African Proposal Yet to Gain Foothold
By Wambi Michael, IPS, Dec 23, 2008
KAMPALA, Dec 23 (IPS) - Africa's bid to expand carbon-trading mechanisms and create rewards for sustainable farming practices on the continent made little headway at the recently concluded climate change conference in Poznań, Poland.
Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) were one of the main topics for discussion at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Dec. 1-12), with several rival proposals under consideration including the African Climate Solution (ACS) fronted by the 26 member states of the Common Market For Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
COMESA Secretary General Sindiso Ngwenya explained that the African Climate Solution calls for the extension of carbon credit mechanisms beyond REDD.
"We are calling for global markets of carbon credits and the Clean Development Mechanism to include afforestation, reforestation, agro-forestry, re-vegetation of degraded lands, reduced soil tillage and sustainable agricultural practices."
But this suggestion was bitterly criticised by groups defending the rights of indigenous peoples living and surviving on forests. Global Justice Ecology director, Anne Peterman told IPS that the programme set out by COMESA was not satisfactory.
"For us afforestation is language that often means conversion of natural grasslands to monoculture industrial timber plantations. Reforestation often means converting natural forests and formerly forested lands into monoculture industrial timber plantations. Agro-forestry directly refers to development of monoculture tree plantations.
"Reduced soil tillage often means heavy spraying of toxic herbicides like glyphosate to kill off the vegetation without tilling the soil. Sustainable agricultural practices, unfortunately has no good definition and so is basically meaningless."
Ngwenya dismissed Peterman's concern over definitions of sustainable agriculture: "In Africa we view the argument on definitions as academic, because local forests are a continuum being used by commercial logging as a buffers in agriculture forest systems."
He stressed that "We are also saying that if you have standing forests and people make a commitment that they are not going to cut these trees: why don’t you reward them? Why do you only want to reward them for planting trees? If you reward them for [conserving existing forest] in the trading mechanisms, then they are able to generate incomes to have alternative energy sources.
"We are being pragmatic. What we want is that our people should participate in this globalisation process."
Ngwenya insisted that the Bio-Carbon Initiative proposed by the ACS offers the best protection for Africa's indigenous peoples. "We are aware of the concerns around REDD, including fears indigenous forests would be commercialised and the indigenous people marginalised. But our Bio-Carbon Initiative recognises our forests, both indigenous and exotic, as the means to empower our local people.
"We are advocating for sustainable approaches which respect and support environmentally sound practices, promote afforestation programmes and involve local people."
Skeptics also questioning whether it is possible to accurately measure reductions due to the broad range of activities included in the bio-carbon initiative.
"The core of the Bio-Carbon Initiative," Ngwenya says, "is to appreciate that carbon sinks are not just forests but also soil carbon and other bio-carbons can be part of the solution. Therefore we are fighting for agriculture, forestry, and sustainable land use systems [to be included].
"This will allow meaningful engagement of Africa in the global carbon markets -- which have long sidelined Africa’s bio-carbon."
Afforestation and reforestation were excluded from the Kyoto Protocol in 199 beause of the opposition from activists and some Western countries. But there are growing numbers of voices pushing for forests to be included in a successor treaty on climate change because it is clear that deforestation accounts for almost a quarter of total greenhouse gas emissions.
The French ecology minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, said the issue will be debated further by European Union, where the bulk of carbon trading currently takes place.
"We are still discussing how afforestation, deforestation becomes part of various mechanisms of the protocol. We need it because some countries feel cheated. Some of these countries have done a lot for their forests by preserving them. We must do something for them to finance the fight against deforestation. So we are working on it and I think this will be major part of the deal in Copenhagen with in one year."
But she doubted whether re-vegetation of degraded land, reduced soil tillage and sustainable agricultural practices would be part of the discussions.
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