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An anonymous article in the September 2011 UN-REDD newsletter paints a rosy picture of REDD-readiness in the Republic of Congo. An anonymous response, sent to REDD-Monitor yesterday, argues that the UN-REDD article ignores the on-going destruction of the Republic of Congo’s forests.
Global Witness recently produced a short film on industrial logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The film raises an interesting conundrum. “The World Bank and other international donor agencies claim to support the protection of forests and the people that live in them. Yet many donors continue to support industrial logging.”
Yesterday, Indonesia’s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, promised that he would “dedicate the last three years of my term as President to deliver enduring results that will sustain and enhance the environment and forests of Indonesia”.
A new film produced by David Fedele documents the destruction caused by the logging industry in Sandaun Province, in Northwest Papua New Guinea. The film documents the social and environmental impacts of the logging. The Malaysian logging company, WTK Realty, makes large profits from the logging, but leaves serious problems for the local community.
Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, recently announced that he would allow the destruction of 7,100 hectares of the Mabira Forest to make way for sugarcane plantations. If REDD is to mean anything in Uganda, it has to provide some sort of mechanism for preventing this sort of destruction. So far, there is no sign that this is the case.
A recent paper published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management compares previous studies of deforestation rates in protected areas and in community managed forests. The research supports the authors’ hypothesis that community managed forests are at least as good, and sometimes better, at reducing deforestation than strict protected areas.
“Cari Hutan” is a new documentary by a young German film-maker called Florian Augustin. Earlier this year, he travelled to Kalimantan, to find out what is happening to the forests there. The film turned into a road movie in search of the forest.
Earlier this week, around 300 members of the Prey Lang network gathered outside the Royal Palace in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh to pray for the protection of the Prey Lang forest – the largest area of intact lowland evergreen forest remaining in southeast Asia. The forest is under severe threat, particularly from a series of large-scale rubber concessions.
Last week, Australian ABC News’ Foreign Correspondent programme looked into Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd.’s operations on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The programme, titled, “Sumatra – Paper/Tiger“, gives a shocking view of the ongoing destruction of Sumatra’s remaining forests.
A new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency confirms that logs from Laos continue to pour over the border into Vietnam feeding a booming furniture industry there, despite a ban on exports of unprocessed timber from Laos. This illegal trade has serious implications for REDD in both countries.
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.
Last week, Carbon Trade Watch released two new factsheets: “Key arguments against REDD+”, and “Some Key REDD+ Players”. Be warned: you are in for a rocky ride if you belong to the camp that believes that REDD is the best hope for saving the rainforests, that safeguards will protect indigenous peoples’ rights and that carbon trading is the only way of raising sufficient funding for REDD.
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.
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. |
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