IPCCA Analytical Background Paper on REDD+
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Transcript of IPCCA Analytical Background Paper on REDD+
Analytical Background Paper
on the Legal Aspects of REDD+
and Recent REDD+
Policy DevelopmentsNovember 2011
Indigenous Peoples´ Biocultural
Climate Change Assessment Initiative
Indigenous Peoples´ Biocultural
Climate Change Assessment Initiative
IPCCA
Asociación Andes - IPCCA
Marina Apgar
IPCCA
Mar Soler
Raúl Basurco Marroquín
Raúl Basurco Marroquín
Credits
Publication:
Editor
Photos:
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More information: http://creativecommons.org
Foreword
Most of the world’s remaining forests are located within indigenous territories, territories of our forest dwelling brothers and sisters who have, over
millennia, used their knowledge and governance systems based on local customary practice and worldviews, in which we are an integral part of
Mother Earth, to nurture culturally and biologically diverse forest ecosystems. Forests are life, as are all beings present in Mother Earth, and life for
us is sacred.
The Indigenous Peoples’ Biocultural Climate Change Assessment (IPCCA) initiative has emerged as an indigenous response to the challenge that
climate change poses to our ability to continue to exercise our rights as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples. Through the IPCCA, partners in a diversity of ecosystems around the world are undertaking local assessments of the complex dimensions
of climate change and their impacts upon communities, ecosystems and livelihoods. The local assessments are taking a biocultural approach, which
permits each particular local context to drive a process of inter-cultural and transdisciplinary inquiry. The assessment processes are empowering
indigenous communities to respond with a territoriality and ecosystems approach to the challenge of climate change from their own perspectives.
Partners in forest ecosystems must address the added challenge of climate change mitigation programs focusing on reducing deforestation, which
are targeting their territories. This analytical background document aims to provide information on REDD+ mechanisms, and critically analyses how
these mechanisms can potentially impact upon the rights of indigenous peoples. It also provides proposals for responding to the challenges through
a biocultural approach. We hope that our forest dwelling partners will use this document in building analysis of REDD+ in their local assessments
and navigating how to best make local to global links.
From the IPCCA Secretariat, we hope that with this we are taking a first step into a biocultural analysis of REDD+ and similar market based climate
change mitigation mechanisms. As one of our strategic goals is to contribute into global policy development we offer this initial analysis in order to
inspire all those interested in indigenous peoples rights in the larger debate of climate justice to further deepen our tools for analysis and responding.
Alejandro Argumedo
Coordinator
IPCCA Secretariat
Asociación ANDES
Executive summary
REDD+ stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks. It is a forest policy that is
currently being elaborated under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Indigenous Peoples play an important
role in the conservation of the world’s forests, and many Indigenous Peoples depend on forests for their livelihoods, so theoretically, policies to
reduce emissions from forest loss should provide positive opportunities for Indigenous Peoples.
However, there are a number of inherent problems with REDD+. Due to the nature of the climate regime, REDD+ policies are based on the principle
that developing countries, and actors within those countries, will be paid for the amount of carbon they succeed to store or sequester in their forests.
These “forests” do not necessarily have to be biologically diverse, as the definition of “forests” used for REDD+ includes monoculture tree plantations
and even clearcut areas. So the replacement of biologically diverse forests and other ecosystems by monoculture tree plantations is not necessarily
sanctioned by REDD+, even though there are some non-binding safeguards that prioritize the conservation of natural forests and even discourage
the direct replacement of forest by tree plantations. The replacement of other ecosystems like grasslands, that tend to be of significant importance
especially to mobile Indigenous Peoples, is still allowed under REDD+ though.
The system of so-called “performance-based payments” for forest conservation and tree planting makes it attractive for powerful actors like logging
corporations, plantation companies, large conservation organizations and Governmental forestry agencies to obtain significant areas of forest land,
which can subsequently be used to store or sequester carbon in return for payments. Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities risk
loosing their land and tenure rights over their forests due to the sharply increased value of forestland. Even if they are allowed to stay on their land,
powerful actors will try to obtain the majority of the benefits of performance-based payments for forest conservation. Especially if the actual payments
are derived from private sources like carbon markets, these powerful actors will be in a better position to negotiate agreements to sell forest carbon,
also because monitoring, verifying and reporting the actual amount of carbon stored in forests is a highly complicated process. While Indigenous
Peoples tend to possess profound knowledge of the interactions between forests and other elements of the biosphere, their traditional methodologies
are currently not accepted by the climate regime. So while some Indigenous Peoples might be able to participate in the implementation of REDD+
projects and even obtain some modest payments, most REDD+ projects are likely to be undertaken at the expense of Indigenous Peoples, with
most benefits flowing to the corporations and conservation organizations that administer them. In the worst case, REDD+ is likely to lead to violent
conflicts: all over the world Indigenous Peoples are being confronted with involuntary resettlements and other human rights violations as a result of
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REDD+ projects. They are also confronted with liability clauses in REDD+ agreements, which force them to guarantee the trees they plant or
conserve are left untouched, despite the fact that climate change itself is causing a greater risk of forest fires and other climate hazards that might
cause unwanted forest loss.
There are also a large number of inherent REDD+ risks and complications that might undermine the climate regime itself, as the emissions that are
to be “reduced” will not be real, new, permanent, and/or additional. Moreover, it has often been pointed out that deforestation will only move from
one area to another if forest conservation projects are implemented without addressing the main drivers of forest loss like the consumption of wood,
agrofuels and other products that trigger forest loss. As climate change itself forms a major threat to Indigenous Peoples, these risks and complications
are significant for Indigenous Peoples too.
Despite these risks and complications, which are recognized by many renowned research institutions and policy-makers, donors and institutions
like the World Bank and the UN have already committed up to 7.7 billion USD to projects and policies to make more than 39 countries “ready” for
REDD+. Additionally, in 2010, some 178 million USD was being dedicated to REDD+ style projects through the voluntary forest carbon offset market.
Whether these financial investments will continue to be this high is doubtful, though. Many developed countries have already indicated that they
expect the majority of future funding for REDD+ and other climate mitigation projects to come from the private sector, that is, carbon offset markets.
But as many developed countries refuse to commit themselves to future binding emission reduction targets, the future of carbon markets looks very
bleak at the moment. If countries and companies have no obligation to reduce their emissions, they will not see a need to buy forest carbon credits
to compensate these emissions. Already, carbon offset markets have proven to be a highly uncertain, volatile and inequitable source of funding, so
the current financial investments in “readiness” might very well be “as good as it gets”.
Thanks to the active campaigns of Indigenous Peoples’ representatives themselves, there is a growing awareness amongst climate negotiators of
the important role played by Indigenous Peoples in forest conservation, and the need to respect their rights as recognized by the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIPs) and other human rights instruments. Both the Parties to the Climate Convention and a number of
important multilateral REDD+ donors have adopted so-called safeguards that call for the participation of Indigenous Peoples in REDD+ design and
implementation, and respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples as stipulated in UNDRIPs. One of the most important rights is the right to free, prior
and informed consent (FPIC). However, in reality most Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities are only being consulted in a superficial
manner about REDD+. As they are not informed in an unbiased manner of all the risks of REDD+ and as consultation processes are far too short
to allow for a profound consideration of options through customary consultation and decision-making processes, most Indigenous Peoples are not
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able to develop their position in a balanced manner. Moreover, they are often confronted with a “take-it-or-leave-it” situation, in which significant sums
of money are offered if they accept REDD+ only, without alternative forest conservation and benefit sharing scenarios.
Biocultural protocols can play a role in ensuring a more genuine FPIC process, as they allow Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities
to map and document their own territories, rights, governance systems and development aspirations before they are confronted with the question
whether they want to engage in a REDD+ project or policy or not. These protocols, and a full awareness of their rights, including their right to say
yes or no to REDD+, will enable Indigenous Peoples and local communities to negotiate from a stronger position. It is recommendable for people
to take into account the uncertain future of forest carbon markets and other sources of REDD+ funding when they negotiate their positions on
REDD+. Consolidating land titles and gaining respect and support for traditional knowledge and customary management practices might be more
reliable outcomes of the current readiness processes than promises to participate in payment for environmental services’ schemes that might never
be funded. Most importantly, Indigenous Peoples should be well aware that many of the actors in REDD+ policy making have significant financial
and other interests in REDD+ themselves, and that the information shared might seldom be fair, complete and unbiased. This report is an attempt
to provide a more critical perspective in this respect.
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Introduction350 million of the world’s poorest people, including an estimated 60 million Indigenous People, depend almost entirely for their subsistence and
survival on forests1. For many Indigenous Peoples, forests are more than their home and livelihood; they see themselves as part of the forest, and
the forest as part of their biocultural heritage. The term biocultural expresses the inherent links between biological diversity and cultural diversity.
Biocultural diversity is the diversity of life in all its manifestations – biological, cultural and linguistic – which are interrelated within a complex socio-
ecological adaptive system. According to the UN,
“This concept encompasses biological diversity at all its levels and cultural diversity in all its manifestations. Biocultural diversity is derived
from the myriad ways in which humans have interacted with their natural surroundings. Their co-evolution has generated local ecological
knowledge and practices: a vital reservoir of experience, methods and skills that help different societies to manage their resources.
Diverse worldviews and ethical approaches to life have emerged in tandem with this co-evolution of nature and culture.”2
Ecosystems like forests have thus shaped the cultures and livelihoods of the Indigenous peoples and local communities that depend on them, as
much as these cultures and livelihoods have influenced forests. Deforestation, which continues to be a rampant global environmental trend, does
not only deprive these peoples of their main source of subsistence and survival, it deprives them of their biocultural identity. For many Indigenous
Peoples, especially Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation, forest conservation is a matter of survival.
Because of this strong relationship, Indigenous Peoples have developed effective traditional norms and management practices to conserve the
forests on their lands and territories. There is growing scientific evidence that deforestation rates on lands and territories governed by Indigenous
Peoples are significantly lower than deforestation rates on non-Indigenous lands.3 They are even found to be lower than deforestation rates in areas
with a formal protected status, like national parks and nature reserves.4 Indigenous Peoples can thus play a central role in policies to reduce
deforestation, while policies to reduce deforestation contribute in an essential manner to the well-being and survival of Indigenous peoples.
1 World Commissionon Forestsand Sustainable Development,1999,“Our Forests, Our Future, Summaryreport, World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, WCFSD,Winnipeg, Canada. http://www.iisd.org/pdf/wcfsdsummary.pdf
2 http://www.unesco.org/mab/doc/iyb/icbcd_working_doc.pdf3 D. Nepstad, S. Schwartzman, B. Bamberger, M. Santilli, D. Ray, P. Schlesinger, P. Lefebvre, A. Alencar, E. Prinz, G. Fiske and A. Rolla, 2006. Inhibition of Amazon Deforestation and Fire by
Parks and Indigenous Lands, Conservation Biology Volume 20, No.1,65 – 73. Society for Conservation Biology, 2006http://www.funai.gov.br/procuradoria/docs/Artigo%20Terras%20Ind%EDgenas.pdf
4 Porter-Bolland,L.,etal.Community managed forests and forest protected areas: An assessment of their conservation effectiveness across the tropics. Forest Ecol. Manage. (2011),doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2011.05.034
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As explained below, the conservation and restoration of forests is an essential strategy in efforts to halt climate change. Climate change is one of the
most important environmental threats to the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples. This implies that, in principle, policies and measures to
reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) would contribute to the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples. However,
as explained below, there are a large number of risks to Indigenous Peoples that are inherent to the way in which REDD policies are currently being
designed. Many of these risks are the result of the characteristics of the main international agreements that deal with climate change: The UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol.
The aim of this analytical background paper is to contribute to the climate change assessments in local biocultural systems and the formulation of
policy proposals by the IPCCA Community REDD network members.
The background paper will particularly contribute to the following IPCCA objectives:
to help and support indigenous communities to better understand key issues when considering their involvement in REDD;
to support experience-based engagement in international fora and to contribute to a reframing of the REDD debate from a local, biocultural
and community perspective.
The paper will start with an introduction to forests and climate change and the rights and role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, which
will be followed by an explanation of what REDD is, and where it came from. Chapter 3 will explain some of the risks and complications related to
the proposal to fund REDD policies and actions through carbon markets, while Chapter 4 will provide information on the existing public funding flows
for REDD. Chapter 5 will elaborate on some of the social, environmental and cultural risks of REDD. Chapter 6 will provide detailed information on
the existing safeguards that have been developed to mitigate some of these risks. Chapter 7 will elaborate on some of the alternatives to REDD and
the role Biocultural protocols could play in this respect. The conclusions and outlook for the future will build on these alternatives and highlight the
role of Biocultural protocols in developing local safeguards and standards for forest conservation initiatives.
Chapter 1:An introduction to forests and climate change,
and the rights and role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities
The global climate system has been changing since Earth was born, but never at a speed it is changing at the moment.5 The emission of carbon
dioxide, a gas that results, amongst others, from burning wood and fossil fuels like oil and gas, is causing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air to
increase. This puts a kind of blanket over the earth, in so far that the heat from the sun that reaches the earth gets trapped. The result is what they
call global warming. However, it should be emphasized that climate change does not only lead to higher temperatures. Overall global warming
particularly leads to more instability in the climate. As a result, there will be more droughts in some places, but more rain, storms and floods in other
regions. These increased climatic extremes, as they are called, have significant negative impacts on Indigenous peoples and local communities.
The consumption of fossil fuels by people in Northern countries is by far the main cause of climate change. More than 80% of emissions are caused
by the minority of the world’s population that lives in the so-called “developed” countries in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand,
while the impacts of this environmental problem are felt, first and foremost, by people living in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the rest of the Pacific.
For that reason, a growing group of social movements has been calling for “climate justice” to be at the heart of climate policies. They call upon
Northern consumers to take the lead in reducing emissions, and to pay compensation to the countries most affected by climate change through a
repayment of the so-called ecological debt and through providing generous support for policies and projects that help these countries to adapt to
climate change.
The Role of Forests
Deforestation and forest degradation are important causes of greenhouse gas emissions – it is estimated that some 17% of all greenhouse gas
emissions caused by human interventions is caused by the destruction of forests ecosystems6. Forests also play an important role in strategies to
adapt to climate change. Forests and other native vegetation retain water and fertile soils, so if forests are cut, it is more likely that soils will turn into
deserts, that rivers will dry up in the dry season and that they will cause floods in the wet season.
5 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report Summary for Policymakers. IPCC, Switzerland. Seehttp://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html
6 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR 4, Technical Summary of Working Group III
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Forests also provide a very important source of livelihood and a home to over 1 billion rural people. An estimated 350 million people, including 60
million indigenous people, depend almost entirely for their subsistence and survival on forests7. For many forest-dependent Indigenous Peoples, the
forest is inherently linked with their People’s existence and cultural values systems.
“Indigenous People have always considered that this land is sacred and that the welfare and health of the planet depend on their health
and conservation. This is the vision that has and is still motivating our communities to maintain the conservation and restoration of our
territories. We are seeking to recover usurped ancestral lands, and to restore their vitality, to recreate the forests as they once were,
before the expansion of Western agriculture and deforestation” 8
For women, who are traditionally responsible for providing fuelwood as the main and often only source of energy of their families, the loss of forests
may not only lead to an extra work burden in terms of having to walk longer distances, but it also increases risk of sexual violence and associated
diseases.
The Role and Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Forests are not only important to Indigenous peoples, Indigenous Peoples and local communities are also important to forests. As explained above,
forests and other ecosystems are as much shaped by the world’s diversity of cultures and livelihoods as the world’s cultures and livelihoods are
shaped by forests and other ecosystems. There is ample evidence that deforestation rates on Indigenous territories are much lower than deforestation
rates on non-Indigenous territories, as many Indigenous peoples foster traditional knowledge and values that instruct them to conserve their forests
and homelands.9 In fact, there is increasing evidence that deforestation rates in forests controlled and managed by communities are lower that
deforestation rates in forests that are strictly protected as a national park or other protected area.10
Community governance over forests can take many forms. It is important to distinguish community-based forest management, which is an often-
used term in the forestry sector, from community-driven initiatives to conserve and restore forests. Community-based forest management does not
7 World Commissionon Forests and Sustainable Development,1999,“Our Forests, Our Future, Summary report, World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, WCFSD,Winnipeg, Canada. http://www.iisd.org/pdf/wcfsdsummary.pdf
8 Geodisiocastello, an Indigenous legal expert from Kuna Yala, Panama, during the 2010 national workshop on the underlying causes of forest restoration in Panama, in “Hall, R. (ed,)2010. Getting to the Roots, Underlying Causes of Deforestation and forest Degradation and Drivers of Forest Restoration, Global Forest Coalition, Amsterdam, 2010
9 Hall, R (ed.) 2010, Ibid. 10 Porter-Bolland, L., et al. 201110 Porter-Bolland, L., et al. 2011
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necessarily imply that communities control their forests. Instead, in many cases it concerns projects that have been designed and developed by
outside actors like Non-governmental organizations or governmental forestry departments, and that only involve community members in the
implementation of these projects. Community-driven forest conservation and restoration initiatives are initiatives that are designed and developed by
the communities themselves. Even such initiatives do not necessarily imply that the communities concerned have full control over the forests, as
many community-driven initiatives take place in forests that are formally located on State land or land of private individuals who are free to participate
or not in the community initiative.
The Convention on Biological Diversity recognizes the role of biocultural practices in biodiversity conservation, and the rights of Indigenous and local
communities in this respect. Article 8 (j) of the Convention on sustainable use of the components of biological diversity states:
“Each Contracting Party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate…..j) Subject to its national legislation, respect, preserve and maintain knowledge,
innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of
biological diversity and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices
and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices;”11
While Article 10 emphasizes:
“Each Contracting Party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate…. (c) Protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in
accordance with traditional cultural practices that are compatible with conservation or sustainable use requirements;”12
These commitments have been further elaborated by subsequent decisions of the Conference of the Parties of the Biodiversity Convention. For
example, in 2004, the Conference of the Parties adopted the Akwé: Kon Voluntary Guidelines for the Conduct of Cultural Environmental and Social
Impact Assessment regarding Developments Proposed to Take Place on, or which are Likely to Impact on, Sacred Sites and on Lands and Waters
Traditionally Occupied or Used by Indigenous and Local Communities.13
13
11 http://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/?a=cbd-0812 http://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/?a=cbd-10
13 Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2004. Akwe: Kon Voluntary Guidelines for the Conduct of Cultural Environmental and Social Impact Assessment regardingDevelopments Proposed to Take Place on, or which are Likely to Impact on, Sacred Sites and on Lands and Waters Traditionally Occupied or Used by Indigenous and LocalCommunities. CBD Secretariat, Montreal, Canada.
Forests form an inherent element of the territories of Indigenous Peoples, of their homelands (“Tekoha” as the Guarani say). The UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous peoples14, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007, spells out the biocultural rights of Indigenous Peoples
regarding their lands and forests. It states amongst others that:
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue
their economic, social and cultural development. (Art. 3)
Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters, which would affect their rights, through representatives
chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-
making institutions. (Art. 18)
Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise
used or acquired. (Art. 26.1)
Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of
traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired. (Art. 26.2)
States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with
due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned (Art. 26.3)
Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories
and other resources. (Art. 32.1)
States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in
order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources,
particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources. (Art. 32.2)
14 http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html
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States shall provide effective mechanisms for just and fair redress for any such activities, and appropriate measures shall be taken to
mitigate adverse environmental, economic, social, cultural or spiritual impact. (Art. 32.3)
UNDRIPs itself is not a legally binding instrument according to international law. Declarations can become customary international law if they are
broadly recognized as legally binding by Governments and international courts, which is currently not the case. However, that does not imply that
the individual rights enshrined in the declaration are per definition non-binding. Many governments have already incorporated several of the rights
enshrined in UNDRIPs in their national laws, and the Government of Bolivia has even adopted the full declaration as legally binding. The UN itself
has incorporated the rights enshrined in its UN Development Group guidelines on Indigenous Peoples Issues15, which constitute a set of guidelines
all UN agencies and programs are committed to follow (see also below).
15 http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/UNDG_training_16EN.pdf
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Chapter 2:What is REDD+ and where did it come from?
The History of the Climate Convention
Inspired by the alarming conclusions a major report by an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that had been set up by the United Nations
to study the phenomenon of climate change, its causes and its consequences, Governments decided in 1990 to negotiate a treaty to solve this
global environmental problem. The original intention was that the treaty would be ready in time for the UN Conference on Environment and
Development, which was organized in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. However, the negotiators run out of time. So they agreed to adopt a
Framework Convention on Climate Change that enshrined the broad commitments countries had to fulfill. All countries together were supposed to
halt dangerous climate change, be it that the Convention recognized that developed countries should take the lead in doing so – the so-called
principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, which is still considered a cornerstone of the climate regime. The idea behind this framework
convention was that specific commitments to reduce greenhouse gases for each country, based on an overall calculation of how much reduction
had to take place to prevent dangerous climate change, would be adopted in subsequent protocols to the Convention. The UNFCCC does ask all
countries to report on their greenhouse gas emissions, as Parties were hoping this would provide an incentive for individual countries to reduce
these emissions. But it was recognized that these and other commitments were difficult for developing countries to fulfill if no new and additional
financial support was generated to help them with these obligations. Thus, the Convention included an obligation for Northern countries to provide
such new and additional support.
The Kyoto Protocol
Immediately after the Rio Conference, negotiations continued on a first protocol. In 1997, the Parties to the UNFCCC succeeded to adopt a first
protocol at their Conference of the Parties in Kyoto, Japan. This Kyoto Protocol does include an annex with specific legally binding commitments to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions per country. In line with the principle that developed countries should take the lead, this annex only includes the
highly polluting developed countries, so-called “Annex 1 countries”.
Regretfully, the actual commitments taken up in the Kyoto protocol, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by on average 5.2% compared to 1990
levels in 2012, were far too low to halt climate change. So it was clear from the outset that an additional protocol would be needed with much more
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ambitious reduction targets for the period after 2012. It took the Parties to the FCCC almost 10 years to agree on a plan of action to negotiate such
a new protocol. But even this so-called Bali Plan of Action, which was adopted in 2006, was not complied with – the protocol was supposed to have
been in place by 2009, but some of the most polluting developed countries, including in particular the United States, refused to commit themselves
to legally binding commitments to reduce their emissions. Instead, these countries insisted on developing countries like China and India to take up
legally binding reduction commitments as well. But the per capita emissions of these countries are still about 5 to 20 times lower than the per capita
emissions in the USA, which implies that calling for the same action from these countries is violating the common but differentiated responsibilities
principle enshrined in the Convention. So these countries, and other developing countries united in the so-called Group of 77 (G77) have refused to
engage in negotiations about legally binding commitments for developing countries. Instead, they insist that the financial commitments in the
Convention are fulfilled, so that enough financial resources are made available to help them implement the different actions mentioned in the UNFCCC.
As a result of this profound dispute, the UNFCCC negotiations are currently in a total deadlock. Not only the USA, but also countries like Japan,
Canada, Australia and Russia have already announced they will not join a second protocol, while developing countries continue to insist on previous
decisions of the Conference of the Parties that clearly state such a second protocol for what is called the “post-Kyoto period” should be agreed
upon. No significant breakthrough in this conflict is expected at the upcoming Conference of the Parties in December 2011, and the chances for a
breakthrough in 2012 are very low. As we will see below, this has severe implications for the overall climate regime.
Forests in the Climate Convention
The original FCCC negotiators already recognized that deforestation and other forms of land use change were important sources of emissions. For
that reason, an article was included that states:
“All Parties, taking into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional development
priorities, objectives and circumstances, shall…Promote sustainable management, and promote and cooperate in the conservation
and enhancement, as appropriate, of sinks and reservoirs of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, including
biomass, forests and oceans as well as other terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems.16”
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16 Article 4.1 (b) of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Rio de Janeiro, 1992http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf
The Convention makes it clear that developed countries are supposed to provide financial support to enable developing countries to implement this
commitment. In the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, more specific commitments were included regarding the so-called Land Use, Land Use Change and
Forestry (LULUCF) sector, but as explained these specific commitments applied to Annex 1 countries, that is, the developed countries minus the
USA, only.
In order to report properly on their greenhouse gas emissions and their emission reductions, methodologies had to be developed to calculate
greenhouse gas emissions. It was recognized from the outset that it is highly complicated to calculate the precise amount of emissions that are
caused by deforestation and other forms of land use. It is known that forests store carbon in their steams, roots, branches and leaves, and it seems
clear this carbon will be emitted in the form of carbon dioxide, the most well-known greenhouse gas, if forests are burnt or otherwise destroyed. But
as explained in chapter one, forests play more roles in climate change. They also influence rain patterns, have a cooling effect on the local climate
by providing shade and include a lot of small plants and other undergrowth aside from trees. It is increasingly recognized that a significant amount
of carbon is actually stored in the soils of healthy ecosystems. So simply counting the number of trees that grow in a forest and estimate the amount
of carbon that will be released if those trees are burnt or cut is an overly simplistic methodology.
In 1997, negotiators once again run out of time, so while a clause was included that allowed Annex 1 countries to take into account the carbon stored
by growing trees, the decisions on the proper methodologies to calculate greenhouse gas emissions were postponed. Only in 2001, at the Conference
of the Parties (and Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol) in Marrakesh, Morocco, a number of accords were adopted that elaborated definitions
and rules to calculate the emissions caused by forest loss and other forms of land use change.
One remarkable feature of these Accords is the definition of “forests” that was adopted. This definition was based on a definition used by the forestry
department of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN, a department that, until then, had merely focused on timber production. It was
heavily influenced by forestry practices in Europe and other Northern countries where there had been a century long tradition of replacing biologically
diverse forest ecosystems with pine tree monocultures. These monocultures were still called “forests”, despite the fact that they lacked undergrowth
or biodiversity in general. But the climate negotiators were merely interested in the amount of carbon stored in the trees themselves, as that was the
factor they could most easily calculate. Thus, the following definition was adopted:
(a) “Forest” is a minimum area of land of 0.05-1.0 hectares with tree crown cover (or equivalent stocking level) of more than 10-30 per
cent with trees with the potential to reach a minimum height of 2-5 metres at maturity in situ. A forest may consist either of closed forest
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formations where trees of various storeys and undergrowth cover a high proportion of the ground or open forest. Young natural stands
and all plantations which have yet to reach a crown density of 10-30 per cent or tree height of 2-5 metres are included under forest, as
are areas normally forming part of the forest area which are temporarily unstocked as a result of human intervention such as harvesting
or natural causes but which are expected to revert to forest;
Because of these accords, a so-called “Kyoto forest” includes any kind of monoculture tree plantation and even areas that are clearcut, provided
they are “expected” (at an undefined date) to revert to forests. The definition does not necessarily exclude urban zones, in fact, it has been calculated
that significant parts of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, are officially a “forest”, if this definition is applied.
It was immediately recognized in Marrakesh that the definition that was adopted might have some negative side effects, but once again, negotiators
run out of time. So they just agreed to try to develop “biome-specific” definitions, which never happened.
Negotiations on REDD
The only good news was that this flawed definition applied to the “forests” in Northern Annex 1 countries only, Southern countries were only bound
by the very general commitments in the original UNFCCC. It was not until 2005 that a group of countries took the initiative to ask for formal negotiations
on “policies and incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries” (REDD). It has often been written
by advocates of the REDD agenda that forests were “excluded” from the FCCC until the REDD negotiations were started but that is legally incorrect
as the original climate convention clearly includes an obligation to promote forest conservation for all countries – taking into account that Northern
countries should take the lead in mitigating climate change. This original obligation also includes an obligation to “enhance carbon stocks”, and
after a few negotiation sessions the Parties to the Convention decided to include this activity as well. For that reason, they added the “+” to REDD.
It should be noted that different policy-makers often give a different explanation for the abbreviation REDD+. The official text as adopted by the
Parties to the Convention is:
“Policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in
developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in
developing countries.”
20
Not included in the UNFCCC itself are quantified commitments per country. While the original definition of REDD+ adopted by the Parties to the
Climate Convention – policies and incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation – does not specify whether the results
of such policies and incentives are to be quantified, the idea behind REDD+ was that it would be based on so-called result-based payments:
Countries, and actors within those countries, would receive a specific financial compensation if they succeeded to reduce a specific amount of
emissions from forest loss. This system of results-based payments is partly based on the original assumption included in the UNFCCC and other
agreements from the Rio 1992 conference that new and additional financial resources should be provided to developing countries that undertake
actions that do not only contribute to national environmental objectives, but also to international environmental objectives. In fact, the financial
mechanism to the Convention, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), has already spent 1.6 billion USD on forest conservation projects that contribute
to global environmental objectives like mitigating climate change and conserving biodiversity. As explained below, the GEF also includes a small
grants program for NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations implementing projects that contribute to global environmental objectives.
Opportunity Costs
The other assumption that forms the basis of REDD+ is that the main reason forests are being destroyed is that their economic value is lower than
the economic value of alternative forms of land use like agriculture.17 For that reason, it has been suggested by many REDD+ proponents that the
so-called “opportunity costs” of not being able to undertake these more profitable activities should be compensated. The assumption is that such
REDD+ payments would make standing forests worth more than dead forests, as forest owners could claim, through carbon markets or public
funds, a significant price for the carbon stored in the forests.
It should be emphasized that the lack of economic valuation of forests has been identified as one of the main underlying causes of forest loss
indeed,18but it is only one of the underlying causes, and more recent analysis on the motivations Indigenous Peoples and local communities have to
conserve forests demonstrates that a general understanding of the many values of forests often provides sufficient incentive for people to conserve
forests, provided they are able to make a sustainable living through economic activities that do not require forest destruction.19So this economic
argument for REDD+ is contested.
17 e.g. Angelsen, A. (ed.), 2008. Moving ahead with REDD: Issues, options and implications. CIFOR, BOGOR, Indonesia.18 Moussa et al, 199919 Global Forest Coalition, 2010. Getting to the Roots. Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation, and Drivers of Forest Restoration, Global Forest Coalition, Amsterdam,
December 2010.
21
A significant complication with the opportunity cost argument is that it depends entirely on the profitability of the different forest-destroying activities
that are to be compensated whether it is more attractive, from a purely economic point of view, to conserve forests or not. Moreover, the profitability
of these activities changes when the prices of the commodities produced increase. The current boom in food prices, for example, has significantly
increased the costs of REDD+ as it has become far more attractive to clear new forest areas for the production of crops like soy, meat and palmoil.
It should be emphasized that such price increases are often partly the result of government interventions – there is increasing evidence that biofuel
subsidies have played a significant role in the current food price crisis20.
Partly due to the biofuel boom, prices for products like palmoil are now so high that it is far too expensive to cover the full opportunity costs of
preventing the expansion of these crops. For that reason, some researchers21 have proposed REDD+ and other so-called payments for environmental
services should mainly focus on small farmers practicing shifting cultivation, as the economic value of these activities can easily be compensated
by REDD+ funds. The same researchers have suggested there is little economic rational to pay Indigenous Peoples for forest conservation, as most
Indigenous Peoples conserve their forests for cultural reasons anyhow, so there is no need to pay them, at least not from a merely economic point
of view.
Monitoring REDD
As explained it is highly complicated to calculate how much influence forest loss exactly has on the climate. Even the Norwegian Government, which
is by far the largest donor to REDD+, has admitted that:
“There are major scientific and political challenges involved in measuring carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation,
and in setting reference emission levels.”22
Monitoring carbon losses by deforestation and forest degradation is an extremely expensive process that requires highly professional Western
scientific skills. Indigenous knowledge includes comprehensive knowledge of the role of forests in influencing the climate, but this knowledge is not
20 Committee on World Food Security, High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, 2011. “Price volatility and food security. FAO, Rome, July 2011.http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE-price-volatility-and-food-security-report-July-2011.pdf
21 Wunder, S. 2007. The Efficiency of Payments for Environmental Services in Tropical Conservation. In Conservation Biology Volume 21, No. 1. 48 - 58, Society for Conservation Biology.22 http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/md/Selected-topics/climate/the-government-of-norways-international-/why-a-climate-and-forest-initiative.html?id=547202
22
quantified in the manner described by the Western scientists that elaborated the Marrakesh accords and subsequent accounting methodologies. As
a result, the well-paid job of monitoring and calculating forest carbon stocks is almost always taken up by outsiders. Even the participatory monitoring
schemes that have been developed in some countries are still dominated by well-paid outsiders that determine the monitoring rules and
methodologies.
Having said that it should be emphasized that specific communities can definitely benefit from certain REDD+ projects. Precisely because forest-
dependent community members tend to have very little monetary resources, relatively small financial contributions for something they were planning
to anyway – conserving their forests – can provide a significant contribution to their welfare. While REDD+ benefits are seldom shared equitably,
even a tiny share of the benefits can form a significant increase in monetary income for forest-dependent community for whom 10 dollars can imply
that they can buy school books for their children, conventional medicines for a sick family member or food in times when their harvests fail. For that
reason, local community members and their community leaders all over the world have already given their formal consent to REDD+ project
developers. As explained below, it can be questioned whether this consent was based on full and unbiased information about all the different aspects
of REDD+. Experiences in countries like Ecuador have shown that individual communities are more likely give their consent to REDD+ projects than
the national organizations or movements that represent them. The main reason is that the latter are aware of the impact individual REDD+ schemes
have on overall forest and climate policy, and their rights in general, while individual communities are, quite understandably, most concerned about
their own direct income in the short term – especially when their livelihoods are normally marked by economic hardship.
23
Chapter 3:REDD+: Funds versus carbon markets
From the very first days of the Convention, there was a lively debate amongst negotiators about the way in which the convention should direct action
on the ground. The social-democrat politicians who still dominated environmental decision-making in the European Union in the early nineteen
nineties felt that the Parties to the Convention should prescribe, or at least recommend, concrete policies and measures that countries should take
to implement the broad commitments of the convention.
Carbon Trade
More neo-liberal policy-makers, especially in the US, proposed a “cap and trade” system. The idea was to agree on certain targets per country,
translate those into specific targets for each polluting corporation, and leave it up to those corporations to determine in which way they would reach
the target. To make the system even more market-oriented, the US proposed that corporations should be allowed to trade their emissions. That is,
if corporation A had received a target to reduce 5 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, and corporation B had received a target to reduce 3 tons of
emissions, corporation A should be allowed to buy part of the emissions reductions of corporation B instead of having to achieve them all by itself.
This could be profitable if corporation B was an industry that could reduce its emissions in a very cheap manner, so that it was able to reduce more
than the 3 tons that had been assigned to it. The US had based this idea on its experience with its Clean Air Act in the nineteen seventies and eighties.
However, it should be pointed out that there are a number of important issues with this example. The Clean Air Act dealt with a number of specific
gases the emissions of which could easily be monitored with available technologies, whereas the sources of greenhouse gas emissions are very
diverse and include sources that are hard to measure like, in particular, land use change.23 It is also questionable whether the success of the Clean
Air Act was actually due to this trading system, or to the fact that it had set sharp and mandatory reduction targets. What could be argued, was that
the trading system made these sharp targets more palatable for the influential US industries, as it made it cheaper for these industries to achieve the
necessary reductions. These industries found an ally in a handful of large US conservation groups who embraced this cap and trade system as a
new and innovative manner to deal with environmental challenges and to obtain additional funding for their own forest conservation projects – if they
were to be included in this market.
25
23 Carbontrade Watch, 2003. The Sky is not the Limit. Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, few other countries were enthusiastic about such an emission trading system during the early days of the Convention. Almost all agreed
that mandatory targets for each developed country were needed based on a global assessment of the total reductions required. Not all were
enthusiastic about the idea to prescribe detailed policies and measures. But the US was virtually the only country actively pushing for a trading
system. Developing countries like Brazil, who played a strong leadership role in the early days of the Convention, were even less enthusiastic. They
instead proposed that countries that failed to comply with their target would have to pay a fine over the amount of emissions they had failed to
reduce. These fines would be collected in a special fund that could finance so-called “carbon offsetting” projects to reduce emissions in developing
countries.24
In the chaotic last days of the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the US saw a chance to merge its proposal with that of the Brazilians. The
participation of what was by far the largest polluter in the climate regime was considered crucial, so the US had pursued a lot of influence over the
negotiations. They simply refused to consider a Protocol that did not include a trading system between the countries that would take up mandatory
targets, and between countries that had targets and countries that did not. The latter system would be facilitated through what was now called a
Clean Development Mechanism – a mechanism where Northern industries could buy emission reductions obtained from specific projects in the
South.
The irony of the history of climate negotiations is that the US succeeded to get almost all what it wanted in the Kyoto Protocol – but once the Protocol
was adopted it refused to even sign it. As Larry Lohmann writes in his detailed analysis of carbon trading:
“Its environmentalist backers....were left in the odd position of having to champion an agreement largely written by the US for US purposes
based on the US experience and US economic thinking, but which no longer had US support.....a little tested idea spearheaded by a
small US-elite was now perceived as a global consensus and the ‘only show in town’.”25
26
24 Lohmann, L., 2006. Carbon Trading, a critical conversation on climate change, privatization and power. What Next Development Dialogue September 2006, Dag Hammerskjöld Centre,Uppsala, Sweden.
25 Lohmann, L. 2006. Ibid.
The Complexities of Forest Carbon Markets
The possibility to trade emissions creates a couple of complexities that have a strong potential to undermine the effectiveness of the climate
convention. It should be ensured emission reductions that are bought are real, so effective, non-disputable monitoring, verification and reporting
(MRV) systems and technologies are needed to avoid fraud. As explained before, this is a major challenge in forest projects, especially as the costs
are exceptionally high. As a recent report by a company with expertise in international commodity markets concluded:
“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 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.”26
Permanence
It should be ensured the reductions that are bought are permanent. This is already a challenge when it concerns industrial emissions, but in most
cases it can be assumed that a number of tons of greenhouse gases that are not emitted due to, for example, a cleaner production technology that
was installed in the plant, will not be emitted later on. However, an ecosystem like forests is per definition very vulnerable – it can burn, or be destroyed
by a storm or a flood. For that reason it has been pointed out that the carbon that is stored in forests is of an entirely different nature than the carbon
stored in fossil fuels like oil that have been resting for millions of years in reserves far below the ground. Forests can absorb some of the carbon that
26 The Munden Project, 2011. “REDD and Forest Carbon, Market Critique and Recommendations. The Munden Project, USA
27
is emitted by burning such fossil fuels, but it will take thousands if not millions of years before such carbon is converted into a relatively stable stock
that cannot be lost by a storm, fire, drought or other “climatic extreme”. This issue is even more important these days as climate change itself is
leading to a more frequent occurrence of phenomena like forest fires (often caused by excessive drought), storms and floods. It should be noted
that Northern countries, which are supposed to report on emissions caused by forest loss, have been proposing for years that emissions caused by
such “force majeure” in the forest sector are excluded from the calculations. But such exclusion would undermine the climate regime, as the climate
itself does not mind whether certain emissions are intentional or not. In fact, it is broadly feared the failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to
the level needed will cause the climate to reach a certain “tipping point” in the coming decades or even years, after which things will spiral out of
control due to an unstoppable set of ever more serious events including massive droughts and forest fires in, for example, the Amazon. Small specific
projects to conserve relatively small forest areas in the Amazon seem a bit naïve in the light of this tipping point theory, which argues that the
“permanence” of these projects might be seriously affected by a total collapse of the Amazon bioregion – a collapse that might have been initiated
already.27
Additionality
When trading involves a developing country that does not have a country-wide reduction target there is another complication: it should be ensured
that the project reduces emissions additional to the amount of emissions that would be reduced in a so-called “business as usual” situation, and
that those emissions are not displaced to another forest area.
The additionality question is one of the stickiest issues in the debate about forest carbon trade and performance-based payments in general. If a
project concerns reforestation (restoring a forests or establishing a plantation on a piece of land where there had been forests for the past 50 years)
or afforestation (establishing a plantation on a piece of land was originally, or at least for the past 50 years, was not covered by forest), it can be
claimed that the “business of usual” situation without the project would have been that the land would continue to be without forest. Even that is
disputable, as many forest lands in the tropics will naturally restore themselves are they have been cut down, in fact, many traditional shifting cultivation
systems in the tropics are based on this capacity of tropical forest lands to rapidly restore themselves if left fallow for one or two decades. Moreover,
there is an increasing tendency of tree plantations companies to claim forest carbon investments for tree plantations they might have established
27 http://www.whrc.org/policy/pdf/cop13/Amazon-Vicious-Cycles.pdfSee also http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/03/tree-deaths-amazon-climate
28
anyway – in a recent proposal pushed by allies in the Brazilian Government to allow forest carbon offset funding for so-called “forests in exhaustion”
they are asking for carbon offset funding for areas where the companies themselves have exhausted the soil to an extent that it would normally not
be profitable to re-establish a tree plantation. Needless to say, such offsets would provide a subsidy for environmentally irresponsible corporate
practices that lead to soil exhaustion.
The additionality question is even more complicated when it concerns a project that pretends to reduce emissions by avoiding deforestation. It is per
definition hard to estimate what would have happened to a certain forest area in the absence of a REDD+ project. Forest carbon offset developers
are claiming that sound methodologies have been developed that can calculate the additionality of forest conservation projects, but as noted by
researchers like Alan Karsenty28 there is a significant risk of false assumptions combined with a strong incentive for project developers to engage in
such false assumptions – if the threats to the forest are exaggerated, they can sell more emission reductions to “reduce” those disputable threats.
In general, roads play an important role in increasing deforestation threats. So there is an overall incentive for governments who want to benefit from
forest carbon offset markets to construct roads into forest areas, as it increases the threats to these areas and thus the “additionality” of forest
conservation projects.
Leakage
The displacement of emissions caused by forest loss is euphemistically called “leakage” in climate circles. It often concerns more than just a couple
of drips. In fact, leakage could imply that the results of a REDD+ project are zero: If a specific forest area is threatened by agricultural expansion, a
project to avoid that area from being converted will normally lead to another area to be converted unless the demand for agricultural land is reduced.
Likewise, if wood consumption is not reduced, any efforts to reduce forest degradation in one area by reducing logging will per definition lead to
increased logging in other areas. There is thus a need to address the so-called “drivers” or “direct and underlying causes” of deforestation and
forest degradation.
Some conservation groups have proposed a so-called “nested approach” to deal with this problem. This approach boils down to a flexible
combination of specific projects and a national policy. While countries would be allowed to start with projects, they are expected to develop a national
28 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)
29
policy that addresses the drivers of forest loss through more generic policies as well.29 However, most drivers are linked to international markets in
timber, and commodities that lead to forest replacement like meat, soy and palmoil. It has been emphasized by a number of countries with a high
stake in an effective climate regime30 that leakage will always occur as long as these international drivers are not effectively addressed. But the design
of the climate regime implies that there is little incentive for countries to address these international drivers as it is unclear who could claim the
credits31: if a reduction by the European Union (EU) of subsidies for the use of palmoil as biofuel relieves pressure on Indonesian forests that used
to be threatened by oilpalm expansion, is the European Union able to claim credits for this? Under the current carbon trading system this is not
possible, so while laudable, the EU would only be punished for the fact that it looses a cheap opportunity to replace fossil fuels with an alternative
that, under current accounting rules, seems to cause less carbon emissions.
Environmental Integrity
Due to the above-mentioned problems, which remain largely unresolved, there is a serious concern that the inclusion of forests in carbon markets
will undermine the effectiveness of the climate regime, or, as it is called in the negotiations, the “environmental integrity” of the regime. After all, if a
polluter can avoid reducing a ton of carbon by buying a ton of carbon from a REDD+ project that in reality does not reduce emissions, because the
project is not additional, not permanent, not well-calculated, or leads to increased emissions elsewhere, the main losses are with the climate regime
itself.
It should be noted that it was mainly the concern about potential fraud with estimating the additionality of forest conservation projects that triggered
the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (which by then excluded the US) to exclude these projects from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) when
they determined the rules of the game in 2001. The EU went even further: while it launched its own internal emission trading system in 2005 which
nowadays represents 97% of all formal carbon trade32, it decided to exclude the possibility of buying forest-related projects from the CDM. As a
result, only 29 reforestation and afforestation projects are currently registered to be financed through the CDM, which is 0.73% of all CDM registered
projects33.
29 Angelsen, A. with Borckhous, M., Kanninen, M., Sills, E., Sunderlin, W.D. and Wertz-Kanounnikoff, S. (eds.) 2009. Realising REDD+: National strategy and policy options. CIFOR, Bogor,Indonesia.
30 http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2007/sbsta/eng/misc14a03.pdf31 See also Humane Society International, 2011 “LULUCF Perverse Incentive for Bioenergy Must Be Remedied” in Special Bulletin, May 2011, HSI, Avalon.
http://www.hsi.org.au/editor/assets/Publications/HSI%20Special%20Bulletin%20Truth%20in%20Targets%20Part%202.pdf32 http://carboncapitalist.com/state-of-the-market-reports-released-at-carbon-expo/ last accessed on 24 August 201133 http://cdm.unfccc.int/Statistics/Registration/RegisteredProjByScopePieChart.html last accessed on 24 August 2011
30
The exclusion of forest conservation projects from the CDM was considered a major defeat for the handful of large US conservation organizations
that had been enthusiastically lobbying to include such projects in global carbon markets. Using arguments that “forests had been left out of the
climate convention”, they continued a vehement campaign to include forests in carbon markets at a later stage, when the second protocol or another
successor to the Kyoto Protocol was adopted.
Voluntary Forest Carbon Offset Markets
They and other groups also put a lot of effort into promoting the so-called voluntary forest carbon offset market. This “market” concerns projects
outside of the formal regulated markets that are linked to the Kyoto Protocol. The actors involved do not buy emission reductions they can use to
compensate their own binding emission reduction targets, as it concerns projects that are not approved by the CDM. In many cases it even concerns
“buyers” who have no legal obligation to reduce greenhouse gases in the first place, for example US corporations. The main profit motive for these
uncontrolled deals is public relations: by investing in tropical forest conservation these companies pretend to contribute to mitigating climate change
by ‘compensating’ their emissions. These green marketing agreements have become remarkably popular the past decades. As early as 1997
companies like British Petroleum, American Electric Power and Pacificorp started investing in the Bolivian Amazon, financing the Noel Kempff reserve
as a presumed “compensation” for their greenhouse gas emissions at home.34 The Juma project is mainly financed by the worldwide Marriot hotel
chain: Guests at the luxurious Marriot hotels are told a small part of their generous hotel bill is spent on conserving forests in the Amazon, to
‘compensate’ for the emissions they caused during their stay. Especially airline companies have embraced these carbon offset projects as an easy
way to convince their passengers they do not have to worry about the emissions their flight is causing (it should be noted that another popular
strategy for airline companies to “reduce” emissions is to use biodiesel based on palmoil that contributes to massive deforestation in, amongst
others, Indonesia).
34 Densham, A., Czebiniak, R., Kessler, D. And Skar, R., 2009. “Carbon Scam: Noel Kempff Climate Action Project and the Push for Sub-national Forest Carbon Offsets”. GreenpeaceInternational, Amsterdam, October 2009
31
Phases
Of course, REDD+ projects and policies can also be financed through public funds. As explained below, several bilateral and multilateral donors are
already providing significant amounts of public support for REDD+, especially for so-called “readiness processes”. These processes are aimed at
making a country “ready for REDD+”. Negotiators have started to talk about three phases in this respect. The latest decisions of the Conference of
the Parties (which were not adopted by consensus) suggest that REDD+
”… should be implemented in phases, beginning with the development of national strategies or action plans, policies and measures,
and capacity-building, followed by the implementation of national policies and measures and national strategies or action plans … and
evolving into results-based actions that should be fully measured, reported and verified;”35
It is generally assumed that the first phase and probably the second phase as well will mainly be funded through public sources. However, until
recently there has been an assumption by many policy makers and other actors that the third phase, the “results-based actions” will mainly be
financed through carbon markets. Many countries have proposed a “basket of funding approaches” in this respect, which is a technical term for a
combination of funds, and markets subsidized by those funds.
It is important to realize, however, that in the absence of the political will in key polluting countries to take up legally binding targets, there is a significant
chance there will not be any new binding climate agreement for many years to come. This implies that no global carbon market will be established
to succeed the current Clean Development Mechanism. As the EU has decided to exclude forests from its own trading system, which currently
represents 97% of all formal carbon trade, until at least 2020, chances of significant investments in REDD+ projects through mandatory carbon
markets are looking bleaker by the day.
The voluntary carbon offset market provides a significant funding source for forests as well. Partly due to the interest in REDD, the total value of
transactions surged to 178 million USD in 2010, although this number includes both direct investments in projects and indirect transactions. Until
2011, there have been a total of 432 million USD in transactions related to projects covering more than 7.9 million hectares in 49 different countries.36
35 Decision FCCC/CP/2010/Add.135 Forest Trends, 2011. State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2011. http://www.forest-trends.org/publication_details.php?publicationID=2963 last accessed 5 October 2011
32
It is expected this funding source will not dry up immediately, but REDD+ project developers should take into account that part of this voluntary
market concerns a speculative market of companies that had started to invest in forest carbon offsets hoping that the carbon credits accumulated
would become profitable once a global mandatory carbon market would be established by a new protocol or other post-2012 agreement. Already,
carbon prices are at their lowest level ever due to the meager expectations as far as such an agreement are concerned.37 This implies that only
companies who invested in carbon offsets for purely philanthropic reasons are likely to continue doing so when there is no sight on a global agreement.
The rapidly increasing criticism on REDD+ by social movements and progressive NGOs, however, makes forest carbon offsets increasingly less
attractive from a public relations perspective. So this source of finance is increasingly unreliable as well.
37 http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6E7J50VS20110805 last accessed on 25 August 2011
33
Chapter 4:Existing financial flows for REDD+
Aside from the voluntary market, which is partly funded and subsidized by conservation groups and public funds, including public funds supporting
the work of these conservation groups, there are several existing funding schemes for REDD+ that were set up since 2007.
The Global Environment Facility
It should first be mentioned that the original financial mechanism of the Convention, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), includes a significant
funding window for forest conservation. Since its establishment in 1991, this joint initiative of the World Bank, the UN Development Programme
(UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has funded over 300 projects and programs focusing on forest conservation, totaling 1,6 billion
USD. Remarkably, on its website the GEF states:
“Since 2007, the GEF has increasingly provided resources for pilot projects focusing on REDD”38
without explaining what these REDD projects actually add to its existing efforts to fund projects to conserve forests, and use and manage forests
sustainably. It is to be expected that the 1.6 billion USD GEF has already spent on forest conservation has reduced emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation as well.
GEF also has a quite successful small grants programme for NGOs and community-based organizations, which has already provided 12000 small
grants to NGOs and communities in 122 countries, totaling 401 million USD. The program is administered by UNDP, and the procedures to access
grants are not overly complicated.39 However, applicants should seek the approval of the national GEF focal point(s) before submitting an application,
which can be complicated for Indigenous Peoples. A little over half of the projects funded until now concern biodiversity conservation initiatives, and
a significant proportion of these projects concern the conservation of forest ecosystems.
35
38 http://www.thegef.org/gef/SFM39 http://sgp.undp.org/index.cfm?module=ActiveWeb&page=WebPage&s=EligibilityQuiz
The World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility
The World Bank has always been an enthusiastic supporter of REDD+. At the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in 2007 in Bali, the World
Bank launched its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), even before the Conference of the Parties had formally decided to start serious
negotiations on REDD+. This has raised the concern that one of the main objectives of this initiative was to steer the REDD+ debate, rather than to
serve as a facility to implement this governmental proposal.
Despite, or perhaps because a large number of Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations strongly protested against the establishment of the FCPF in
2007, the World Bank has made a lot of efforts to liaise with Indigenous Peoples and involve them in this facility. In 2008, as part of the design process,
the Bank organized three regional consultations with Indigenous peoples in Latin America, Africa and Asia. However, many Indigenous representatives
that participated in these meetings felt their objective was merely to convince Indigenous Peoples to support the FCPF rather than to consult them.40
The facility itself already became operational in June 2008. Since then, 37 countries were invited to submit project proposals. Until now, thirteen of
these countries (Argentina, Costa Rica, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guyana, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao PDR, Mexico, Nepal, Panama,
the Republic of Congo and Tanzania) have submitted what is called Readiness Preparation Proposals, which, if approved, are supported by grants
of up to 3.6 million USD. A total of 16 donors, including conservation groups like The Nature Conservancy, have promised and/or contributed a total
of 447 million USD to the facility.
On 25 July 2011, the FCPF announced that its Carbon Fund had become operational as well. 41This fund will provide payments for verified emission
reductions from up to 5 countries that have been declared “ready” for REDD+, based on a review of what they call their readiness package, which
is the REDD+ program description they prepared.
The World Bank Forest Investment Program
In 2008, the World Bank also set up a Forest Investment Program (FIP), as part of its Strategic Climate Fund, one of the Climate Investment Funds it
has set up to support programs to mitigate climate change in developing countries. According to the Bank
36
40 That these events were merely organized to win Indigenous Peoples’ support for the facility than to consult them was made clear by a comment of one of the Bank staff members at theAfrican event: “How could I go back to the Bank Headquarters and tell my bosses that despite 5 days of consultations Indigenous Peoples still do not support me!”. Personalcommunication, May 2008.
41 http://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/fcp/sites/forestcarbonpartnership.org/files/Documents/PDF/Jul2011/FCPF%20Update%20EN%2007-25-11_2.pdflast accessed on 18 August 2011
“The main purpose of the FIP is to support developing countries’ REDD-efforts, providing up-front bridge financing for readiness reforms
and investments identified through national REDD readiness strategy building efforts, while taking into account opportunities to help
them adapt to the impacts of climate change on forests and to contribute to multiple benefits such as biodiversity conservation and
rural livelihoods enhancements. The FIP will finance efforts to address the underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation
and to overcome barriers that have hindered past efforts to do so.”
Until now, the Forest Investment Program has only disbursed 300.000 USD to the Democratic Republic of Congo and 300.000 USD to Burkina Faso
for the preparation of an investment plan, but the FIP Steering Committee has approved grants up to 60 million USD for 8 countries: Burkina Faso,
Brazil, DRC, Ghana, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Mexico and Peru.42 On top of this, 6 million USD has been disbursed to its own administrative budget.43Six
donors have pledged a total of 578 million USD through contributions to the Strategic Climate Fund. This includes 168 million USD from the US
government, 159 million from the UK government and 146 million from the Norwegian government.
It should be emphasized that a significant part of the investments by this fund will be in the form of loans instead of grants, which implies the money
will have to be paid back at some time. For example, it is stated that part of the funds will be used to facilitate
“scaled-up private investment in alternative livelihoods for forest dependent communities that over time generate their own value”.
However, it is unclear how it can be ensured that these livelihoods will be so economically profitable that it allows the communities involved to pay
back significant debts to the World Bank. It has also been pointed out that the provision of loans instead of grants is contrary to the principles of
climate justice and common but differentiated responsibilities, as it implies that developing countries, and communities within those countries, are
taking up the main burden for mitigating climate change.
The World Bank claims to be dedicated to prioritizing the rights and needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the implementation of
the Forest Investment Program. For this reason, it is in process of elaborating a dedicated grant mechanism for Indigenous peoples and local
communities.44 Four regional meetings and two global meetings to consult representatives of Indigenous peoples and local communities were
organized until now. No agreement between the Bank and the Indigenous Peoples consulted has been reached as yet, even though the Bank is
pushing the Indigenous Peoples to agree on the designated grant mechanism design proposed before November 2011, when it wants to formally
present the proposal. The latest draft of the proposal suggests that 50 to 75 million USD should be generated in grants to indigenous Peoples as
support, amongst others, for securing and strengthening customary land tenure and resource rights and traditional forest management systems,
42 http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/sites/climateinvestmentfunds.org/files/FIP%20CRP%206%20distribution%20of%20grant%20resources.pdf last accessed on 18 August 201143 See http://www.climatefundsupdate.org/listing/forest-investment-program last accessed on 18 August 201144 See http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/workingdocuments/3465 for the latest draft proposal. Last accessed 18 August 2011.
37
support the development of pilot project proposals, for example for providing alternative livelihoods, and support for the involvement of Indigenous
Peoples in REDD+ policy development and the monitoring and evaluation of forest activities. Up to 77% of the overall funding will be granted to
Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the 8 countries that have been approved by the FIP Steering Committee.45
UN-REDD
Partly as a response to these World Bank initiatives, the UN Development Program, the UN Environment Program and the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the UN (which has traditionally been the lead organization for forests in the UN system), established their own, separate REDD+
financing mechanism, called the UN-REDD programme. Only three donor countries, Norway, Denmark and Spain have provided support to UN-
REDD until now, with Norway being by far the largest donor, having provided 84,406,889 USD of the total of 93,798,576 USD UN-REDD has received
until December 2010.46 Until December 2010, 12 countries had received a funding allocation of in total 51,350,441 USD from UN-REDD: Democratic
Republic of Congo (7,383,200 in total), Bolivia (4,708,000), Cambodia (3,001,350), Indonesia (5,644,250), Panama (5,300,000), Papua New Guinea
(6,388,884), Paraguay (4,720,001), Solomon’s Islands (550,000), Tanzania (4,280,000), The Philippines (500,000), Vietnam (4,384,756) and Zambia
(4,490,000). So only 60% of the total budget has actually been allocated to the countries, which does not imply that these countries already received
that money on their bank accounts: Of the 12 countries mentioned above only 7 had actually received (some of) their funding by December 2010.
In general, there is a significant concern by REDD+ recipient countries that funds have only been promised but not yet released – a UN administered
REDD database47 revealed in June 2011 that of the in total 7.7 billion USD bilateral and multilateral donors had claimed to have allocated to REDD+,
only 0.7 billion USD was reported to have been received by the recipient countries.
Norwegian Forests and Climate Initiative
A significant amount of this total 7.7 billion has actually been committed by just one country: Norway. The Norwegian Forests and Climate Initiative
was launched in December 2007 with a promise by the Norwegian Government to donate 3 billion Norwegian Krone (approx. 550 million USD) per
year to different initiatives to promote and implement REDD+ over a period of 5 years.48 As mentioned above, some of this money was channeled
through multilateral initiatives like FCPF and UN-REDD, but a significant portion was donated directly to a limited number of countries, as bilateral
45 http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/sites/climateinvestmentfunds.org/files/FIP%206%20Dedicated%20Grant%20Mechanism%20IP.pdf last accessed on 18 August 201146 UN-REDD Programme, 2010 Year in Review, published by UN-REDD, Geneva, Switzerland, March 201147 REDD+ Partnership, 2011. REDD+ Partnership Voluntary REDD+ Database Updated Progress Report, 11 June 2011, page 6, table 1. See http://reddplusdatabase.org/ 48 See http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/md/Selected-topics/climate/the-government-of-norways-international-/why-a-climate-and-forest-initiative.html?id=547202 for more information
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aid. Brazil, Indonesia, Tanzania and Guyana are the main countries benefiting from bilateral support, with a little over 1.5 billion Krone (273 million
USD) destined for the Brazilian Amazon fund, 500 million Krone (91 million USD) granted to Tanzania and no less than 1 billion USD promised to the
Government of Indonesia. Moreover, a total of 250 million USD was promised to the tiny country of Guyana, which has actually hardly suffered from
deforestation until now. August 2011, most of these funds have not been released yet.
REDD Readiness
It should be noted that the overwhelming majority of the funding mentioned above is not so much destined for reducing deforestation itself, but rather
for what is called “REDD readiness” programs. These are national programs that are supposed to make a country ready for REDD. The programs
normally include a comprehensive assessment of the state of forests in the country, an analysis of the main causes of forest loss, capacity-building
in the calculation of the carbon stored in these forests, and some kind of participatory process to develop a national REDD program. They also
almost always include a REDD pilot project. These pilot projects show the real nature of REDD, as they are almost always based on the principle of
payments for environmental services. What is unclear, is who will pay the country, and the actors within the country, once the country is “ready for
REDD”. Performance-based payments to all countries that are currently preparing a REDD program will require billions of dollars per year, but at this
moment in time it is highly uncertain where these billions will come from. Most large donors have not yet made a firm commitment to contribute
money to REDD once countries are ready for REDD. There is a vague commitment by a large number of Parties to the Climate Convention at the
otherwise failed Conference of the parties in Copenhagen in 2009 that they would contribute up to 100 billion per year, but the internal plans of one
of the largest donors, the European Union, reveal that only a small amount of this money will exist of actual donations by the European governments.49
They count on a significant part of this funding to be contributed by developing countries themselves, but it is unlikely developing countries will have
the resources to provide results-based payments for halting forest loss for all forest owners and forest-dependent communities and Indigenous
peoples in their countries.
Due to the ongoing economic and financial crises, “austerity” and “budget cuts” are terms that far more frequently heard in the financial departments
of these potential donor countries that “generosity” and “increasing financial support to developing countries and their forest-dependent communities”.
The EU actually expects a majority of the funding “committed” to come from the private sector, arguably in the form of investments in carbon offsets.50
But in the absence of a global mandatory carbon market any time soon, this source of funding is, to say the least, highly uncertain. The only funding
source that is not expected to dry up in the short term is the voluntary forest carbon offset market, but as explained, this funding source is the most
unreliable of all. August 2011, the carbon price actually reached its all time low,51 and all market analysis are predicting this market will continue to
be in significant problems unless a truly ambitious mandatory target for emission cuts is set, which currently is a distant dream.
49 http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/articles/financial_operations/pdf/sec_2011_487_final_en.pdf last accessed on 25 August 201150 http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/articles/financial_operations/pdf/sec_2011_487_final_en.pdf last accessed on 25 August 201151 http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6E7J50VS20110805 last accessed on 25 August 2011
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Chapter 5:REDD+ Risks
Their financial unsustainability in terms of depending on significant permanent funding flows, which are as yet totally uncertain, is just one of the risks
that are inherent to the current REDD+ proposals. A broad set of risks is related to the specific nature of forests as an ecosystem that tends to be
inhabited by people that are economically and politically marginalized, including in particular Indigenous Peoples.
Risks for Marginalized Communities and Women
Historically, in the absence of well-enforced regulations that protected them, forests have been destroyed in areas that were attractive for agriculture
or other forms of land use that were more profitable from a purely economic point of view. A noteworthy exception are forests that are found on
Indigenous territories or territories of local communities and ethnic groups that fostered strong cultural and traditional values about forest conservation.
But sadly , many of those groups were politically weak, and in many colonial and post-colonial regimes their lands were robbed away from them. As
a result, the forests that remain on this planet are, in overwhelming majority, located in areas that are relatively unattractive for agriculture or other
alternative forms of land use. They can be found in areas that are too cold (the boreal forests), too hot, too wet, or too hilly, and that have, partly
because they were not that attractive for agriculture or other economic activities, very scarce if any infrastructure. Their inaccessibility has always
been one of the greatest factors of survival of forests, and it is no surprise in this perspective that road building forms one of the most important
threats to forests.
Because they are relatively unattractive, many forests in the world became a refuge for Indigenous Peoples, ethnic minorities and other politically
and economically marginalized groups that were excluded or violently expelled from the more attractive agricultural lands. As these people tend to
have less monetary resources, they depend strongly on non-monetary resources, including in particular the many natural resources provided by
forest ecosystems. For millions of Indigenous Peoples, forests are their main if not only source of livelihood. Forests also play a particularly important
role for women. While the latest research52 suggests that women do not necessarily obtain more valuable products from the forests than men, these
products are relatively more valuable to them: due to the significant amount of time women spend on family and household tasks that are not
economically rewarded, their monetary income is much lower than the income of the male members of their family. The latter are far more often
41
52 http://blog.cifor.org/3803/in-the-management-of-forests-gender-matters/ last accessed on 25 August 2011
working in paid jobs, and other economic activities that provide them with a concrete, and on average much higher, income. As they have, on average,
far less money than men, women are not in a position to buy alternative products like charcoal when they loose access to forest products like
fuelwood, for example due to forest loss or conservation projects that block their access to the forest. This also implies that they become more
dependent on their husbands and/or other male members of the family who do have a (higher) income. The commercialization of forest products
thus has effects that do not only impact on the traditional values and social coherence of Indigenous and other communities, it also affects individual
members of those communities, including in particular women.53
Risks of Conflicts and Human Rights Violations
Due to the fact that forests tend to be inhabited by socially, economically and politically marginalized Peoples and communities, who often live in
areas that are remote from other human settlements, there is an inherent risk of conflict, human rights violations and further social and economic
marginalization in forest policies. On average, forest-dependent peoples have less political power than other actors like, often urban-based,
conservation groups, policy-makers and donor institutions. This means that they are far more likely to loose any conflicts that may arise over their
lands and territories. While the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples highlights a large number of rights Indigenous Peoples have
over their lands and territories, there is still a significant gap in the implementation of these rights. In many countries, Indigenous Peoples are being
discriminated against, their land rights are being denied, their cultures, languages and traditional knowledge systems ignored and serious human
rights violations including murder are still happening on an almost daily basis in countries all over this world54.
Elite Resource Capture
By significantly increasing the value of the forests upon which many Indigenous Peoples and politically and economically marginalized communities
depend, REDD+ is an inherent source of increased conflict with potentially serious negative impacts. Performance-based payments for forest
conservation come with an inherent risk of so-called elite resource capture55, the risk that rich elites, including urban elites, will try to obtain most of
the profits from these schemes.
42
53 Lovera, S., 2008. Life as Commerce: The Risks of Market-based Conservation Mechanisms on Women. Global Forest Coalition, Amsterdam, 2008,http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Impacts-marketbasedconservationmechanisms-on-woman4.pdf
54 See for example UNGA, 2005. Note by the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People, UNGA, New York.http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/513/14/PDF/N0551314.pdf?OpenElement
55 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)
The fact that performance-based payment schemes require detailed monitoring, reporting and verification of the carbon stored in forests increases
this risk even further, as the methodologies that are recognized by the FCCC are scientifically complicated and do not recognize non-Western
knowledge systems. This implies that forest-based communities and Peoples will almost always need the assistance of expensive technical experts
from outside the community to perform these tasks, even when these communities would take the lead in developing a project themselves. Recent
attempts with participatory monitoring are interesting, but fail to address the lack of equitable benefit sharing triggered by the difference in salary
levels between community members and the experts that tend to “build their capacity” in these areas. For example, the World Rainforest Movement
compared the per capita incomes of local communities and project managers involved in the Juma forest carbon offset project in the Brazilian
Amazon, and discovered that an average community member received 0.18 US dollar per day as a benefit from the project, while the project manager
was paid 25000 US dollar per month, while boils down to approximately 830 US dollar per day.56
To counter these inequities in benefit sharing, a number of NGOs57 have proposed that REDD+ schemes use more generic indicators for improved
performance, that is, that communities and countries are allowed to provide evidence of reduced forest loss by showing progress in developing
rules, regulations, measures and practices that indicate more socially and environmentally sound and effective forest policies in general rather than
measuring exactly how many tons of carbon have been saved. This proposal has many advantages, but it should be emphasized that it is incompatible
with a REDD+ system that is financed through carbon offset markets, as such markets require that the “seller” can demonstrate that there has been
real and verifiable reductions in carbon emissions to compensate for the increased carbon emissions that will be caused by the project the REDD+
project is offsetting. Without such evidence, there is a significant risk that the reductions are not real. This means there is no proper compensation
and the climate ends up with more greenhouse gases. So the environmental integrity of the climate regime requires that emission reductions are
carefully monitored, independently verified and not undone by non-permanence, leakage or other forms of unintended side effects.
For these and a large number of other reasons, including the ones mentioned in chapter 3, the NGOs proposing more generic forms of monitoring
reduced forest loss are strongly against the inclusion of forests in carbon markets. It should be emphasized, though, that it will also be complicated
to provide performance-based payments for forest conservation from public funding without accurate forest carbon monitoring, as the entire climate
regime, at least as it was shaped under the Kyoto Protocol, is based on the concept of specific, quantified emission reductions rather than a generic
56 http://www.redd-monitor.org/2010/08/02/juma-reserve-project-in-brazil-fundacao-amazonas-sustentavel-responds-to-criticism/#more-528757 http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/08/23/redd-and-carbon-markets-ten-myths-exploded/
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approach to mitigating climate change. So generic indicators would probably require a very different approach to mitigating climate change and
halting forest loss than REDD+ offers – or at least than the way REDD+ is currently being designed and implemented in more than 40 countries.
Risks related to Land Tenure
Aside from these significant challenges with the equitable sharing of benefits of forest conservation under a quantified performance-based payments
regime, there are other fundamental risks of REDD+. Most REDD+ projects and programs are based on the principle of providing payments for
forest conservation or restoration to the owners of a certain piece of forests. That is, they demand some form of secure land tenure, like individual
property rights over land. This requirement is based on the presumption that REDD+ should only provide payments for forest conservation to those
people who actually have the right not to do so, and the underlying presumption of REDD+ is that landowners have the right to destroy the forests
on their land.
This presumption is actually quite remarkable. It assumes a rather extreme approach to property rights that claims an absolute freedom to do with
one’s property whatever one pleases. This approach might be supported by rightwing political thinkers in the US and other (former) colonial states,
but it certainly is no legal reality in most of the world - In fact, in the overwhelming majority of countries one needs at least a governmental license to
deforest one’s own property. In most countries in Europe, which has seen an increase in what is called forest cover the past century (although it
should be cautioned this “forests” includes significant amounts of monoculture tree plantations), it can be extremely complicated to obtain such a
license. Strict bans on deforestation are a normal rule in other countries as well. Countries as varied as Costa Rica, Bhutan, Switzerland and China
have successfully banned deforestation in their country, and even in countries like Paraguay and Brazil land owners are not allowed to destroy more
than a certain percentage of forests on their land – the old Brazilian Forest Code that is currently under attack allowed land owners in the Amazon to
convert at most 25% of their forests. In most traditional cultures, there are even stronger rules, social and cultural norms and taboos that prohibit
forest destruction, regardless of the question of who formally owns the land.
Yet, most REDD+ schemes are based on the assumption that a forest owner has the full right to destroy his forest, and that he thus needs to be
compensated if he chooses not to. Meanwhile, most REDD+ schemes ignore the rights of forest users, people and communities who depend on a
forest for their livelihood, but who often do not possess legally recognized property rights over that forest. This denial affects women and Indigenous
Peoples disproportionately, who often depend on nearby forest resources, yet often do not have clear property rights over those forests lands yet.
44
Due to strong and effective advocacy campaigns by Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations themselves, backed up by international instruments like
Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, many countries have initiated
processes to consider Indigenous claims to respect their territorial rights. However, in the overwhelming majority of countries there is still a very long
road to go before all Indigenous Peoples’ claims to land, which are often based on Indigenous customary law systems yet were denied for centuries
by colonial powers and/or dictatorial regimes, are fully recognized.
For many years, REDD+ researchers and policy-makers have been stating that land tenure rights should be clarified before an effective REDD+
regime can be put in place.58After all, if it is unclear who has the formal title over a certain piece of land, it is unclear who should receive the REDD
payment – presuming that the heart of REDD is formed by a payment for environmental services system. But there are simply no developing countries
where all land tenure rights, including in particular the territorial rights of Indigenous peoples, have been clarified. Realistically, most developing
countries will need 20 to 50 years more before they have settled the many irregular and often highly immoral situations around land ownership that
they inherited from previous colonial and/or dictatorial regimes. And it has been cautioned that a rushed up process to legalize land tenure could
actually be detrimental for Indigenous Peoples and other politically marginalized groups, as there is a severe risk their claims will be denied or even
ignored in such processes.59So either governments will have to wait for 2 or more decades with implementing REDD+, or there is a significant risk
REDD+ projects will undermine or frustrate existing land claims of Indigenous Peoples, especially if they try to rapidly clarify any outstanding land
tenure claims.
In the absence of such full settlement, REDD+ will reinforce historical injustices by providing payments for environmental services to land owners
who have obtained their land through colonial occupation, abusing land entitlement and land reform regimes or even more blunt hand-outs during
colonial and/or dictatorial regimes. Moreover, by raising the value of forest land, REDD+ will make it far more difficult to settle these land claims as
it creates a strong incentive for modern day estancioneros and other large landowners to reject land claims by Indigenous Peoples and landless
peasants. These large land owners tend to have significant political influence – 95% of the parliamentarians in Paraguay, for example, are large
landowners themselves. REDD+ will thus have an impact on national policy-making in the field of land reform and settling Indigenous land rights
that goes far beyond the direct impact on specific sites.
58 E.g . Peskett et al. 2008 "Making REDD work for the Poor", A Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP) Report http://www.povertyenvironment.net/pep and Angelsen, A.(ed.), 2008. Moving ahead with REDD: Issues, options and implications. CIFOR, BOGOR, Indonesia.
59 http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/939007/warning_over_redd_projects_excluding_rural_poor_from_forests.html last accessed on 29 August 2011
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Corruption and Bad Governance
A closely related problem is the risk of corruption and the lack of good governance in general in countries with high deforestation rates. As
Transparency International has concluded60 the forestry sector is prone to large-scale illegality and corruption, especially due to the fact that forests
are often remote and inhabited by politically and economically marginalized groups that are seldom able to seek access to justice when confronted
with corruption. Forest conservation is an international legal commitment for the 193 countries that ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, so
those countries that still suffer from high deforestation rates 17 years after this Convention entered into force are obviously failing to comply with
international legally binding commitments. This means their forest governance is, per definition, failing. In a 2008 comparison of the global corruption
index and some of the most important countries targeted for REDD+, it was concluded that 8 of the 21 countries belonged to the 30 most corrupt
countries of the world, 12 belonged to the 60 most corrupt countries and only 1 belonged to the 50 least corrupt countries in the world.61
The Risks of Market-based REDD
If REDD+ is mainly financed through voluntary carbon markets, which is increasingly likely, there are a number of additional risks that are inherent
to exposing local communities and Indigenous peoples to international commodity markets. An analysis of the Global Forest Coalition of the impact
of market-based conservation in five different communities revealed that
“The use of market-based mechanisms inevitably means that the odds are stacked against those in a weaker initial negotiating position.
This includes people with no legal land tenure and those unable to afford the considerable expense involved in the preparation of
environmental impact assessments, the delivery of environmental services, the fulfillment of a range of quantifiable qualification criteria
and the provision of upfront and operational finance, including insurance against project failure. This implies that market-based
conservation mechanisms will inevitably lead to increased corporate governance over biodiversity conservation, and erode the
governance systems of (monetary) poor communities and social groups including Indigenous Peoples and women.”62
60 Transparency International, 2009. Global Corruption Report, Climate Change. Transparency International, Berlin, Germany.http://www.transparency.org/publications/gcr/gcr_climate_change2#Individual
61 http://www.redd-monitor.org/2008/12/05/risk-the-fatal-flaw-in-forest-carbon-trading/62 Global Forest Coalition, "Life as Commerce, the impact of market-based conservation on Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women", GFC 2008
46
These conclusions are fully in line with the predictions of the Munden Project, a consultancy firm specialized in international commodity markets, that
were mentioned above.63
The most significant impact reported in the same analysis was the sense of disempowerment felt by many community members. In all cases in the
study, local residents reported that their control over their forests and livelihoods had decreased because “the main decisions were now taken by
other actors”. Thus, communities that had their own governance systems promoting collective sustainable management of biodiversity became,
under the impact of market-based mechanisms, more likely to act individually (deliberately or otherwise) and pursue individual economic interests
such as jobs, profits and financial rewards. Traditional biodiversity-related knowledge was less likely to be shared, communal lands were more at
risk of being privatized and sold off, and biodiversity-friendly economic activities like bee-keeping were likely to be substituted by monoculture timber
plantations. The position of women within the communities was also affected, as women’s interests are more likely to be over-looked in commercial
transactions normally closed by men. Women have a disadvantageous position in monetary economies in general, as they spend a significant part
of their time on activities such as childcare, household management, procuring clean water and other goods for the family, which are not rewarded
in monetary terms. Moreover, women are generally underpaid also in the formal labor market,64
Many of these risks and concerns are also reflected in a major report by a Poverty and Environment Partnership of a large number of UN agencies
and (potential) REDD+ donors called “Making REDD work for the Poor”65. In the report, it is highlighted that REDD+ might lead to higher food and
land prices and that REDD policies and measures might have significant negative impacts on the communities that depend on forests for their
livelihoods. The report warns that due to the lack of information and understanding and a bias towards more visible activities than community forestry,
poor communities might be excluded from REDD benefits. High compliance costs could be a barrier for small producers as well. The report highlights
the risk of elite capture of the benefits of REDD and the risk of possible conflicts over land and carbon rights.
While forest carbon markets can bring economic benefits to local communities in the form of payments for forest conservation and tree planting, it
is important to analyze any economic costs in terms of decreased food security and food sovereignty and the loss of alternative sources of jobs and
income related to for example the establishment of labor-extensive tree plantations too.
63 The Munden Project, 201164 Global Forest Coalition, 2008, ibid.65 Peskett et al. 2008 "Making REDD work for the Poor", A Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP) Report http://www.povertyenvironment.net/pep
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Liability Risks
Another significant risk for Indigenous Peoples and local communities that become engaged in a REDD project, especially if it is financed through
the carbon market, is that they will be held liable if something goes wrong with the project. If the forest they were supposed to protect is affected by
fire, storms, droughts or other climate-related events, or illegally encroached upon by outside actors like plantation or mining companies, the
community that has signed a contract in which it committed to save forest will probably be held liable for the fact that less carbon was stored than
expected. They might have to pay a fee, or be confronted with an obligation to replant the forests. In some cases, the community might end up with
more costs than benefits from the REDD+ project.
Tree Plantations and Clearcuts
Significant additional risks arise from the fact that forests and monoculture tree plantations are treated as one and the same thing under the climate
regime. As described above, the definition that was adopted for Northern forests by the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol includes any kind of monoculture
tree plantation, and even clearcuts. No separate definitions have been developed for REDD+, and the national REDD+ programs make it clear that
tree plantation establishment is one of the activities that can be financed with REDD+ funding. “Sustainable forest management”, which includes
so-called reduced impact logging, also qualifies, provided the logging companies can demonstrate that the activities financed with REDD funds will
lead to less carbon emissions than the original logging plans. Logging and tree plantation establishment have had serious negative impacts of
Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent peoples. From Brazil to Malaysia, one can find hundreds of examples of severe conflicts between
these companies and the Indigenous communities that aim to defend their forests against these environmentally destructive practices.66 Especially
tree plantations have a severe impact as they lead to the permanent take-over of Indigenous lands, while providing very little labor per hectare of
land. Meanwhile, as these industries are already profitable by themselves, even a relatively small financial REDD+ contribution to ‘improved timber
production practices’ like ‘reduced impact logging’ (as compared to so-called “business as usual” practices that are even more destructive) makes
these economic activities more profitable for investors, and thus triggers their expansion, to the detriment of Indigenous Peoples and local
communities. In many countries, tree plantation companies and the pulp and paper sector in general are actively lobbying to ensure a significant
amount of the available REDD+ funding is used to subsidize the establishment of tree plantations and ‘reduced impact logging’.
66 See http://www.wrm.org.uy for a large Lumber of examples of the negative impacts of tree plantations and jogging on Indigenous Peoples and local communities
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The Risks of Climate Change
Last but not least, it should be emphasized again that the main environmental threat to Indigenous Peoples and local communities is climate change
itself. The Global Humanitarian Forum has estimated that, already now, at least 300.000 people per year die and 325 million people are seriously
affected by the consequences of climate change, and this figure is expected to rise sharply.67Indigenous Peoples and local communities are at the
forefront of these impacts. Thus, any policy proposal that undermines the so-called ‘environmental integrity’ of the climate regime forms a serious
risk for Indigenous peoples and local communities. As explained in chapter 3, the inclusion of REDD+ in carbon markets triggers a large number of
questions about additionality, permanence, leakage, and the possibility to verify carbon reductions in a genuine, accurate but not overly costly
manner. These questions have not been resolved yet. The Parties to the Climate Convention are currently engaged in negotiations about policies
and methodologies that are supposed to resolve them, with a number of workshops planned for the coming years. Yet, it is the firm conviction of a
growing number of NGOs and social movements, that these issues cannot be resolved, as they are inherent to the REDD+ system. That would
make REDD+ a fundamental threat to the survival of thousands and possibly millions of people on the planet.
67 The Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009. The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis. Human Impact Report Climate Change. GHF.,Geneva. http://www.ghf-ge.org/human-impact-report.pdf
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Chapter 6:REDD+ Safeguards
Traumatized by the dramatic collapse of the Copenhagen conference in 2009, the Parties of the Framework Convention on Climate Change worked
hard at the 16th Conference of the Parties that followed in 2010 to ensure they could at least pretend to have reached agreement on some issues.
The resulting “Cancun agreement” was not adopted by consensus, as required by the rules of procedure of the Convention; the Bolivian Government
persisted until the very last moment in its opposition to what it considered a far too weak deal that would allow global temperatures to rise to
unacceptable levels. So the formal legal status of the Cancun agreement is ambiguous, but it was nevertheless taken as a basis for the negotiations
that continued in 2011.
The Cancun REDD+ Safeguards
The Cancun agreement includes an elaborate decision on REDD+.68 It encourages developing countries to undertake activities to reduce emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation, to conserve and “enhance” forests and to undertake sustainable management of forests. Furthermore, it
requests countries to develop a national strategy or action plan, in which they are supposed to address drivers of forest loss, land tenure issues,
forest governance issues, gender considerations and the safeguards mentioned below, while
“ensuring the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders, inter alia indigenous peoples and local communities”.
Countries are also requested to elaborate a system to monitor forest loss and some kind of information system on the implementation of REDD
related safeguards, and what is called forest reference emission levels – which would form the basis to calculate the additionality of REDD+ efforts.
As mentioned above, these reference levels are supposed to describe the “normal” rate of forest loss, but policy-makers are currently struggling
with the question what a ‘normal’ rate of forest loss is.
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68 Decision FCCC/CP/2010/Add.1
All these activities are supposed to take place “in the context of the provision of adequate and predictable support”, and Parties, “in particular developed
country Parties” are asked to support the elaboration of national strategies and action plans, and the elaboration and implementation of specific
policies and measures and capacity-building activities. The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention, which
is the main negotiation forum for the future of the Convention in general (there is a parallel forum to specifically discuss the successor to the Kyoto
Protocol), is asked to explore financing options for “results-based actions”.
An important breakthrough in Cancun was the adoption of an elaborate list of so-called safeguards. These safeguards aim to prevent some of the
potential negative environmental and social impacts of REDD+. They are included in an annex to the decision rather than the decision itself, but the
decision itself states in its preambular paragraph:
Affirms that the implementation of the activities referred to in paragraph 70 below should be carried out in accordance with appendix I
to this decision, and that the safeguards referred to in paragraph 2 of appendix I to this decision should be promoted and supported;
Several other clauses in the decision itself request Parties to promote, support69 and address70 the safeguards and to provide information on how
they are being addressed and respected.71 As the decision only requests Parties to respect the safeguards, they are not legally binding.
The full text of the REDD decision and the safeguards is included in annex 1 of this report. The most important safeguards for Indigenous peoples
and local communities are:
(c) Respect for the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples and members of local communities, by taking into account relevant
international obligations, national circumstances and laws, and noting that the United Nations General Assembly has adopted the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
(d) The full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders, in particular indigenous peoples and local communities, in the actions
referred to…
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69 Paragraph 69 of decision FCCC/CP/2010/Add.170 Paragraph 72 of decision FCCC/CP/2010/Add.171 Paragraph 71 (d) of decision FCCC/CP/2010/Add.1
The rather ambiguous reference to the Un Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIPs) is the result of long and complicated
negotiations, as especially the US, which is the only country that still does not formally support UNDRIPs, opposed a more explicit reference to the
rights enshrined in UNDRIPs. Thus, this crucial instrument is only “noted” as one of the sets of relevant international obligations, national circumstances
and laws the Parties should comply with. Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization, which includes an explicit and legally binding
recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples as well, is not even mentioned, but it is supposed to fall under the “relevant international obligations”
that are supposed to be taken into account by the 22 countries that ratified the instrument.
There also is an important safeguard regarding the potential impacts of tree plantations and logging operations that might be funded with REDD+ funds:
(e) That actions are consistent with the conservation of natural forests and biological diversity, ensuring that the actions referred to in
paragraph 70 of this decision are not used for the conversion of natural forests, but are instead used to incentivize the protection and
conservation of natural forests and their ecosystem services, and to enhance other social and environmental benefits.”
This safeguard is accompanied by a footnote that states
“Taking into account the need for sustainable livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities and their interdependence on
forests in most countries, reflected in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as the International
Mother Earth Day.“
This safeguard is open for mutual interpretation. In any case it seems clear that countries should ‘ensure’ that REDD+ funds are not used to convert
natural forests, and that they should ‘incentivize’ the protection and conservation of natural forests in a manner that is consistent with biological diversity.
However, it should be cautioned that there has been a tendency amongst forest policy-makers, and some large conservation organizations, to consider
the establishment of tree plantations as ‘consistent’ with biodiversity provided they do not replace what is called ‘high conservation value areas’ or
‘biodiversity hotspots’.72 The classification of such areas tends to take into account scientific values of biodiversity only, not the socio-economic value
of an area for Indigenous Peoples or local communities, for example as grazing land for their cattle or a source of traditional medicines and fodder.
This implies that ecosystems like drylands, savannahs and other grasslands can still be replaced by REDD+-funded monoculture tree plantations
that, in the eyes of timber producers and some conservation groups, lower the pressure on natural forests and thus ‘incentivize’ their protection.
72 See for example: http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/forestry/sustainablepulppaper/plantations/
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The footnote includes an important reference to such livelihood issues, but regretfully it only asks countries to take such issues into account, which
does not necessarily imply that projects can be stopped on the basis of this safeguard. No other safeguard refers explicitly to the need to defend
the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples who are dependent on free access to forests and non-forest ecosystems. In the REDD+ guidance, which is
included in the same annex as the safeguards, reference is made to the need to implement REDD+ “in the context of sustainable development and
reducing poverty” and it emphasizes that the multiple functions of forests and other ecosystems should be taken into account, but this guidance
provides little legal guarantee that REDD+ will not impact on the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. There is no safeguard or guidance that prescribes
the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of REDD+. This principle is embedded in the Convention on Biodiversity, which has been ratified by
practically all countries except the USA, but it legally refers to genetic resources only, not to the benefits of the carbon stored in an ecosystem like
forests.
So the legal value of the safeguards adopted in Cancun is limited. Having said that, as guidance and recommendations that should be taken into
account, the safeguards can play an important role in shaping national REDD+ related rules, regulations and action plans, which could be binding.
If Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations and social movements representing local communities are able to influence national REDD+ policy-development
in an effective manner – building on the recommendation that they should participate fully and effectively in such processes – they can use the
safeguards and guiding principles as political arguments to elaborate them into concrete and hopefully binding rules and regulations that truly
safeguard their rights. They can also insist that addressing land tenure implies recognizing their territorial rights, and that addressing gender
considerations implies that the rights and needs of women should be respected in REDD+ policies and actions.
Safeguards adopted by REDD Donors
It is important to know in this respect that a number of REDD+ donors have already expressed their full commitment to the implementation safeguards.
The Norwegian Government, for example, has frequently expressed its commitment to respect the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
It states explicitly on its website that:
“All recipient countries that are selected as partners for the Climate and Forest Initiative must have the clear political intention of working
systematically to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, and must later demonstrate this in practice. This work will include
developing and implementing national REDD strategies, and protecting the rights of local people and their opportunities for
development.”73
73 http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/md/Selected-topics/climate/the-government-of-norways-international-/why-a-climate-and-forest-initiative.html?id=547202
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The three main multilateral REDD+ funds have adopted some guidelines or principles too.
The Forest Investment Program design document74 includes a number of criteria, including:
“Inclusive processes and participation of all important stakeholders, including indigenous peoples and local communities. Consistent
with relevant international instruments, obligations and domestic laws, FIP investment strategies, programs and projects at the country
or regional level should be designed and implemented under a process of public consultation, with full and effective participation of all
relevant stakeholders on matters that affect their distinctive rights, including in particular groups that historically have tended to be
marginalized such as indigenous peoples, local communities and women;” 75
FIP financed activities should, moreover, be consistent with, and/or complement, national sustainable development plans and be based upon broad
community support and effective collaboration between indigenous peoples and local communities, government ministries, private sector and
financial institutions in planning and implementing investment strategies. FIP should also seek to engage other major stakeholders such as major
groups identified by Agenda 21.
The design document subsequently refers to a set of guidelines that should be followed to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous
peoples and local communities. The FIP also includes a so-called “biodiversity safeguard” which stipulates:
“Safeguarding the integrity of natural forests. Consistent with its objectives, the FIP should safeguard natural forests and should not support
the conversion, deforestation or degradation of such forests, inter alia, through industrial logging, conversion of natural forests to tree
plantations or other large-scale agricultural conversion. In particular, the FIP should safeguard high conservation value forests….”76
Aside from these specific criteria, the design document also includes a set of principles, including a principle that states:
“Contribution to sustainable development. The FIP should contribute to the livelihoods and human development of forest dependent
communities, including indigenous peoples and local communities, and should generate benefits to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem
services;” 77
74 World Bank, 2009. Design Document for the Forest Investment Program, a targetted program under the SCF Trust Fund. World Bank Group, Washington.http://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/sites/climateinvestmentfunds.org/files/FIP_Final_Design_Document_July_7.pdf
75 Forest Investment Program Design Document paragraph 16 (d)76 Forest Investment Program Design Document paragraph 16 (g)77 Forest Investment Program Design Document paragraph 13 (b)
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The host institution of the FCPF and FIP, the World Bank, has a number of important safeguards in the form of 10 operational policies, including
Operational Policy 4.10 on Indigenous Peoples. 78 The Operational Policy demands that any project financed by the Bank that affects Indigenous
Peoples requires a screening by the Bank to identify which Peoples might be affected, a social assessment by the borrower, a process of free, prior
and informed consultation (not consent) with the affected Indigenous Peoples at each state of the project to “ascertain their broad community support
for the project”, and the preparation of an Indigenous Peoples Plan or Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework. According to the Bank Procedure
no 4.1079,
“free, prior, and informed consultation is consultation that occurs freely and voluntarily, without any external manipulation, interference,
or coercion, for which the parties consulted have prior access to information on the intent and scope of the proposed project in a
culturally appropriate manner, form, and language;”
The operational policy further stipulates that during the consultation process, methods should be used that are appropriate to the social and cultural
values of the affected Indigenous Peoples’ communities and that give special attention to the concerns of Indigenous women. The consultation
process itself is carried out by the borrower, but the Bank has to review the process to
“satisfy itself that the affected Indigenous Peoples’ communities have provided their broad support to the project.”
The operational policy states that
“The Bank does not proceed further with project processing if it is unable to ascertain that such support exists”.
Some special considerations should be taken into account when a project affects the ties between indigenous Peoples and their lands and related
natural resources –as is the case in most REDD projects. In that case, attention should be paid in the social assessment at the Indigenous peoples
Plan or Planning Framework to the customary rights of Indigenous peoples regarding those lands and resources, the need
“to protect such lands and resources against illegal intrusion or encroachment”,
78 http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/PROJECTS/EXTPOLICIES/EXTOPMANUAL/0,,contentMDK:20553653~menuPK:64701637~pagePK:64709096~piPK:64709108~theSitePK:502184,00.html79 http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/PROJECTS/EXTPOLICIES/EXTOPMANUAL/0,,contentMDK:20553664~menuPK:64701637~pagePK:64709096~piPK:64709108~theSitePK:502184,00.html
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the cultural and spiritual values that are attributed to such lands and resources and traditional management practices and the long-term sustainability
of such practices.
Paragraph 18 of the operational policy is particularly interesting for REDD+. It states:
“If the project involves the commercial development of natural resources (such as minerals, hydrocarbon resources, forests, water, or
hunting/fishing grounds) on lands or territories that Indigenous Peoples traditionally owned, or customarily used or occupied, the borrower
ensures that as part of the free, prior, and informed consultation process the affected communities are informed of (a) their rights to
such resources under statutory and customary law; (b) the scope and nature of the proposed commercial development and the parties
interested or involved in such development; and (c) the potential effects of such development on the Indigenous Peoples’ livelihoods,
environments, and use of such resources. The borrower includes in the IPP arrangements to enable the Indigenous Peoples to share
equitably in the benefits to be derived from such commercial development; at a minimum, the IPP arrangements must ensure that the
Indigenous Peoples receive, in a culturally appropriate manner, benefits, compensation, and rights to due process at least equivalent
to that to which any landowner with full legal title to the land would be entitled in the case of commercial development on their land.” 18
The policy states that physical relocation of Indigenous Peoples should be avoided as much as possible, and should in any case not be carried out
without obtaining broad support for it from the affected Indigenous Peoples. The policy also stipulates that
“restrictions on Indigenous Peoples’ access to legally designated parks and protected areas, in particular access to their sacred sites,
should be avoided”.
In exceptional cases when restrictions cannot be avoided a process framework should be developed in consultation with the Indigenous Peoples
concerned, which includes a management plan developed with the participation of Indigenous Peoples. It also states that in such a case Indigenous
Peoples should
“share equitably in the benefits of the parks and protected areas.”
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There is an ongoing discussion whether these safeguards also apply to readiness processes. Remarkably, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility claims
these and other operational policies of the World Bank are not necessarily applicable to the REDD readiness processes it supports. It states that:
“During the Readiness process, the scope of application of World Bank safeguard policies will depend on the nature of the activities for
which a REDD Country Participant seeks support from the Readiness Fund”.
Instead, they ask the countries they fund to elaborate a Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment (SESA) that should “comply with World Bank
safeguards”. 80 The Bank claims that the FCPF funded readiness processes are just capacity-building processes, so there is no need to have them
covered by the operational policies. However, many readiness processes include pilot projects and there is no sound argument to claim that the
safeguards would not apply to such projects.
Moreover, it is clearly stated in the FCPF information memorandum81 that any
“Investment activities supported by the Facility through an ERPA will be expected to comply with the Bank’s applicable environmental
and social safeguard policies.”
The UN-REDD program has not adopted any strict safeguards or standards for its REDD+ activities. However, the UN-REDD Framework Document82
does highlight that the programme will be guided by the five so-called “inter-related principles of the UN Development Group”, including its principles
on gender equality and environmental sustainability, and in particular the UNDG Guidelines on Indigenous Peoples Issues.83 The latter are a
comprehensive set of guidelines based on amongst others ILO Convention 169 and UNDRIPs, as well as other human rights standards. In practice,
this implies that UN-REDD, as a UN programme, is expected to fully comply with UNDRIPs.
Important rights enshrined in the UNDG guidelines include the right to self-determination, which is interpreted as including, amongst others, the
principle of free, prior and informed consent. This principle implies that there is an absence of coercion, intimidation or manipulation, that consent
80 http://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/fcp/sites/forestcarbonpartnership.org/files/Documents/PDF/Oct2009/FCPF_ en_soc_guidelines_10-15-09.pdf activities.81 http://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/fcp/sites/forestcarbonpartnership.org/files/Documents/PDF/FCPF_Info_Memo_06-13-08.pdf82 UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, 2008. FAO, UNDP UNEP Framework Document, 20 June
2008, http://www.un-redd.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=gDmNyDdmEI0%3d&tabid=587&language=en-US last accessed on 25 August 201183 http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/UNDG_training_16EN.pdf
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has been sought sufficiently in advance of any authorization or commencement of activities, that respect is shown for time requirements of indigenous
consultation/consensus processes and that full and understandable information on the likely impact is provided.
It also includes the principle of full and effective participation of indigenous peoples at every stage of any action that may affect them direct or
indirectly. The participation of indigenous peoples may be through their traditional authorities or a representative organization. This participation may
also take the form of co-management.
Furthermore, it prescribes consultation with the indigenous peoples concerned prior to any action that may affect them, direct or indirectly. Consultation
ensures that their concerns and interests match the objectives of the activity or action that is planned. Regarding their lands and territories, the
guiding principles state that
Indigenous peoples’ land and territories should be legally recognized demarcated and protected from outside pressures
States should recognize the traditional management systems of indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples also have rights to lands used traditionally
Where lands have been lost for the purposes of national development, restitution or redress is recognized
All efforts should be made to ensure that indigenous peoples determine the activities that take place on their lands and in particular that
impacts on the environment and sacred and cultural sites are avoided
Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation have the right to live free in that condition and States should adopt adequate measures to protect
their territories, environment, and cultures
The guidelines also state that
“Indigenous peoples’ rights to resources that are necessary for their subsistence and development should be respected”
and that
“The spiritual relationship of Indigenous peoples to their lands and territories and environmentally sustainable practices have been
recognized and conservation efforts on indigenous lands, including the establishment of new and management of existing protected
areas, have to take place with the free, prior and informed consent and full participation of the communities concerned.”
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The guidelines also state specifically:
“In the case of climate change…indigenous peoples must fully participate in the definition and implementation of policies and plans
related to climate change impact mitigation.”
It is also noteworthy that the guidelines specifically state that the exploitation of resources on indigenous peoples’ lands by the private sector
“should be permitted only with their full consultation, participation, and free, prior and informed consent”
and that
“under current international law, the responsibility to comply with consent is applicable to States, and not private companies. States
have the responsibility to hold private companies accountable.”
Complementary to these guidelines, UN-REDD has developed a set of guiding principles for the UN-REDD programme on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples and other forest-dependent communities, which is part of its working document on Engagement of Indigenous Peoples & other forest
dependent communities. 84 The principles reiterate the commitment of UN-REDD to the UNDG principles and UNDRIPs. They also include a number
of additional guidelines on Indigenous participation in REDD+ development processes and the UN-REDD structure itself, which, admittedly, are not
fully in line with the UNDG principles and UNDRIPs. For example, the procedures deny Indigenous Peoples the right to elect their own representatives
through culturally appropriate procedures.
The Value of Safeguards
It is important to realize that these principles and safeguards are either not binding at all, or quite hard to enforce. The only exception are the World
Bank operational policies, as far as they are applicable to future and potentially to existing REDD+ activities funded by the FCPF and FIP. If one of
the safeguards is not followed by the Bank, affected people can submit a grievance to the World Bank’s independent inspection panel. However,
84 http://www.un-redd.org/Portals/15/documents/events/20090309Panama/Documents/UN%20REDD%20IP%20Guidelines%2023Mar09.pdf
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this is a very complicated and lengthy process, which requires significant financial and human resources. The Bank Information Centre has a number
of practical toolkits available for those communities that want to challenge the violation of the Bank of its operational policies:
http://www.bicusa.org/en/Page.Toolkits.aspx
The most important value of these safeguards, especially the safeguard on Free Prior and Informed Consent, is their political weight. Indigenous
Peoples’ Organizations at the national and local level and community representatives can refer to these safeguards and insist that they have the
right to participate fully and effectively in all decision-making processes regarding REDD+, including the development and implementation of specific
local REDD+ projects like pilot projects. The right to say “no” to REDD+ is an inherent part of FPIC. According to the FPIC principle, IPs and local
communities have the right to demand full and unbiased information in culturally appropriate forms and local languages. It is important that this
information includes information about the potential impact REDD+ might have on the climate regime and the potential impact of a weak climate
regime on Indigenous Peoples. It is also mandatory to present alternatives to the proposed REDD+ programs and projects – if a community can
only choose between REDD+ support for forest conservation or no support at all, it cannot be said it had a free choice – and thus there is no FPIC
Elements of a common understanding of free, prior and informed consent:
(i) What
Free should imply no coercion, intimidation or manipulation.
Prior should imply that consent has been sought sufficiently in advance of any authorization or commencement of
activities and that respect is shown for time requirements of indigenous consultation/consensus processes.
Informed should imply that information is provided that covers (at least) the following aspects:
a. The nature, size, pace, reversibility and scope of any proposed project or activity;
b. The reason(s) for or purpose(s) of the project and/or activity;
c. The duration of the above;
d. The locality of areas that will be affected;
e. A preliminary assessment of the likely economic, social, cultural and environmental impact, including potential
risks and fair and equitable benefit-sharing in a context that respects the precautionary principle;
f. Personnel likely to be involved in the execution of the proposed project (including indigenous peoples, private
sector staff, research institutions, government employees and others);
g. Procedures that the project may entail.
Consent
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47. Consultation and participation are crucial components of a consent process. Consultation should be undertaken in good faith. The parties
should establish a dialogue allowing them to find appropriate solutions in an atmosphere of mutual respect in good faith, and full and equitable
participation. Consultation requires time and an effective system for communicating among interest-holders. Indigenous peoples should be
able to participate through their own freely chosen representatives and customary or other institutions. The inclusion of a gender perspective
and the participation of indigenous women are essential, as well as participation of children and youth, as appropriate. This process may
include the option of withholding consent.
48. Consent to any agreement should be interpreted as indigenous peoples have reasonably understood it.
(ii) When
FPIC should be sought sufficiently in advance of commencement or authorization of activities, taking into account indigenous peoples’ own
decision-making processes, in phases of assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and closure of a project.
(iii) Who
Indigenous peoples should specify which representative institutions are entitled to express consent on behalf of the affected peoples or
communities. In free, prior and informed consent processes, indigenous peoples, United Nations organizations and Governments should
ensure a gender balance and take into account the views of children and youth, as relevant.
(iv) How
Information should be accurate and in a form that is accessible and understandable, including in a language that the indigenous peoples will
fully understand. The format in which information is distributed should take into account the oral traditions of indigenous peoples and their
languages.
(v) Procedures/mechanisms
Mechanisms and procedures should be established to verify free, prior and informed consent as described above, inter alia, mechanisms of
oversight and redress, including the creation of national ones.
As a core principle of free, prior and informed consent, all sides in a FPIC process must have equal opportunity to debate any proposed
agreement/development/project. “Equal opportunity” should be understood to mean equal access to financial, human and material resources
in order for communities to fully and meaningfully debate in indigenous language(s), as appropriate, or through any other agreed means on
any agreement or project that will have or may have an impact, whether positive or negative, on their development as distinct peoples or an
impact on their rights to their territories and/or natural resources.
Free, prior and informed consent could be strengthened by establishing procedures to challenge and to independently review these processes.
Determination that the elements of free, prior and informed consent have not been respected may lead to the revocation of consent given.85
85 UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2005. Report of the International Workshop on Methodologies regarding Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Indigenous PeoplesE/C.19/2005/3, available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/243/26/PDF/N0524326.pdf?OpenElement
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The right to FPIC, in combination with the right to participate fully and effectively in the development and implementation of REDD+ policies and
projects, should theoretically give Indigenous Peoples and representatives of communities an important opportunity to ensure REDD+ benefits rather
than harms them. Global, regional and national Indigenous Peoples’ networks and organizations have definitely played a powerful role in influencing
REDD+ policies the past years, and the adoption of the above-mentioned safeguards and guidelines has very much been the result of their work.
Having said that one should not underestimate the challenges that Indigenous Peoples and local communities who want to participate ‘fully and
effectively’ in REDD+ design face. As described before, the fundamental problem with REDD+ is that it significantly increases the economic value
of forests, which implies that economically and politically powerful actors will try to obtain some financial interest from the carbon value of forests.
These actors are well positioned to manipulate national and local policy-making processes to their advantage. Especially at the national and certainly
at the local level, Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations and social movements representing farming, pastoralist and other rural communities still suffer
from a severe lack of capacity in terms of human and financial resources and access to neutral information. They can easily be overshadowed by
often far better resourced conservation NGOs and other actors with a clear economic stake in REDD+. Even when a national Indigenous Organization
uses its right to say “no” to REDD+, it still risks being squarely ignored by its Government and donors alike. This was recently shown in Ecuador,
where the Government is going ahead with a process presumably seeking FPIC for its REDD+ policy while the national federation of Indigenous
Peoples has already used its right to say “No” to REDD.86
86 http://www.movimientos.org/enlacei/show_text.php3?key=19549
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Chapter 7:Alternatives to REDD+
Indigenous Peoples seldom need to be convinced to conserve their forests – all over the world they have been highly successful in conserving and
restoring their forest carbon stocks. All over the world one can also find examples of successful initiatives by non-indigenous communities to conserve
and restore their forests. A recent study87 concluded that deforestation rates in forests that are managed by communities are in fact lower than
deforestation rates in areas that are formally protected. As long as a community is able to develop a livelihood strategy that is not dependent on the
permanent conversion of forests or the overexploitation of resources like fuelwood and charcoal, there is ample scope for forest conservation and
restoration.88 Most forest-dependent Indigenous Peoples and local communities have developed such alternative livelihood strategies.
Appropriate Incentives
There is a strong need for legal, political and financial support for forest conservation and restoration initiatives by Indigenous Peoples and local
communities. Incentive schemes in the broadest sense of the word are needed, that respect and build upon the rights and customary laws of
Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Such schemes should:
provide a broad range of social, cultural, legal and economic incentives for forest conservation and sustainable use, especially by Indigenous
Peoples and local communities. Conservation is and should be part of cultural identity and pride;
ensure that incentive schemes and other forest policies recognize, respect and/or are based on the historical territorial and use rights of Indigenous
Peoples and local communities;
ensure that incentive schemes and other forest policies recognize and support the significant contribution of Indigenous territories and community
conserved areas to forest conservation;
ensure that such incentive schemes do not undermine the customary governance systems of Indigenous territories and community conserved
areas, and the values that have lead to their success in terms of forest conservation.89
87 Porter-Bolland, L.; Ellis, E.A.; Guariguata, M.R.; Ruiz-Mallén, I.; Negrete-Yankelevich, S.; Reyes-García, V, 2011. Community managed forests and forest protected areas, an assessmentof their conservation effectiveness across the tropics. Forest ecology and management. 2011. See http://www.cifor.org/nc/online-library/browse/view-publication/publication/3461.html
88 Global Forest Coalition, 2010. Ibid.89 http://www.globalforestcoalition.org/es/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/REDD_esp1.pdf
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Biocultural Rights
According to the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent, Indigenous Peoples should receive proper and unbiased information on REDD+ and the
alternatives to REDD+. Subsequently, they are entitled to elaborate their own proposals as a basis for negotiating an agreement they can consent with.
As highlighted in the introduction, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples clearly recognizes the biocultural rights of Indigenous
Peoples, that is their rights to their territories and lands as a basis for the cultures, livelihoods and very existence. The two most relevant biocultural
rights enshrined in UNDRIPs Indigenous Peoples should be aware of when they are confronted with REDD+ programs and initiatives are:
Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and
other resources. (Art. 32.1)
States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to
obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in
connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources. (Art. 32.2)90
As stated above, all UN agencies have committed themselves to complying with these rights through the adoption of the UN Development Group
guidelines, and many national Governments have indicated their intention to respect these rights in REDD+ initiatives as well. It should be highlighted
that these biocultural rights do not only apply to REDD+ initiatives, they also apply to other forest-related programs and initiatives.
Biocultural Protocols
To ensure that the REDD+ project or its alternative is developed in a bottom-up instead of a top-down manner, the community should be able to
develop its own vision on what it aspires. In line with UNDRIPs, the community should be enabled to ‘determine and develop priorities and strategies
for the development or use of their lands or territories’. Biocultural protocols can play a very important role in this process. The objectives of a Biocultural
Protocol are to articulate how indigenous peoples practice conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Biocultural protocols provide parameters
for discussion within and among communities and between communities and other actors.
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90 http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html
The concept is derived from the concept of collective/indigenous “biocultural heritage”. In constitutes a process of community empowerment,
maintenance of culture, and collective thinking about new issues and emerging legal frameworks, which should lead to livelihood improvement by
securing communities’ rights to their natural resources and traditional knowledge, emphasizing the dynamic and innovative nature of tradition. It
links to ecosystems and landscapes and recognizes economies based on biodiversity and culture and intercultural practice. It links different cultures
and economies under a respect-based process. Intrinsic elements include the rights of “Pacha mama” (Mother Earth) and “Ayni” (reciprocity) as the
basis of exchanges. The concept embraces an integrated approach to rights and links customary laws and positive law systems in a reciprocal,
complementary and supportive way to achieve “equity”.91
While there is no standard outline for a biocultural protocol, as it should be fully adapted to local circumstances, a possible outline of a biocultural
protocol could be a description by the community itself of:
Who they are
Their traditional territory
Their rights under international, national and customary law
Their customary laws regarding their forests and lands
The pressures they face
Their preferred development path
Their preferred way of being informed about and consulted on policies, projects and schemes proposed by outside actors
Their views on schemes and projects proposed by outsiders, like REDD+. This would include both the question whether they want the scheme
in the first place and the question how they would want to scheme if they want it.92
Precisely because they form a bottom-up culturally appropriate process of identifying and consolidating conservation and sustainable management
practices on the basis of cultural and traditional value systems, Biocultural Protocols can provide a very important basis for a sound FPIC process.
They allow communities to identify their own aspirations first, which can then be used as a basis for the culturally appropriate negotiation process that
a sound FPIC procedure should entail. Biocultural protocols can also assist in clarifying community membership and leadership, the full tenural rights
of the community, their rights under national and international law, any customary laws relating to their forests, and any values that should be taken
into account as part of an FPIC process. A sound Biocultural Protocol should be based on proper mapping of the territories and forest resources of
91 http://www.cbd.int/abs/side-events/ICNP1/potato-park-aargumedo.pdf92 See also: Wood, P. “Bio-cultural Community Protocols and REDD”, in Bavikatte, K. And Jonas, H. (ed.)“Bio-cultural community protocols, A Community Approach to Ensuring the
Integrity of Environmental Law and Policy”, United Nations Environment Program, 2009. http://www.unep.org/communityprotocols/PDF/communityprotocols.pdf
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the community, which is often an important empowering process for the community by itself, especially when it has access to modern technologies
such as geographic information systems and global positioning systems. By articulating customary laws and cultural and traditional knowledge and
practices, Indigenous peoples and local communities are able to document their own incentive systems for forest conservation and align international
support systems like potential REDD+ schemes to such bio-cultural systems.
As mentioned above, FPIC procedures in REDD+ development processes are almost always conducted by actors who have a very strong stake in
ensuring consent with the project – a project developer, or a country designing a REDD+ policy under the promise that, once it is “ready” for REDD+,
significant amounts of funding will follow for implementation. These actors are far from neutral, and will thus tend to present REDD+ as the only
alternative possible. By first developing their own Biocultural protocol, Indigenous Peoples and local communities can identify what they really aspire,
and subsequently make an informed decision whether the REDD+ policy or project would contribute to these aspirations, or whether an alternative
is needed.
As mentioned above, Biocultural Protocols can form a very powerful tool for identifying, documenting and sustaining such alternative livelihood
strategies that allow Indigenous Peoples and local communities to –continue to – live in harmony with their forests. They can form the basis for local
safeguard systems. Whereas the international safeguards adopted by the majority of the Parties to the FCCC and the different donors tend to be
hard to enforce, very non-specific, and often influenced by corporate interests, Biocultural protocols tend to be far more detailed and based on the
rights, needs and aspirations of local communities themselves. By insisting on and effectively using their rights to Free Prior and Informed Consent,
which are binding for countries that ratified ILO Convention 169, initiatives funded by the UN and de facto for initiatives funded by the World Bank (as
their operational policies require community consent), Indigenous Peoples can take the lead in developing their own safeguards and modalities for
projects. Moreover, the compliance with these safeguards and modalities is often secured by social control systems within the communities
themselves. Biocultural protocols also form a tool to ensure the rights, needs and aspirations of women are fully integrated into local livelihood
systems.
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Chapter 8:Conclusions and Outlook
REDD+ is based on two assumptions: that performance-based payments are a very effective way to conserve and restore forests, and that significant
amounts of money will be available in the near future to finance such performance-based payments. However, the financial future of REDD+ looks
very bleak at the moment. Carbon markets have proven to be a highly uncertain and volatile form of finance, which might soon dry up if no legally
binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are agreed upon. Sadly, perspectives for significant amounts of public funding look bleak as
well, with the 100 billion US dollar that was promised in Copenhagen being nothing but a vague and partially empty promise. There is a significant
risk that the millions of dollars that are currently being invested will be wasted on the design of overly expensive REDD+ projects trying to sell carbon
credits that will never find a buyer or otherwise be funded, no matter how well they “perform”.
Happily, Indigenous Peoples and local communities all over the world have demonstrated that they have a large number of motivations to conserve
and restore forests, provided their territorial and land tenure rights are respected. While some well-targeted and culturally appropriate financial support
for alternative livelihood systems can play a useful role, legal and political support for their forest governance systems are at least as important. Both
the development of Biocultural Protocols and the maintenance of sustainable livelihood systems that foster forest conservation need political and
other forms of support.
However, the sustainable livelihood systems of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are severely threatened by outside pressures, including
in particular the demand for land and wood. Land grabbing for bioenergy production and other forms of agricultural expansion is currently threatening
Indigenous lands and territories all over the world. Increasing consumption of meat and diary products is a major factor in increased forest loss and
land grabbing as well. The failure to reduce wood consumption to sustainable levels is another major cause of forest degradation, and while fuelwood
used to be a minor cause of forest loss only, rapidly increasing demand for fuelwood and charcoal by urban centers and even newly established
industrial bioenergy plants is turning it into an increasingly significant driver of forest loss.93
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93 Global Forest Coalition, 2010. Ibid.
Drivers
Performance-based payments for forest conservation will not address these drivers. Per definition, overconsumption of products like meat and energy
cannot be addressed by REDD+. Rather, it requires regulations, levies and other economic incentives and awareness-building schemes that target
consumers who often live on the other side of the planet. Even simple policy coherence would already be helpful: the same countries that are currently
pouring billions of dollars into REDD+ also pour billions of dollars into the promotion of bio-energy and other markets that constitute major drivers
of forest loss. Even more cynically, by subsidizing bio-energy they also increase the costs of REDD+, as they will need to offer more compensation
for not converting forests into palm oil plantations and other bio-energy feedstock.
Biocultural protocols and Local safeguards
Biocultural protocols and support schemes for Indigenous Peoples territories and community-driven forest conservation projects can help Indigenous
and non-Indigenous communities resisting these outside pressures. They also strengthen the capacity of Indigenous Peoples and local communities
to stand up for their rights, especially the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent, when they are confronted with REDD+ projects and policies.
Biocultural protocols can help them to identify, document and elaborate their own rights, aspirations and locally specific safeguards and standards,
which can form a basis for their negotiators with REDD+ project developers.
Biocultural protocols and locally specific safeguards and standards are not only important for REDD+ projects and policies. Due to the significant
uncertainty over its financial future, REDD might be dead in a few years, but forests must be kept alive. There is a strong need to develop and
strengthen socially, environmentally and financially sustainable forest policies beyond REDD. Recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local
communities to manage their own forests has proven to be a particularly powerful incentive for forest conservation and restoration. Countries like
Gambia, Bhutan and Rwanda, that never received any REDD+ funding94, have been highly successful in reducing and even reverting their forest
loss by granting community ownership or control over forest areas and strengthening traditional conservation values.
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Financial support can definitely play a role in supporting Indigenous Peoples territories and community initiatives to conserve forests too, but analysis
of the incentives that convince communities and Indigenous Peoples to conserve and restore their forests has learned that cultural and traditional
value systems and a general awareness of the role, functions and values of forest ecosystems in providing livelihoods tend to be at least as important
as financial incentives. Moreover, these other incentives form a far more sustainable basis for conservation – if the billions that were promised for
future REDD+ schemes turn out to be an illusion, as seems increasingly the case, individuals who only conserved their forests for financial reasons
will quickly return to their destructive practices, whereas Indigenous and other communities that conserved forests for cultural reasons will continue
to do so.
Even the participatory policy development processes that form part of the REDD readiness processes that are or will be taking place in almost 40
forest countries can and should be used to develop national forest policies that can be sustained, even if the billions of REDD dollars that were
promised turn out to be a dream. But only if Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women, and other rightsholders and stakeholders are able to
participate fully, effectively and on equitable basis in the development of their country’ s future forest policy, taking into account that they have the
right to say “no” as part of their right to FPIC, there is a chance that such policies will be rights-based, socially just, and environmentally and
economically sustainable.
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Annex 1,REDD Decisions taken by the majority
of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCCin December 2010
C. Policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement
of forest carbon stocks in developing countries
Affirming that, in the context of the provision of adequate and predictable support to developing country Parties, Parties should collectively aim to
slow, halt and reverse forest cover and carbon loss, in accordance with national circumstances, consistent with the ultimate objective of the
Convention, as stated in Article 2,
Also affirming the need to promote broad country participation in all phases described in paragraph 73 below, including through the provision of
support that takes into account existing capacities,
68. Encourages all Parties to find effective ways to reduce the human pressure on forests that results in greenhouse gas emissions, including actions
to address drivers of deforestation;
69. Affirms that the implementation of the activities referred to in paragraph 70 below should be carried out in accordance with appendix I to this
decision, and that the safeguards referred to in paragraph 2 of appendix I to this decision should be promoted and supported;
70. Encourages developing country Parties to contribute to mitigation actions in the forest sector by undertaking the following activities, as deemed
appropriate by each Party and in accordance with their respective capabilities and national circumstances:
(a) Reducing emissions from deforestation;
(b) Reducing emissions from forest degradation;
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(c) Conservation of forest carbon stocks;
(d) Sustainable management of forests;
(e) Enhancement of forest carbon stocks;
71. Requests developing country Parties aiming to undertake the activities referred to in paragraph 70 above, in the context of the provision of
adequate and predictable support, including financial resources and technical and technological support to developing country Parties, in
accordance with national circumstances and respective capabilities, to develop the following elements:
(a) A national strategy or action plan;
(b) A national forest reference emission level and/or forest reference level or, if appropriate, as an interim measure, subnational forest reference
emission levels and/or forest reference levels, in accordance with national circumstances, and with provisions contained in decision
4/CP.15, and with any further elaboration of those provisions adopted by the Conference of the Parties; In accordance with national
circumstances, national forest reference emission levels and/or forest reference levels could be a combination of subnational forest
reference emissions levels and/or forest reference levels.
(c) A robust and transparent national forest monitoring system for the monitoring and reporting of the activities referred to in paragraph 70
above, with, if appropriate, subnational monitoring and reporting as an interim measure,7 in accordance with national circumstances,
and with the provisions contained in decision 4/CP.15, and with any further elaboration of those provisions agreed by the Conference of
the Parties;
(d) A system for providing information on how the safeguards referred to in appendix I to this decision are being addressed and respected
throughout the implementation of the activities referred to in paragraph 70 above, while respecting sovereignty;
72. Also requests developing country Parties, when developing and implementing their national strategies or action plans, to address, inter alia, the
drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, land tenure issues, forest governance issues, gender considerations and the safeguards identified
in paragraph 2 of appendix I to this decision, ensuring the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders, inter alia indigenous peoples
and local communities;
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73. Decides that the activities undertaken by Parties referred to in paragraph 70 above should be implemented in phases, beginning with the
development of national strategies or action plans, policies and measures, and capacity-building, followed by the implementation of national
policies and measures and national strategies or action plans that could involve further capacity-building, technology development and transfer
and results-based demonstration activities, and evolving into results-based actions that should be fully measured, reported and verified;
74. Recognizes that the implementation of the activities referred to in paragraph 70 above, including the choice of a starting phase as referred to in
paragraph 73 above, depends on the specific national circumstances, capacities and capabilities of each developing country Party and the
level of support received;
75. Requests the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice to develop a work programme on the matters referred to in appendix II to
this decision;
76. Urges Parties, in particular developed country Parties, to support, through multilateral and bilateral channels, the development of national
strategies or action plans, policies and measures and capacity-building, followed by the implementation of national policies and measures and
national strategies or action plans that could involve further capacity-building, technology development and transfer and results-based
demonstration activities, including consideration of the safeguards referred to in paragraph 2 of appendix I to this decision, taking into account
the relevant provisions on finance including those relating to reporting on support;
77. Requests the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention to explore financing options for the full
implementation of the results-based actions referred to in paragraph 73 above and to report on progress made, including any recommendations
for draft decisions on this matter, to the Conference of the Parties at its seventeenth session;
78. Also requests Parties to ensure coordination of the activities referred to in paragraph 70 above, including of the related support, particularly at
the national level;
79. Invites relevant international organizations and stakeholders to contribute to the activities referred to in paragraphs 70 and 78 above;
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Appendix I
Guidance and safeguards for policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of
forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries
1. The activities referred to in paragraph 70 of this decision should:
a) Contribute to the achievement of the objective set out in Article 2 of the Convention;
b) Contribute to the fulfillment of the commitments set out in Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Convention;
c) Be country-driven and be considered options available to Parties;
d) Be consistent with the objective of environmental integrity and take into account the multiple functions of forests and other ecosystems;
e) Be undertaken in accordance with national development priorities, objectives and circumstances and capabilities and should respect
sovereignty;
f) Be consistent with Parties’ national sustainable development needs and goals;
g) Be implemented in the context of sustainable development and reducing poverty, while responding to climate change;
h) Be consistent with the adaptation needs of the country;
i) Be supported by adequate and predictable financial and technology support, including support for capacity-building;
j) Be results-based;
k) Promote sustainable management of forests;
2. When undertaking the activities referred to in paragraph 70 of this decision, the following safeguards should be promoted and supported:
a) That actions complement or are consistent with the objectives of national forest programmes and relevant international conventions and
agreements;
b) Transparent and effective national forest governance structures, taking into account national legislation and sovereignty;
c) Respect for the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples and members of local communities, by taking into account relevant international
obligations, national circumstances and laws, and noting that the United Nations General Assembly has adopted the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
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d) The full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders, in particular indigenous peoples and local communities, in the actions referred to
in paragraphs 70 and 72 of this decision;
e) That actions are consistent with the conservation of natural forests and biological diversity, ensuring that the actions referred to in paragraph
70 of this decision are not used for the conversion of natural forests, but are instead used to incentivize the protection and conservation of
natural forests and their ecosystem services, and to enhance other social and environmental benefits;1
f) Actions to address the risks of reversals;
g) Actions to reduce displacement of emissions.
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Annex 2,Abbreviations Used and Overview of Technical Terms
REDD = Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation
in developing countries, see page 8
REDD+ = Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degradation in developing countries and enhancing forest carbon
stocks, see page 3
IPCCA = Indigenous Peoples Biocultural Climate Change Assessment
see Foreword
UNFCCC = UN Framework Convention on Climate Change see page 3
UNDRIPs = UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples see
page 4
IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change see page 11
LULUCF = Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry see page 19
GEF = Global Environment Facility see page 35
CDM = Clean Development Mechanism see page 26
MRV = Monitoring, Reporting and Verification see page 27
NGOs = Non-Governmental Organization see page 33
FCPF = Forest Carbon Partnership Facility see page 36
FIP = Forest Investment Program see page 36
UN-REDD = UN REDD Programme see page 38
FPIC = Free Prior and Informed Consent see page 4
Kyoto Protocol see page 17
Climate change see page 11
Global warming see page 11
Climate Justice see page 11
Principle of Common but differentiated responsibilities see page 17
Annex 1 countries see page 17
Bali Plan of Action see page 18
Marrakesh Accords see page 19
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Kyoto forest see page 20
Opportunity costs see page 21
Performance-based payments see page 28
Carbon trade see page 25
Permanence see page 27
Force majeure see page 28
Tipping points see page 28
Business as usual see page 28
Additionality see page 28
Reforestation see page 28
Afforestation see page 28
Forests in exhaustion see page 29
Leakage see page 29
Drivers of deforestation see page 4
Nested approach see page 29
Environmental integrity see page 30
Voluntary forest carbon offset market see page 30
Readiness processes see page 39
Basket of funding approaches see page 32
Readiness Preparation proposals see page 39
Strategic Climate Fund see page 36
Climate Investment Funds see page 36
FIP Dedicated Grants Mechanism see page 37
Norwegian Forest and Climate Initiative see page 38
REDD readiness programs see page 39
Elite Resource Capture see page 42
Reduced Impact Logging see page 48
Cancun Agreement see page 51
Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the
Convention see page 52
Cancun REDD Safeguards see page 52
Convention 169 ILO see page 53
World Bank safeguards and operational policies see page 56
UN Development Group guidelines see page 58
Biocultural protocols see page 66
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Contact:
IPCCA SecretariatAsociación ANDES
Ruinas 451Cusco, Peru
Tel: +51 84 245 021Fax: +51 84 232 603 [email protected]
Indigenous Peoples´ Biocultural
Climate Change Assessment Initiative
IPCCA