The best way to save the forests - RFUK letter in Independent
Date: 10/04/2008
In a letter published in the Independent on Wednesday 9 April Rainforest Foundation UK Director Simon Counsell argues the best way to protect the earth's rapidly disappearing rainforests is to let the indigenous people who have inhabited the areas for centuries manage the land.
The best way to save the forests
Sir: We greatly appreciate The Independent providing its readers with a brief history of the Rainforest Foundation and its founder, Sting ("The great carbon con: can offsetting really help to save the planet?", 3 April).
Sting did indeed found the Rainforest Foundation 20 years ago in a bid to protect the rainforests and the people who live in them, and the organisation does argue that saving rainforests is key to fighting climate change. But at no point has Sting or the Rainforest Foundation ever bought rainforest or even encouraged "the fad for owning one's very own patch of tropical rainforest". Neither endorses "plant-a-tree conservationism" and, indeed, both have explicitly opposed this.
The Rainforest Foundation believes the best way to protect the earth's rapidly disappearing rainforests is to let the indigenous people who have inhabited the areas for centuries manage the land. For the past 20 years, it has worked with communities in Africa and South America to ensure an area of rainforest the size of the UK remains alive, well and in their hands, and not those of celebrity offsetters or profit-hungry loggers.
As for carbon offsetting, the foundation has never advocated planting trees or protecting forest as a substitute for reducing emissions. In our latest piece of research, "Carbon Sunk", there is a detailed analysis and critique of the whole model of using carbon markets to try to reduce deforestation. In the long run, the only way to tackle climate change is for the industrialised countries to reduce their emissions and for tropical countries to maintain and protect their forests.
Simon Counsell
Director, Rainforest Foundation UK
The best way to save the forests
Sir: We greatly appreciate The Independent providing its readers with a brief history of the Rainforest Foundation and its founder, Sting ("The great carbon con: can offsetting really help to save the planet?", 3 April).
Sting did indeed found the Rainforest Foundation 20 years ago in a bid to protect the rainforests and the people who live in them, and the organisation does argue that saving rainforests is key to fighting climate change. But at no point has Sting or the Rainforest Foundation ever bought rainforest or even encouraged "the fad for owning one's very own patch of tropical rainforest". Neither endorses "plant-a-tree conservationism" and, indeed, both have explicitly opposed this.
The Rainforest Foundation believes the best way to protect the earth's rapidly disappearing rainforests is to let the indigenous people who have inhabited the areas for centuries manage the land. For the past 20 years, it has worked with communities in Africa and South America to ensure an area of rainforest the size of the UK remains alive, well and in their hands, and not those of celebrity offsetters or profit-hungry loggers.
As for carbon offsetting, the foundation has never advocated planting trees or protecting forest as a substitute for reducing emissions. In our latest piece of research, "Carbon Sunk", there is a detailed analysis and critique of the whole model of using carbon markets to try to reduce deforestation. In the long run, the only way to tackle climate change is for the industrialised countries to reduce their emissions and for tropical countries to maintain and protect their forests.
Simon Counsell
Director, Rainforest Foundation UK
