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In September 2011, the 64th Annual UN DPI/NGO Conference took place in Bonn, Germany. About 1,500 people from 70 countries turned up. On the third day of the meeting, a remarkable thing happened. Not a single participant at the conference put up their hand to disagree with a declaration which promotes REDD as a carbon trading mechanism.
A new manual by six Europe-based NGOs calls for an end to forest offsets. The report argues that there are two motivations for forest offsets: “reducing the pressure to do something about fossil fuel emissions and the short term profit motive”.
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.
On 21 September 2011, the World Day against Monoculture Tree Plantations the No REDD Platform released “an open letter to the international donor community to halt the diversion of forest conservation funding to dubious schemes to ‘Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and enhance forest carbon stocks’ (REDD+).”
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, 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.
From 28 February to 2 March 2011, Green Concern for Development and Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria) organised a forum on Climate Change, REDD and Forest Dependent Community Rights in Cross River State, Nigeria. The forum allowed for a debate on different viewpoints on REDD – and allowed communities to respond to government officials.
Jürgen Blaser is a reviewer on the World Bank’s FCPF Technical Advisory Panel. Last week, at a presentation during the eighth Participants Committee meeting in Vietnam, he used a quotation from an article on REDD-Monitor and presented it in a slide titled, “Overall Summary: Strengths of the RPP [Readiness Preparation Proposal].” REDD-Monitor would like to take this opportunity to put the record straight.
With apologies for the delay, here’s a posting for International Women’s Day (8 March 2011). A group of organisations has produced an invitation to sign on to a position statement on Women and REDD.
Last week, a broad coalition of NGOs in Indonesia called on the “Indonesian and Norwegian governments to close loopholes in a billion dollar deal to immediately implement a moratorium on all further natural forest clearance both within new and existing concession areas.”
On 7 September 2010, 34* NGOs from 20 different countries sent a letter to the co-chairs of the Interim REDD+ Partnership. The letter provides comments on the Partnership’s draft Workplan and denounces “the protracted lack of political will to ensure proper participation of civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations in the processes of the Interim REDD+ Partnership.”
Vía Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers. It is a coalition of around 150 organisations, with an estimated 300 million members. Vía Campesina recently put out a statement about COP-16 in Cancún.
On 18 August 2010, Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria, the country’s leading environment group) organised a meeting on REDD in Nigeria, together with the Rainforest Research Development and GREENCODE. The meeting produced a statement, signed by 18 NGOs. “Forests and REDD must be out of carbon markets,” is the first of a list of resolutions included in the statement.
Affiliates from the Durban Group for Climate Justice are requesting signatures on a new statement rejecting REDD schemes, ahead of the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia, 19-22 April 2010. The statement, “No REDD! No REDD Plus!” is below in English, Spanish and Portuguese. |
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