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The Dayak Benuaq Indigenous People of Muara Tae in East Kalimantan are defending their last remaining area of forest against two palm oil companies. “This is the last remaining forests that we have and the only land we have to survive. If my forests are gone, our lives will end,” says Pak Singko, a leader of the Dayak Benuaq of Muara Tae.
Since 2009, villagers on Pulau Padang, an island off the east coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, have been protesting against pulp and paper company APRIL’s proposed 41,205 hectare pulpwood plantation on their island. In November 2011, in a dramatic protest aimed at illustrating how APRIL and the authorities were ignoring them, 28 of them stitched their mouths shut.
In August 2011, Irwandi Yusuf, governor of Aceh, signed a permit for a palm oil concession in the Tripa Peat Swamp, apparently in breach of the moratorium on new forest concessions under the Indonesia-Norway US$1 billion REDD deal.
In August 2011, Irwandi Yusuf, governor of Aceh, signed a permit for a palm oil concession in the Tripa Peat Swamp, part of the Leuser Ecosystem, that Wetlands International describes as “an area of outstanding, world-renowned biodiversity value”. The permit would allow PT Kallista Alam to convert 1,605 hectares of forest.
“It has long been a fact: Norway is saving rainforest with one hand and destroying the rainforest with the other,” wrote Lars Løvold of Rainforest Foundation Norway recently. The problem is that while Norway has promised billions to save the rainforest, the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) is investing in companies that are destroying the rainforests.
In this series of articles, published in the newsletter of the Commonwealth Forestry Association, Janette Bulkan looks at the issue of governance and illegal logging in the forest sector in Guyana, in the context of the REDD agreement with Norway.
There is much to criticise in Indonesia’s moratorium on new forestry concessions. Many of these criticisms have been put forward in previous posts on REDD-Monitor (here, here and here). A recent briefing from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) points out serious flaws with the moratorium and then makes suggestions for improving it.
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.
On 10 June 2011, the Norwegian government responded to the Open Letter sent on 24 March 2011. While the Open Letter raised eight problems with Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy, the vast majority of the discussion generated by the letter focussed on the signatories to the letter rather than the problems they were raising.
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 Kelteng’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.
“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.
On 24 March 2011, members of Guyanese civil society and two Members of Parliament sent a letter to Erik Solheim, Norway’s Minister of the Environment and International Development. The letter raised “eight key problems with the operation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the governments of Guyana and Norway”.
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. |
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