Will REDD protect natural forests and local livelihoods?

So, are we to not care because the people being displaced and abused are the poor and indigenous? It seems for all of the talk of corporate this, Wall St. that, these types of stories just aren't sexy enough for people to give a damn. And that is a mistake because the future of our world depends on getting this right. Indigenous people have also been out here standing up to this and protesting for years for the rights of Mother Earth while being ignored.

http://globaljusticeecology.org/pressroom.php?ID=578
This report illustrates the pitfalls.

"For Immediate Release

21 September 2011

(Español debajo)

World Bank Forest Carbon Schemes Charged with Displacing Communities in the Global South, Furthering Pollution in the Global North

Washington, DC – As the World Bank, the largest source of multilateral financing for forestry projects, [1] prepares for its fall meetings here, Global Justice Ecology Project charges that the Bank’s promotion of the controversial forest-carbon scheme called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) harms both forests and forest dependent communities in developing countries, while encouraging continued pollution in vulnerable communities in developed countries like the U.S.

Following the announcement of a new sub-national REDD agreement between the states of California, USA, Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil during the UN Climate Conference in Cancun last December, Global Justice Ecology Project launched an investigation into the potential on-the-ground impacts of REDD. In March and April of 2011, GJEP traveled to Chiapas to investigate social and ecological impacts of the REDD project there, which is being designed to create carbon offset credits by quantifying the carbon stored by trees in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the Lacandon Jungle.

“During our investigation, we went to the community of Amador Hernandez, deep in the jungle,” stated Orin Langelle, from Global Justice Ecology Project. “The villagers reported to us that the Mexican government was withholding medical services as a means to pressure them to leave. If they refused, they feared the Mexican military would force them to leave, as has happened to other Indigenous communities in the Lacandon jungle.” [2]

Environmental justice groups also warn that REDD agreement will have detrimental impacts on people in California. “The carbon offsets from this REDD agreement are going to allow people in places like Richmond and Wilmington, California to continue to be polluted and sickened by polluting industries like the Chevron and Tesoro oil refineries,” said Joaquín Quetzal Sánchez, Oakland, California-based Strategist for CrossRoots: Building a Sustainable Movement.

“This REDD agreement will harm communities on all sides of the border. The only ones that win are the polluters,” Sanchez said. [3]

In October, GJEP will travel to Acre, Brazil to meet with groups concerned about the REDD project there, and to document the actual and potential impacts of the project. GJEP plans to bring representatives from Chiapas to this meeting to further opportunities for cross-border strategizing regarding the California-Chiapas-Acre REDD deal.

The effort to “protect forests” by removing the people that depend on them contradicts recent studies that demonstrate forests are best protected when the communities depending on them have legal title. In a six-year study, CIFOR (the Center for International Forestry Research) found that, “Tropical forests designated as strictly protected areas have annual deforestation rates much higher than those managed by local communities”. [4]

This article speaks of my concerns regarding REDD as well. The one part of it all that troubles me the most is that swaths of forest will be taken over by governments, corporations, etc. with no regard for the indigenous peoples who live there who would then be displaced as they could no longer live on this land if it were bought by the state and designated only as a carbon capture area. We have seen this already in places like Indonesia where collusion between the govt and logging companies resulted in indigenous people being displaced entirely because areas were also designated for logging by bribing companies to leave certain forested areas untouched.

So you have forested areas sequestering carbon on land where people are not allowed to live, while governments pay off loggers to log elsewhere which not only negates the carbon being sequestered, but pushes indigenous people completely off land they have lived on for generations by making it unliveable. What is also just as important in sequestering carbon is for all of us to reassess our own consumptive lifestyles that perpetuate this waste and destruction in the first place instead of penalizing those who contributed next to nothing to it.

Obviously sequestering carbon in forests is absolutely a step in the right direction and should be done. However, there must be a justice mechanism in place and a way for the indigenous people to have control over taking care of this land and still have a place to live that does not interfere with their customs and traditions. Also, regarding corporations that do this, it cannot be successful if they are still not going to have caps or a tax attached to the carbon that goes over the balance between the two. You cannot have a corporation buy up a patch of trees and then think they can still pollute without regard.There must be a cap to keep the carbon sequestered in balance or more than what they are spewing, and if they go over it gets taxed with that money being used to then plant more trees or provide sustainable agriculture, etc in those areas.

There also needs to be a clause in any REDD agreement whereby corporations such as Coca Cola or Monsanto as ex. would not then be allowed to own anything else in these areas which could result in them making a profit by biopiracy or stealing anything else from these areas to use for a profit. It is about sequestering carbon, and that is all it should be about. Farmers and indigenous people in these areas should retain full rights to caring for these areas. Then you have a REDD mechanism that works.

And one caveat: NO genetically engineered trees!