40 Country Strong Coalition warns: Rights of 350 million forest-dwellers at risk
A new report released today has warned that the provisions for protecting forests being discussed this week in the global climate change negotiations in Bonn will risk the rights of more than 350 million poor people who depend on the forests if the talks focus on carbon.
The report, Realising Rights, Protecting Forests: An Alternative Vision for Reducing
Deforestation, proposes an alternative vision for achieving the objectives of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), urging that forest-dwelling communities are capable of protecting forests, and that community-based forest conservation and management should be a mainstay of plans to reduce forest destruction. Developed by the Accra Caucus, a coalition of more than 100 organisations from over 40 tropical countries, and including international groups such as the Rainforest Foundation UK, the Rainforest Foundation Norway, Greenpeace, HuMa and Care International, the report is based on case studies from around the world, and argues for socially just policies and actions that tackle the underlying causes of deforestation.
"Climate negotiators need to recognize that the aim of a global REDD agreement is to protect the forest, not to raise money. The concerns of the people must be heard at the negotiating table, as well as integrated into local forest programmes. We in the Accra Caucus believe it is society's moral obligation to ensure these rights," said Rahima Njaidi from the Tanzanian Network of Community Forest Associations (MJUMITA).
The report cautions that that REDD in its current form could allow polluters in the global North to continue to pollute, whilst offsetting their pollution against forest preservation schemes that actually harm people living in tropical forests, rather than helping them.. It calls for a properly managed programme to reduce deforestation and degradation that ensures biodiversity and the livelihoods and rights of forest-dwellers, while still benefiting the global climate.
"When forest-dependent communities gain control over forest resources, they can best at protecting them against destruction by others. Providing REDD funding to industrial logging or strict nature conservation programmes that do not respect local peoples' rights and usages of the forest could be counter-productive, and fuel conflict and poverty," said Nat Dyer, the Rainforest Foundation UK's Climate Change and Forests Policy Advisor.
"Action on REDD must not occur without the free and prior and informed consent by the people affected by those decisions. We are concerned that REDD deals are already being done without the safeguards in place," said Raja Jarrah, CARE International's senior advisor on REDD.
The report highlights three critical components to protecting forests: full and effective participation; secured and equitable land rights; and community-based forest management. These are illustrated by case studies from Accra Caucus member organizations in Indonesia, Ecuador, Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, Cameroon, Papua New, Guinea, Tanzania and Nepal.
NB: The Accra Caucus on Forests and Climate Change is a network of southern and northern NGOs representing around 100 civil society and Indigenous Peoples' organisations from over 40 countries, formed at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Accra, Ghana in 2008. The Caucus works to place the rights of indigenous and forest communities at the centre of negotiations on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), and to ensure that efforts to reduce deforestation promote good governance and are not a substitute for emission reductions in industrialised countries.
› Realising Rights, Protecting Forests (ENGLISH)
