Brazil:
Juma REDD test case in the Amazon
At present, the
initiative for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD) is rather a collection of proposals and some
pilot schemes. However, it is being strongly pushed and at a remarkable
speed inside as well as outside the United Nations process, with
the aim of including carbon forest in the array of mechanisms for
carbon permits and carbon offsets.
Over the past two
years, national proposals and plans for REDD projects have proliferated
involving governments, multilateral organizations, big NGOs and
corporations. The World Bank and northern governments including
Norway, Australia and Great Britain have created a large fund of
some $800 million to finance REDD projects.
In Brazil, the
Juma Sustainable Development Reserve Project, in the south-eastern
corner of the state of Amazonas, in the municipality of Novo Aripuanã,
is the first Brazilian implemented project involving REDD and has
received the validation to the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity
Standards (CCBS) in Brazil, issued by the German audit company Tüv
Süd.
The REDD test
case of the Juma Sustainable Development Reserve covers a forest
area of 589,612 hectares and announces that it will avoid the
degradation of around 366,151 hectares of tropical rainforest
from the total area and the emission of 210,885,604 million
tones of CO2 into the atmosphere by 2050. The project promises
to pay local families an allowance for conserving the forest
untouched.
The money for the
project comes from the Brazilian NGO the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation
(ASF), which manages the reserve with funds donated from the provincial
government, the Brazilian private Bradesco Bank and the big multinational
hotel chain Marriott International. Hotel guests worldwide are invited
to donate $1 per night to the Juma fund as a way to voluntarily
offset the calculated emissions from their individual hotel stay
- the hotel’s website announces: “Ten dollars will offset
the carbon for your next ten roomnights at Marriott hotels and is
tax deductible for U.S. taxpayers” (1).
Another financial
source for the Juma project is the prospective sale of carbon credits
for the CO2 emissions avoided by not deforesting the reserve in
the voluntary carbon market of emissions compensation, which according
to the project (2) is being developed in partnership with Marriott
International. For a big corporation like the Marriott Hotel Group,
the project might well be very useful as a “green” public
relations exercise.
The Juma project
claims it benefits local communities with direct payment through
the programme “Bolsa Floresta” – an allowance
for the 339 families living in 35 communities in the area, who will
be remunerated to protect the rainforest by receiving roughly US$
28 on a monthly basis transferred through a debit card issued to
the wife.
A contract signed
by each family head binds them not to cut or burn the trees, which
will be supervised by regular inspections. In case of deforestation,
the government will stop the allowance.
The Center for
Investigative Reporting Frontline wanted to have their own look
at this project which is being hoisted around the world as a model
way to halt tropical deforestation. So they conducted a field
trip by Mark Schapiro (3) who found that for residents like Dalvina
Almeida, it takes a two-day roundtrip journey by boat just to receive
their 28 monthly dollars. The report quotes Dalvina's husband saying
‘We used to plant a lot. When this became a reserve they told
us that we could no longer plant in the forest. Everyone signed
up for Bolsa Floresta. But Bolsa Floresta can't sustain my family.”
The allowance of
US$ 28 per month represents US$ 0.93 per day. For an average rural
family of at least 5 people the per capita income drops to US$ 0.18
per day. It would be good to inform the Juma Project managers and
funders that this meagre payment is well below the poverty line,
estimated by the World Bank as people earning less than 1.25 US
dollars per day. Such a pittance becomes scandalous when compared
to the US$ 25,000 per month payment that is said the Juma Project
foundation director receives.
Additionally, it
is important to highlight that local communities that have until
now obtained their means of livelihood from the forest will loose
most of those resources as a result of the Juma reserve.
Schapiro comments
in his report that “some farming families have lost a significant
portion of their income when required to shift their food-growing
activities from primary to secondary forests, and that the roughly
$25 ‘Bolsa Floresta’ stipend has not significantly made
up for the short-fall.”
What makes matters
even worse is that the preservation of this forest will allow polluters
to continue emitting fossil fuel-related carbon. This means that
the inclusion of the Juma forest into emissions trading will in
fact contribute to climate change, because it will allow polluting
corporations and rich countries claim that they are “offsetting”
their carbon emissions by conserving a patch of forest in Brazil.
Were it not because the World Bank strongly supports emissions trading,
its economists would define the Juma project as a “lose-lose
situation” for climate and people. But of course they won’t.
(1) https://www.marriott.com/green-brazilian-rainforest.mi
(2) “The Juma Sustainable Development Reserve Project: Reducing
Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation in the State of Amazonas,
Brazil,” Project Design Document for validation at “Climate,
Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA),” 29/09/2008,
http://unfccc.int/files/methods_science/redd/application
/pdf/pdd_juma_reserve_red_project_v5.0.pdf
(3)“The Carbon Hunters,” Carbon Watch, reported by Mark
Schapiro, produced by Andres Cediel, http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/2010/05/the-carbon-hunters.htm
