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In June 2011, REDD-Monitor posted a statement signed by indigenous people in Kapuas District in Central Kalimantan demanding that the Australia-Indonesia Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership be stopped in indigenous peoples’ land. Recently REDD-Monitor received an email from the chairman of the Council of Indigenous Dayak (Dewan Adat Dayak – DAD) in Kapuas district, Central Kalimantan.
The mining industry has obvious reasons for being interested in REDD. The industry is responsible for vast greenhouse gas emissions. While the obvious way of reducing emissions is to reduce the amount of fossil fuels mined (an option that is never on the agenda at UN climate meetings), a more profitable option is to continue mining and “offset” the emissions by buying carbon credits.
June 2011 has seen a wave of criticism of REDD in Central Kalimantan. On 8 June, a group of indigenous people issued a statement demanding a stop to the Australian-funded Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership. On 16 June, EIA and Telapak released a report documenting a Malaysian oil palm company clearing forest in Central Kalimantan apparently in breach of the country’s forestry moratorium.
Members of the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago – Central Kalimantan Chapter (AMAN Kalteng) have issued a statement demaning an “immediate moratorium of all REDD+ processes and investments in Central Kalimantan”, until a series of conditions are met. AMAN Kalteng’s statement can be downloaded here (pdf file 72.1 KB) and is posted in full, below.
On 19 May 2011, the day that Indonesia’s President finally signed the moratorium on forest concessions into force, activists from EIA and Telapak were in Central Kalimantan documenting a plantation company illegally clearing an area of peat swamp forest. This is a strange story, full of strange coincidences.
When Australia announced the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, in September 2007, Australia’s then-Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer said that the project, “was an example of practical climate change action that could deliver immediate and tangible benefits”. What he didn’t say was who would get those benefits.
On 19 May 2011, Indonesia‘s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, signed a presidential instruction bringing into force a two-year moratorium on the granting of new forestry concessions. A group of NGOs has now produced a Briefing Paper criticising the moratorium’s failure to address the causes of deforestation in Indonesia.
“Our green economic mantra is called ‘pro-growth, pro-job, pro-poor, pro-environment’ – and of course pro-business,” Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s President, told the Business for Environment Conference at the end of April 2011. “It’s a lot of balls to juggle with,” he added, leaving his Special Adviser on Climate Change, Agus Purnomo, with the difficult task of explaining what he was talking about.
“It’s important to remember the moratorium is not primarily about what won’t take place during that two year-period, e.g. halting conversion of forest for economic development. Much more significant is what will take place during that same timeframe.” That’s Aida Greenbury of Asia Pulp and Paper welcoming the moratorium that finally came into effect last week in Indonesia.
Interview with Andy White, Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative, Washington DC, by email.
Indonesia’s president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, yesterday signed a decree to bring into force a two-year moratorium on new forest concessions. The moratorium was supposed to start in January 2011. The president was given a choice of two decrees to sign. One covered all forests, including peatlands. The other covered only primary forests and peatlands. Yudhoyono chose the latter.
On 24 February 2011, Yayasan Petak Danum, (Water Land Foundation, an NGO in Central Kalimantan), wrote to the Australian Delegation that was then visiting the Australian-funded Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership. Two months later, they received a reply from AusAID, posted in full below in English and in Indonesian.
This week, a Canadian mining company called East Asia Minerals Corporation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to buy 50% of Carbon Conservation Pty Ltd. East Asia Minerals’ aim is simple: “Through the acquisition of a 50% equity interest in CC, the Company will develop a ‘green’ mining project which will use carbon and biodiversity offsets and the latest in environmentally friendly mining practices.”
In this short video, “Lives of the Forest,” indigenous activists from the Asia Pacific region speak out against REDD. “We find that the way [the international community] took decisions for passing through this REDD mechanism is in complete exclusion of the indigenous peoples,” says Jiten Yumnam of the Meitei people in Manipur, India.
The Forest Peoples Programme’s April 2011 ENewsletter starts with this sentence: “Closing the gap between international human rights law and realities on the ground is the most important challenge facing forest peoples.” This raises a question for REDD proponents: Is REDD helping to close the gap, or further widening it? |
    
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