UN money does grow on trees for indigenous forest loggers

Unfortunately, money does not grow on trees.

This is especially important, when you consider that the majority of the world’s remaining forested areas are in developing countries. In fact, in the short term, it would probably cost these countries millions of dollars in losses just to protect these forests for the rest of us.   

That is why the latest round of U.N. climate negotiations currently underway in Durban plan to throw heaps of money and roll-out a performance-based market mechanism aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation known as REDD (now known as REDD+) from 2012 onwards. 

In other words, the U.N. has decided to help pay developing countries to protect their forests. And Australia has gotten right behind it.

Australia has set up a $200 million International Forest Carbon Initiative to support REDD+ and 2009, Australia pushed the UNFCCC to ensure that REDD+ and similar carbon market mechanisms are included in any post-Kyoto agreement.

This is welcome news but it is becoming clearer that for many of the 90 million indigenous peoples living and depending on forest resources for their livelihood and cultural heritage it is more of a threat than salvation.

Since its integration within the UNFCCC, indigenous organisations such as the Indigenous Environment Network and the Forest Peoples Programme have warned that because of a lack of participation, planning and consultation with and by Indigenous peoples, REDD+ developments have actually disempowered Indigenous peoples around the world.

For many analysts, this disempowerment stems from the institutional construction and multilateral implementation of REDD+. As a UN program, REDD+ largely occurs on a UN-to-country, and country-to-UN funding and feedback basis which largely excludes indigenous representatives.

The two organisations facilitating this program, UN-REDD and the World Bank, have also critically failed to engage indigenous peoples in the designation and development of conservation sites.

Specifically, Forest Peoples Programme have argued that the constitution and design of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility fails to meet even existing standards on indigenous rights, such as those upheld by the Convention on Biological Diversitysigned by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Even more concerning are the numerous of reports of violent abuses of indigenous land and cultural rights by REDD+ style projects supported by the Australian government and business sector. 

In July 2010, two potential REDD+ programs in Papua New Guinea applied for preliminary approval under the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, which will be key to REDD+ approval in the future. Since this time, both of these projects have been discredited due to malpractice, a number of government officials involved are currently under investigation, and there have been reports of violence and intimidation used against Indigenous leaders to sign over the carbon rights to forests.

This heralded a number of media investigations into private carbon traders operating in PNG in an effort to win over forest leases from Indigenous leaders, seeking to profit from future carbon rights. Most prominently, SBS television in Australia broadcast a series of four programmes about Australian carbon traders in PNG, including one SBS television Australia report in which Abilie Wape, the head of a landowner group in Kamula Doso, said he was threatened at gunpoint to sign away the carbon rights to the forests.

And now, Indigenous peoples from the Kalimantan forest in Indonesia have called for Australia to stop its $100 million Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, after failing to consult and gain proper permission from local communities.

Revelations such as these have prompted a number of changes within the U.N.

In their 2011-015 Program Strategy, UN-REDD has committed itself to better engaging with Indigenous peoples, recognizing and respecting their rights through a rights-based approach to project implementation, and finding means of integrating local and Indigenous communities in at all stages of the REDD+ process.

However, the holistic fulfilment of Indigenous rights requires far more than open-ended policy statements, and may not even be possible given the current institutional framework of REDD+. As such, there are many who believe that if REDD+ is ever going to properly engage with Indigenous peoples, that what it needs is not only a touch-up, but a full make-over.

Recently, a paper in Environmental Science and Policy has argued that in order to assure that Indigenous rights are protected and may be fulfilled, it is essential to reconstruct REDD+ in a manner that supports local governance structures as essential elements in the global decision-making matrix surrounding REDD+.

Others have shown that effective institutional frameworks that support indigenous empowerment and autonomy may also be the most effective means of protecting forests from deforestation and degradation.

Given that REDD+ is due to be implemented in 2012, Indigenous rights and REDD+ are focal points of discussion at COP 17 in Durban. However, it will be interesting to see exactly how these rights are framed.

If there is more vague discussion on better human rights protections, you can be assured that improvement will be minor. But maybe, just maybe, if you hear talk of localised leadership and indigenous decision making powers being granted through REDD+, we may be able to turn this amazing conservation initiative into an empowering one as well.

And that is a win-win situation for all.