• REDD and Permits to Pollute
• REDD is CO₂lonialism of Forests
• Most of the world’s forests are on Indigenous Peoples’ land
• REDD means "Loss of Land"
• REDD means LAND GRAB
• REDD means SCAMS
• Threats to Cultural Survival
• REDD means EVICTIONS
• REDD and Militarization
• PERU and REDD
• REDD and Gangsters
• REDD and Oil Companies
• REDD Corrupts the Sacred
• REDD and Plantations
• REDD and GMO Trees
• REDD and Clear Cutting
• Does REDD mean More Deforestation?
• REDD: More Human Rights Violations?
• REDD: Slaving on the Plantation?
• REDD and Profits for the World Bank
• REDD is a Threat to Indigenous Peoples

• Is REDD a "Cash Cow for Forest Destroyers?"
• REDD = Cheaper than Reducing Emissions
• REDD does NOT MITIGATE Climate Change
• REDD: Utterly bogus
• Gourmet REDD
• Carbon Footprint Trading
• My Moccasins are NOT for Sale!
• REDD Pros
• REDD Cons
• Can REDD be fixed?
• Wake Up and Smell the Emissions
• Indigenous Peoples' Statement on REDD
• International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change
• Indigenous Peoples Reject REDD
• How to REALLY Reduce Deforestation
• UN Admits REDD Threatens Indigenous Peoples

CARBON MARKETS buy and sell permits to pollute called “allowances” and “carbon credits”. Carbon markets have two parts: emissions trading (also called “cap and trade”) and offsets. They are false solutions to climate change because they do not bring about the changes needed to keep fossil fuels in the ground. They claim to solve the climate crisis but really allow polluters to buy their way out of reducing their emissions. These multi-billion dollar trading mechanisms privatize and commodify the earth’s ability to keep its atmosphere balanced. The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change opposes carbon markets. “We cannot condone activities that defile the sacredness of Mother Earth…Carbon trade-induced conflicts … endanger our survival…”²

Northern polluters can get permits to pollute through offsets projects in the South like a dam or a tree plantation under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change calls the CDM “a new form of colonialism.”³ Permits to pollute are also being generated by promising not to cut down forests and plantations that absorb pollution. This is called REDD. The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change says “REDD will not benefit Indigenous Peoples, but, in fact, will result in more violations of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights…Under REDD, States and Carbon Traders will take more control over our forests.”⁴

According to the publication, “The Little REDD Book”, the basic idea behind Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) is simple: Developing countries that are willing and able to reduce emissions from deforestation should be financially compensated for doing so.⁵ However, according to many Indigenous Peoples, REDD is CO2lonialism of Forests because it allows Northern polluters to buy permits to pollute or “carbon credits” by promising not to cut down forests and plantations in the South. The newspaper The Australian calls REDD a ““clasic 21st century scamemerging from the global climate change industry.”⁶

REDD will probably include forests in the carbon market which raises a crucial property rights issue: REDD commodifies and privatizes the air and forests. Carbon traders require legal title to the carbon in the forests or rights to the land. REDD projects that utilize carbon market financing could also generate profits for loggers, polluters and forest destroyers⁸ and reduce forests to mere carbon sequestration experiments. REDD-type projects already exist on the voluntary carbon market without a clear and agreed upon framework that ensures Indigenous land and forest rights, land tenure reforms and good governance. Under the Bali Action Plan, the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is negotiating the mechanism for implementing REDD within the post-Kyoto Protocol 2012+ framework.

The “ultimate goal” of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is “to jump-start a forest carbon market.”⁹ The World Bank isn’t waiting for the UN to adopt a REDD implementation framework, it has moved forward with its own REDD-type projects through R-PINs (Readiness Plan Idea Notes) and through its other carbon and climate funds.¹⁰ The UN-REDD Program is also moving forward with its own initiative set up by UNDP, UNEP, FAO and the World Bank. Additionally, governments, polluting industry, private sector and large NGOs are investing in carbon market REDD initiatives with no agreed upon policies that address Indigenous Peoples’ concerns.

There are hundreds of REDD-type pilot projects in the world and, as this booklet shows, many of them violate Indigenous Peoples’ rights and have resulted in militarization, evictions, fraud, disputes, conflicts, corruption, coercion, conmen, crime, plantations and 30-100 year contracts, deals with oil companies and other climate criminals. Furthermore, economic speculation with carbon credits from REDD may contribute to the next market crash and Indigenous Peoples could lose out if their “benefits” are subject to the volatile price of carbon. Lastly, Indigenous Peoples could be held liable if REDD projects fail due to natural ecological or climate change-related disasters such as floods, droughts, forest fires, storms, pests or plagues.

“Some 1.6 billion people rely on forests, including 60 million Indigenous people, who are entirely dependent upon forests for their livelihoods, food, medicines and/or building materials (FAO, 2008) These people have already been severely impacted both by the loss of forests, cleared largely to grow crops and agrofuels for export, and by Clean Development Mechanism reforestation and afforestation projects. Often having no formal land title, many people have already been forcibly and even violently ejected from their ancestral territories. If the financial value of standing forests goes up they are increasingly likely to face governments and companies willing to go to extreme lengths to wrest their forests from them.”¹¹

Therefore, the implementation of REDD in Indigenous territories is extremely risky since there is no guarantee that REDD projects will fully recognize the land tenure, customary and territorial rights of Indigenous Peoples. Forests and the “environmental services” they provide are quickly becoming a valuable commodity in carbon markets. This could lead to land being taken away from local people.

Furthermore, “[c]ommodifying forest carbon is also inherently inequitable, since it discriminates against people, and especially women, who previously had free access to the forest resources they need to raise and care for their families, but cannot afford to buy forest products or alternatives.” ¹²

More Protected Areas? “[C]onservation” sounds good, but the history of the establishment of national parks includes large scale evictions and loss of rights for indigenous peoples and local communities.”¹⁴

Less Political Will to Resolve Land Disputes? “In many tropical forest countries, states fail to recognize the collective customary rights of indigenous peoples over their ancestral forests, or only recognize a small portion of their traditional lands – legally defining the remaining forests as so-called ‘State land’. Given the potential earning capacity of standing forests, REDD compensation payments to governments may create a disincentive for forest and conservation and other government authorities to resolve long-standing land disputes in forest areas.”¹⁵

REDD could “drive land speculation”¹⁸ and result in “massive land grabs”¹⁹ in the name of saving the climate. REDD could result in violations of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples especially Articles 10, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 32. The United Nations admits REDD could: ²⁰

• Criminalize indigenous agriculture and lifestyles
• Violate Indigenous Peoples’ rights
• “Lock-up forests” and “Marginalize the landless”

In May 2009, Reuters, an international news agency, reported from a forestry conference in Indonesia that an Interpol environmental crime official warned that organized crime syndicates are eyeing the REDD forest carbon credit industry as a potentially lucrative new opportunity for fraud. “Fraud could include claiming credits for forests that do not exist or were not protected or for land grabs.” - Interpol²¹

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN:
“…unscrupulous entities plan to profit from REDD: their methods could include expelling an indigenous people from their forest to acquire legal title over it.” ²²

Indigenous Peoples Ripped Off in $1 billion26 carbon trading scandal in Papua New Guinea²⁷
“Carbon finance and REDD have triggered a ‘gold rush’ mentality.”²⁸

• “Carbon Cowboys” with false contracts²⁹ and fake carbon credit certificates coerced30 villagers “to sign land rights away to do carbon trading,"³¹ and “to sign over the rights to their forests.” ³²
• The land and power of attorney of 45,000 indigenous in East Pangia was handed over to the “Kingpin of Carbon Cowboys”.³³
• “A dispute has broken out”³⁴
• A NGO is “buying oxygen” in Colombia³⁵

24 The Australian: “this classic 21st-centruy scam emerging from the global climate change industry”.
25 Associated Press: “Papuan New Guinean landowners are being ripped off by conmen traveling village to village offering fake carbon trading deal and promising big returns from “sky money”…The crude carbon trading racket has duped at least 500 villagers since late last year around Popondetta, Oro Province on the north-west coast.”
26 Business Spectator - The Big Green Rush - “25 REDD Projects have been contracted at $1 billion per annum to date”.
27 Sydney Morning Herald: Australian Firm Linked to PNGs
28 Ibid.
29 REDD Monitor: “More on PNG’s ‘Carbon Cowboys’”
30 Sydney Morning Herald: I am a Foreigner in Papau New Guinea Says Carbon King Pin
31 Point Carbon - Sydney Morning Herald: PNGs PM Nephew Phsing Carbon Deals
32 Sydney Morning Herald: Carbon Con-Men Selling the Sky
33 Watch VIDEO: “A Breath of Fresh Air” by Jeremy Dawes
34 Carbon Trading Scandal linked to Government
35 Colombian Ministry of the Environment warns against selling oxygen

• Minority Rights Group International includes the Ogiek People in their list of “Peoples Under Threat” from genocide, mass killings or violent repression.³⁷
• Kenyan Forest Service is acting like a “militia”³⁸
• Thousands already evicted³⁹ including Ogieks

REDD will attract Organized Crime⁵⁰ Interpol: “If there are indigenous people involved, there's threats and violence against those people.”⁵¹

“The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change reiterates that indigenous peoples have been and continue to be the primary guardians of forests. For generations, indigenous peoples have managed to utilize forests resources in a sustainable manner. Indigenous peoples have always regarded forests as not simply resources to be exploited but as the source of life and an integral part of our lives and lifestyles. Forests not only provide shelter and food to indigenous peoples; they also form the basis of many cultures, and have various spiritual and cultural values for us that cannot be expressed in monetary values. Many indigenous peoples derive their distinct identities from their relationship with the forests. In addition, many of the forests that are looked at for utilization in REDD mechanisms are located within our ancestral lands and territories………⁶⁶

IIPFCC continues to oppose the commercialization and commodification of forests and recommends that Parties and other key actors be educated to understand the different, holistic worldview of indigenous peoples and to understand the different values that forests have for indigenous peoples and for humankind. Climate change and sustainable forest management must be based on different mindsets with full respect for Nature, and not on market-based mechanisms that benefit only a few for only a short time.”⁶⁷

REDD is “air politics and air business for new colonialism instead of rights, traditional lifestyles, customs, culture and spirituality. Trading air… causes negative impacts for Indigenous Peoples’ traditional lifestyle. Indigenous Peoples …will be more exploited; our rights to our territories, land and resources will be violated. Indigenous Peoples do not want to put Mother Earth in “custody.” …There will be forced displacement, militarization, and Indigenous Peoples will become…refugees.”⁶⁸ - Kamal Rai, Nepal

Privatizes and Commodifies forests, trees and air

“These REDD and carbon market regimes violate the cosmovision and spiritual beliefs and indigenous worldview of many of our Indigenous peoples in the South and North. The commodification of forests and the atmosphere is a corruption of the Sacred.” -Tom “Mato Awanyankapi” Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network

Definition of Forests: Includes Plantations and Logging“The definition of 'forests' used by the UNFCCC…includes monoculture tree plantations and clearcuts (euphemistically referred to as "temporarily unstocked areas")…it is unlikely this definition will change before the 15th Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen in 2009…Under the current definition, the Brazilian government’s plans to replace part of the Amazonian forest with oil palm plantations would not even count as deforestation: they will only ‘temporarily unstock’ the Amazon before planting new trees.”⁷⁰

Definition of Degradation: Blame Indigenous Peoples for Climate Change?⁷¹ Criminalizing Indigenous Peoples and Agriculture?“Depending on the definition of “degradation,” “illegal activities” could include shifting cultivation; hunting; foraging; collecting kindling, medicinal plants, materials for housing and art; performing ceremonies and accessing sacred sites. “[T]he interpretation of definitions relating to ‘degradation’ will have to be carefully monitored in situations where the poor are engaging in activities that are seen to be degrading forest resources.” PEP, p.5; “‘degradation’ activities that can be crucial for the poor (such as shifting cultivation) may be disrupted by REDD systems without adequate compensation.” PEP, p.3; “[P]oor people are unlikely to benefit directly…and evidence indicates that they could actually be subject to increased risks if they are engaging in illegal activities.” PEP, p.4”⁷²

According to REDD Monitor: “Proposals under discussion for a REDD mechanism based upon a baseline of deforestation also risk creating the perverse incentives for countries with low current levels of deforestation to increase their level of deforestation in order to subsequently be able to claim greater amounts of finance on the basis of reduced deforestation, thus increasing carbon emissions in the short term. These perverse incentives can clearly be seen in Guyana, where President Jagdeo has launched an “avoided threatened deforestation” scheme. An editorial in Guyana’s Kaieteur News in May argued that Guyana “should preceed full steam ahead with the exploitation of our forestry resources. In addition to placing our future development more firmly in our own hands, it will ironically make our arguments for REDD even stronger.” ⁸⁶

REDD monitoring requires cheap labor. According to a European ministry roadmap, "working with local communities could reduce the costs of monitoring" REDD. ⁹⁵ In fact, there seems to be a consensus that “community involvement is the most cost-efficient mechanism to collect large volumes of such data” and that it is “two to three times” cheaper to hire natives than “professionals” or than using “remote sensing.”⁹⁶ Indians, get out your carbon rulers! Just imagine. You can have a very low paying job measuring captured CO2 on the GMO tree plantation that was created where your rainforest use to flourish before it was clear cut and you were forcibly evicted for a REDD project.

The Carbon Markets’ Exploitation of Indigenous Peoples was not unanticipated. In 2000, in its first plenary statement to the UNFCCC, the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change predicted that carbon offset projects would turn Indigenous Peoples into “slaves of the carbon trade.”⁹⁷ An eye-opening book published by the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests documents how Batswa Pygmies suffer “servitude”⁹⁸ on the World Bank Ibi-Batéké Carbon Sink Plantation.⁹⁹ An employee of the project says “this must not be understood…as if it were slavery.”¹⁰⁰ Hailed as an inspiring model for all of Africa,¹⁰¹ this touted plantation for fuel wood and charcoal claims to be the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first Clean Development Project¹⁰² and to contribute to sustainable development and climate change mitigation.¹⁰³ However, Pygmy leaders have repeatedly denounced the World Bank for funding deforestation of their ancestral forests which not only releases emissions but also violates their rights, leads to the destruction of their livelihood and causes social conflict.¹⁰⁴ (PHOTO: WORLD BANK)

Cheapest Permits to Pollute • Bargain Basement Carbon Credits

The going price for carbon credits from offsets is USD $25 to $35 but a REDD credit is calculated at as little as USD $4 which is more than 6 to 8 times cheaper.¹¹⁹For big polluters, like oil companies and the United States, it will be cheaper to buy permits to pollute from REDD than to reduce emissions. ”[I]ndustrialized countries could find it easy to fulfill much of their targets with cheap REDD offset credits.”¹²⁰ According to The Economist, REDD “will push down the price. Companies would then buy cheap credits and continue doing business as usual rather than cutting their own emissions.” ¹²¹ It’s just “trading thin air.”¹²²

According to the Director of NASA, James Hansen, the world’s most distinguished climatologist, “industrialized countries could offset 24-69% of their emissions via the CDM and REDD… thus avoiding the necessary domestic cuts that are required to peak emissions around 2015 in line with avoiding dangerous climate change..” The much trumpeted US climate change legislation is “counterfeit.”¹²⁴

Interesting Articles on pro-REDD “conservation”

• NGOs: Controversial deal between US-based conservation NGOs and polluting industry slammed REDD-Monitor http://bit.ly/TYtQ1
• Environmental Defense office invaded in eco-protest against carbon trade REDD-Monitor http://bit.ly/qXVUr
• Nature Conservancy role in World Bank REDD initiative highlights growing US NGO isolation on forests and climate policy | REDD-Monitor http://bit.ly/Fd7nV
• Conservation International shock advert adds to confusion about REDD | REDD-Monitor http://bit.ly/KZPwz

That recipe sweeps the whole issue under the rug, validating the carbon market paradigm of buying and selling permits to pollute more.

• Many countries do not even recognize the existence of Indigenous Peoples - let alone their rights. National efforts to legislate and implement FPIC and UNDRIP may take years or decades to achieve and, in some cases, may never happen. So, saying that FPIC and UNDRIP will protect indigenous peoples is not entirely true.
• Neither FPIC nor UNDRIP are considered legally binding by the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC¹⁶⁴ nor by any state except Bolivia. The right to FPIC has already been violated in pilot projects (in Papua New Guinea, for example) and in R-PINs in several countries.¹⁶⁵
• UNDRIP is for defending Indigenous Peoples not for justifying the corruption of the Sacred.

REDD’s Fundamental Flaws and Environmental Nightmares
Remember REDD rewards forest destroyers, its fundamental concept is irremediably flawed and there is no political will to correct it. Furthermore, the definition of forests includes monoculture tree plantations; there is no mention of ‘forest protection” in the negotiating text and there are compounded perverse incentives for clear cutting or burning forests (i.e. REDD-plus with biochar, “sustainable forest management” and “temporarily unstocked carbon”). And let us not forget that GMO trees are acceptable, too! Not to mention the fraud, corruption, militarization and the role of organized crime predicted by Interpol. (Gangsta REDD)

Can REDD work outside the carbon market?
Fund-based approaches may be a tiny percentage of REDD, not economically competitive¹⁶⁶ or even linked to polluters. For example, the manager of the billion-dollar Amazon Fund is the Brazilian Development Bank¹⁶⁷ which funds projects that cause devastating deforestation in the Amazon. Fund-based approaches may also serve as window dressing and a pretty poster child for the massive land grab of market-based REDD. Non-market projects should use another name to avoid green washing REDD, which, fittingly, is the color of blood.

To REALLY Reduce Deforestation:

• Demarcate and title Indigenous Peoples’ lands and territories where most forests and 80% of the world’s biodiversity are found because Indigenous Peoples have sustainably managed them for millennia!
• Declare and enforce bans on deforestation
• Address the underlying causes of deforestation
• Stop large-scale monoculture tree plantations and agrofuels production
• Reduce demand for pulp and paper and restructure the logging industry
• Declare moratoria on new fossil fuel exploitation, mega-hydro dams and metal and mineral extraction on Indigenous Peoples’ traditional lands and territories
• Support non-market financial mechanisms for the full phase-out of fossil fuels development within and near traditional lands and territories of Indigenous Peoples, without nuclear power, with a just transition to sustainable jobs, energy and environment.

To read UN-REDD Framework Document: http://www.undp.org/mdtf/UN-REDD/docs/Annex-A-Framework-Document.pdf

To see photos from the protest against REDD and the World Bank in Bali: http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/gallery.php