By Ana de Ita
September 22, 2010 - The Mexican government will promote the Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) at the 16th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16) to be held in Cancun in late November and early December.
The more than 170 multinational corporations that have promoted, since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, carbon markets as a viable mechanism to buy emission reduction credits from the forests of the southern countries (while maintaining their polluting industries in the north) need positive feedback that gas markets are progressing. These markets, that have a hidden agenda to privatize air, which until now has been a common good, would exist even without REDD. However much it may seem like science fiction, industrialized countries are purchasing the carbon sequestration capacity of the forests found in southern countries through purchase agreements. In other words, they are buying and selling air.
Corporations and governments that have invested in carbon markets have been emphatic that carbon must be a fully marketable commodity. Carbon bonds must be sold in secondary and derivative markets; they must participate in price and stock quotation indexes together with oil or wheat; and they must be able to be purchased as much as necessary, as well as be listed on the Stock Exchange and penetrate speculation markets. For some analysts, carbon may be the next toxic asset.
Communities and governments that sell their carbon emission reduction certificates in the primary market may be unable to reclaim their forests used as collateral, when their certificates form part of derivative markets.
This program will also have a direct impact on the life of the forest communities and indigenous peoples that live and depend on the forests. In southern countries, forests are mostly owned by the states: in Africa, 98%; in Asia, 66%; in Latin America, 33%. Meanwhile, only a small fraction is owned by indigenous communities and peoples. However, these state-owned forests are home to thousands of indigenous peoples who depend on them to survive. Mexico is an exception. As a conquest of social struggles, 59% of forests are owned by indigenous communities and peoples; 34% of forests are privately owned; and only 8% are owned by the state.
Among other implications, REDD++ affects the rights of indigenous peoples to use their forests, and the extent of these impacts depends on how authoritarian a country is. Thus, the Indigenous Environmental Network reported that REDD was expected to be involved in the largest land grab in history. The experiences of the Ogoni peoples in Nigeria, the Ogiek in Kenya and the Guaraqueçaba communities in Brazil serve as an example of enclosed forest policy with the expulsion and even genocide of indigenous peoples that considered them their home. By increasing the economic value of forests, the interest of state and private agents to alienate them from the communities that inhabit them is growing.
However, some forest organizations in Mexico are interested in promoting REDD++, which includes a sustainable forest management and carbon stock conservation component.
Although it would be fair and desirable for forest communities to receive compensation for their excellent forest management and care and for the important role they play in times of climate crisis, the effects of the environmental policy regarding indigenous peoples create hot spots that need to be addressed. The environmental policy is based on the assumption that conservation comes from outside sources, in spite of the historical evidence that shows that the best preserved natural sites coincide with indigenous territories in the country. It is the world view of the indigenous peoples that has resulted in the conservation of their habitat and not the regulations or prohibitions established by the parties in charge of the international and national environmental policy.
Protected natural areas are the corollary of a policy of colonization and land grabbing. They directly threaten communal ownership and serve as a modern tool to expropriate the indigenous peoples’ right to their land. In a country that continues to deny the more than 56 indigenous peoples their right to autonomy, REDD++ serves as a new tool to seize control of their land. The carbon protected areas to be established by REDD++ will have the same impacts as any other protected natural area, while payments for sustainable forest management serve as bait for indigenous communities and peoples to accept.
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Fuente: La Jornada, traducción Servindi.