19th November 2009
The indigenous Ogiek people living in the Mau Forest Complex in Kenya are threatened with eviction to make way for the government’s conservation plans. The government has already started evicting 1,690 non-Ogiek families from the Mau Forest. They have nowhere to go. The Mau Forest Secretariat says that because they have no title deeds they do not qualify for any compensation. Karanja Njoroge, a journalist with The Standard spent a day and a night with the evicted people and described it as “an experience of extreme despair and squalour of people who say they have been kicked out without being allowed to harvest their crops.”
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6th November 2009
Another week, another series of UN climate talks. This time in Barcelona. This is the last week of negotiations before COP-15 in Copenhagen. Perhaps not surprisingly, things are not looking good. Rich countries ground the negotiations to a halt by refusing to agree to targets under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. At one point, African negotiators walked out refusing to discuss any other issues (including REDD) until rich countries agreed deep cuts in emissions. In support, civil society organisations set up an impromptu human shield against the killing of Kyoto targets and demanded at least 40% emission reductions with no offsets by 2020.
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29th October 2009
Two days ago, Greenpeace set up a Climate Defenders Camp on the Kampar Peninsula in Riau province, Sumatra. The camp will remain there for several weeks to highlight the importance of protecting forests on peat soils. The soils on the Kampar Peninsular store about 2 billion tonnes of carbon. Much of the forest around the peninsular has been destroyed to make way for oil palm plantations and industrial tree plantations for the pulp and paper industry, in part by pulp and paper company APRIL. Now APRIL claims it want to protect the Kampar Peninsular with a REDD project. This week Forest Peoples Programme and Scale Up released a report titled “Indonesia: indigenous peoples and the Kampar Peninsular“. The report finds that APRIL has ignored the views of local people on the Kampar Peninsular.
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2nd October 2009
REDD is one of the key issues under discussion at the UN Climate negotiations in Bangkok. NGOs have put out a series of new reports hoping to influence the way the discussions go. A new briefing from Global Witness, reveals why the forestry term, ’sustainable forest management’ could spell disaster for the future of the world’s forests. The Ecosystems Climate Alliance has produced a Forest Pledge, calling for countries “to support the protection of intact natural forests as a core mechanism of the treaty”. And the Indigenous Environmental Network released a report strongly rejecting REDD.
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17th September 2009
From 7-9 September 2009, environment ministers and senior officials from the European Union took part in a high-level meeting in Strömstad, Sweden: “Visions for Biodiversity Beyond 2010 – People, Ecosystem Services and the Climate Crisis“. At the end of the meeting, the chair produced a series of conclusions. Surprisingly, for this sort of meeting, the problem of over-consumption in the North was acknowledged. Paragraph 18 of the conclusions states: “The impact of European consumption on global biodiversity needs to be addressed.” The conclusions also include two paragraphs about REDD.
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31st August 2009
From 5-8 August 2009, the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara – AMAN) held a national consultation of indigenous communities on Climate Change and REDD. At the end of the meeting, the participants produced the Sinar Resmi Declaration (available in Bahasa Indonesia below). The Declaration demands meaningful emissions reductions in the North. It also insists on guarantees that the rights of Indigenous Peoples will be protected in any REDD initiatives, otherwise, “Indigenous Peoples will reject the implementation of all REDD plans and any other climate change mitigation initiatives.”
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11th August 2009
CONFENIAE, the confederation of indigenous peoples from the Ecuadorian Amazon (the Ecuadorian member organization of COICA), issued a statement on 3 August 2009 which strongly rejects REDD:
“We reject the negotiations on our forests, such as REDD projects, because they try to take away our freedom to manage our resources and also because they are not a real solution to climate change, on the contrary, they only make it worse.”
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16th June 2009
In March 2009, the UN-REDD programme released a document titled “UN-REDD Programme Operational Guidance: Engagement of Indigenous Peoples & other forest dependent communities“. The document includes much that is good, including references to free, prior and informed consent, the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But it fails to look at the realities faced by many Indigenous Peoples.
REDD-Monitor received the following note from John Palmer, Senior Associate, Forest Management Trust, outlining some of the omissions in the UN-REDD Operational Guidance on Indigenous Peoples. It is reproduced here in the interests of generating further discussion on the issues raised.
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9th June 2009
Early in the morning of 5 June 2009, the Peruvian military police violently attached a group of indigenous people who were peacefully blockading a road outside of Bagua, in northern Peru. Protesters included many women and children. Police dropped tear gas bombs from helicpoters and fired live ammunition from both sides into the crowd, trapping some of the protesters. Reports estimate that the number of people killed is somewhere between 40 and 85, including three children. ENS reports that “As the demonstrators were being killed and injured, some wrestled with police, fighting back in self-defense, which resulted in the reported deaths of the nine police officers.” Peruvian authorities say that 22 police were killed.
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8th June 2009
In May 2009, Indigenous Peoples from around the world met in New York for the 8th UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The radio programme “Living on Earth”, which airs on National Public Radio in the USA, produced a programme looking at REDD, based on interviews with some of the indigenous people at the Forum.
Living on Earth also interviewed Charles McNeill of the UNDP who talks about “walking the talk” but drops the “s” on indigneous peoples.
Below are extracts from the programme. You can listen to the programme here.
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