Try calling up the Washington Post – they have previously taken a keen interest in TNC’s dodgy land deals.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dominion-celebrates-earth-day-with-11-million-in-grants-to-community-based-environmental-projects-2010-04-13?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Apparently they got $275k in this hand-out. More offsets! More cheap REDD credits!

I’m going with Tom Nies on this one.
You guys remind me of Republican’s stridency and righteous ADD+ stylistics…
Try to remember that you’re kind of on the same side…I think…hope

Interesting points though…all around

I am assuming you believe US polluters possess full right to emit unlimited emissions to assure prosperity in America. Maybe you think emissions targets enforced by a global governance system will undermine the American economy. Perhaps you expect the Chinese to make all emission reduction sacrifice first simply because they are threatening the American lifestyle -which is not negotiable- and due this Asian country is buying “too much” US fiscal debt.
Maybe you are ready to make profits undertaking carbon trade transactions online from your home.
Perhaps you are one of those who do not think you need to speak Spanish, Mandarin, Bahasa, or Vietnamese to deal with local communities and REDD.
Let me tell you I do not think those days for you will arrive soon.
We need to deal with communities, local and national governments and regulations, corrupt practices, forest management, drivers of deforestation, indigenous peoples demands, barriers of the market as transparency and access to information, carbon cowboys in Wall Street, global climate change regime, etc. I am from the Philippines and have 20 years working in forest governance. Market will not take off as many desires if you do not address these issues. Forests governance and community land rights issues have been stressed for decades by scholars but UNDP, The World Bank and now UN-REDD are not being capable to deal with them in the majority of the countries potentially participants of REDD with the only exception of Costa Rica. Indeed I acknowledge small progress such as methodological and technical issues have been met.
But the market will not be operation even with US Climate legislation.
Many of us who read REDD Monitor want to make a living with CO2 mitigation/REDD consultancy work. I have also seen some people including some westerns in Asia sincerely working on ground to promote environmental justice and forest governance and trying to improve the living conditions of forest-dependant communities across Asia, Africa and Central and South America. But those are the exception. We look forward to more people engaged in real work supporting communities with their expertise pro-people development under REDD but avoiding business as usual. I do not think communities are against profits or carbon market either. They simply dislike the classic cowboy business style that some US brokers and NGO’s based in DC intent to develop with resources of the World Bank, companies or Governments such as Norway. Working with them I understand they have aversion to the arrogance of western companies development in Asia extracting natural resources and moving somewhere else because they can bribe our corrupted governments through a “local contractor”. They understand REDD may follow the same track without safeguards.
I personally find objectionable that 85% of the US NGO’s that claim to be “conservationist”, “pro-people” or “pro-environment” are unable to pressure US polluters towards a low carbon economy, their addition fossil fuels and cheap commodities, and unsustainable consumption patterns.
Communities dislike US NGOs coming to a one day seminar to PNG, Vietnam, Brazil or Indonesia instead of working full-time in tropical forests and progressively target and dismantle corruption, lack of transparency, drivers of deforestation, social and environmental injustice including more technical issues such as perverse forest incentives, land use and land use exchange.
Is true that protecting forest by means of incentives is a way to reduce emissions. Nevertheless, another additional effective effort to reduce emissions is force US polluters become more clean and efficient. Of course, all these NGOs staff -who live in San Francisco or NY- feel more comfortable flying business class to climate change events or twice to Brazil or Indonesia (each of them should disclose their carbon footprint) than dealing with lack of environmental governance in US territory requires both courage and hard work. Not many US consultants want to do that job or pressure their government to sign Kioto and have a binding global agreement. The reason is simple: the world largest polluters and governments are feeding NGO’s climate change or REDD programs. Of course NGO’s based in DC keep silence about all these issues including their secret arrangement working together to make us believe they are pro-environment and pro-poor. You are perhaps are one of those who think the “REDD market” will be operational after you get a regulation as Indonesia did. I think you will need to wait a big longer. After 3 years of the Bali Action Plan governance, drivers of deforestation, capacity building, democratization, transparency, forest inventories, have not arrived yet to places such as Aceh, Kalimantan or Papua. The report of Rainforest Alliance certifying Ulu Masen project does not mean huge problems and uncertainties (legal, social, and environmental) remain in Aceh. How you can address deforestation under REDD if you are not responding to land use and palm oil development in Indonesia? Since “we don’t have much time” lets be honest and help developing countries, their government and its people to resolve main barriers to carbon markets and then talk about how we profit from it. Disclosure: I have wife and 3 kids. I’m also trying to make money in forest-based carbon offsets. But I am not naive and I am very well informed. Carbon markets in developing countries have many risks and uncertainties, as well as unresolved issues. UN-REDD, the WB, the ADB and US NGO’s such as Rainforest Alliance have done little to effectively address these issues. Hope these can change the next years to come.
Sincerely,
Rupert

Well at least you are honest enough to admit to having a vested interest in adopting the position that you do – which is more than can be said for TNC and CI.

But how DARE you dismiss as having merely “a puritanical aversion to letting people continue to emit CO2″ those who question the value of forest-based offsets and constantly remind us that he vast bulk of the problem (close to 90% of it) is due to excessive consumption of fossial fuels, mostly in rich countries! The entire basis of the climate science and all the proposed responses to it are that we have to reduce those sources of emissions.

Of course “actual emissions controls” must be immediate – but when are they going to start? When are the big players even going to start demanding them? The great betrayal of the planet by the likes of TNC and CI is that, instead of forcefully using their potentially huge leverage in Washington to press for these controls, they have instead opted to go down the route of lobbying for offsets – much less effective or needed, but much more lucrative (for themselves).

No one has invented a better way of protecting forests than paying their owners to leave them standing. REDD opponents can’t deny this; they just avoid mentioning it, because behind their opposition is a puritanical aversion to letting people continue to emit CO2. Their moral outrage is the (often unsubtle) subtext of nearly everything they write, including Chris Lang’s article.

Yes, actual emissions control must be an immediate, as well as the ultimate, objective, and we don’t have much time. But if we reduce the planet’s capacity to sequester CO2, we may as well give up the struggle, go home, and poach in the local swimming pool.

Disclosure: I’m trying to make money in forest-based carbon offsets.

The work is being monopolized by few NGOs that are unable to address/solve drivers of deforestation or complex issues such as indigenous people land rights, illegal logging, poverty, corruption or forest governance. These NGO are not based in the areas of forests conflict, poverty, or where corruption is being taken place. On the contrary, these NGOs are based in fancy streets in the most expensive cities of the world (Washington DC, London, San Francisco, and New York) where Caucasian European and North American from those NGO’s are “preparing the grown” to help US corporation to offset their emission by means of cheap forest carbon credits.
Take a minute and check where their staff and board of directors live and work. 80% are Caucasian running REDD or climate projects with very limited real experience in forest governance, illegal logging, environmental justice, and community engagement in developing countries.
90% of them “push papers” but get a monthly salary that can be equal to the income of a forest-dependant community of 300 families in Paraguay, Laos, Indonesia or PNG. Additionally, 90% of those complex REDD reports -written in English- give local communities around the globe zero access to information and participation. REDD and climate change are a new hot topic that helps Caucasian people in the US and UK an opportunity to keep a good job that give forest-dependant communities zero concrete support and few outcomes (such as Copenhagen) with a huge carbon footprint in exchange (as COPS 15). Many of these US staff are frequent fliers with mo remorse about their own carbon footprint travelling a couple of years to Indonesia, Ecuador, Brazil or Laos. Few of them will work overtime for free or donate 10% of their own salary to give away to a local community in Cambodia where people have no food. But I am sure all of them will fly this year to Mexico COP16 meanwhile local communities will have to keep trying to understand why they need to negotiate with their corrupt governments to get some revenue for survival.
Few of these Caucasian “consultant” would have the courage to tackle in situ complex issues that underline deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. Few of them speak the local language of the traditional communities affected by REDD market-based mechanisms. They prefer to write a report sitting with their Mac at Starbucks in New York or San Francisco. All these people will meet in Mexico trying to convince the public and the media that US corporations are truly committed to reduce emissions at home but need to offset now. Then they will claimed that COP 16 was successful and they will write in English another report to satisfy donors ahd keep their job for another year. Please just check the names of the people working in REDD and you will find that most of them are Caucasian American and Brit (TNC, WWF, FFI, WRI, RAN, Sierra Club, WCS, Conservation International, Wildlife Society) with very limited experience in truly key issues that matters when dealing with REDD: forest, communities, rights, governance, anti-corruption, social development. Of more concern is the path of some of the. In particularly NGO’s, such as Rainforest Alliance, are getting recognition directly by the US government for promoting “inclusive prosperity” (of course for US corporations). Be careful with their staff. They want to make us believe they are committed with local communities but they are just a for-profit organization that represents or work with developers and carbon brokers. Please review their certification of Ulu Masen in Aceh and you will find that project offers a lot of leakages such as land rights issues and a lot of gaps to offer concrete solutions.

How we challenge business as usual of the partnership US NGO’s-donors?
Is this business model good, transparent and fair for forest-dependant communities?
Are NGOs disparate parts of an unplanned agglomeration to sit on the US corporate lap?

Let us have the courage to talk about these issues now.

Greeting