Category Archives: REDD

by | 2011-12-01 · 09:34

Land conflicts, carbon piracy and violations of indigenous peoples’ rights: New report by Amazonian indigenous peoples exposes the reality of REDD+ in Peru and proposes solutions

A new report published today by Peruvian indigenous organisations, AIDESEP, FENAMAD and CARE, and international human rights organisation the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), reveals the impact that REDD projects and programmes are already having on the lives of indigenous peoples. The reality of REDD+ in Peru: Between theory and practice – Indigenous Amazonian Peoples’ analyses and alternatives finds that REDD pilot projects run by some NGOs and companies are already undermining the rights of indigenous peoples, and are leading to carbon piracy and conflicts over land and resources. Persistent advocacy efforts by indigenous peoples’ organisations to secure respect for the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples have resulted in some government commitments to modify national REDD programmes financed by the World Bank. Nevertheless, solid guarantees for respect of these rights are yet to materialise.
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Roberto Espinoza Llanos, coordinator of AIDESEP’s Climate Change Programme and one of the lead authors of the report, explains, “The commitments made by the previous government in 2011 were not made lightly, they were assumed by the State and approved in a global meeting of the World Bank’s FCPF [Forest Carbon Partnership Facility]. We hope that the present government and international entities like the World Bank will deliver on their promises to respect land and territorial rights. Continual monitoring will be necessary to make sure they keep their word.”
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Carbon piracy
The AIDESEP-FPP report highlights how, without any form of regulation, carbon piracy is already rife in Peru. Project developers are roaming the jungle attempting to convince indigenous peoples and local communities to enter in to REDD deals with promises of millions of dollars in return for signing away their rights to control their land and forest carbon to third parties. Many deals are being conducted using strict confidentiality clauses and with no independent oversight or legal support for vulnerable communities. Some of these peoples are not yet fully literate in Spanish, but are being asked to sign complex commercial contracts in English that are subject to English law. Many communities have already come to regret some early deals made with carbon traders and NGOs, and are now attempting to extricate themselves. One leader from the community of Bélgica in South East Peru explained,
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“…We were presented with a trust fund in which the community is obliged to hand over the administration of communal territory and be subject to the decisions of the developer for 30 years….this will not allow us to make decisions about our territory or plan for the future of our children.”
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Land grabs
Many other communities have no secure land rights, as an estimated 20 million hectares of indigenous peoples’ customary territories in the Peruvian Amazon still possess no legal recognition (including those of isolated or ‘autonomous’ indigenous peoples). This is in violation of Peru’s international obligation to recognise and secure indigenous peoples’ traditional possession of their forest lands. At the same time, hundreds of formal requests for ‘conservation concessions’ (with the intention of establishing REDD projects) have been submitted to the government by private individuals and environmental NGOs. Many of these ‘would be concessions’ directly overlie indigenous peoples’ territories still awaiting legal recognition, thereby setting the stage for a state-backed land grab.
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Conrad Feather, Project Officer for FPP and the report’s other lead author said, “REDD is not just a policy instrument being negotiated at the UN; unregulated REDD developments are already turning Peru into a centre of international carbon piracy and the site for a potential land grab of indigenous peoples’ territories on a massive scale. Urgent measures are needed to protect the lands and livelihoods of indigenous peoples.”
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Indigenous alternatives to REDD+
Indigenous peoples’ organisations, however, are not only ringing alarm bells, they are also proposing alternatives. They are urging the new Peruvian government to re-think the forest and climate plans developed by their predecessors and use REDD funds to secure indigenous peoples’ forest territories and support community-based solutions to tackle climate change.
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The report concludes that instead of squandering the money on unproven and unstable carbon markets, more modest and selective funding could be targeted to secure the land and territorial rights of indigenous peoples and support sustainable community forest management. These community and rights-based approaches are cost-effective and proven to protect forests. Community-based alternatives will not only reduce emissions from deforestation and keep forests standing but will also lead to poverty reduction, increased livelihood security and biodiversity conservation. In the words of Alberto Pizango Chota, President of AIDESEP, “Only in this way can REDD truly become an opportunity for indigenous peoples instead of a threat.”
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The reality of REDD+ in Peru: Between Theory and Practice: Indigenous Amazonian Peoples’ analyses and alternatives is available for free download at: http://www.forestpeoples.org/the-reality-of-redd-plus-in-peru-indigenous-amazonian-peoples-analyses-and-alternatives

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Filed under Carbon Trading, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | · 07:05

Indigenous and Community-led Forest Initiatives Offer Solutions to Today’s Problems–Local Communities Need Rights and Respect, Not REDD

Studies show that the best guardians of forest lands are the people who live there. Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent peoples agree. Yet, all over the world, they are increasingly beset by policies and incentive schemes imposed by governments and outside agencies that degrade their forests, their cultures, their livelihoods, and their life ways.

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“It’s a pity that indigenous peoples have to submit to these limited approaches to ‘development’ when we know, from centuries of experience, that our own biocultural values may very well provide the solutions for the problems of today,” said Fiu Mataese Elisara of Samoa, Board Chair of Global Forest Coalition. “They might be considered ‘primitive’ in the eyes of the world, but our methods are not only sacred, holistic, and appropriate to our cultures, they have served us for generations. And they continue to work.”
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In a seminar held this week at the University of Kwazulu Natal, representatives of indigenous peoples, peasant movements, women’s movements, and local communities shared their perspectives on the most appropriate, equitable and effective forms of support for their forest conservation and climate change mitigation initiatives.
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Across the board, participants in the seminar agreed that what is needed to aid their forest restoration efforts is recognition of Indigenous territorial rights, autonomy, traditional knowledge and governance systems; land reform, food sovereignty and sustainable alternative livelihood options; and a definitive end to destructive activities like logging, mining, large tree plantations and land grabbing.
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The seminar also discussed the impacts of schemes to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and enhance forest carbon stocks (REDD+).

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“REDD+ and other projects that convince communities to sign misleading Payment for Enviromental Services agreements create conflicts and undermine livelihoods,” the participants agreed, in a collective statement. “Top-down programs undermine rights, spiritual value systems, and governance, ignore women’s rights and needs, impose economically unviable or otherwise senseless alternative livelihoods on Indigenous Peoples and local communities; and trigger land privatization and the commodification of nature.”

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Simone Lovera, director of the Global Forest Coalition, cited studies from research institutions like the Centre for International Forestry Research, showing that forests are better protected in Indigenous and community conserved territories than in official protected areas.[1]

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“These territories need legal and political recognition,” said Lovera, “not top-down Payment for Environmental services schemes that undermine local authority and enable carbon cowboys to trick community leaders into false carbon offset deals.”
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Notes:
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[1] The seminar ” The ‘do’s and don’ts’ of supporting forest conservation and restoration initiatives by local communities and indigenous peoples” was organized by the Global Forest Coalition, the Task Force on REDD and Communities of the Theme on Governance, Equity and Rights of the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy and the International Consortium on Indigenous Conserved Territories and Community Conserved Areas
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[2] See for example: http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/articles/AGuariguata1101.pdf

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | 2011-11-29 · 11:31

Open Letter of Concern to the International Donor Community about the Diversion of Existing Forest Conservation and Development Funding to REDD+

Marlon Santi from Ecuador, former President of CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nations of the Ecuadorian Amazon) speaks at the press conference that released the following document at the UN Climate Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

We the undersigned NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations (IPOs) want to express our profound concern about the way funds for forest conservation and restoration, and poverty eradication, are being misdirected toward REDD+ projects and policy processes (ostensibly to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and to enhance forest carbon stocks).

Our organizations are working to halt the continued loss of the world’s forests, and to address the impacts this forest loss has on the rights and needs of forest-dependent peoples and on the climate. As such, it is our considered opinion that REDD+ as a mechanism suffers from a large number of inherent risks and problems which cannot be remedied

1)    REDD+-type projects are already having severe negative impacts on the environment and on economically and

Winnie Overbeek from World Rainforest Movement, based in Uruguay, speaks at the press conference. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

politically marginalized groups in society, particularly Indigenous Peoples, small farmers, other forest dependent communities, and women.[i] Most of the world’s remaining forests are found in areas that are relatively unattractive for industrial agriculture, cattle ranching or other land uses and are inhabited by Indigenous Peoples, small peasant communities and other groups. Many of these groups have insecure title over their land, yet due to their social, economic and cultural circumstances, the resources found in forests play a major role in sustaining their livelihoods. A sudden increase in the economic value of forest land due to the introduction of performance payments for forest conservation will definitely lead to an increased risk of conflict over land between these communities and more economically and politically influential groups that see an opportunity to profit from these payments. For this reason, increased conflicts over land, elite resource capture, forced displacements, involuntary resettlements and human rights violations are inherent outcomes to REDD+ as a forest conservation approach.

2)    Performance-based payments for forest carbon storage address only one presumed driver of forest loss: the lack of proper economic valuation of the role of forest carbon storage in overall carbon sequestration. This approach fails to address other direct and indirect drivers of forest loss. Such drivers include lack of recognition of the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and other customary caretakers of forest areas; overconsumption of and trade in forest products and products that directly or indirectly impact on forests; and perverse incentives such as subsidies for export crops and monoculture tree plantations. Other important drivers that are ignored by REDD+ include mineral, oil, gas or coal exploration and extraction activities, shrimp farming and large-scale infrastructure projects such as hydroelectric dams, as well as incoherent government policies in general.[ii]

3)    Performance-based payments for forest carbon will by definition lead to a situation where one value of forests dominates forest policy decision-making, thus undermining what the Executive Director of the UN Forum on Forests has called a “360 degree” approach to forests, an approach in which all functions and values of forests are taken into account in a balanced manner. This deficiency will not only lead to a marginalization of the social and cultural values of forests in forest policy-making, but also to a marginalization of biodiversity values. Already, there has been a strong tendency in forest carbon offset projects to support growing monoculture plantations of rapidly growing tree species, despite their negative impacts on biodiversity.[iii] This problem is exacerbated by the flawed forest definition that has been used by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, which includes monoculture tree plantations as well as “temporarily unstocked areas”, and allows the use of Genetically Engineered (GE) trees.

4)    Forest carbon cannot be equated to carbon stored in fossil fuel deposits. There will always be a high risk of non-permanence in forest carbon offset projects, yet it is broadly recognized that no satisfactory solutions for this problem have

Indigenous Environmental Network's Tom Goldtooth speaks at the conference. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

been developed. .[iv] In fact, this problem cannot be resolved as non-permanence is an inherent feature of forest or tree plantation carbon.

5)       Another inherent problem with REDD+ is that performance-based payments will require a significant investment in monitoring, verification and reporting (MRV) systems that can claim to ensure that the forest carbon benefits of a certain initiative are real and additional. Such MRV systems could take up more than half of the overall budget of REDD+ initiatives. As a group of international market specialists have noted:

“Assuming that forest carbon requires a quantification process similar to the one used today, there is no reason to expect that the market for REDD forest carbon will behave any differently.  The expertise, travel requirements and operational scale required to follow IPCC-like standards almost certainly requires a multinational organization, one that is well-capitalized and capable of managing many clients at once. Will these organizations be numerous? Unlikely. Will they be domiciled in developing countries? It seems improbable. These skills and scale will cost money to deploy, and that – far more than avarice or inefficiency – explains why REDD projects are likely to spend so much on MRV… Forest carbon is likely to behave as any commodities market would, which implies that producers will derive only marginal benefits from the market as a whole.  Moreover, the unique logistical challenges posed by counting carbon to IPCC-like standards imply a very limited population of providers willing to do this for projects.”[v]

This is an unacceptable waste of money in times when resources are scarce and funding for REDD+ is likely to come from the same sources that could also finance other sorely needed real climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Moreover, these costs make it impossible for economically marginalized groups including Indigenous Peoples, forest dependent communities and women, as well as poor countries, to participate in an equitable manner in REDD+ projects.

6)    All these problems will be exacerbated if, as is virtually certain, REDD+ is financed through carbon offset markets. This is the funding option supported by many influential countries and other major stakeholders including the World Bank; even those REDD+ initiatives currently being supported through philanthropy and public monies are generally designed to help jump-start forest carbon markets.[vi] In addition to undermining forest conservation, such markets can only make climate change worse, due to irresolvable problems relating to permanence, additionality and leakage, while continuing pollution in the North and creating toxic hotspots in vulnerable community areas already disproportionately impacted by toxic exposures and environmental injustices.

7)    REDD+ is inherently about commodifying and privatizing air, forests, trees and land. This approach runs counter to

Simone Lovera, from Global Forest Coalition, presents GFC's point of view. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

the cultural and traditional value systems of many Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent communities.[vii] There is a severe risk the market-oriented approach inherent to REDD+ will undermine value systems that are an essential element of successful community-driven conservation of forest areas, and Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and conservation practices.

In numerous places in the world, REDD+ projects and policies are being implemented in violation of the principle 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, CONAIE, has explicitly rejected REDD+ policies in the country.[viii] As Kenya’s Mau Forest is made “ready” for a UNEP-funded REDD+ project, members of the Ogiek People continue to suffer evictions, and Ogiek activists are attacked for protesting land grabs.[ix] In Indonesia, the Mantir Adat (traditional authorities) of Kadamangan Mantangai, district of Kapuas in the province of Central Kalimantan, “reject REDD projects because it is a threat to the rights and the livelihoods of the Dayak community in the REDD project area”, and have called for the cancellation of a project that has “violated our rights and threatened the basis of survival for the Dayak community.”[x]

Many companies and organizations which have historically caused pollution and deforestation are promoting REDD+ as a profitable opportunity to “offset” their ongoing pillaging of the planet, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, Dow, Rio Tinto, Shell, Statoil, BP Amoco, American Electric Power- AEP, BHB Billiton and the International Tropical Timber Organization. In Brazil, Chevron-Texaco, infamous for causing significant forest loss in the Ecuadorian Amazon and threatening Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation, which might lead to genocide, backs a REDD+ project in the Atlantic Forest which uses uniformed armed guards called Força Verde who shoot at people and jail them if they go into the forest.[xi] 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, which helps it to greenwash its destruction of biodiversity and communities’ livelihoods.[xii] As noted in the New York Times, “REDD could be a cash cow for forest destroyers.”[xiii]

In Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Peru and elsewhere, ’carbon cowboys‘ are running amok, conning communities into signing away their land rights with fake contracts.[xiv] In the words of one Indigenous leader, REDD+ may be “the biggest land grab of all time” [xv] REDD+ is inherently about commodifying and privatizing air, forests, trees and land and corrupts everything that Indigenous Peoples hold sacred, including their traditional knowledge systems.  Where REDD+ projects target the territories of Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation, as in the Peruvian Amazon or the Paraguayan Chaco, they might even threaten the very survival of these Peoples[xvi].

These risks and problems have been recognized by a large number of UN organizations and other international institutions, as well as by the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change themselves.[xvii] The so-called “safeguards” adopted by a majority of Parties to the UNFCCC show that they are already concerned about the potential negative environmental and social impacts of REDD+. However, these REDD+ “safeguards” will not save forests from being converted into plantations, or Indigenous Peoples’ rights from being violated in REDD+ projects. Nor can they prevent the damage that REDD+ carbon offsets would do to genuine efforts to address climate change. Voluntary, weak and relegated to an annex, they are unsupported by any consensus to make them legally binding, let alone establish a compliance and redress mechanism. In the past, such voluntary safeguards schemes have usually proven to be ineffective, many even serving as greenwash for corporate malpractice.

For that reason, many institutions have emphasized that all land tenure conflicts have to be resolved and that rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women have to be secured, before REDD+ projects and policies are implemented.[xviii] However, this is not a realistic proposition. We strongly support any policy efforts to address land tenure conflicts and human rights violations, especially as far as the rights of Indigenous Peoples are concerned. But land tenure problems and human rights violations in forest areas are far too complicated to be fully resolved in a foreseeable timeframe, and REDD+ will not help. On the contrary, as stated above, the promise of potential performance-based payments would make it more instead of less difficult to resolve these issues, and would tend to weaken instead of strengthen communities’ struggles for their rights.

GFC's Andrei Laletin. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Considering this long list of broadly acknowledged and inherent risks and negative impacts of REDD+, it is remarkable that an estimated 7,7 billion US dollars has already been committed to it by donor countries.[xix] Still more remarkable is the fact that foundations formerly renowned for supporting human rights and justice work are adding millions of dollars to projects and initiatives that promote REDD+.[xx] Meanwhile, there is a financial stranglehold on the often small and independent civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations that denounce the growing list of human rights violations and environmental destruction caused by REDD+-type projects.[xxi]

Unintentionally or not, this extreme, unjust funding disparity constitutes a form of de facto financial censorship, and this means that the right to Free, Prior, Informed Consent of the custodians of the majority of the world’s forests, Indigenous Peoples, is being compromised. If there is almost no funding to support detection, documentation and rejection of the negative social and environmental impacts of REDD+ projects, to say nothing of reasoned criticism of its underlying premises, it will be impossible to expose and disseminate all of the crucial information that remote communities need in order to make decisions about REDD+, and any consent they grant will not be thoroughly and fully “informed”. It must be noted that REDD+ and its relationship to the world of carbon markets and offset regimes is a very complex area that many NGOs involved in climate policy do not fully understand. In this respect it should be taken into account that Indigenous Peoples’ fundamental right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent is a pillar of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This right is also recognized in the REDD+ safeguards adopted by the majority of Parties to the Climate Convention, and by UN-REDD and other donors. Funding the painting of a rosy REDD+ picture in which communities get paid to take care of forests and share in the costs-benefits of REDD+ programs without showing the darker realities in the background is at best negligent and at worst implicates funders in a severe violation of one of the most important rights of Indigenous Peoples. This letter is intended both as a wakeup call to funders and an invitation to bridge this funding gap.

In this respect it is also important to ensure that community capacity-building and awareness-raising projects provide fair and unbiased information about the quite desolate state of the climate negotiations, and the unwillingness of large Northern polluters to agree to legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or financial support for needed climate measures. In the eyes of many social movements, REDD+ is a paltry fig leaf in this respect. The 100 billion USD that was mentioned as possible climate finance in Copenhagen has not been concretized yet, and it is increasingly clear that some of the most important donor countries expect the bulk of this funding to come from carbon markets.[xxii] Already, carbon markets have proven to be a highly volatile and inequitable source of funding, and the current lack of political momentum for a legally binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol will only create more market uncertainty. It is important this information is shared with communities and Indigenous Peoples when they are informed about the “opportunities” of REDD+.

Although protecting forests is a critical piece of the climate mitigation puzzle, a market-oriented and corporate-driven system of performance-based payments comes with inherent risks that are both overwhelming and unavoidable. The irony is that at the same time REDD+ is being so aggressively promoted, there are numerous examples of Indigenous Peoples’ territories and areas where forests have been conserved or restored successfully by communities without performance-based payments based on individual land titles and questionable carbon rights. Examples from countries like India, Gambia, Nepal, Brazil and Rwanda have demonstrated that recognizing community governance over forests and Indigenous Peoples’ rights over their territories provides more effective and ethically sound incentives for forest conservation and restoration, while the Ecuadorian proposal to keep fossil fuels in the ground shows the way toward a more realistic approach to mitigating climate change. In addition to such direct approaches to the fossil fuel problem, it is essential to assure the necessary space for the empowerment of communities that have successfully conserved their forests, and to address the direct and underlying drivers of deforestation such as over-consumption and over-production for and by industrialized societies.

In conclusion, we believe that REDD+ is a fundamentally flawed symptom of a deeper problem, not a step forward. It is a distraction that the planet – our Mother Earth – does not have time for. We should build on the many existing examples of successful forest conservation and restoration rather than investing billions of dollars in an untested, uncertain and questionable REDD+ scheme that is likely to undermine the environmental and social goals of the climate regime rather than support them.

Addressing climate change and forest loss require measures that contribute to thorough economic, ecological and social transformation. To present all sides of the REDD+ story as part of a larger effort to build the diverse and powerful global alliances that can support the transformation that our planet and peoples need, will require the full support of the charity, gift-giving and philanthropy community.

We’re up for the task.

Are you?

Some of the press conference presenters. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

[i] No REDD Platform, No REDD, A Reader (2010), http://noredd.makenoise.org
Lohmann, Larry (2008), Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold?, The Corner House, London, UK, www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/chronicle-disaster-foretold

[ii] Moussa, J. and Verolme, H. (ed.) (1999), Addressing the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation, Case Studies, Analysis and Policy Recommendations, Biodiversity Action Network, Washington, USA
Global Forest Coalition (2010), Getting to the Roots, Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Drivers of Forest Restoration, Global Forest Coalition, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Mery, G. et. al. (2011) Forests and Society = Responding to Global Drivers of Change, International Union of Forest Research Institutions, January 2011

[iii] See for example: Acción Ecológica and World Rainforest Movement (2005) Carbon Sink Plantations in the Ecuadorian Andes, Impacts of the Dutch FACE-Profafor Monoculture tree plantations project on indigenous and peasant communities, World Rainforest Movement, Montevideo, Uruguay.

[iv] http://unfccc.int/methods_and_science/lulucf/items/4122.php

[v] The Munden Project (2011) REDD and Forest Carbon, Market Critique and Recommendations, The Munden Project, USA.

[vi] Swedish EU Presidency (2009) The REDD Initiative: EU Funds and Phases prepared for the Interparliamentary Conference, September 2009 the_redd_initiative -EU-Funds and Phases.pdfthe_redd_initiative -EU-Funds and Phases.pdf

Indigenous Environmental Network,            Funds and Phases: Prep Cooks, Midwives and Assembly Plants for Carbon Market REDD/REDD+, IEN.

[vii] Goldtooth, T. (2010), Cashing in on Creation: Gourmet REDD privatizes, packages, patents, sells and corrupts all that is Sacred, http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf

[viii] http://www.movimientos.org/enlacei/show_text.php3?key=19549

[ix] See: International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs (2011), Kenya’s ‘Forest People’ in Bitter Fight for their Ancestral Homes, April 15 2011 http://www.iwgia.org/news/search-news?news_id=277

Minority Rights Group International (2011), Minority Rights Group Condemns Targeted Attacks on Ogiek Activists, March 7, 2011, www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_12373.html

First Peoples International (2011), In new Kenya, old guard ‘land-grabbers’ attack key leaders -Ogiek land activists survive assaults, http://firstpeoplesblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/ogiek-land-activists-survive-assaults.pdf
Interim Coordinating Secretariat, Office of the Prime Minister on behalf of the Government of Kenya, Rehabilitation of the Mau Forest Ecosystem, www.kws.org/export/sites/kws/info/maurestoration/maupublications/Mau_Forest_Complex_Concept_paper.pdf
Los Angeles Times (2010), Kenyan tribe slowly driven off its ancestral lands, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/04/world/la-fg-kenya-forest4-2010jan04

Survival International (2010), Kenyan tribe’s houses torched in Mau Forest eviction 8 April 2010, Video at: www.survivalinternational.org/news/5722 http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/ogiek

REDD Monitor (2009), Ogiek threatened with eviction from Mau Forest, www.redd-monitor.org/2009/11/19/ogiek-threatened-with-eviction-from-mau-forest-kenya/

[x] REDD-Monitor (2011), Stop the Indonesia- – Australia REDD+ Project In the Customary Area of the Dayak People in Central Kalimantan, www.redd-monitor.org/2011/06/15/stop-the-indonesia-australia-redd-project-indigenous-peoples-opposition-to-the-kalimantan-forests-and-climate-partnership/#more-8887

[xi] PBS/ Frontline World, Carbon Watch Centre for Investigative Journalism, www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/moneytree/

Mother Jones (2009), GM’s Money Trees, www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/11/gms-money-trees

REDD-Monitor (2009), Injustice on the carbon frontier in Guaraqueçaba, Brazil, www.redd-monitor.org/2009/11/06/injustice-on-the-carbon-frontier-in-guaraquecaba-brazil/

National Museum of the American Indian, Conversations with the Earth, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC http://www.americanindian.si.edu/

[xii] Cardona, T. et. al. (2010) Extractive Industries and REDD, No REDD A Reader, http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf

[xiii] Durban Group for climate Justice, www.durbanclimatejustice.org/press-releases/durban-statement-on-redd.html

[xiv] Gridneff, I. (2011), Carbon conmen selling the sky, The Sydney Morning Herald www.smh.com.au/world/carbon-conmen-selling-the-sky-20090612-c63i.html

See VIDEO A Breath of Fresh Air (2009) by Jeremy Dawes, www.redd-monitor.org/2009/09/11/more-questions-than-answers-on-carbon-trading-in-png/

[xv] Carbon Trade Watch, www.carbontradewatch.org/issues/redd.html
Stevenson, M (2010), Forest plan hangs in balance at climate conference, Associated Press, www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/12/09/forest_plan_hangs_in_balance_at_climate_conference/?page=2

[xvi] Cabello J. (2010), Enclosure of Forest and Peoples: REDD and the Inter-oceanic Highway in Peru, No REDD, a Reader, http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf

[xvii] See for example: Poverty and Environment Partnership -ODI, IUCN, UNDP, SIDA, IIED, ADB, DFID, the French Ministry of the environment and UNEP WCMC, (2008) Making REDD work for the Poor, www.povertyenvironment.net/?q=filestore2/download/1852/Making-REDD-work-for-the-poor-FINAL-DRAFT-0110.pdf

Karsenty, A (2008) The architecture of proposed REDD schemes after Bali: facing critical choices, in International Forestry Review Vol. 10(3), 2008 (pp. 443 – 457), ONF International, 2008. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), Analysis of 7 outstanding issues for the inclusion of tropical forests in the international climate governance. ONF International, Paris, France, and Peskett, L. And Harkin, Z., 2007. Risk and responsibility in Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Overseas Development Institute, London, UK.

[xviii] Poverty and Environment Partnership, 2008, Global Witness, 2008. Independent Forest Monitoring and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Global Witness: Cotula, L. and J. Mayers, 2009.Tenure in REDD: Start-point or Afterthought?, Natural Resource Issues No. 15, International Institute for Environment and Development: London, UK; Grieg-Gran, M., I. Porras, and S. Wunder, 2005. “How can Market Mechanisms for Forest Environmental Services help the Poor? Preliminary Lessons from Latin America”. World Development, 33(9): 1511-1527.

[xix] REDD+ Partnership (2011), REDD+ Partnership Voluntary REDD+ Database Updated Progress Report, 11 June 2011, page 6, table 1.

[xx] See the Climate and Land Use Alliance, a joint funding initiative of the Ford Foundation, the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation, the  David and Lucile Packard Foundation and ClimateWorks: “The projected 2011 budget for the initiatives described in this strategy overview is approximately $32.5 million”,  www.climateandlandusealliance.org

[xxi] As little as US 500,000 dollars may be going to these organizations for work critical of REDD+. THIS NEEDS A REFERENCE

[xxii] See for example http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/articles/financial_operations/pdf/sec_2011_487_final_en.pdf

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Filed under Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | 2011-11-26 · 16:15

Youth Statement on Forest Protection at UN Climate Talks in Durban

During the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the CMP7 to the Kyoto Protocol all countries must take real action to protect the world’s forests and to close the logging and bioenergy loopholes.

Forest in Kenya. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

The protection of the world’s natural forests must be a part of the COP 17 agreement. The world’s intact forests can play a major role in avoiding dangerous climate change, but they need to be protected from deforestation and forest degradation immediately.

The next climate deal must deliver real reductions to ensure the survival of all peoples and countries, it should not include loopholes that allow countries to hide the emissions that result from the logging and burning of natural forests.

The LULUCF logging loophole (Land Use and Land Use Change in Forestry)

Logging releases massive amounts of carbon emissions and drives climate change, yet under the current LULUCF rules countries choose if they elect to account for forest management. This allows countries to avoid accounting for emissions from logging and other forest management activities.

This LULUCF loophole must be closed, the next climate deal must make forest management accounting mandatory.

Developed countries need to make real reductions in emissions, not hide behind false accounting and forward looking baselines that hide the emissions from logging natural forests.

The Bioenergy Loophole

Burning natural forests for electricity is bad for the climate, bad for the forests and bad for forest communities. Huge demand is building for wood-fired electricity generation, driven by policies that indiscriminately promote bioenergy as ‘renewable’. This poses an immediate, extreme and growing threat to natural forests across the globe.

In being perversely promoted as ‘good for climate change’, industrial bioenergy is bad for the climate, bad for the forests and bad for forest communities – and, in many situations, has a bigger carbon footprint than fossil fuels.

Under IPCC guidelines, emissions from burning biomass for ‘bioenergy’ or ‘biopower’ can be accounted for as ‘zero’ in the energy sector by Annex I countries. This accounting rule is based on the unsafe assumption that any negative emissions will be accounted for in the LULUCF sector.  This is unsafe because current LULUCF rules allow country to not account for the emissions that are created during the harvesting and production of biomass. There is no obligation for a country that is responsible for the emissions made from producing biomass to account for its emissions.

This Bioenergy loophole must be closed.  Consumer countries must make sure that all the emissions resulting from bioenergy production and use (its carbon footprint) are not only properly calculated but also fully accounted for – by them at the point and time of their combustion.

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by | · 05:22

Strong New Indigenous Statement Against REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation scheme)

DECLARATION OF MEMBERS OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ BIOCULTURAL CLIMATE CHANGE ASSESSMENT (IPCCA) INITIATIVE

Durban, South Africa, November 26th

The participants of the workshop on REDD and Biocultural Protocols organized by the Indigenous Peoples Biocultural Climate Change Assessment (IPCCA), from Ecuador, Panama, India, Nicaragua, Peru and Samoa met on 24 and 25 November 2011 in Durban, South Africa to share emergent findings and analyse how REDD is affecting our territories in order to respond through our assessments. We discussed strategies for addressing climate justice.

We, the Indigenous Peoples denounce the serious situation we are facing; the harmonious relationship between humans and Mother Earth has been broken. The life of people and Pachamama has become a business. Life, for Indigenous Peoples, is sacred, and we therefore consider REDD+ and the carbon market a hypocrisy which will not impact global warming.  For us, everything is life, and life cannot be negotiated or sold on a stock market, this is a huge risk and will not resolve the environmental crisis.

Through our discussions and dialogue we identified the following inherent risks and negative impacts of REDD+, which we alert the world to:

1.    REDD+ is a neo-liberal, market-driven approach that leads to the commodification of life and undermines holistic community values and governance. It is a neo-liberal approach driven by economic processes such as trade liberalization and privatization and by actors like the World Bank whom have been responsible for the destruction of forests and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples all over the world. The concept of “Green Economy” is a vehicle for promoting trends of commodification of nature. It is a vehicle to impose neo-liberal environmental strategies on developing countries, which undermines traditional communal land tenure systems. Indigenous Peoples have well-performing and self-sufficient economies, but these economies are ignored. Indigenous Peoples have used their wisdom for thousands of years to manage forests in a way that cannot be quantified and is priceless. Meanwhile, Northern countries and their economic policies have destroyed the climate and planet and, therefore, have a significant ecological debt to pay.

2.    REDD+ policies and projects are directly targeting Indigenous Peoples and their territories, as this is where the remaining forests are found. Corporations, conservation organizations and powerful state agencies will capture the benefits by grabbing forest land and reaching unfair and manipulated agreements with forest-dwelling indigenous peoples. REDD+ is triggering conflicts, corruption, evictions and other human rights violations. Calculating how much carbon is stored in forests (monitoring, reporting and verification) is a very complicated and expensive process, and indigenous knowledge is being ignored within it. As a result, the overwhelming majority of REDD+ funding will end up in the hands of consultants, NGOs and carbon brokers like the World Bank.

3.    Indigenous Peoples and local communities use their own governance systems, which include laws, rules, institutions and practices, to manage their forests and territories, many of which are implicit and part of oral or otherwise unwritten traditions. REDD+ policies and projects are undermining and violating indigenous governance systems. Through developing REDD+ readiness programs national Governments are creating new institutions, which will further concentrate control over forests into the hands of State institutions, and violate the rights and autonomy of Indigenous Peoples. These new institutions, however, fail to address the drivers of forest loss.

4.    REDD+ locks up forests, blocking access and customary use of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to their forests. This impacts negatively on traditional forest-related knowledge, food sovereignty and food security, and traditional health care systems, which are lost as communities are manipulated or forced to sell their rights to access and use of their forests.

5.    The drivers of forest loss and forestland grabbing will not be addressed by REDD+. Governments that are elaborating REDD+ policies are also promoting economic sectors such as cattle ranching, bio-energy, mining, oil exploration and agro-industrial monocultures that, ironically, are the main drivers of forest loss. In countries like Ecuador, governments are promoting massive oil exploration schemes in forest-protected areas.

6.    The focus on carbon in REDD+ policies promotes the establishment of monoculture tree plantations, including genetically modified trees, and ignores the social and cultural values of forests. Institutions like the Forest Stewardship Council legitimize this trend by certifying plantation establishment as ‘sustainable forest management’. Corporations take over lands that, within shifting cultivation systems, are fallow, and destroy them through tree plantation establishment. In a country like India, REDD+ is becoming a tree plantation expansion program that triggers land grabbing on a massive scale, undermining the Forest Rights Act.

7.    National biodiversity and carbon-offset schemes, especially in large countries like India and Brazil are a vehicle for implementing REDD+. Large polluting corporations, such as mining and dam companies, are allowed to compensate the environmental damage they cause by planting trees. Indigenous Peoples and local communities suffer two-fold;they suffer from the environmental damage caused by their pollution, as well as from the negative impacts of projects that compensate them. Furthermore, conservation organizations profit from such compensation projects, and will thus be tempted to turn a blind eye on the negative impacts of such industries.

8.    Due to problems with reference levels, leakage, permanence, monitoring, reporting and verification, problems which policy makers are not inclined and unable to solve, REDD+ is undermining the climate regime. REDD+ violates the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. It creates major inequities and grants the right to pollute to developed countries and their industries. Climate change is today one of the biggest threats to the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, and for that reason, false solutions such as REDD+ form a direct threat to the survival of Indigenous Peoples.

REDD+ threatens the survival of Indigenous Peoples. We emphasize that the inherent risks and negative impacts cannot be addressed through safeguards or other remedial measures. We insist that all actors involved in REDD+ fully respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, in particular, the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). We caution, however, that adherence to the principle of FPIC is not a means to solve these negative impacts and this principle should not be used to justify REDD+. The right of self-determination of Indigenous Peoples should not be used to justify the destruction of our territories. Indigenous peoples should not commit themselves to a process that does not respect them. We denounce the hypocrisy of REDD+ and the many false financial promises that have been made. REDD+ is a market-based approach through which outside actors try to commodify what is sacred to Indigenous peoples: the heritage of our ancestors and the guarantee of life for future generations, not just Indigenous Peoples, but for all of humanity. Many Indigenous Peoples and communities are not aware of the threats and impacts of REDD+, which is a political trap, and will lead to enhancing climate change. We call upon these communities to maintain their integrity in this respect.

We call upon all people committed to climate justice to support life, and we implore the global community to take responsibility for reducing emission of green house gases at the source and to reject REDD+ as a false solution that breads a new form of climate racism.

Gloria Ishigua, President

Ashiñwaka – Association of  Sápara Women

Ecuador

 

Marlon Santi

Sarayaku Runa

Ecuador

 

Jesus Smith, President

Fundacion para la Promocion del Conocimiento Indigena

Panama

 

Kaylena Bray

Seneca Interational

USA

 

Jose Proaño

Land is Life

Ecuador

 

Alejandro Argumedo, Coordinator

Indigenous Peoples’ Bioucltural Climate Change Assessment initiative

Asociacion ANDES

Peru

 

Kunjam Pandu Dora

Adivasi Aikya Vedika

India

 

Nadempalli Madhusudhan

Anthra – Yakshi

India

 

Jadder Mendoza

Universidad de las Regiones Autonomas de la Costa Caribe de Nicaragua

Nicaragua

 

Fiu Mataese Elisara

O’le Siosiomaga Society Inc.

S’amoa

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by | 2011-11-24 · 15:41

RADICAL NEW AGENDA NEEDED TO ACHIEVE CLIMATE JUSTICE

Call for “System Change not Climate Change” Unites Global Movement

Note:  The first post is the  Poznan statement from the Climate Justice Now! alliance from 12 December 2008 after the UN climate talks that year.  The second was published by CJN immediately following the Copenhagen UN climate talks in 2009.  More than ever, we believe it’s time for the 1% who control the UN climate talks to do something for the climate–like get out of the way so that people and social movements can counter their false solutions to climate change with real grassroots solutions in order to avert climate catastrophe.  The Earth can’t wait.

Follow our blogs from the Durban UN climate circus from 28 Nov – 10 Dec on Climate Connections.

-The GJEP Team

RADICAL NEW AGENDA NEEDED TO ACHIEVE CLIMATE JUSTICE

Poznan statement from the Climate Justice Now! alliance

12 December 2008

Members of Climate Justice Now! – a worldwide alliance of more than 160 organisations — have been in Poznan for the past two weeks closely following developments in the UN climate negotiations.

This statement is our assessment of the Conference of Parties (COP) 14, and articulates our principles for achieving climate justice.

THE URGENCY OF CLIMATE JUSTICE

On the streets of Poznan, Poland 2008. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

We will not be able to stop climate change if we don’t change the neo-liberal and corporate-based economy which stops us from achieving sustainable societies. Corporate globalisation must be stopped.

The historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialised countries of the North. Even though the primary responsibility of the North to reduce emissions has been recognised in the Convention, their production and consumption habits continue to threaten the survival of humanity and biodiversity. It is imperative that the North urgently shifts to a low carbon economy. At the same time in order to avoid the damaging carbon intensive model of industrialisation, the South is entitled to resources and technology to make this transition.

We believe that any ´shared vision´ on addressing the climate crisis must start with climate justice and with a radical re-thinking of the dominant development model.

Indigenous Peoples, peasant communities, fisherfolk, and especially women in these communities, have been living harmoniously and sustainably with the Earth for millennia. They are not only the most affected by climate change, but also its false solutions, such as agrofuels, mega-dams, genetic modification, tree plantations and carbon offset schemes. Instead of market led schemes, their sustainable practices should be seen as offering the real solutions to climate change.

UNFCCC IN CRISIS

Governments and international institutions have to recognise that the Kyoto mechanisms have failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – common but differentiated responsibilities, inter-generational equity, and polluter pays — have been undermined in favour of market mechanisms. The three main pillars of the Kyoto agreement –the clean development mechanism, joint implementation and emissions trading schemes — have been completely ineffective in reducing emissions, yet they continue to be at the center of the negotiations.

Kyoto is based on carbon-trading mechanisms which allow Northern countries to continue business as usual by paying for “clean development” projects in developing and transition countries. This is a scheme designed deliberately to allow polluters to avoid reducing emissions domestically. Clean development mechanism projects, which are supposed to support “sustainable development”, include infrastructure projects such as big dams and coal-fired power plants, and monoculture tree plantations. Not only do these projects fail to reduce carbon emissions, they accelerate the privatisation and corporate take-over of the natural world, at the expense of local communities and Indigenous Peoples.

Proposals on the table in Poznan are heading in the same direction.

In the current negotiations, industrialised countries continue to act on the basis of self-interest, using all their negotiating tactics to avoid their obligations to reduce carbon emissions, to finance adaptation and mitigation and transfer technology to the South.

In their pursuit of growth at any cost, many Southern governments at the talks are trading away the rights of their peoples and resources. We remind them that a climate agreement is not a trade agreement.

The main protagonists for climate stability – Indigenous Peoples, women, peasant and family farmers, fisherfolk, forest dependent communities, youth, and marginalised and affected communities in the global South and North, are systematically excluded. Despite repeated demands, Indigenous Peoples are not recognised as an official party to the negotiations. Neither are women’s voices and gender considerations recognised and included in the process.

At the same time, private investors are circling the talks like vultures, swooping in on every opportunity for creating new profits. Business and corporate lobbyists expanded their influence and monopolized conference space at Poznan. At least 1500 industry lobbyists were present either as NGOs or as members of government delegations.

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme could create the climate regime’s largest ever loophole, giving Northern polluters yet another opportunity to buy their way out of emissions reductions. With no mention of biodiversity or Indigenous Peoples’ rights, this scheme might give a huge incentive for countries to sell off their forests, expel Indigenous and peasant communities, and transform forests into tree plantations under corporate-control. Plantations are not forests. Privatisation and dispossession through REDD or any other mechanisms must be stopped.

The World Bank is attempting to carve a niche in the international climate change regime. This is unacceptable as the Bank continues to fund polluting industries and drive deforestation by promoting industrial logging and agrofuels. The Bank’s recently launched Climate Investment Funds goes against government initiatives at the UN and promotes dirty industries such as coal, while forcing developing countries into the fundamentally unequal aid framework of donor and recipient. The World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility aiming to finance REDD through a forest carbon mechanism serves the interest of private companies and opens the path for commodification of forests.

These developments are to be expected. Market ideology has totally infiltrated the climate talks, and the UNFCCC negotiations are now like trade fairs hawking investment opportunities.

THE REAL SOLUTIONS

Solutions to the climate crisis will not come from industrialised countries and big business. Effective and enduring solutions will come from those who have protected the environment – Indigenous Peoples, women, peasant and family farmers, fisherfolk, forest dependent communities, youth and marginalised and affected communities in the global South and North. These include:

  • Achieving low carbon economies, without resorting to offsetting and false solutions such as nuclear energy and “clean coal”, while protecting the rights of those affected by the transition, especially workers.
  • Keeping fossil fuels in the ground.
  • Implementing people’s food and energy sovereignty.
  • Guaranteeing community control of natural resources.
  • Re-localisation of production and consumption, prioritising local markets
  • Full recognition of Indigenous Peoples, peasant and local community rights,
  • Democratically controlled clean renewable energy.
  • Rights based resource conservation that enforces indigenous land rights and promotes peoples sovereignty and public ownership over energy, forests, seeds, land and water
  • Ending deforestation and its underlying causes.
  • Ending excessive consumption by elites in the North and in the South.
  • Massive investment in public transport
  • Ensuring gender justice by recognising existing gender injustices and involving women in decision making.
  • Cancelling illegitimate debts claimed by northern governments and IFIs. The illegitimacy of these debts is underscored by the much greater historical, social and ecological debts owed to people of the South.

We stand at the crossroads. We call for a radical change in direction to put climate justice and people’s rights at the centre of these negotiations.

In the lead-up to the 2009 COP 15 at Copenhagen and beyond, the Climate Justice Now! alliance will continue to monitor governments and to mobilise social forces from the south and the north to achieve climate justice.

 

 ___________________________________________________

Call for “System Change not Climate Change” Unites Global Movement

 

Corrupt Copenhagen ‘accord’ exposes gulf between peoples demands and elite political interests

The highly anticipated UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen ended with a fraudulent agreement, engineered by the United States and dropped into the conference at the last moment.  The “agreement” was not adopted.  Instead, it was “noted” in an absurd parliamentary invention designed to accommodate the United States and permit Ban Ki-moon to utter the ridiculous pronouncement “We have a deal.”

The UN conference was unable to deliver solutions to the climate crisis, or even minimal progress toward them.  Instead, the talks were a complete betrayal of impoverished nations and island states, producing nothing but embarrassment for the United Nations and the Danish government.  In a conference designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions there was very little talk of emission reductions.  Rich, developed countries continued to delay any talk of drastic reductions, instead shifting the burden to less developed countries and showing no willingness to make reparations for the damage they have caused.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition, alongside other networks, was united here at COP15 in the call for System Change, Not Climate Change.  In contrast, the Copenhagen climate conference itself demonstrated that real solutions, as opposed to false, market-based solutions, will not be adopted until we overcome the existing unjust political and economic system.

Government and corporate elites here in Copenhagen made no attempt to satisfy the expectations of the world.  False solutions and corporations completely co-opted the United Nations process.  The global elite would like to privatize the atmosphere through carbon markets; carve up the remaining forests, bushes and grasslands of the world through the abandonment of indigenous rights and land-grabbing; convert real forests into monoculture tree plantations and agricultural soils into carbon sinks; and complete the capitalist enclosure of commons.  Virtually every proposal discussed in Copenhagen was based on a desire to create opportunities for profit rather than to reduce emissions.

The only discussions of real solutions in Copenhagen took place in social movements. Climate Justice Now!, Climate Justice Action and Klimaforum09 articulated many creative ideas and attempted to deliver those ideas to the UN Climate Change Conference through the Klimaforum09 People’s Declaration and the Reclaim Power People’s Assembly.  Among nations, the ALBA countries, many African nations and AOSIS often echoed the messages of the climate justice movement, speaking of the need to repay climate debt, create mitigation and adaptation funds outside of neoliberal institutions like the World Bank and IMF, and keep global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees.

The UN and the Danish government served the interests of the rich, industrialized countries, excluding our voices and the voices of the least powerful throughout the world, and attempting to silence our demands to talk about real solutions.  Nevertheles, our voices grew stronger and more united day by day during the two-week conference.  As we grew stronger, the mechanisms implemented by the UN and the Danish for the inclusion of civil society grew more dysfunctional, repressive and undemocratic, very much like the WTO and Davos.  Social movement participation was limited throughout the conference, drastically curtailed in week two, and several civil society organizations even had their admission credentials revoked midway through the second week.  At the same time, corporations continued lobbying inside the Bella Center.

Outside the conference, the Danish police extended the repressive framework, launching a massive clampdown on the right to free expression and arresting and beating thousands, including civil society delegates to the climate conference.  Our movement overcame this repression to raise our voices in protest over and over again.  Our demonstrations mobilized more than 100,000 people in Denmark to press for climate justice, while social movements around the world mobilized hundreds of thousands more in local climate justice demonstrations.  In spite of repression by the Danish government and exclusion by the United Nations, the movement for system change not climate change is now stronger than when we arrived in Denmark.

While Copenhagen has been a disaster for climate solutions, it has been an inspiring watershed moment in the battle for climate justice.  The governments of the elite have no solutions to offer, but the climate justice movement has provided strong vision and clear alternatives.  Copenhagen will be remembered as an historic event for global social movements.  It will be remembered, along with Seattle and Cancun, as a critical moment when the diverse agendas of many social movements coalesced and became stronger, asking in one voice for system change, not climate change.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition calls for social movements around the world to mobilize in support of climate justice.

We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but on the ground and in the streets, to promote genuine solutions that include:

– leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate energy-efficiency and safe, clean and community-led renewable energy

– radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in the North, but also by Southern elites.

– huge financial transfers from North to South, based on the repayment of climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, progressive and innovative taxes and debt cancellation.

– rights-based resource conservation that enforces Indigenous land rights and promotes peoples’ sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water.

sustainable family farming and fishing, and peoples’ food sovereignty.

We are committed to building a diverse movement – locally and globally – for a better world.

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by | 2011-09-30 · 10:52

September Photo of the Month: World Bank-Sponsored “Forest Protection” in Indonesia

Benoit Bosque, of the World Bank2
Benoit Bosquet, Coordinator of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, defends the bank’s role in “forest conservation” in Indonesia, where forest-based communities have been forcibly evicted at gunpoint, and their homes burned to the ground. Behind him is a photo of one such eviction. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

To read the full article about REDD in Indonesia in our blog Climate Connections, click here

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GJEP’s photos of the month usually feature the work of Orin Langelle, GJEP’s Co-director/Strategist, who is also a professional photographer.  This month, with the World Bank annual meetings just passed and the UN Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa coming up soon, we decided to post this photo by GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann.

Orin Langelle is currently working on a book of four decades of his concerned photography.  From mid-June to mid-July Langelle worked on the book as an artist in residence at the Blue Mountain Center in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

Also check out the GJEP Photo Gallery, past Photos of the Month posted on GJEP’s website, or Langelle’s photo essays posted on GJEP’s Climate Connections blog.
Global Justice Ecology Project explores and exposes the intertwined root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination with the aim of building bridges between social justice, environmental justice and ecological justice groups to strengthen their collective efforts.  Within this framework, our programs focus on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, protection of native forests and climate justice.  We use the issue of climate change to demonstrate these interconnections. Global Justice Ecology Project is the North American Focal Point of the Global Forest Coalition.

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by | 2011-09-28 · 13:46

Earth Minute for September 27: World Bank-Supported “Forest Protection” in Indonesia

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

This week’s Earth Minute discusses the workshop on REDD at the World Bank’s annual meetings in Washington, DC.  To listen to the show, click here.

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

At the annual meetings of the World Bank in Washington, DC, last weekend, I attended a workshop organized by activists from Indonesia about the impacts of World Bank-supported forest conservation projects like REDD.  REDD is the scheme to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation that is specifically designed to supposedly “offset” carbon emissions from Industrialized countries like the US by protecting forests in developing countries.

One of the presenters explained that unjust forest conservation projects in Indonesia are leading to violence that rivals the atrocities that occurred under the Suharto dictatorship.

Thousands of forest-based communities are being evicted from their lands by heavily armed forest rangers, paramilitaries and police, who force people to leave at gunpoint while their homes are burned to the ground.

But as one of the speakers pointed out, what is happening in Indonesia is not unique; these strong-arm tactics are happening around the world in the name of “protecting” forests for the purpose of offsetting pollution in Industrialized countries like the US

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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