India:
Pushing “REDD plus” at the expense of forests
and forest dwellers
The Copenhagen Accord - the
agreement reached by a group of countries at the Copenhagen Climate
Change Summit and imposed on the rest - was defined by Transnational
Institute’s Praful Bidwai as “a travesty of what
the world needs to avert climate change”: The two degrees
Celsius increase target in global temperature is 0.5 degrees
above the target accepted by the majority of UN nations; poor
countries are mainly left to fend for themselves in terms of
adapting to climate change; and eventually, violations of the
Copenhagen Accord would have no meaningful consequences.
The agreement is also instrumental
in driving what is termed "REDD plus". Paragraph 6
says: “We recognize the crucial role of reducing emission
from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance
removals of greenhouse gas emission by forests and agree on the
need to provide positive incentives to such actions through the
immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDDplus, to
enable the mobilization of financial resources from developed
countries.”
Though “REDD plus”
has been left undefined and the question of what kind of forest
protection will be financed and how will be a matter of further
negotiations, the core of REDD plus is making forests a mode
of earning carbon permits. It entails carbon offsets, more
business, permission to emit somewhere else.
A briefing of the Indian organisation
Campaign for Survival and Dignity (1) reveals the key role played
by the Indian government in pushing "REDD plus" at
the expense of forest dwellers: “In fact, the government
of India was one of a few countries who objected to including
any binding requirement that people's rights should be respected
in the negotiating text. India has also been one of the only
countries in the world pushing for inclusion of plantation activities
in carbon trading under REDD (this is what makes it "REDD
plus").”
According to the group, the
government of India wants to include afforestation and plantation
programmes in REDD plus, so that they are eligible for receiving
money, and expects to earn “carbon credits”
on the basis of carbon supposedly stored in forests. They say that “both
these points are mentioned in the draft negotiating text of December
15th. In the Indian context, this model will lead to land grabbing
and conflict as:
- Despite the Forest Rights
Act of 2006, the legal rights of adivasis and forest dwellers
are still not being recognised. For instance, rights to minor
forest produce, grazing areas, community forests, etc. have hardly
been recognised anywhere in the country. Without legally recognised
community forest rights, it will be easy for companies and the
government to grab and sell community forests and resources for
REDD credits. The negotiating text of December 15th also only “encourages” countries
to respect forest rights rather than requiring them to do so.
- There is no agreed upon method
by which carbon absorption or storage in a forest can be measured.
Forests do not consist of just standing trees
– trees grow, fires and other disasters take place, people
and wildlife consume nontimber forest produce, etc. Forests are
constantly changing. How will this be accounted for? Trading on
forest carbon credits will lead companies and the government to
shut off forests from all use by people, on the one hand, and on
the other will encouarge fictional carbon storage figures. This
is exactly what has already happened in carbon forestry projects
in Brazil and elsewhere. Moreover, and most fundamentally, carbon
trading simply allows the industrial countries to avoid reducing
their own emissions. Carbon trading in forests will thus simply
become a giant scam, harming both the environment and people.
- If, as the government is
demanding, afforestation is made part of REDD, these dangers
increase. Afforestation programmes often take place on cultivated
lands (including shifting cultivation fallows), village commons,
community pasture lands etc. that actually belong to and are
being used by people. Such programs are already leading to evictions
of people and/or displacement from their livelihoods across the
country. They also often involve destroying biodiversity-rich
natural open forests and grasslands; REDD would encourage this,
since it does not distinguish between plantations and natural
forests. In October 2008, the Standing Committee on Environment
and Forests sharply criticised such programs, saying that ‘afforestation
... deprives forest dwellers and adivasis of some or all of their
lands and impacts their livelihoods and basic needs – for
which they are neither informed, nor consulted, nor compensated.’ Till
date, however, no central afforestation program has included
even a reference to forest rights, leave alone complied with
legal requirements.
- In the meantime, the government
continues to run such programs through the administrative scheme
of 'Joint Forest Management' – where forest guards control
the 'participatory' bodies. These programs often cause divisions
and conflict in the community, while ignoring people's actual
legal rights. Institutionalisation of such programs through REDD
will cause even more conflict and marginalisation of forest dwellers.
- Finally, a carbon trading
model involving private companies will create a huge financial
incentive for wholesale takeovers of forests. A recent survey
found that the world's largest investment companies are tracking
REDD very closely. With such funds, there will be a rush by private
companies seeking access to public forest land for plantations
as well as control over official forest protection programs.
Reliance, ITC and other companies have been demanding access
to 'degraded' forests for commercial afforestation for many years,
and this scheme could legitimise their demand. The lack of legal
rights combined with such pressure will make land grabbing very
likely.”
REDD trading schemes see the
forest for the wood that can be bought and sold for its carbon
content denying its living nature, its condition of ecosystem
which is inhabited by and used by people and wildlife. Campaign
for Survival and Dignity fears that “if the talks simply
say that trees are what is important, what is to prevent companies
from destroying natural forests and grasslands to replace them
with commercial plantations (thereby damaging the environment
and potentially releasing even more carbon)?”
They claim that “if forest
protection is being sought, surely the government should be trying
to strengthen global forest governance - not weaken it by bringing
in private companies and trading.”
(1) “REDDPLUS AT COPENHAGEN.
Little Known Scheme Poses Major Dangers for Forests, Adivasis,
Other Forest Dwellers”, Campaign for Survival and Dignity, http://www.forestrightsact.com/climate-change/item/download/3
