Rebecca Quaicoe
2 December 2011
A network of people and organisations from across the world have lashed out against the introduction of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme in developing countries because they believe it is an insensitive way of solving carbon emission problems.
Dubbed the No REDD Platform which is a loose network of researchers, activists, organisations and movements, they consider the REDD+ and the carbon market a hypocrisy which will not impact global warming.
At a press conference on the fringes of the on-going COP17 the Global Forest Coalition, made up of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Indigenous Peoples’ Organisation (IPOs) from across the globe, expressed concerns about how forests have become a business market for multi-national organisations in the mining and timber industry.
The prospect of gaining carbon credits by acquiring land to implement REDD+ has caught the eye of the private sector. In many countries, including Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Congo, there are reports of a carbon rush. In Mozambique, private investors have expressed an interest in acquiring more than 22 percent of the country’s land — an area larger than the 16 percent of protected areas — for REDD+. But Mozambique, like many other developing countries, is still in the early stages of preparing a REDD+ strategy.
Tanzania on the other hand has developed a National Strategy for REDD+. The country is endowed with large and valuable forest resources which offer habitat space for wildlife, bee-keeping, natural ecosystems and genetic resources. However, it is also faced with a number of fundamental environmental problems such as deforestation and forest degradation.
Tanzania is one of the original nine countries receiving support from the United Nations REDD programme to implement the REDD+ initiative in the country.
However at the press conference, Simone Lovera, Director of GFC said REDD+ has dire consequences on the lives of indigenous people saying that “for us, everything is life, and life cannot be negotiated or sold on a stock market, this is a huge risk and will not resolve environmental crisis”.
In an open letter, with four-pages of signatures, sent to the International Donor Community from NGOs and IPOs, the group expressed its concerns that REDD+ projects are already having severe negative impacts on the environment and on the economically and politically marginalized groups in society, particularly indigenous people, small farmers, other forest dependent communities and women.
They contended that with a sudden increase in the economic value of forest land through the introduction of performance payments for forest conservation under the implementation of REDD, indigenous people who are mostly farmers who depend on the land for their sustenance will have to compete with politically and economically influential groups that see the forest as a profit making market.
Rather, they said the REDD+ should look at mineral, oil, gas or coal exploration and extraction activities and large-scale infrastructure projects such as hydroelectric dams, as well as incoherent government policies in general.
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