Indigenous Peoples see “REDD”

Editing, excerpting, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

Democracy Now! leads today’s Climate Summit segment from Cancun—

“A controversial proposal to protect forests worldwide is on the table at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation or REDD.”

The scheme “would include forests in the emerging carbon markets, allowing governments and corporations to purchase permits to protect forests as a way to offset industrial polluters’ carbon released into the atmosphere.” Though REDD is often touted as a means of “[stopping] deforestation, environmental and indigenous groups widely oppose REDD.”

On the Democracy Now news hour was Anne Petermann, executive director of the Global Justice Ecology Project. In her conversation on REDD, she said, “The world’s forests are falling at an alarming rate.” Something has to be done but what people do not yet understand is that “REDD is not going to be the solution.”

“A perfect example of why REDD will not be the solution was the World Forestry Congress in 2009, where the World Bank got up in front of a plenary session full of timber industry executives, foresters, and forestry students and explained very clearly:

‘REDD will be extremely beneficial for forestry’—not for forests [but] for forestry.

“REDD is going to benefit the largest forest destroyers in the world, while displacing the people that have traditionally protected the forests for all their lives. That is a serious problem.”

The veteran social activist and executive director of the Bemidji, Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) also spoke today with Democracy Now. However, in an earlier document titled “No REDD: A Reader,” Tom B.K. Goldtooth presented ideas on REDD in fuller context. This is some of what he wrote.

Colonialism entrenched

“Many Indigenous Peoples are starting to call REDD [and REDD+] ‘CO2lonialism of forests’ or ‘capitalism of the trees and air.’ The newspaper The Australian calls it a ‘classic 21st century scam emerging from the global climate change industry.’

“This is because, in reality, REDD/REDD+ is bad for people, bad for politics and bad for the climate. It will inevitably give more control over Indigenous Peoples’ forests to state forest departments, loggers, miners, plantation companies, traders, lawyers, speculators, brokers, Washington conservation organizations and Wall Street — resulting in violations of rights, loss of livelihood; and, ultimately, more forest loss.

Corporate motives

“Industrialized-country governments and corporations will pay for the preservation of Indigenous Peoples’ forests only if they get something in return. What they want is rights over the carbon in those forests.

“They need those rights because they want to use them as licenses to continue burning fossil fuels — and thus to continue mining fossil fuels at locations like the Albertan Tar Sands in Canada, the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Niger Delta and Appalachian mountaintops in the United States.

“They will get those rights by making deals with — and reinforcing the power of — the people that they regard as having ‘authority’ over the forests, or whoever is willing and able to steal forests or take them over using legal means.

“These people are the very governments, corporations and gangsters who have time and again proved their contempt for the rights and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples.

“The result is bound to be new and more extensive forms of elite appropriation of Indigenous and other territories.…”

Indigenous Peoples respond

“Long term solutions require turning away from prevailing paradigms and ideologies centered on pursuing economic growth, corporate profits and personal wealth accumulation as primary engines of social well-being,” Tom B.K. Goldtooth writes.

“The transitions will inevitably be toward societies that can equitably adjust to reduced levels of production and consumption, and increasingly localized systems of economic organization that recognize, honor and are bounded by the limits of nature that recognize the ‘draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.’

“In recognizing the root causes of climate change, participants call upon the industrialized countries and the world to work towards decreasing dependency on fossil fuels.

“We call for a moratorium on all new exploration for oil, gas, coal and uranium as a first step towards the full phase-out of fossil fuels, without nuclear power, with a just transition to sustainable jobs, energy and environment.

“We take this position and make this recommendation based on our concern over the disproportionate social, cultural, spiritual, environmental and climate impacts on Indigenous Peoples, who are the first and the worst affected by the disruption of intact habitats, and the least responsible for such impacts.

“Dialogue is needed amongst Indigenous and non-Indigenous stakeholders and especially the public/civil society and their governments to re-evaluate a colonial law system that doesn’t work.

“A body of law needs to be developed that recognizes the inherent rights of the environment, of animals, fish, birds, plants, water, and air outside of their usefulness to humans.

“This would address the question as to the law and rights of nature, however with the framework of indigenous natural laws or within the framework of indigenous Original Instructions. Most colonial western law limits nature and what North America Indigenous peoples term as the Circle of Life, as mere property or natural ‘resources’ to be exploited.…

“…Developed countries use tactics to continue carbon colonialism. As Indigenous Peoples, many of us are raising the bar.

“We are mobilizing with social movements, workers, women, youth, small farmers and the business sector — with a consciousness — for the most stringent emission target reductions and real solutions for social responsibility. We will make demands —

In Cancun at the COP 16 and beyond Cancun

To South Africa in 2011 and

To the Rio +20 in 2012

“As Indigenous Peoples, we are the guardians of Mother Earth, making principled stands for the global well-being of all people and all life.”


Sources and notes

“Is REDD the New Green? Indigenous Groups Resist Carbon Market-Based Forestry Scheme to Offset Emissions,” Democracy now guest December 9, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/9/is_redd_the_new_green_injustices; Guest: Anne Petermann: globaljusticeecology.org, following all of the events, blogging from Cancun at climatevoices.wordpress.com


Anne Petermann

Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Petermann is also the Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign; the North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition; and a member of the Board of Directors of the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture Series.

Anne Petermann is the author of From Native Forests to Franken-Trees, a 2001 report that details the social and ecological dangers of genetically engineered trees, and co-author of The True Cost of Agrofuels, a major 2008 report on the impact of agrofuels on forests and forest dependent peoples.

She has been involved in movements for forest protection and Indigenous rights since 1991; and the international and national climate justice movements since 2004. She co-founded the Eastern North American Resource Center of the Native Forest Network in 1993, and the STOP GE Trees Campaign in 2004. She also participated in the founding of the Durban Group for Climate Justice in 2004, and in 2007 at the Bali UN Climate Conference the founding of Climate Justice Now! In 2008, Global Justice Ecology Project spearheaded the founding of the North American Mobilization for Climate Justice. globaljusticeecology.org ; http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/about_us.php?ID=101
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/index.php#


Tom B.K. Goldtooth
Veteran social change activist Tom B.K. Goldtooth is the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), headquartered at Bemidji, Minnesota.

He has been an activist within the Native American community for more than 30 years; he has become a local, region, national and international environmental and economic justice leader and besides IEN he is active with many environmental and social justice organizations. Tom B.K. Goldtooth co-produced the award-winning documentary film “Drumbeat For Mother Earth.” The film addresses the affects of bio-accumulative chemicals on indigenous peoples, http://www.bioneers.org/presenters/tom-goldtooth

Excerpt from Introduction: Section 1: REDD and the Carbon Markets, Why REDD/REDD+ Is NOT a Solution — Tom B.K. Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network; Fast Forest Cash: How REDD+ will be market-based — Tamra Gilbertson, Carbon Trade Watch; REDD: Seeing the Forest for the Trees — Khadija Sharife; Climate Finance: The role of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank — Paulina Garzón, Policy Director, Amazon Watch; Socio Bosque: another face of green capitalism — Ivonne Ramos, Acción Ecológica
Document: “No REDD: A Reader,” http://redroadcancun.com/wp-content/uploads/REDD-Reader-1 pdf

‘DRAFT UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH,” February 7, 2010,
http://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/draft-universal-declaration-of-the-rights-of-mother-earth-2/


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