REDD-Monitor

Just twenty years ago, Riau Province in Sumatra, Indonesia was 80 per cent forested. Today only 30 per cent is left. The deforestation is driven by the insatiable hunger for timber of two pulp and paper companies: Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) and Asia Paper and Pulp (APP). Recent analysis by Eyes on the Forest reveals that satellite data for the first six months of 2009 show that Riau Province holds the dismal record for the most fire “hotspots” of any province in Indonesia, with almost 5,000. The company with the most fires in its concessions? Step forward, Asia Pulp and Paper.

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Australia’s carbon pollution reduction scheme includes a nightmare vision of REDD. It would create a loophole big enough to allow Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution to continue and even expand. Astonishingly, when the government announced it would delay starting the plan, but with a new target of 25% emissions reductions, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Climate Institute and WWF announced their support of the plan. Australian author and climate change analyst Guy Pearse says they were “sucker punched by a government which has no intention of cutting emissions by anything like that magnitude, let alone cutting them in Australia.”

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Last month, the following letter was published in Guyana’s Stabroek News. It raises serious questions about President Bharrat Jagdeo’s proposals for REDD in Guyana. The author of the letter, Janette Bulkan, has so far received no response. Yet according to a presentation about Guyana’s “Readiness Plan” on the World Bank’s website, consultation is a “Vital component of the overall plan” and assures us of “Real consultation, not cosmetic exercise”. So when will the multi-stakeholder process start?

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President Bharrat Jagdeo’s visit to Europe last week was reported enthusiastically in Guyana’s newspapers. Headlines like “The Norway climate deal a significant step forward” and comments such as “Guyana is getting significant backing, including financial support, from Norway, for its model to push saving rainforests as a central platform in the global plan to avert climate change disaster,” both from the Guyana Chronicle, are typical. REDD-Monitor recently received the following anonymous contribution which challenges the claims that President Jagdeo and his consultants McKinsey have been making about Guyana’s forests and questions what is really driving REDD in Guyana.
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A Canadian company called ERA Carbon Offsets Ltd is looking to sell carbon offsets from REDD projects. The company already sells carbon offsets to Shell, which Shell uses to ensure that it can continue drilling for oil. According to the press release below, the president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, Carter Roberts supports this.
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