation to California, said, “Even before California has established its market, the REDD-type project being implemented in our communities is causing conflict and displacement. As part of their plan to move indigenous people off the land, the government cut off medical services to the village of Amador Hernández in the Lacandon Jungle. This is why we say that REDD is promoting death, not life.”
The State of Chiapas itself notes in its Climate Change Action Program that 172 communities have already been “relocated” as part of its avoided deforestation efforts, another name for REDD.
“Given California’s REDD agreements, we hold the State of California and Governor Jerry Brown responsible for the moral and physical safety of those who speak out against REDD,” said Goldtooth.
Michelle Chan, director of economic policy for Friends of the Earth, reported that in the delegation’s meeting with Cliff Rechtschaffen, Brown’s senior advisor on climate change, “Friends of the Earth specifically requested that if any of the participants, as a result of meeting with the governor’s office, experience increased harassment or threats upon returning home, that the governor do whatever he can to help remedy the situation.”
Rechtschaffen replied that the governor’s office would endeavor to do whatever would be appropriate.
The California Air Resources Board is expected to decide in 2013 on whether or not to continue pursuing REDD credits as part of California’s cap and trade program.
Marlon Santi, a K’ichwa leader from the Sarayaku community in Ecuador, renowned for resisting oil development and speaking out against REDD, said that Indigenous Peoples are not just holding the Governor’s office responsible. “We are taking our case to the United Nations. We must stop REDD from threatening the survival of our peoples.”
Contact:
Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network, 218-760-0442
Jeff Conant, Friends of the Earth, 575-770-2829
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 17, 2012
CONTACT: Michelle Chan, Friends of the Earth, 202 427 3000
California’s Global Warming Trading Scheme Could Endanger Indigenous Forest Peoples
International Delegation Warns Against Carbon Offsets Rejected by Other Global Governments
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 17 – Leaders of indigenous forest peoples warned today that California’s proposed carbon credits trading scheme – intended to help reduce global warming – could in fact threaten the survival of those who live there.
At issue are so-called REDD credits that may be part of the state’s cap-and-trade carbon market. These credits would allow California polluters to meet limits on greenhouse gas emissions by buying carbon offset credits from international initiatives intended to prevent destruction of tropical rainforests.
“In Acre, the demarcation of indigenous territories is paralyzed because they want to take our lands to make profits from environmental services, through programs like REDD,” said José Carmelio Alberto Nunes, known as Ninawá, the President of the Federation of the Huni Kui people of Acre, Brazil. “We will not and cannot trade our hunting, our fishing, and our lives for pollution. You cannot trade pollution for nature. We are for life – therefore we are against REDD.”
Ninawá is among a delegation of indigenous leaders from Mexico, Brazil and Ecuador who are traveling to Sacramento this week to testify before the state Air Resources Board and meet with officials from Gov. Jerry Brown’s office and Cal-EPA.
“We support California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network. “But REDD amounts to nothing more than a plan to grab the lands that our indigenous peoples have always cared for, in exchange for permits that let industries continue to pollute.”
“REDD plus indigenous peoples equals genocide,” Goldtooth said.
Although the Air Resources Board has yet to issue a draft rule to accept REDD credits into its carbon trading system, the state has been actively exploring the option through initiatives such as the Governors Forests and Climate Task Force. The task force is an initiative started by California in 2008 to create a supply of REDD credits for California’s carbon market. Under a 2010 agreement, Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil are the two states that will be the first to potentially supply California with REDD credits.
The Task Force held its annual meeting last month in Chiapas, Mexico, where the meeting was met with public protests.
Rosario Aguilar, a health promoter from the region and a member of the delegation to California, said, “Even before California has established its market, the REDD+ project being implemented in our communities is causing conflict and displacement. As part of their plan to move indigenous people off the land, the government cut off medical services to the village of Amador Hernández in the Lacandon Jungle. This is why we say that REDD is promoting death, not life.”
Opposition to REDD credits is also building within California. In July, over 30 California groups, including Friends of the Earth, Communities for a Better Environment, the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment and Greenpeace wrote to Governor Brown, urging him to reject REDD credits from California’s cap and trade system. The groups pointed out that because REDD credits lack environmental integrity and pose unacceptably high social risks, “to date no regulatory carbon market in the world has allowed the use of sub-national forest offsets for compliance.”
“While Chevron explodes in Richmond and causes over 15,000 people to be hospitalized, it’s clear that we need real climate solutions to address greenhouse gases and toxic pollution in California,” said Nile Malloy, Northern California Program Director at Communities for a Better Environment. “REDD is not the solution. We need equitable, renewable and just solutions to solve the climate crisis at home and not negatively impact the Global South and other communities in the process.”
The following members of the delegation are available for interviews:
Rosario Aguilar, a health promoter and social anthropologist from the town of Las Margaritas in Chiapas, Mexico.
José Carmelio Alberto Nunes (Ninawá), President of the Federation of the Huni Kui people of Acre, Brazil.
Berenice Sanchez Lozada, a Nahua from Mexico, one of the founding members of the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Against REDD and for Life.
Marlon Santi, a Kichwa from Ecuador and leader of Ecuador’s indigenous movement.
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network.
Gloria Ushigua, is a member of the Association of Zápara women, Ecuador, and a vocal critic of both conventional extractive industries and REDD-type programs as they are being implemented in Ecuador.
Indigenous groups across Latin America are exploring the use of carbon finance to save their forests and provide income. Some NGOs, however, fear mechanisms like REDD will backfire – resulting in higher rates of both deforestation and poverty. The two opposing views are converging this week in California, and each side accuses the other of not playing fair.
18 October 2012 | In February of this year, exasperated indigenous leaders from 11 organizations in the Brazilian state of Acre sent an open letter to CIMI (Conselho Indigenista Missionário), a Catholic missionary organization that has won high marks over the years for its support of indigenous rights.
The letter (see “Open Letter to CIMI”, right) thanked the organization for its past good works but then – in a stunning and public rebuke – accused the organization of playing loose with facts and even of adopting a paternalistic stance towards the very people it had done so much to help.
“No one is forcing the indigenous organizations to do anything,” they wrote. “We will not be treated as Indian wards who need NGOs to defend their rights.”
At issue was an affidavid that CIMI had filed with federal authorities – nominally on behalf of indigenous groups, but without their consent – claiming that indigenous people had been tricked and harangued into participating in carbon finance programs like REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation).
Indigenous organizations across the Amazon have been exploring such mechanisms, which make it possible to earn carbon credits for saving endangered rainforest and capturing carbon in trees. The 11 leaders denied that they’d been pressured or deceived into anything, and they also implored people on boths sides of the debate to embrace reason over rhetoric.
“Both those in favor of and those against REDD must be serious and ethical in conveying correct information and establishing continued dialogue,” they wrote. “Those in favor of REDD cannot promote it as something that can resolve all the problems of our communities; those against it cannot terrorize our peoples using western capitalism as a backdrop and creating a climate of distrust and fear based in suppositions and untruths.”
The program starts in 2013 under Assembly Bill 32 (AB32) and is administered by the state’s Air Resources Board (ARB). The FoE contingent will make its case to ARB on Thursday.
Protecting Indigenous Rights
At issue is whether REDD will help indigenous people by paying them to maintain their forests, as proponents claim, or whether it will hurt them by sparking a land-grab, as opponents claim.
“There is no guarantee that there would be safeguards to prevent land grabs, evictions and other human rights violations to the indigenous people,” says Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and part of the delegation to California.
He argues that REDD would lead to the creation of protected areas that prevent indigenous people from continuing their traditional ways of using the land.
Almir Surui, who was not invited to speak before ARB, takes a different view. As chief of the Paiter Surui indigenous nation of Brazil, he spearheaded the creation of the first indigenous-led REDD project in Latin America, and he sees REDD as a vehicle for preserving the tribe’s traditional way of life.
“Deforestation and logging are destroying us,” he says. “REDD is an alternative – a good alternative – that makes it possible for us to earn money by maintaining the forest.”
Warwick Manfrinato agrees. He runs the University of São Paulo’s Amazon in Transformation Program (Programa Amazônia em Transformação).
“I have a great number of land owners that will continue to have no real option but to deforest if such opportunity for their standing forests are not provided,” he wrote in an open e-mail to REDD opponents. “These are people that exploit the forests, [but]… they found in REDD a way to maintain what they like most, which is the forests they own.”
Juan Carlos Jintiach sees validity in both arguments. As economic director for the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations for the Amazon Basin (COICA), the main indigenous federation in the Amazon, he represents thousands of indigenous people from all Amazonian countries. Long leery of REDD, he now believes the mechanism can help recover the “ecological debt” owed by industrial country polluters – but only if projects are designed in cooperation with the tribes and in a way that supports a holistic approach to forestry and secures indigenous rights to their lands and customary practices.
When climate talks begin in Doha later this year, he’ll be advocating a mechanism he calls “Indigenous REDD,” which requires clarity of land tenure, strengthens the collective rights of tribes in general, and calls for accreditation mechanisms and state-sanctioned regulation to combat fraud.
False Claims?
Core to opposition arguments are stories about indigenous people being forced from their homes in Chiapas and Acre – stories that Mónica Julissa De Los Rios says are misleading.
The capacity-building programs are being spearheaded by the Pro-Indian Commission of Acre (Comissão Pró-Indio do Acre, or CPI-AC), which has been supporting indigenous peoples in Acre for 30 years, with support from the Communities and Markets Program of environmental non-profit Forest Trends (publisher of Ecosystem Marketplace).
No Decision Yet
In the first meeting of the Community Peer Forum on REDD and PES, participants said they are open to REDD, but not completely sold.
“I think that if REDD is done with respect to indigenous rights, first and foremost, respecting territorial rights, that this project is in control, in the power, of the indigenous community, it can really help their community projects,” said Laura Soriana of the Yawanawa indigenous community. “I think this would be a good opportunity.”
Victor Lopez of Ut’z Che, a Guatemalan Community Forestry Association, agreed.
“We are in a process of first understanding, before forming final opinions,” he said. “Given that the mechanism is still in construction, we do not have definitive opinions yet.”
Kelli Barrett is an editorial assistant at Ecosystem Marketplace. She can be reached at kbarrett@ecosystemmarketplace.com —- Selene Castillo is a carbon markets program research assistant at Ecosystem Marketplace. She can be reached at scastillo@ecosystemmarketplace.com.
An international delegation of indigenous leaders from Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador is currently in California to oppose California’s proposed carbon offset scheme. The scheme could allow companies in California to meet limits on greenhouse gas emissions by buying carbon credits rather than reducing pollution at home.
The recent meeting of the Governor’s Climate and Forest Task Force in Chiapas (which links several provinces and states in the Global South with California) was met by protests, a People’s Forum against REDD, statementsopposing REDD, and a report from Greenpeace opposing REDD offsets.
Indigenous peoples are now taking the protest to California.
California’s Global Warming Trading Scheme Could Endanger Indigenous Forest Peoples
International Delegation Warns Against Carbon Offsets Rejected by Other Global Governments
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 17 – Leaders of indigenous forest peoples warned today that California’s proposed carbon credits trading scheme – intended to help reduce global warming – could in fact threaten the survival of those who live there.
At issue are so-called REDD credits that may be part of the state’s cap-and-trade carbon market. These credits would allow California polluters to meet limits on greenhouse gas emissions by buying carbon offset credits from international initiatives intended to prevent destruction of tropical rainforests.
“In Acre, the demarcation of indigenous territories is paralyzed because they want to take our lands to make profits from environmental services, through programs like REDD,” said José Carmelio Alberto Nunes, known as Ninawá, the President of the Federation of the Huni Kui people of Acre, Brazil. “We will not and cannot trade our hunting, our fishing, and our lives for pollution. You cannot trade pollution for nature. We are for life – therefore we are against REDD.”
Ninawá is among a delegation of indigenous leaders from Mexico, Brazil and Ecuador who are traveling to Sacramento this week to testify before the state Air Resources Board and meet with officials from Gov. Jerry Brown’s office and Cal-EPA.
“We support California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network. “But REDD amounts to nothing more than a plan to grab the lands that our indigenous peoples have always cared for, in exchange for permits that let industries continue to pollute.”
“REDD plus indigenous peoples equals genocide,” Goldtooth said.
Although the Air Resources Board has yet to issue a draft rule to accept REDD credits into its carbon trading system, the state has been actively exploring the option through initiatives such as the Governors Forests and Climate Task Force. The task force is an initiative started by California in 2008 to create a supply of REDD credits for California’s carbon market. Under a 2010 agreement, Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil are the two states that will be the first to potentially supply California with REDD credits.
The Task Force held its annual meeting last month in Chiapas, Mexico, where the meeting was met with public protests.
Rosario Aguilar, a health promoter from the region and a member of the delegation to California, said, “Even before California has established its market, the REDD+ project being implemented in our communities is causing conflict and displacement. As part of their plan to move indigenous people off the land, the government cut off medical services to the village of Amador Hernández in the Lacandon Jungle. This is why we say that REDD is promoting death, not life.”
Opposition to REDD credits is also building within California. In July, over 30 California groups, including Friends of the Earth, Communities for a Better Environment, the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment and Greenpeace wrote to Governor Brown, urging him to reject REDD credits from California’s cap and trade system. The groups pointed out that because REDD credits lack environmental integrity and pose unacceptably high social risks, “to date no regulatory carbon market in the world has allowed the use of sub-national forest offsets for compliance.”
“While Chevron explodes in Richmond and causes over 15,000 people to be hospitalized, it’s clear that we need real climate solutions to address greenhouse gases and toxic pollution in California,” said Nile Malloy, Northern California Program Director at Communities for a Better Environment. “REDD is not the solution. We need equitable, renewable and just solutions to solve the climate crisis at home and not negatively impact the Global South and other communities in the process.”
CONTACT: Michelle Chan, Friends of the Earth, 202 427 3000
The following members of the delegation are available for interviews:
Rosario Aguilar, a health promoter and social anthropologist from the town of Las Margaritas in Chiapas, Mexico.
José Carmelio Alberto Nunes (Ninawá), President of the Federation of the Huni Kui people of Acre, Brazil.
Berenice Sanchez Lozada, a Nahua from Mexico, one of the founding members of the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Against REDD and for Life.
Marlon Santi, a Kichwa from Ecuador and leader of Ecuador’s indigenous movement.
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network.
Gloria Ushigua, is a member of the Association of Zápara women, Ecuador, and a vocal critic of both conventional extractive industries and REDD-type programs as they are being implemented in Ecuador.
Chevron uses armed guards for a REDD-type project in Brazil. The Nature Conservancy, General Motors, American Electric Power, Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education, and Chevron (previously known as Texaco), infamous for destruction caused in Ecuadorian Amazon, have implemented the Guaraqueçaba Climate Action Project in the ancestral territory of Guarani People with uniformed armed guards called “Força Verde” or “Green Force” who intimidate and persecute local communities; jailing and shooting at people who go into forest as well as forcibly entering and searching private homes without due authorization2 “…[T]he project has caused devastating impacts on the local communities…”3
An Indigenous leader was criminalized for defending his people and territory from an Australian carbon cowboy who duped the Matsés People of the Peruvian Amazon into signing a REDD-type contract for perpetuity and written in English, which grants the carbon trader total control over the Matsés People’s land, way of life, intellectual property, forests and carbon. The contract also stipulates that anyone who denounces this scam will be sued.4 The carbon trader has brought charges against Indigenous Matsés Leader Daniel Jimenez. National and international Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations, AIDESEP (National Organization of the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples of Peru) and COICA (Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin), demanded the expulsion of the carbon trader from Peru.5 The carbon trader has censored and attacked the freedom of expression and freedom of press of a journalist who covered the story for REDD Monitor.6
Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation are threatened by REDD-type plantation projects related to the Inter-Oceanic Highway and logging concessions to be implemented near their territories in the Peruvian Amazon. Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation avoid contact with other people and societies and live in remote regions. They are highly vulnerable for a number of reasons including their lack of defenses against common diseases. Contact with others such as REDD-type project implementers in the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon could be disastrous for the Yora People and the Amahuaca People who live in voluntary isolation.7
In Bolivia, BP, whose oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the biggest environmental disaster in the history of the United States, participates in the biggest REDD-type project in the world in the Chiquitano People’s territory, which helps it to greenwash its destruction of biodiversity and communities’ livelihoods.8 Yet another example of the extractive industries like Dow, Rio Tinto, Shell, Statoil, BP Amoco, American Electric Power—AEP and BHB Billiton which have historically caused pollution and deforestation and are promoting REDD as a profitable opportunity to “offset” their ongoing pillaging of the planet. As noted in the New York Times, “…programs to pay for forest preservation could merely serve as a cash cow for the very people who are destroying them.”9
In numerous places in the world, REDD-type projects and policies are being implemented in violation of the right of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). In Ecuador, the government continues to develop a REDD program despite the fact that the most representative organization of Indigenous Peoples, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, (CONAIE), has explicitly rejected the implementation of all REDD+ policies and projects in the country.10
Africa
Despite Amnesty International’s recommendation to “stop immediately the practice of forced evictions,”11 as Kenya’s Mau Forest is made “ready” for a UNEP-funded REDD+ project, members of the Ogiek People continue to suffer violent evictions, and Ogiek activists are attacked for protesting land grabs.12 Minority Rights Group International includes the Ogiek People in their list of “Peoples Under Threat” from genocide, mass killings or violent repression13 and this latest wave of evictions could threaten the cultural survival of the Ogiek People.
Over 22,000 people were violently evicted from the Mubende and Kiboga districts in Uganda to make way for the UK-based New Forests Company to plant trees, to earn carbon credits and ultimately to sell the timber.14 According to the New York Times, “New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad.”15 The New York Times also reports “…[V]illagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers.16 New Forests Company is 20% owned by the HSBC bank and investors in the project include the World Bank. Evicted successful farmers are reduced to becoming poorly paid plantation peons on the land they were evicted from. “Homeless and hopeless, Mr. Tushabe said he took a job with the company that pushed him out. He was promised more than $100 each month, he said, but received only about $30.”17
Asia
Two of the biggest greenhouse polluters on the planet, oil giants Gazprom and Shell, which is infamous for the genocide of the Ogoni People and environmental destruction in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, bankroll the Rimba Raya REDD project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.18 The project is also supported by the Clinton Foundation and approved by the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VSC) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA). Nnimmo Bassey, the Director of Environmental Rights Action (FoE Nigeria) and Chair of Friends of the Earth International, says, “We have suffered Shell’s destruction of communities and biodiversity as well as oil spills and gas flaring for decades. Now we can add financing REDD for greenwash and profits to the long list of Shell’s atrocities.”19
Oceania
In Papua New Guinea, “carbon cowboys” are running amok, conning and coercing communities into signing away their land rights with fake contracts.20 The land and power of attorney of 45,000 indigenous in East Pangia was handed over to a carbon trader.21 “Carbon finance and REDD have triggered a ‘gold rush’ mentality.”22 Scandals, scams and fraud abound.23 State to State: California, USA and Chiapas, Mexico
The State of California is promoting subnational carbon market REDD in Chiapas, Mexico, Acre, Brazil, Aceh, Indonesia and Cross River, Nigeria.24 In Chiapas, Mexico, Tzeltal People of the community of Amador Hernandez denounce the California REDD project as a climate mask “to cover up the dispossession of the biodiversity of the peoples.”25 The community has denounced what they perceived as a land grab. A year before, the villagers said, all government medical services, including vaccinations, had been cut off; several elderly people and children died due to lack of medical attention. This neglect, they believed, was due to their refusal to capitulate to the demands of REDD. “They’re attacking our health as a way of getting access to our land,” Martinez said. 26 The community has asked the governor of Chiapas to “suspend the state REDD+ project in the Lacandon Community Zone, as it constitutes a counterinsurgency plan that promotes conflicts between neighboring communities.”27
Notes:
1.REDD-type projects are not necessarily official REDD projects but they are relevant to understanding potential impacts of REDD insofar as they involve forest carbon credits.
2. PBS/Frontline World, Carbon Watch, Centre for Investigative Journalism, http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/moneytree/. REDD Monitor, “Injustice on the carbon frontier in Guaraqueçaba, Brazil,” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/11/06/injustice-on-the-carbon-frontier-in-guaraquecaba-brazil/. Mother Jones, “GM’s Money Trees,” http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/11/gms-money-trees. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC, Fall 2011, “Conversations with the Earth,” http://www.conversationsearth.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35&Itemid=5&88c60d09cbeb0c0f5ab56c802eeadb5c=d2fc690bda16802103d60a27ea8bed21.
3. World Rainforest Movement, “Forest of deforestation and persecution of local communities,” http://wrm.org.uy/.
4.AIDESEP (National Organization of the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples of Peru), “Declaración de Iquitos,” http://www.aidesep.org.pe/index.php?codnota=2000.
5.REDD Papers—Volume I (2011), “Colonizing territories with REDD: An Australian ‘Carbon Cowboy’ and the Matsés People in the Peruvian Amazon”; REDD Monitor, “AIDESEP and COICA condemn and reject ‘carbon cowboy’ and demand his expulsion from Peru,” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/05/03/aidesep-and-coica-condemn-and-reject-carbon-cowboy-censored-and-demand-his-expulsion-from-peru.
6.REDD Monitor (2011), “A ‘carbon cowboy,’ internet censorship and REDD-Monitor,” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/08/10/a-carbon-cowboy-internet-censorship-and-redd-monitor/, and “‘Carbon cowboy’ [CENSORED] denounces indigenous chief in Peru,” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/08/05/carbon-cowboy-censored-denounces-indigenous-chief-in-peru/.
7. NO REDD: A Reader (2010), “Enclosure of forests and peoples: REDD and the Inter-Oceanic Highway in Peru,” http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf.
8. Cardona, T. et. al., “Extractive Industries and REDD,” in No REDD:A Reader (2010).
9.New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal (2009), “In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand”, August 21.
10. CONAIE, “Open Letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanding cancelation of all REDD projects,” REDD Papers—Volume I, original in Spanish, http://www.movimientos.org/enlacei/show_text.php3?key=19549.
11. Amnesty International, Kenya: Nowhere to Go: Forced Evictions in Mau Forest, “Incidents of forced evictions have been reported in different areas of the Mau Forest since 2004, affecting thousands of families,” http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/info/AFR32/006/2007, p.1-2.
12. See: International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs (2011), “Kenya’s ‘Forest People’ in Bitter Fight for their Ancestral Homes,” April 15. Minority Rights Group International (2011), “Minority Rights Group Condemns Targeted Attacks on Ogiek Activists,” March 7. First Peoples International (2011), “In new Kenya, old guard ‘land-grabbers’ attack key leaders -Ogiek land activists survive assaults.” Interim Coordinating Secretariat, Office of the Prime Minister on behalf of the Government of Kenya, “Rehabilitation of the Mau Forest Ecosystem.” Los Angeles Times (2010), “Kenyan tribe slowly driven off its ancestral lands.” Survival International (2010), “Kenyan tribe’s houses torched in Mau Forest eviction,” April 8. REDD Monitor (2009), “Ogiek threatened with eviction from Mau Forest.”
13. The Standard, http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=1144018627&catid=16&a=1.
14. The Guardian (2011), “Ugandan farmer: ‘My land gave me everything. Now I’m one of the poorest’,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/22/uganda-farmer-land-gave-me-everything. Wall Street Journal (2011), “African Land Acquisitions Comes Under Scrutiny,” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904563904576584673419328758.html.
15. New York Times (2011), “In Uganda, Losing Land to Planted Trees—Slide Show,” http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/09/22/world/africa/22uganda-3.html.
16. New York Times, “In Scramble for Land, Group Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out,” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/africa/in-scramble-for-land-oxfam-says-ugandans-were-pushed-out.html?_r=1.
17. Ibid.
18. REDD Monitor (2010), “Shell REDD project slammed by Indigenous Environmental Network and Friends of the Earth Nigeria,” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2010/09/08/indigenous-environmental-network-and-friends-of-the-earth-nigeria-denounce-shell-redd-project/.
19. Ibid.
20. Gridneff, I. (2011), “Carbon conmen selling the sky,” The Sydney Morning Herald.
21. “A Breath of Fresh Air,” video by Jeremy Dawes, http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/09/11/more-questions-than-answers-on-carbon-trading-in-png/.
22. Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/environment/australian-firm-linked-to-pngs-100m-carbon-trading-scandal-20090903-fa2y.html.
23. REDD Monitor, “REDD Projects in Papua New Guinea ‘Legally untenable’,” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2010/09/14/redd-projects-in-papua-new-guinea-legally-untenable/.
24. REDD Monitor, Just what REDD Needed. Carbon Offsets and another Abbreviation. Welcome R-20 http://www.redd-monitor.org/2010/11/19/just-what-redd-needed-carbon-offsets-and-another-abbreviation-welcome-to-r20/#more-6500
25. REDD Monitor (2011) Statement from Chiapas, Mexico: REDD project is a climate mask “to cover up the dispossession of the biodiversity of the peoples” http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/09/07/statement-from-chiapas-mexico-redd-project-is-a-climate-mask-to-cover-up-the-dispossession-of-the-biodiversity-of-the-peoples/.
26. Ibid.
27. Climate Connections (2011), “Environmental, Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights Groups Reject International Offsets in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act,” http://climate-connections.org/2011/08/23/environmental-indigenous-peoples-and-human-rights-groups-reject-international-offsets-in-californias-global-warming-solutions-act/.
The much hyped “fund-based approaches,” be they “public”, “hybrid” or “market-linked” or otherwise dubbed, are not a bonanza of benefits nor, alternatives to carbon market REDD. Instead, funds are slated to serve as phase one or phase two subsidies for “readying” and birthing1 REDD projects for carbon markets. International aid,2 foundation3 and big “conservation” NGO4 monies, “green” taxes, investments from polluting corporations eager for cheap greenwash5 and venture capital from carbon speculators6 will all chip in to line the coffers of a variety of such funds for getting REDD up and running and “ready” to be profitable in the nascent REDD carbon markets.
Carbon market enthusiasts are quick to lament the funding gap for REDD’s birth. “We are probably three, four or five years away in terms of having a really significant liquid private sector market so the issue is how do we fund it at the moment.?”7 “There is direct funding from governments such as Norway or through the World Bank, but the key issue is how much do we rely on public sector financing or on private sector financing,” said Martijn Wilder, head of Baker & McKenzie’s global climate change and emissions trading practice.8
By its own omission, the purpose of the World Bank Carbon Forest Partnership Facility is to “jump start a forest carbon market.”9 But there are also signs that international aid agencies may be significantly restructuring to focus primarily on REDD.10 Despite developing countries’ clamor for “fresh money”11 for REDD, i.e. in addition to current aid,12 it is increasingly clear that REDD money could substitute donor country support for social programs. Already crucial Australian international aid for poverty relief has been axed and replaced with seed money for carbon forestry projects in Indonesia.13 While Australia hurriedly passes legislation to offset 100% of its emissions eductions,14 both Australian and Indonesian civil society have lost no time in resoundingly condemning the human rights abuses and environmental destruction of Australia’s foray into REDD.15
As for Norway, it seems to have donned a REDD Santa costume, flying around the world in a carbon off-setted contraption to deliver huge financial gifts16 for REDD start-ups (i.e. multimillion dollar donations to UN-REDD,17 the Amazon Fund,18 Indonesia19 and the Interim REDD+ Partnership20).
However, despite its apparently saintly interest in forests, Norway does not seem to mind the flagrant conflict of interest of the manager of the Amazon Fund, the Brazilian Development Bank,21 which naughtily funds massive deforestation of precisely the world’s largest rainforest the fund purports to protect.22 Furthermore, that Norway has wasted no time in calculating that the Amazon conveniently “offsets” ten times Norway’s yearly emissions only further fuels speculation that, despite assurances to the contrary, that the Amazon Fund will soon transition to the carbon market.23 But regardless of the Amazon Fund’s ultimate framework, Norway’s much trumpeted initial donation has already served as green-wash for Norway’s state oil company Statoil partnership with Petrobras24 to aggressively expand agro-fuels, an infamous driver of deforestation, and plunder Brazil’s vast offshore oil reserves which risks devastating the biodiversity and livelihoods of communities of Brazil’s stunning coast.
The advent of Gourmet REDD points to a very special role that foundations could play as REDD prep cooks and midwives. Gourmet REDD pretend to compensate for environmental destruction by combining REDD carbon credits with Payment for Environmental Services provided by water, biodiversity, wetlands, Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge systems, culture and even survival. Over the years, foundations and NGOs have accumulated an impressive command of the intricate workings of grass roots communities and organizations. Now these relationships and intelligence could be harnessed for assembling “socially adept,”25 “cute and cuddly,” “charismatic carbon” and the elite, “gourmet niche of REDD.”26 Major funders like the Ford Foundation are now turning to REDD as the new frontier in philanthropy.27
Meanwhile, back at the UN, the superpowers are bickering about whether they want two or three phases for REDD.28 Some want to cut to the chase and prep and package REDD projects in the first phase and quickly get down to selling it in the second phase, while others, like the EU and the World Bank,29 prefer more REDD foreplay and as many as three phases. But regardless of the numbers or the names, the end result will be the same. As the New York Times bluntly noted, the ultimate purpose of REDD is to generate “carbon credits that can then be sold for cash on the global carbon market,”30 and REDD could end up being “a cash cow for forest destroyers.”
As we well know, the Copenhagen climate summit produced no legally binding emissions reduction targets. Instead, the divisive Copenhagen Accord hails “the immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDD-plus” and proposes funding REDD by a variety of ambiguous “approaches” including the carbon market.31 Some UN delegates and analysts foresee that REDD funding will not be a nifty gift without strings but ultimately negotiated as loans32 that will simply increase spiraling foreign debt and economic neo-colonialism. Debt-for-nature swaps are also a potential REDD financial mechanism but a country has to fork over forests to get in on the action.33
REDD funds are a motley crew of prep cooks, midwives and assembly plants34 that go by many names but are united in the intent to hijack the world’s forests and promote plantations to generate carbon credits and profits. Those who strive to actually protect forests and supports Indigenous Peoples’ rights, well-being and survival must reject REDD outright and discard “fund-based approaches” and other thinly veiled carbon market-promoting euphemisms or lend themselves to green-washing carbon market REDD.
Real alternatives to carbon market REDD cannot simply re-spin REDD. It is not enough to add a clever adjective, purport to be “fund-based,” get certified or pretend to not ultimately rely on the carbon market and the privatization and commodification of trees, forests and air. Fortunately, real alternatives to REDD already exist and include collectively demarcating and titling Indigenous Peoples’ territories and land where most of the world’s forest are found, which has been proven to be one of the most effective measures for reducing deforestation; implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other relevant international instruments; slashing demand for beef, pulp, lumber, palm oil and agrofuels; drastically reducing monoculture plantations and logging concessions, declaring a moratorium on new fossil fuel and mining extraction and dam construction on or near indigenous land as well as addressing the underlying causes of deforestation. In the event that a new buzz word is absolutely imperative to refute REDD then Indigenous Peoples’ Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources and Forests35 based on respect for the Sacred and the non-commodification of life has a nice ring to it.
Notes:
1. Or ‘incubating” as the case may be. See Katoomba’s “Incubator,” http://www. katoombagroup.org/~katoomba/documents/ publications/IncubatorENGLISH.pdf.
2. According to the Head of the World Bank forest Carbon Partnership Facility: “On the financing side, then, you can, we can list a number of sources. For readiness there’s the FCPF Readiness Fund, there’s the UN-REDD programme, we have colleagues from UNDP here, the Congo Basin Forest Fund can participate, the Global Environment Facility, and of course a whole series of sources from Official Development Assistance.“ http://www.huntingtonnews. net/columns/090521-lang-columnsworldbankredd.html.
3. For example, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, http://www.moore.org/ search.aspx.
4. The Nature Conservancy: forest offsets more important than emissions reduction targets, http://www.redd-monitor. org/2009/06/05/the-nature-conservancy-forest-offsets-more-important-than-emissions-reduction-targets/. Conservation International: “Controversial Deal between US-based NGOs and Polluting Industries Slammed,” http://www.redd-monitor. org/2009/05/28/controversial-deal-between-us-based-conservation-ngos-and-polluting-industry-slammed/.
5. For example, BP, Amoco, and AEP alliance with The Nature Conservancy for the world’s largest REDD project. See Indigenous Environmental Network, No REDD Booklet, p.7, http://www.ienearth. org/REDD/redd.pdf. Chevron and General Motors: http://motherjones.com/ environment/2009/11/gms-money-trees.
6. Nobelist Krugman on the fear of carbon markets and speculation, http://www.grist.org/…/nobelist-krugman-fear-of-carbon-markets-and-speculation-is-99-wrong-and-bad/.
7. Martijn Wilder of the Baker and MacKenzie lawfirm in a forum of REDD project developers and policy-makers in Jakarta, “Indonesia Needs To Refine Forest-CO2 Rules: Lawyers,” http://www.planetark.com/enviro-news/item/54556.
8. Ibid.
9. World Bank, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21581819~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html.
10. “The Australian government is misusing aid money and its bilateral relationship to set up cheap forest offset schemes in Indonesia, according to a report released today by AidWatch, Friends of the Earth Australia and Friends of the Earth Indonesia.” “‘The Australian government makes it quite clear that the use of aid to promote REDD is entirely self-interested. It is predicted that offsets for reduced deforestation will be much cheaper than those currently available under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism. This is a flagrant misuse of aid money for cut-price Australian offsets,’ said James Goodman of AidWatch,” in “Aid monitoring NGO slams 200m in Australian ‘aid’ for offsets schemes,” http://www.sydney.foe.org.au/news/cprs-bad-indonesia-well-australia-groups-warn.
11. “The REDD Initiative: EU Funds and Phases” prepared by the Swedish EU Presidency for the Interparlaimentary Conference, September 2009, http://the_redd_initiative-EU-Funds and Phases.pdfthe_redd_initiative-EU-Funds and Phases.pdf
14. “What A Scam: Australia’s offsets for Copenhagen,” details Australia’s strategic approach to offshoring its emissions– unlimited access to international offsets for companies covered by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and a push in the international climate negotiations for United Nations mandated offsets. http://tiny.cc/8XIOl.
15. “‘The Indonesian government passed their REDD regulation in the face of UN concern that these laws fail to recognize indigenous rights. Unless indigenous rights are protected, millions of Indonesians are at risk of being excluded from the forest resources that provide them with a sustainable subsistence livelihood,’ said Teguh Surya of Friends of the Earth Indonesia . . . ‘Australia must pay its carbon debt and make emissions cuts here, not export emissions cuts to developing countries like Indonesia,’ said Ellen Roberts of Friends of the Earth Australia.” http://www.sydney.foe.org.au/news/cprs-bad-indonesia-well-australia-groups-warn REDD; Wrong Path: Pathetic eco-Business WAHLI, http://www.redd-moniotr.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/WAHLI-REDD.pdf.
16. Norway is the lead donor to both UN-REDD and the Amazon Fund. The Norwegian aid agency NORAD is also actively promoting grass roots work that may serve as the foundations for Gourmet “socially adept” REDD. The Prime Minister of Norway launches UN-REDD with the UN Secretary General: http://www.un-redd.org/UNREDDProgramme/tabid/583/language/en-US/Default.aspx.
19. Corruption allegations cloud the Indonesia-Norway billion dollar deal, http://www.redd-monitor.org/2010/09/21/corruption-allegations-cloud-the-indonesia-norway-billion-dollar-deal/.
21. Brazilian Development Bank is the manager of the Amazon Fund, http://inter.bndes.gov.br/English/news/not1919_08.asp.
22. “Slaughtering the Amazon,” Greenpeace Report. http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/reports4/slaughtering-the-amazon.
23. Brazil accepts REDD: “Brazil to Propose 10% Forest-Credit Cap in Copenhagen,” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a5jThoDmk6tk.
24. Scandinavian Oil and Gas Magazine, “Energy giants Petrobras, Statoil sign duo pact,” http://www.scandoil.com/moxie-bm2/alternative_energy/biofuels/energy-giants-petrobras-statoil-sign-duo-pact.shtml.
26. “Gourmet REDD,” in Indigenous Environmental Network, No REDD Booklet, p.7, http://www.ienearth.org/REDD/redd.pdf.
27. The Climate and Land Use Alliance is a multi-foundation collaborative focused on REDD. “The Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) is a philanthropic collaborative whose member foundations (the ClimateWorks Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation) have joined forces to address one of the most challenging and critical aspects of climate change mitigation: reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and other land use changes, otherwise known as REDD.” http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/greendreamjobs.display/id/3050549.
28. “The REDD Initiative: EU Funds and Phases” prepared by the Swedish EU Presidency for the Interparlaimentary Conference, September 2009, http://the_redd_initiative-EU-Funds and Phases.pdfthe_redd_initiative-EU-Funds and Phases.pdf. In addition to its summary of the EU proposal on REDD funds and phases, it also notes that “A system, where the value of a forest increases, can create problems for indigenous populations (sic) since in many places the issue of ownership is unclear. When states and companies see growing opportunities of making money from standing forests it can lead to increased pressure on the traditional living spaces of indigenous populations. A problem with the recently acquired economic value of forests is that social and ecological values are lost.” Other poignant observations include REDD “could become a cheap alternative to reducing domestic emissions caused by for example burning fossil fuels. There is concern in developing countries that they could lose their sovereignty when other parties have strong views as to how to minimize deforestation.”
29. “How the World Bank explains REDD to Indigenous Peoples,” http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/090521-lang-columnsworldbankredd.html
30. Disney Invests In Saving Forests, http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/disney-invests-4-million-to-save-forests/?scp=4&sq=REDD&st=cse.
31. What came out of Copenhagen on REDD, http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/12/22/what-came-out-of-copenhagen-on-redd/.
32. The role of grants versus loans in development cooperation—lessons for climate finance and REDD+, http://redd-net.org/resource-library/the-role-of-grants-versus-loans-in-development-cooperation-lessons-for-climate-finance-and-redd+.
33. “U.S. signs debt-for-nature swap with Brazil to protect forests,” http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0813-dfns_us_brazil.html.
34. For example, see the Katoomba Group’s funders and partners, http://www.katoombagroup.org/.
35. See UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Indigenous peoples’ permanent sovereignty over natural resources: Working paper by Erica-Irene A. Daes, former Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, 30 July 2002, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/23, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3d5a2ce3e.html.
7 November 2013. Farmers produce food, not carbon. Yet, if some of the governments and corporate lobbies negotiating at the UN climate change conference to be held in Warsaw from 11-22 November have their way, farmland could soon be considered as a carbon sink that polluting corporations can buy into to compensate for their harmful emissions.
