Tag Archives: REDD

by | 2011-04-07 · 14:51

A Broken Bridge to the Jungle: The California-Chiapas Climate Agreement Opens Old Wounds

By Jeff Conant, Communications Director at Global Justice Ecology Project

Photo: Jeff Conant

When photographer Orin Langelle and I visited Chiapas over the last two weeks of March, signs of conflict and concern were everywhere, amidst a complex web of economic development projects being imposed on campesino and indigenous communities without any semblance of free, prior, and informed consent. Among these projects is a renewed government effort to delimit Natural Protected Areas within the Lacandon Jungle, in order to generate carbon credits to be sold to California companies. This effort, it turns out, coincides with a long history of conflicting interests over land, and counterinsurgency campaigns aimed at the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), as well as other allied or sympathetic indigenous and campesino groups.

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32, mandates targeted Greenhouse Gas reductions statewide. An important component of AB32 is its controversial reliance on market mechanisms, such as cap-and-trade, which will allow California companies to buy offset credits from participating domestic and foreign agencies. The cap and trade provision of AB32 hit a major roadblock a few weeks ago, when the San Francisco Superior Court ruled that the California Air Resources Board violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by not fully evaluating alternatives to the cap-and-trade system in the 2006 law. This is a significant sign of opposition to market-based climate solutions in California; but the local impacts in California are but one side of a global equation.

Bonampak. Photo: Jeff Conant

When Governor Schwarzenegger signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the states of Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil last November, to establish the world’s first sub national cap and trade agreement to use the emerging mechanism known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), he set in motion a process that critics see as leading to potential land grabs in Chiapas and Acre, as well as continuing industrial contamination in California.

REDD, in Brief

The U.N. defines REDD as “a mechanism to create an incentive for developing countries to protect, better manage and wisely use their forest resources, contributing to the global fight against climate change. REDD strategies aim to make forests more valuable standing than they would be cut down, by creating a financial value for the carbon stored in trees.” On its face, the idea of “reducing emissions from deforestation” sounds good, especially given that 15 to 25 percent of global CO2 emissions are linked to forest loss. But while the major multilateral institutions, including the UN, the World Bank, and many large environmental organizations, support REDD, many forest-dependent communities, environmental justice advocates, Indigenous Peoples organizations, and global South social movements see REDD as a way for industries in the North to continue polluting, and for forest communities in the Global South to be evicted from or denied access to their lands.

A policy brief from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on the application of REDD in Mexico notes that “there are a number of problems for which solutions need to be found if [the REDD] mechanism is to achieve its potential. One of these is linked to local difficulties, both in terms of policy integration and application in communities.” Indeed, that is precisely the concern: while the overall concept may be appealing (assuming that creating a market value for non-market commodities like air, carbon dioxide, and forests is not inherently problematic), its application in real-world communities brings many real-world problems.

Welcome to Zapatista territory. Photo: Jeff Conant

The Tangled History of The Lacandon Community Zone

The Lacandon Jungle is the northernmost intact rainforest in Mesoamerica, sitting in a remote region of Chiapas, directly bordering Guatemala. The region is marked by a long and complex history of conflicts over land rights, including a long history of settlement by migrating indigenous and non-indigenous populations, as well as many cases of indigenous peoples being forcibly removed from territories they see as their home. Key to understanding the conflict in the region, however, is the story of the historic construction known as “the Lacandon Community”.

For centuries following the collapse of classic Mayan civilization around 900 A.D., the Lacandon jungle – a montane rainforest marked by rugged terrain, snaking turquoise rivers and limitless biodiversity – was largely inaccessible, and too remote to draw much attention from the outside. The original inhabitants, relatives of the Chontal Maya, had been responsible for building the great temples of the region, but were virtually wiped out during the first centuries of the conquest. At the end of the 18th-century, however, a group of indigenous Caribes migrated into the Lacandon from Campeche, northeast of Chiapas. In the course of the 20th century, many other people began to settle there, including colonists, encouraged by government programs to open the jungle, and wave after wave of indigenous peoples escaping from the fincas – the large plantations where they’d been held in indentured servitude for generations.

By the late 1960’s, there were an estimated 30,000 people living in isolated settlements in the Lacandon. This population explosion led to land-related conflicts and an increasing pressure on the rainforest. To halt the migration, the government decided in 1971 to declare a large part of the forest (614,000 hectares) a protected area: the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. As tenants and guardians of the area, they appointed the Caribe tribe, erroneously understood to be the region’s original inhabitants, and now designated, by government fiat, as “Lacandones”. At the time, the Lacandon, neé-Caribe, tribe consisted of sixty-six families. These families, along with a few settlements of Tzeltal and Ch’ol settlers, became the new owners of the territory, officially designated “the Lacandon Community.” In order to designate the Lacandon Community, 2000 Tzeltal and Ch’ol families from 26 communities had to be displaced.

These evictions, and the government programs that followed, led to a state of constant tension between the Lacandon Community and the rest of the region’s inhabitants. Several campesino organizations formed throughout the 1970’s to demand redress; among them was an organization called Quiptic ta lecubtesel, whose rallying cry was “No a la brecha Lacandona!,” or, No to the Lacandon border – a specific reference to efforts to demarcate the disputed territory that had been given to the Lacandon Community.

In Amador Hernandez. Photo: Jeff Conant

It was into this jungle of tensions that several militants from northern Mexico arrived in the early ‘eighties, to begin forming what would become the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). On January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, an armed insurgency broke out, led by the EZLN. The Zapatista movement, “the first Postmodern revolution,” as it became known, brought the world’s attention to the region, and helped spark what would soon be called the “anti-globalization movement” worldwide.

But, while the Zapatistas gained a lot of attention (waning in recent years) due to their strategic use of symbols and their expert handling of communications, few are aware that the Zapatista organization represents the first and only time that six of the seven ethnic groups in Chiapas (all but the Caribe/Lacandon tribe) have united under a common banner – that of opposition to the “brecha lacandona.” Indeed, as often as the Zapatista story has been told, few people outside of Chiapas are aware that this movement, which seemed to appear as if out of nowhere, grew out of the long history of resistance, but specifically out of the indigenous peasant organization Quiptic ta lecubtesel. In this sense, since the very beginning, the Chiapas conflict has been the result of an arbitrary “forest protection” scheme.

While Zapatista communities, like peasant farmers throughout the world, practice a form of swidden agriculture based on opening productive spaces in the forest to plant maize and beans,  they have, since the beginning of their uprising, maintained a strong stance on protecting the jungle from neoliberal development—especially cattle ranching, illegal logging of precious hardwoods like mahogany, expansion of military installations, and exploitation of the eight unexplored oil reserves in the jungle. Perhaps more to the point, the history of Chiapas, like the history of most of the “New World,” is built on successive waves of resource extraction: hardwoods, medicines, and rubber, followed by sugar, coffee, cattle, and petroleum – all of which have done immeasurable damage to the jungle ecosystem. The cheap labor force that allowed this exploitation to occur was provided, in Chiapas, by Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Ch’ol, and Tojolabal indigenous people who were virtually enslaved for centuries to work as peones on the haciendas and latifundios that formed the basis of the New World economy. The communities that make up most of the Zapatista support base, and most of the population of the jungle region of Chiapas – those who are today being expelled yet again from the only lands available to them – are the direct descendents of these enslaved people.

Photo: Jeff Conant

The Lacandon Today

In the forty years since the Lacandon Community was established, the Mexican government has been unable to demarcate the Lacandon Border, despite many attempts. Many of these attempts have involved military efforts by the government of Chiapas to remove settlers, and specifically Zapatista-aligned communities, from the territory of the Lacandon Community and the Montes Azules Reserve. On October 18, 2000, then-President Zedillo expropriated 3.5 hectares of the ejido Amador Hernández, a Zapatista-aligned community located precisely on the border of the Reserve, to build new military installations. On July, 4, 2004, the government moved families from the community of San Francisco El Caracol, in the Montes Azules Reserve, to a “new population center” called Santa Martha, in the municipality of Marqués de Comillas. On January 23, 2005, 160 Tzeltal families were displaced from Montes Azules to the pre-planned community of Nuevo Montes Azules, near Palenque. On November 13, 2006, hundreds of armed peasants from the Lacandon Community reportedly attacked seventeen families living in the village of Viejo Velasco Suárez, leaving 4 people dead (including a pregnant woman) and 4 people disappeared, in what entered local mythology as the Massacre of Viejo Velasco. On August 18, 2007, a joint police and military operation evicted 39 families from the communities of Buen Samaritano and San Manuel, also in Montes Azules.

Now, with the promise of financing under REDD, work is underway again to delineate the “brecha lacandona”. While there are many other potential sites for REDD-related projects throughout Chiapas and throughout Mexico, all worth keeping a close eye on, the historic tensions in the Lacandon region make the reopening of la brecha lacandona a case of particular concern.

As I traveled with my colleague Orin Langelle throughout the region over the past two weeks, signs of la brecha were legion. On March 19, Juan Francisco Leo Durán, a federal government topographer with the Secretary of Agrarian Reform working at the archeological zone of Bonampak, told me that the demarcation was nearing completion, with all but 80 kilometers left to delineate.

A Lacandon jungle reserve. Photo: Jeff Conant

“That 80 km,” he said, “lies in the region of the cañadas, where the EZLN communities are.”

The next day, on March 20, the Governor of Chiapas, Juan Sabines, paid a high profile visit to Frontera Corazal, a population center of the Lacandon Community, to deliver the first REDD payment of 2000 pesos to each landholder, and to stage a photo opp. Mexican newspaper La Jornada reported that this was the first visit of a governor to the community of eleven thousand people, mostly indigenous Ch’oles, since Sabines’s father, a former governor, paid a visit in 1980. In the La Jornada article, based on a press release from the State government, Governor Sabines is quoted as saying, “After thirty years, we are here to respond to the needs of Frontera Corozal, and we are doing it by way of this program, REDD +, that we have initiated in the seven reserves of the Lacandon jungle.”

“Before eleven thousand inhabitants,” the article says, “Juan Sabines Guerrero made it clear that payment for environmental services is a project in support of life, and that their children and their grandchildren will thank them, because from this they will live; they’ll receive money to care for the forest.”

The article concludes, “The State government authorized a monthly payment; however, this is merely to allow the completion of the forest inventory so that [members of the Lacandon Community] can access federal and international funds, as well as complement these funds with projects like agricultural conversion outside the reserve with species such as oil palm and rubber.”

While the members of the Lacandon Community are the beneficiaries of both the monthly REDD payment and access to vast territory, such benefits come at a high cost. In the words of Miguel Angél García, Coordinator of the  Chiapan NGO Maderas del Pueblo, “Of all the ethnic groups in Chiapas, the one that has suffered the greatest abuse of their rights are the Lacandones; they’ve been robbed of their history, of their identity, and of their dignity, and they’ve been turned into walking folkloric entities. There’s nothing worse than that.”

Further, García explains, the monthly payments for forest protection go to only about 600 landholders; as the next generation comes up with no possibility of planting to feed their families, and with no options for employment besides tourism and managing plantations of African palm, what it means for the Lacandon culture is all too clear.

In Amador Hernandez. Photo: Jeff Conant

Amador Hernández: A Village on the Edge

On March 23, I traveled with photographer Orin Langelle and two local videographers to Amador Hernández, a village of about 1500 people that lies on the border of the Lacandon Community – and the site of the previously mentioned expropriation of land, as well as a site of intense military interest during the hot years of the Zapatista uprising in the late ‘nineties. On arrival, we learned that the community had received a government advisory just a few days previous, announcing that a demarcation team would come through soon. Residents of Amador Hernández told me that their best planting land lay within the Lacandon Community, and that without it they would be unable to grow enough food to support themselves. They also said that, a year earlier, all medical services, including vaccinations, had been cut off to the community, in what they believed was an attempt to force them to move or negotiate. Several elderly people and children had died due to lack of medical attention. It turned out that this village, and a few small outlying settlements, were the only communities left that had not capitulated to the brecha Lacandona.

At the same time, those communities that had negotiated for resettlement, were beginning to protest that the terms of their resettlement were hostile and abusive. The day before we arrived in Amador Hernández, on March 22, the residents of Nuevo Montes Azules issued a public denouncement condemning the conditions of their resettlement. In their statement, they say:

“On February 4, 2005, seven communities that were located in the Lacandon Jungle, in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, were relocated in the municipality of Palenque. We accepted the offer of relocation due to the fact that, in the process of negotiations, the government of the state of Chiapas assured us that the lands we would be given were in perfect state, that our land title was assured, that the houses were well-constructed, that our electricity would be subsidized, that we would receive good educational and health services, potable drinking water, and modern systems of sewage and drainage. They offered us a dream, but they gave us a nightmare. As we were moved to the new location, we were threatened that if we returned to our former home in the jungle, we would be arrested and taken to jail; those who refused to leave were forcibly removed.”

The denuncia goes on to describe the living conditions in Nuevo Montes Azules: “We live in utter abandonment, with grave health problems and insecurity. Our houses are too small for our families, they have no foundations, the roofs are badly built, and the walls are collapsing due to the poor construction. When there is wind, our houses tremble.” The water and sanitation systems have failed, there are neither medicines nor medical personnel in the health center, and the land is too compacted to grow anything. When it rains, the land floods, and further deteriorates the houses.

To the residents of Amador Hernández, resisting the brecha Lacandona means refusing to accept the nightmare of Nuevo Montes Azules.

African palm plantation, Marques de Comillas, Chiapas. Photo: Jeff Conant

The Broader Context of Economic Development in Chiapas

Many NGOs in Chiapas support REDD, while many more criticize and resist the program. Of those who support it, with whom I was able to talk, there was agreement that any REDD program would have to be developed slowly, with community engagement and participation.

“There is no REDD project currently in operation in Chiapas,” a representative of the Mexican NGO Pronatura told me. The Chiapas office of Conservation International, on the other hand, said they are working on REDD-related project in the southern Sierra Madre, in the coffee-rich areas around the National Park El Triunfo, which the global conservation group manages. When asked about the government REDD program, those I spoke with generally refused to comment, or indicated that the government was moving ahead with its own REDD program, and that this would surely be a topic for discussion in upcoming meetings.

Whatever the case with REDD itself – which, even its proponents agree, is a vanishingly complex set of policy initiatives that must be handled with great care – delineating forest reserves in Chiapas in order to place them into the carbon market is pouring salt in old wounds. Further, the growth of carbon-sequestration projects in Chiapas can only be understood as part of a massive wave of economic development that is sweeping the state and the region, accompanied by displacement, conflict, and deepening marginalization.

Among these intertwined developments are the rapid expansion of African palm and Jatropha plantations for biofuel production (Governor Sabines made the first biofuel-powered flight from Mexico City to Chiapas on Friday, April 1), numerous dams and mining concessions, and the dubious resettlement centers known as “sustainable rural cities”.  These so-called sustainable cities include sixteen pre-fabricated housing developments planned precisely at the locations of strategic resource extraction and land conversion (with the sad case of Nuevo Montes Azules considered to be the first trial effort, followed by two more UN-backed efforts, Nuevo Juan Grijalva and Santiago El Pinar). Also under development is an effort to further exploit the Mayan history of the state for tourism; a superhighway under construction designed to link major tourist centers and Mayan archeological zones has led to violent conflicts in the communities of Mitzitón and Bachajón, where several people have been killed and hundreds arrested for attempting to block the development. All of these development projects run roughshod over autonomous indigenous territories.

"Rural city: Santiago El Pinar" Photo: Jeff Conant

Two decades after the Zapatistas put Chiapas on the global map of resistance, the region is again coming to represent all of the conflicts and tensions of arbitrary economic development. Such development – turning land, life, and livelihoods into market commodities for the benefit of global elites – continues to be antithetical to the needs and desires, indeed, to the cosmovision, of most of the residents of this, Mexico’s poorest and most indigenous state.

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by | 2010-12-09 · 09:58

In Cancun, protest breaks out against REDD

Cross-posted from The Hindu

Meena Menon

Members of La Via Campesina and other groups condemn market-based solutions

Two protesters from environmental groups hold up a banner against the REDD plus proposal, outside the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, on Tuesday.

CANCUN: Hector Rodriguez, who runs an alternative radio station in Cancun called Reptil, decided on a novel way to protest the commercialisation of forestry.

As hundreds of people marched to the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez walked up to the posse of Mexican policemen with riot shields and launched into an impassioned plea to help Mother Earth.

“Help, help me,” he pleaded to the policemen, who quickly moved back, unsure of how to react. Hector’s clothes literally made a statement. The white cloth that barely covered him screamed: ‘No to REDD’ and ‘No to capitalism of forests.’ The protest, organised by La Via Campesina and other groups with an estimated 3,000-5,000 people, was against market-based solutions to climate change and opposed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) plus, a proposal that seeks to help people manage forests and sequester carbon, among other things.

The heavily guarded road leading to the venue, Moon Palace, was barricaded. A helicopter circled over the march. However, small groups protested along the road. Posters reading ‘The Earth is not for sale,’ ‘life or death,’ and ‘No to REDD,’ reflected some of the themes of the protest. ‘Let’s change the system, not the climate,’ said the others.

Social movements and civil society representatives, together with Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon and Chief Paraguayan Adviser Miguel Lovera, joined the small farmers, indigenous people, women, environmental groups and other activists who marched for hours in the blazing sun. The march ended in a meeting of sorts. The Mexican authorities had lined up large numbers of federal policemen along the way to Moon Palace.

Meanwhile, at a press conference at Moon Palace, La Via Campesina, Mr. Solon, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth International and others condemned the “false solutions and backroom deals” in the negotiations currently under way. They called for worldwide actions for climate solutions based on traditional indigenous knowledge, community-based practices and human rights.

The press conference ended with Luis Henrique Moura of MST, the landless workers’ movement of Brazil, leading the group in the chant: ‘Globalise the struggle, globalise hope!’ The group staged a small protest there, shouting ‘No REDD, no REDD.’

“We have called for 1,000 Cancuns around the world today,” said Josie Riffaud of La Via Campesina, referring to the need for grass-roots communities to take the lead in proposing solutions to the ecological crisis. “The first of these took place this [Tuesday] morning inside the Moon Palace.” A small tableau was created at Cancun Messe, also a conference venue, highlighting the consequences of not addressing climate change.

Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project referred to Lee Kyung Hae, the South Korean farmer and La Via Campesina member, who took his life during protests against the World Trade Organisation here in 2003, wearing a sign saying ‘The WTO Kills Farmers.’ “Then we were fighting against the World Trade Organisation,” she said. “Today, we have to fight the World Carbon Trade Organisation.”

Representatives of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America which comprises nations of South America and the Caribbean (ALBA) countries also expressed their solidarity with the people.

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by | 2010-10-18 · 10:38

UN CBD COP 10: Business and Biodiversity, Hand in Hand

–Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director and North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition

Nagoya, Japan–Today was the opening day of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s tenth Conference of the Parties (COP-10).  2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity.  It is also the year by which the UN CBD had tasked itself with achieving a set of “Millenium Development Goal” (MDG) targets with regard to staving off biodiversity loss.

As you can probably imagine, these goals came nowhere close to reality.

At this CBD COP, however, the Parties are pledged to create a new 10 year strategic plan.  Over the course of the next two weeks, the details of this plan will be discussed word by painful word.

The Opening Ceremony of the COP-10 took place this morning.  Part pep rally, part hand wringing, the presentations by the Big Wigs went on ad nauseum.  They went on so long in fact, that the environmental groups present–which had spent a couple of days preparing a 3 minute opening statement to the COP–were not allowed to present it.  No time…

But after all this taking “a hard look at” itself, the CBD has decided NOT to look at the root causes of this failure, but rather to commit itself to buddying up with business in order to devise a win-win that will supposedly protect biodiversity while promoting the interests of industry.

The logic of this green capitalist model is fascinating.  I will share with you a few choice quotes from The Little Biodiversity Finance Book (available in great piles here at COP-10):

“The English playwright Oscar Wilde once commented that the cynic knows the price of everthing but the value of nothing.  Today’s cynics are those who claim biodiversity is priceless, yet are not prepared to pay for it…In the UN year of Biodiversity a quiet revolution is occurring.  Whilst the Millennium Development Goals for stemming biodiversity loss may be missed, the financial crisis is forcing a re-think of how products and services are valued. Investors are thinking, ‘if we got it so wrong with one property, what else out there is incorrectly valued?’  There is a growing realization that wealth creation cannot continue based on financial and social capital alone, but must recognize natural capital too–for without this, national accounts, business accounts and consumer accounts–long term, are ultimately built on sand.”

“[Biodiversity financing] is a natural follow on from REDD, which is essentially valuing one such service, namely the carbon cycle…Such a utilitarian view of biodiversity should not be allowed to erode the inestimable value biodiversity has for the human spirit but should secure it for future generations…This new economy could see the emergence of ‘biodiversity superpowers’ rich in natural capital and able to bargain their ecological muscle for aid or trade.”

Whew.  Where to start with logic like that…

Premise One: Biodiversity is priceless, therefore we should put a price on it.

Premise Two: If you disagree with this oxymoronic-logic, you are a “cynic.”

Premise Three: The lesson from the financial crisis is that “property” was valued incorrectly.  [Wow, that is definitely NOT the lesson I took away from the financial crisis…]

Premise Four: Ongoing wealth creation depends on “natural capital.” Well duh.  Isn’t that kind of the essence of “CAPITALism”–transforming natural “resources” into capital?  But what’s that got to do with protecting biodiversity?

Premise Five: A utilitarian view of nature is a good thing as long as we combine it with a reverential view.  [Again with the oxymoronics.]

Premise Six: Valuing biodiversity appropriately will create “biodiversity superpowers” who can hold their biodiversity hostage for aid or trade.  “Give us your money or the forest gets it.”  And this is a good thing?

Of course, this premise also ignores the reality of things like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which have forced so-called “developing” countries into debt for decades by conning them into huge development loans, then using those loans as leverage to force them to sell off their vast natural resources to the lowest bidder–part of the process called “structural adjustment”. Structural adjustment programs are part of what has made the comfortable overconsumptive lifestyles of those of us in the North possible.

But under the premise in this little book, all of a sudden, the rich countries will pay the poor countries in exchange for them protecting their natural wealth.  Hmmm, that sounds familiar.  Debt for nature swaps–oh yeah, that was a smashing success.

Look, let’s face reality, shall we?  One cannot continue to live under a global economy that demands endless growth and simultaneously protect biodiversity.  And one cannot employ the very same economic strategies that have devastated biodiversity to now protect that same biodiversity by merely tweaking them slightly.  Putting a dollar value on nature simply means the rich will be able to control that nature.

And since the author brings up REDD, yes, let’s look at REDD as an example of what to expect from putting a price on biodiversity. Because REDD puts a dollar value on standing forests, it has launched a major global land grab with investors, companies and others buying up forests in the hopes of future profits.  The peoples who live in those forests–and are largely responsible for the fact that they are still standing, I might add–are being displaced.  Kicked out. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?

Then there was the World Forestry Congress in October 2009.  The World Bank came to this huge gathering of timber industry executives and Big Greens to tell them about all of the profits to be had from forests under REDD.  By the time they were done, the timber executives were practically drooling.  The World Bank explained there would be around $45 billion in profits to be had under REDD, and that REDD would be very “beneficial for forestry.”  Yes, that’s right, the scheme ostensibly designed to protect forests will mean billions in profits for the very industry that thrives on cutting them down.

In exactly the same way that putting a price on carbon has meant billions in profits for the world’s worst polluters.  And so, commodifying biodiversity will in turn mean vast profit-making for the worst destroyers of biodiversity.

That, my friends, is what COP-10 is all about.

Business and Biodiversity, hand in hand at last…

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by | 2010-06-02 · 22:06

The Promotion of REDD: The Tentacles Spread

UN Climate Convention to Combine Forces with Biodiversity Convention on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (REDD) Schemes

By Anne Petermann

As the promotion of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) intensifies here at the intercessional UN Climate talks in Bonn, Germany, it is both growing in scope (to incorporate more and more uses of land—including agriculture) and expanding to include the other two conventions that arose out of the 1992 Rio Convention—that is the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

This merging became clear at the Oslo conference on REDD hosted by the Norwegian government.  Ahmed Djoghlaf, the Executive Secretary of the CBD sent a statement there about the importance of biodiversity in mitigating climate change. And the second meeting of the Oslo body (called the REDD+ Partnership) will be held in Nagoya, Japan this October immediately prior to the UN CBD COP (Conference of the Parties), which itself takes place only a little over one month before the UN Climate COP in Cancun.

The key role of the CBD COP is spelled out quite clearly in the REDD+ Partnership paper promoting the Nagoya “Ministerial Meeting on Forest Conservation Cooperation and Climate Change.”  The paper states, “Partners recognize that forest conservation provides co-benefits of biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, and provides strong political momentum for the success of the CBD COP-10.”

As well, our allies who attended the Subsidiary Body (more UN-speak, sorry) meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which took place in Nairobi immediately before the Subsidiary Body meeting of the UN Climate Convention here in Bonn, alerted us to some disturbing developments at the CBD.

Two Biodiversity COPs ago, in Curitiba, Brazil in 2006, the CBD COP agreed to start a “Business and Biodiversity” initiative, which was officially launched at the CBD COP in Bonn in 2008.

The CBD has embraced this initiative and is going hog wild with the notion of embracing business and the markets in their policies and initiatives.  In so doing, they are now emulating several of the programs and mechanisms of the UN Climate Conference—especially “offsets” and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Offsets and the CDM are two components of the Climate Negotiations and the Kyoto Protocol climate agreement that are the bane of the climate justice movement.  Both are designed to give polluting countries and companies in the Industrialized North the excuse to go on polluting while claiming to mitigate their emissions.  They do this by funding projects in developing countries that supposedly compensate in some way for the pollution they are releasing.

Ironically, most of the time these projects are usually extremely destructive and very dirty.  They can include, for example, large-scale hydro-electric projects that drown forests and displace thousands, and they can even include new dirty industries like cement plants, as long as those plants are just a little bit cleaner than they would have been if they did not receive funding from the CDM.

Then there are also offset projects that include so-called “green carbon” (good grief) projects like monoculture timber plantations that supposedly store carbon to “offset” that emitted by industry.  The fact that this offset model has no scientific basis in actually addressing climate change is irrelevant.  It sounds nice and makes a lot of money, and that’s all that matters.

Ah, capitalism…

So the UN Convention on Biological Diversity has looked at these bizarre, profit-oriented and ecologically destructive models and said, “yeah baby! Gimme some of that!”

And thus was born the “Green Development Mechanism” or GDM—the UN CBD equivalent of the CDM (yes, I’m afraid its true).  But that’s only the beginning of their complete loss of sanity.

The CBD has also come up with something they like to call (I’m totally serious) BBOP.  Yes, BBOP—as in Elvis Presley.  As in BBOP a-loo-bop.  But what makes this one such a delight is what it stands for—the Business and Biodiversity Offset Program.  ‘Wait,’ you’re thinking.  ‘Biodiversity offsets?  This can’t possibly be for real!’  Ah, but it is.  The CBD seriously intends to start a biodiversity offset program to allow business to continue to destroy biodiversity as long as they offset it with another project somewhere else.

For activists in the U.S. this is not completely new.  There is a similar program there that has been in use for some time.  And isn’t the U.S. just the ideal role model for biodiversity protection?  You betcha!

By way of an example of how this has worked in the U.S., Walmart might be given a permit to build a new store in the middle of a supposedly protected wetland.  But in order to do this, they would have to pay to construct a new wetland somewhere else.  No really, that’s how it works.

So basically the UN has looked at some of the stupidest and worst models in the Capitalist world and incorporated them into their conventions.  REDD, for example: paying some of the world’s biggest destroyers of forests to stop destroying some of them.  Not only is this model completely fucking stupid, it is a clear reflection of the free trade model that took off in the 1990s and sought to force national governments to pay corporations their lost profits if they were prevented from profiting from “trade barriers” such as laws against pollution or violating the rights of workers.  Except this time the forest-destroyers are holding the world hostage by saying, ‘pay us or fry.’

So what this means is that the activists following biodiversity loss and those following Climate will need to come together to create collaborative strategies and plans to both oppose these crazy market-based death schemes and organize alternatives—real alternatives—peoples’ alternatives—non-market alternatives.

That is our challenge.

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by | 2010-05-28 · 22:36

REDD and Wood-based Bioenergy Threaten Planet’s Forests And People

Protest outside of a Norwegian government meeting to promote "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation" (REDD) in Oslo, Norway highlights the social and ecological costs of the REDD scheme and draws attention to a scandalous Norske Hydro project that threatens to destroy Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Photo Courtesy: Friends of the Earth Norway

Anne Petermann Reports from London
Highlights Include–
• Norwegian Government Scandal in the Amazon Rainforest

• Links Between Climate and Trade
• Pacific Islander Denounces False Solutions to Climate Change

• Genetically Engineered Trees

London, England–In today’s blog post I am going to relate some of the presentations of my colleagues on the GE Trees and Bioenergy Tour which they today here in London.

The first presentation was by Almuth Ernsting of BiofuelWatch, a UK-based organization with an office in the U.S.  BiofuelWatch is very focused on trying to stop the UK from the massive increase it has planned in wood-fired electricity plants.

Some of the main points of Almuth’s presentation:

The amount of electricity the UK generates using wood is projected to increase 3.5 times by 2020.

The vast majority of this wood will be imported.

Industry likes to promote the idea that they will be using wood residues (sawdust, etc), but the reality is, demand will be met by whole tree removal logging—logging that involves the entire tree from leaves to roots, which severely compacts and depletes the soil.

Much of the wood imported by the UK is currently coming from North America.  Future imports are also planned from South America and the Baltic states.

Almuth concluded by showing a graphic from Science magazine which forecasts that the massive global increase in demand for wood-based energy will require so much land that it will lead to a total loss of natural forests and grasslands by 2050.

The next presentation by Simone Lovera, the Executive Director of Global Forest Coalition, who showed the powerpoint presentation created by Camila Moreno, who was still in Oslo fighting the good fight against REDD at a meeting on the subject convened by the Norwegian government.

Simone emphasized that the industry PR claiming that bioenergy crops will be grown on marginalized land is a myth.  She pointed out that this marginal land is never in the UK, it is always in Africa and South America—places where people are trying to reclaim their lands before they are classified as degraded land and given away for bioenergy plantations.  Water is also a crucial issue.  Eucalyptus and other monocultures for bioenergy are very water intensive.

Another project she highlighted as absolutely a scandal.  The Norwegians took over a 91% share in the largest aluminum smelter in the world as well as one of the largest bauxite mines—both in the Brazilian Amazon—and plan to power them with wood-based electricity and a new hydro-electric dam—the notorious and highly-controversial Belo Monte dam (See Video). Aluminum smelters use enormous amounts of electricity and require huge quantities of water.  So while the Norwegian government is promoting “reducing emissions from deforestation,” a Norwegian company (48% state owned) Norske Hydro is simultaneously planning a huge project that will both drown vast areas of Amazon forest and burn mountains of trees.

Meanwhile, the timber industry is being rewarded for their extremely poor land stewardship (consisting primarily of expanding monoculture tree plantations and destroying native forests), with subsidies from governments both for the pulp itself (as so-called “renewable” energy) as well as from the REDD scheme.

She pointed out that in this alarming trend, communities, local cultures, and biodiversity are being lost.  But the good news, she said, is that people are retaliating and taking over their lands again.  Tupinikim and Guarani as well as the MST and the Women of La Via Campesina have taken direct action against eucalyptus plantations in Brazil.

Certification, she insisted, is not an option.  Millions of hectares of monoculture tree plantations will always be destructive.  You cannot certify overconsumption.

In conclusion, she asked the question, which future do you prefer?  The future of monocultures or the future of diversity?

Mary Lou Malik, the Trade Campaigner for Focus on the Global South presented on the link between trade and climate change.

She began with the premise that corporate globalization is pushing the ecological impacts of the planet, and that 1/3 of trade is for non-essential goods or goods that don’t need to be imported in the first place.

The global economy, she pointed out, is causing poor countries to focus on cash crops for export that cannot be eaten, so that when trade crashes due to an economic downturn, their income dries up and people starve.  Demand for biomass from Southern will exacerbate this problem by turning more agricultural land into tree plantations.

WTO connection to the climate:

Those that are driving the false solutions are the same as the ones driving the free trade system.

How free trade prevents action on climate change:

1      The attempt by countries to create “green” standards and prohibit the import of non-energy efficient products is being rejected by the big countries in the WTO who threaten to cut off the market access of those smaller countries .

2      Through the liberalization of “Environmental goods and services”—that is supposed to allow clean technologies to flow from the North into the South.   However, most of the products that are included under this are actually fossil fuel-based, dirty or controversial (false solution) technologies.  Northern governments are already required under Kyoto to transfer clean technologies.  But putting it under trade means that recipient countries are required to give something up in return (the essence of trade).

3      TRIPS—Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights: Relevant again to climate because the newest clean technologies are all patented, ergo exorbitantly expensive and inaccessible to poor countries.

4      Trade Rules trump all other rules because they are legal and binding, whereas the UN climate agreements are non-binding.  Therefore trade rules always come out on top.  UNFCCC Article 3 states clearly that measures taken to address climate change should not constitute disguised barriers to trade.  Trade comes first. Period.

5      Pushes “solutions” to be market-based.

What we need to do:

• Change Trade not the Climate

• Get rid of market-based and other false solutions

• Refocus trade to promote transfer of clean technologies, etc.

The final presentation of the day was by Fiu Mataese Elisara, who explained the impacts of climate change and false solutions from the perspective of the peoples of the Pacific.  I will try to keep this report as much in his own powerful words as possible.

The countries of the Pacific occupy 1/3 of the surface of the globe. Ninety-five percent of the people in the Pacific are Indigenous.  We are not responsible for the crisis, yet for us it is a matter of life and death.  For this reason, when you talk about geoengineering, REDD, bioenergy and other false solutions, we are very worried, because they will not solve the problems.  We have to keep the temperature rise well below 2 degrees.  Yet the new Copenhagen Accord is predicted to lead to 4 degrees rise in temperature.

We need reductions of 80-90% of emissions by 2050 to save our islands.

Bioenergy and REDD (paying people who want to cut their forests) will make the problem worse, not better.  The conservation of native forests is done by Indigenous Peoples.  But under REDD, you have to be a deforester first before you can benefit.  So the peoples who have conserved forests are left out.  There are no guarantees that after the countries have been paid they won’t deforest a few years later anyway.   Then there’s also the problem of forest definitions.  We get crucified by forest definitions.  When the UN allows plantations and Genetically Engineered trees to be called forests, it’s a major problem.

There is also the problem of sustainable development in the South, which is focused exclusively on economics—not on social or environmental values.  Plantations funded under the CDM [through the Kyoto Protocol—ed.] are killing people whose forests are being taken away.  These negotiations are violating our rights and that climate money is literally killing our people.  The extremes in weather are also killing our people—the increase in number and severity of cyclones, for example.

Bioenergy is going to be more destructive than fossil fuels.  Land grabbing is becoming a major problem in the Pacific as well.  Eighty percent of our lands are Indigenous lands, and the opening of these lands to investors is going to devastate our people.

This is a collective issue.  It’s good we are aligning but we have a big challenge ahead of us so let’s figure out how we can work together to address this problem—to confront the World Bank and the other forces causing this problem.

We have to go out to the communities and tell them the other side of the story, so they know what is possible, and not just what the government or companies tell them.  And when we tell them, they get angry.  The students get angry and then they get involved.

This is how it can change.

Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and is reporting everyday from the GE Trees and Bioenergy Tour in Europe.  Anne also is the Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign.  Stay turned to Climate Connections for her posts.

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by | 2010-05-26 · 22:36

Anne Petermann Reporting from Amsterdam and The Hague

Camila Moreno from Brazil, speaks to the crowd about the dangers of agro-energy in The Hague. Photo: Petermann, GJEP/GFC

By Anne Petermann

(The first section is from Tuesday, May 25th, the second section from earlier today)

Ah, the red eye flight on a standing room only plane.  There’s nothing like it…

Upon emerging from the jam packed metal tube full of people where the other occupants and I had been collectively attempting (mostly futilely) to catch a few hours of sleep, and trudging through the cold hard terminal, I stepped into the cool sunshine of Amsterdam and breathed a sigh of relief.

Into the taxi and straight to the lunch organized for the participants of the annual Board meeting of the Global Forest Coalition at their International office.  Always good to see old friends and colleagues—Camila from Brazil, Fiu from Samoa, Simone from Paraguay, Yolanda from Amsterdam, Estebancio from Panama.  While the board meeting was tacked relatively last minute on to take advantage of so many people from GFC being in the same place, the real purpose of the congregation of people was to take part in a tour designed to inform decision-makers and various organizations around the EU about the dangers of genetically engineered trees (also called GM trees or transgenic trees) and wood-based agro-energy.

My job at the GFC board meeting was to represent the decisions of the GFC Coordinating Group, of which Global Justice Ecology Project is a part, that were made at the annual Monitoring, Evaluation and Planning meeting of GFC in Panama in late-January.  This was where Orin (co-Director/ Strategist of GJEP) and I had last seen many of these friends—on the island of El Porvenir in Kuna Yala, on the Caribbean coast.

Kuna Yala is the independent territory of the Kuna people, won from Panama in the early 1900s.  The ride from the airport in Panama City across Panama and over the mountains that separate Panama from Kuna Yala was simply spectacular.  Tropical forest dotted occasionally by small homesteads as far as the eye can see.

One of the major themes of the Kuna Yala meeting was the issue of REDD (the UN and World Bank scheme to supposedly reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation).  REDD has, of necessity, been a major focus of forest dependent peoples and their allies since it was announced in Bali at the UN Climate summit in 2007.  When  the World Bank held their press conference to announce their Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (their precursor to REDD) it was greeted by loud and raucous protest.Panama has already been experiencing the impacts of the implementation of REDD, and Kuna activists such as Marcial Arias, the Spanish Speaking Focal Point for Indigenous Peoples for GFC, have been very eloquent and passionate in exposing the destructive impacts REDD has had on Indigenous communities in Panama and elsewhere.

Land grabbing, “protection” of forests through the exclusion or eviction of forest dependent communities, expansion of monoculture tree plantations and massive new profits for the timber industry are just a few of the lovely side effects of REDD.

Another little known effect is the promotion of genetically engineered trees under the auspices of REDD.  In 2003, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change decided that GE trees could be used in forestry projects designed to store carbon. In addition, because the UN definition of forests is incomprehensibly unscientific, REDD projects supposedly designed to protect forests (or at least their carbon) can include transgenic trees.  The irony of allowing a forest protection scheme to include trees that will destroy biodiversity and contaminate forests with engineered traits, is yet one more reason why REDD is being rejected by peoples and organizations around the world.

Another nail in the coffin of REDD for me was my experience at the World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires last October.  This conference—which only occurs once every six years—was a revelation.  The doublespeak of the forestry companies, World Bank personnel and their co-conspirators at the big Green groups was amazing.  Their logic revolved around the best ways to profit from the implementation of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation scheme while simultaneously profiting from increased deforestation for the large-scale use of wood to produce energy (electricity, heat and liquid transport fuels)—and how to sell both as solutions to the climate crisis.  It doesn’t get much more opportunistic than that.

It is for this reason that Global Justice Ecology Project joined forces with Global Forest Coalition, BiofuelWatch and Friends of the Earth International for this GE Trees and Agro-energy tour.  Europe is galloping ahead with plans to use biomass (woodchip derived electricity) and agrofuels (large-scale unsustainable liquid biofuels) to meet their target of 20% of their energy being “renewable” by 2020.  This tour is designed to inform European decision-makers and other NGOs that we cannot look to trees to replace fossil fuels.  Projections from industry indicate that use of wood for energy production will double or even triple the demand for wood globally in the coming decades.  Being that the demand for wood is already unsustainable, how can anyone possibly suggest that we can use wood for energy production sustainably—or more ridiculously—as part of climate mitigation?

This is one false solution that must be nipped in the bud.  And that is exactly what this tour is designed to do.

From Wednesday, May 26th

The tour today stopped at The Hague in the Netherlands to speak to a room packed with Dutch Parliamentarians, other environmental and social justice organizations and even a few industry representatives.

Fiu Mataese Elisara from Samoa chaired the meeting and emphasized the importance of getting to the bottom of the concerns about wood-based agro-energy because of the critical need to find real solutions to the climate crisis and to not get bogged down in the false solutions.  Being from Samoa, he knows what he is talking about.  His is from one of the small island nations threatened with total oblivion from rising sea levels due to climate change.  Fiu is a very articulate and passionate representative of the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific.  He is also one of our New Voices on Climate Change speakers.  You can learn more about Fiu by going to his bio on our website.

Camila Moreno did the first presentation of the day, that set the tone for the event.  Camila is Global Justice Ecology Project’s representative in Brazil and also one of our New Voices On Climate Change speakers. Her presentation on the impacts of wood-based agro-energy on Brazil was extremely powerful.  She spoke not only about the impacts of monocultures in Brazil (sugarcane, soy, eucalyptus) for energy and paper, but also about the intense resistance going on in Brazil against the eucalyptus plantations, which they call Green Deserts.  She got a lot of questions from the participants about the outright rejection of certification schemes by Brazilian movements.  But as Camila, and later Deepak Rughani from BiofuelWatch, pointed out, certification legitimizes whatever is being certified.  And for the movements in Brazil, the monocultures cannot be legitimate.

Next came Dorette Corbey, of the Biomass Commission of the Dutch Parliament.  She spoke about the need for sustainability criteria, not only for so-called “renewable” energies like biomass and agrofuels, but also for all energies—including oil, natural gas and coal.  Her presentation following Camila’s set off a strong debate about sustainability criteria and certification schemes and whether or not they can be helpful or are innately harmful.

Unfortunately, following this presentation and debate Camila had to leave to catch a plane to a conference on REDD being put on by the Norwegian government in Oslo.  She and Estebancio Castro, of the Kuna Nation in Kuna Yala are both participating in this event to try to highlight the social and ecological costs of REDD and to encourage the Norwegian government to stop promoting it.  In 2007 the Norwegian government pledged $5 million to the World Bank for their Forest Carbon Partnership Facility during the World Bank’s press conference in Bali—ignoring the passionate cries of the protesters outside that this scheme was going to cause irreparable harm to peoples and ecosystems.

Deepak went next and provided a very detailed and statistics-rich presentation about the future forecasts of the amount of wood that will be needed to meet the projected growing demand for wood-based agro-energy.  It was a frightening presentation.   Think about the demand for wood doubling or tripling from its current level.  We are already losing the last of the primeval biodiversity-rich forests because current demand can’t be sustainably met.  The wood-based bioenergy path is one to certain planetary suicide.

My presentation came next and I focused on the implications of the commercialization of genetically engineered trees specifically designed to provide the products that fossil fuels do today—such as liquid fuels, jet fuel, chemicals, plastics, electricity and heat.  As fossil fuels become scarcer and harder to access—and with backlash from catastrophes like the BP-Haliburton disaster in the Gulf—fuels derived from plants are rising in importance.  But there is no way to engineer trees or anything else to take the place of fossil fuels.  There is simply not enough land to do it.  Craig Venter—the mad scientist who seeks to create new life forms—recently announced that he had succeeded in his mad objective.  He had successfully created the first fully synthetic living organism.  The purpose for these organisms?  To manufacture life forms that create “designer” enzymes that can be used to transform cellulose (from trees or other plants) into plastics, chemicals or fuel.

Of course there have been no risk assessments and this mad science is so new it is basically unregulated. Once again humans are barreling ahead without pausing to consider the possible consequences.  It is the same for GE trees.  Risk assessments have not been done.  What will be the long-term impact of ArborGen’s cold-tolerant eucalyptus trees escaping into native forest ecosystems in the U.S. South?  We do not know.  Decision-makers are not asking that question and scientists are forbidden from seeking the answer—unless they get prior permission from ArborGen.

Which brings me to the day’s last presentation, which was by Mary Lou Malig, the Trade Campaigner for Focus on the Global South who brought the whole wood-based agro-energy question back to the global trade in forest products and who is going to profit from this nightmare.

And at the end of the day, that is what it ultimately comes down to.  Who is going to profit from these potentially disastrous schemes—and who is going to stop them…

Tomorrow:  London

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by | 2010-04-16 · 19:15

From New Voices Speaker Ben Powless: The road from Copenhagen to Cochabamba passes through the Amazon – Part I

Published on rabble.ca (http://rabble.ca)

The road from Copenhagen to Cochabamba passes through the Amazon – Part I
By Ben Powless Created Apr 14 2010 – 1:21pm

Soon thousands will meet in Cochabamba to talk climate justice. It is the voices of the Amazon we should listen to. A report from the Amazon.

The Amazon, it is often said, functions like the lungs of Mother Earth. The dense forest and undergrowth absorb much of the carbon dioxide that we manage to pump into the skies –- an ever more important and taxing effort in light of the threats to our climate.

Rio Wawas, Amazonas, Peru

In December, countries around the world gathered in Copenhagen to reach an agreement to protect the climate, even if purely face-saving, and failed. With that sour taste gone, Bolivia has invited governments, social movements, Indigenous Peoples, politicians, really anyone who cares, to attend the so-called World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth [3]. The conference will be held the 19th-22nd in Cochabamba.

Ahead of that trip, I’ve flown into Lima, Peru to head back into the Amazon. It has been almost a year since the tragic day of June 5th, 2009 left over 30 people dead in the worst violence Peru has seen in modern history. The dispute was over a series of laws the government wanted to push through to open the Amazon to foreign companies, an effort linked to the Free Trade Agreement Peru’s President Alan Garcia signed with Canada and the United States. Amazon Indigenous Peoples resisted the laws with a blockade outside the town of Bagua, on the outskirts of the Amazon, and the government’s decision to send in armed forces still reverberates here. You can see my coverage from Peru last year here [4].

Bagua at Night

Indigenous groups here and elsewhere have maintained that their role in protecting their lands, their resources, their ecologies is paramount, and also serves the rest of humanity. In this case, the Awajun and Wampis peoples were concerned about the entry of oil companies into their lands, ultimately polluting the waters, the flora, the fauna, everything, as has been the case so many times in other parts of the Amazon.

A walk through the jungle outside Wawas, Amazonas, Peru

Bagua today is a much different place than in those tense days after June 5th, when military patrols roamed the streets, and a curfew kept people in hiding. Now, the only sense of tension was between teenage boys and girls in the plaza, whistling and blasting around on motorbikes. As they say, calm waters run deep, and the Amazon has a long memory.

I managed to catch up with Salomon Awananch, who since I ran into him last year, had been elevated to the position of Amazon Leader from his position leading the protests. He understood the protests had forced the government for the first time to seriously consider Indigenous cosmovisions. In order to further make the point, Amazon leaders had recently gathered to pass a resolution rejecting all transnational corporations from their lands, which has yet to be released. They are also heavily investing in an education plan which aims to keep Indigenous knowledge like traditional medicinal plant in use.

Salomon Awananch

At one point, I asked him about the film Avatar. He laughed a bit, admitting he really enjoyed the film, despite having lived a similar experience in the “Baguatar” episode last year. His demeanour hardened. “But if that happened again, it would be a complete war, the end of all dialogue. We have been open to dialogue this whole time, but the government hasn’t had the will (voluntad) to talk. Next time we won’t be protesting on the roads, we would be in the forests and mountains, where we couldn’t be defeated.”

The main threat now? It’s a Canadian mining company, Dorato Resources [5]. Dorato is looking for gold, one of the world’s oldest plunder-able resources, and Peru has much to offer as the 8h largest producer in the world. This mine would be unique, however, situated at the headwaters of the Cenepa River, in the Condor Mountain Range, a very sacred area to the Awajun and Wampis peoples who live downstream. For them, “you can’t touch this hill, you can’t interfere with it,” according to Edwin Montenegro, Secretary of the organization representing Indigenous Peoples of the north Amazon, ORPIAN.

Edwin Montenegro, explaining the Amazon river systems

“This mountain is very important to us. If it is destroyed, if the water is polluted, it is the end of all the Indigenous Peoples along the Cenepa,” continues Montenegro, from his office in Bagua. They also point out that this river flows into the Mariñon River, which flows into the Amazon – and any contaminants, such as mercury, would end up poisoning the Indigenous Peoples of all five water basins that make up the area. They even have a website [6], with a well-produced video overview, all in English.

“We need to do our own Environmental Impact Assessment to study the impacts. There are many understandings of man, territory and the forests. There exist great trees that have energy in them, and that force, that unity is lost when they are cut,” recounted Awananch. Even the mayor of Bagua has taken a stand against the mine. For the Awajun and Wampis, though, the stakes are much higher. “We’re ready to defend the land until the last consequences, and we have an agreement across the five basins of the Amazon to support our demands.”

Violeta, Widow of last year’s violence

I took a side trip to visit the Awajun communities of Wawas and La Curva, hours down the road from Bagua, where the families of victims of the 2009 violence lived. I had gone to drop off some photos to family members and other people in the community, but wasn’t expecting the results. Passing from community to community, by boat and jungle trail, we learned the loss of a community member had divided the community and many families, which was seen as the government’s fault, if not intention. After some unexpected conflict resolution, I was able to share the photos, which brought up many heartbreaking emotions from loved ones, and will hopefully help the children to remember. I also received testimony from Roman Jintach Chu, 45, who was also shot in the violence. In the end, Jintach’s family decided to honour me by naming a newborn baby after one of my family members.

Roman Jintach Chu

As I arrived in Lima on Monday, April 5th, a mining related protest [7] left six civilians dead and dozens wounded. Peru under Alan Garcia in particular has shown itself to be allergic to dialogue, and more than comfortable resolving disputes with a gun. This government is not alone in using force, when needed, to force compliance with corporate and governmental interests.

But it is the community members of places like Wawas and La Curva that must live with the consequences in the long term, and they are on the frontlines of protecting their rights, their environment, and in the end, all of us from the very activities that lead to climate calamities – loss of rainforest, oil refining, water poisoning. It is these very communities whose voices should be elevated and respected when pretending to be able to deal with a problem such as climate change while ignoring its predatory causes.

Community of Jaez

I left Bagua en route to Lamas, San Martin province, where Amazonian Kichwa communities were toiling to be recognized by the government and stop a biofuel company from taking their land. To be continued…

More photos will appear on Flickr [2].

Source URL (retrieved on Apr 16 2010 – 2:59pm): http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2010/04/road-copenhagen-cochabamba-passes-through-amazon-part-i

Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/taxonomy/term/2686
[2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/powless/sets/72157623729448987/
[3] http://pwccc.wordpress.com/
[4] http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2009/06/massacre-peru-trip-amazon-brings-answers-and-more-questions
[5] http://www.doratoresources.com/s/Home.asp
[6] http://odecofroc.blogspot.com/
[7] http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50952
[8] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2010/04/road-copenhagen-cochabamba-passes-through-amazon-part-i#comment-1133599
[9] http://www.ninosdelaamazonia.org
[10] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2010/04/road-copenhagen-cochabamba-passes-through-amazon-part-i#comment-1133874
[11] http://rabble.ca/user
[12] http://rabble.ca/user/register

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by | 2010-03-10 · 16:12

Orin Langelle speaks on REDD

During the UN Climate Conference Meeting in Poznan, Poland in December 2009, one of the most important issues being discussed was REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).  Film maker Rebecca Sommers http://www.sommerfilms.org/ was documenting REDD and the impact of REDD on Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Peoples’ rights.  Although not wanting to be interviewed, Global Justice Ecology Project’s Co-Director and Strategist, Orin Langelle, finally consented to be interviewed.
Langelle comments on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, the failure of the UN Climate Conferences, biodiversity and more.
Notice he is in full UN NGO camouflage:
REDD UNFCCC T13 Orin Langelle 1 A
REDD UNFCCC T13 Orin Langelle 1 B

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