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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.
How can a company use the fact that it is one of largest forest destroyers in Indonesia to benefit from REDD? Easy. The very fact that the company is so destructive means that any forest in the company’s concessions is automatically threatened. So any patch of forest left standing must, by definition, be avoided deforestation.
“Carbon will be the world’s biggest commodity market, and it could become the world’s biggest market over all,” Louis Redshaw, head of environmental markets at Barclays Capital, told the New York Times in July 2007.
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.
Earlier this week, Greenpeace activists blockaded a Chinese logging ship, the Fu Tian, that was exporting timber from Papua New Guinea. The ship was docked near the village of West Pomio, where villagers are protesting the operations of Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau and its subsidiary, Gilford Limited.
Two pieces of depressing news from the Amazon. First, the price of gold has increased, leading to increased mining and increased deforestation. Second, Brazil is planning to invest US$120 billion in large-scale infrastructure projects in the Amazon region.
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. |
    
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