FAO/UNEP Asia-Pacific Forest Meeting Identifies Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and RECOFTC - The Centre for People and Forests have released a policy brief resulting from a meeting on forests and climate change adaptation in Asia, held in October 2011

International Institute for Sustainable Development | 18 January 2012

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Industrial palm oil production expands at expense of rainforests in Peru

Intensive palm oil production is expanding at the expense of biolologically-rich lowland rainforests in the Peruvian Amazon, reports a study published in Environmental Research Letters

mongabay.com | January 10, 2012

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Common Ground: Securing a future for all who share our planet’s resources

We live in a fragmented landscape. This would matter a lot less if human populations were sparse and ecosystems across the globe were in a healthy state. However, the exact converse is the case today: human numbers have exceeded seven billion with the fastest rates of growth in developing and often already environmentally-stressed countries, and the UN’s authoritative Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provides solid evidence that virtually all major habitat types across the planet are substantially degraded with alarming implications for their continued capacity to support human well-being into the long-term future

by Dr. Mark Everard | Nov 30 2011 by STIR in Energy Bulletin | Dec 1, 2011

Seed Sharing: To counter the rise of the proprietorial control of seeds Indian women swap seeds.

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Palm oil biofuel from peatlands has big climate impact, finds study

Biofuels produced from oil palm plantations established on tropical peatlands are a substantial source of greenhouse gas emissions, reports a comprehensive new assessment conducted for the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT)

mongabay.com | November 08, 2011

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World Bank’s Benoit Bosquet on REDD: “It’s probably good to take the time to get things right”

The “ultimate goal is to jump-start a forest carbon market”, the World Bank announced in 2007, at the launch of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facitily. A “jump-start” is a way of starting a car with a flat battery. After four years of trying, perhaps it’s time to accept the fact that there’s no point jump-starting the forest carbon car when the wheels have fallen off

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 9th November 2011

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Analysis: Indonesia: Reforming palm oil production (analysis)

Indonesia’s palm oil sector is looking to adopt more sustainable practices in a bid to alleviate growing environmental concerns while meeting rising global demand.

Josh Franken, Oxford Business Group | The Jakarta Post | Mon, 10/03/2011

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REDD in the news: 5-11 April 2010

This week’s round up of the news on REDD, in chronological order with short extracts (click on the title for the full article). For those who can’t wait until Monday for their REDD news, REDD-Monitor’s news page is updated daily: REDD in the news

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 12th April 2010

Carbon Offsets & Climate Finance in India: The Corporate-driven Climate “Solutions” of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank & United Nations

Focus on the Global South, April 2010 | India is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, yet it has played a central role in a counterproductive global climate agenda pushed by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and large corporations. India now hosts more registered greenhouse gas emission reduction projects – via the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – than any nation except China. In theory, these CDM “offset” projects – a form of “carbon trading” – supposedly reduce global emissions when developed nations avoid emission reductions at home by funding less expensive emissions reductions in developing nations. In reality, offset projects produce large quantities of greenhouse gases, pollute the local environment, and displace local livelihoods.

REDD After Copenhagen: The way forward

IISD, April 2010 | This paper analyizes the outcomes of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP-15) held in December 2009 in the area of reducing emissions from deforesation and forest degradation (REDD) in developing countries. The paper assesses key issues for the way forward in the REDD negotiations and discusses priorities for implementation at the national level. The paper was prepared for two workshops delivered in Kenya and Vietnam in March 2010 by IISD and the Alternatives to Slash and Burn Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins at the World Agroforestry Centre (ASB-ICRAF). The workshops aimed to increase understanding of the international climate change negotiations, as well as provide information on experiences in the forestry sector to lay the technical and policy foundations for better REDD programs.

Learning by Doing: practical approaches to REDD-plus

ASB eNewsletter, April 2010 | Despite the virtual failure of the Copenhagen UN climate conference to come to a global agreement, the discussion on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD-plus) has continued with force. The current focus appears to be on helping developing countries get ready for REDD-plus technically, politically and institutionally. So how can we most effectively build REDD-plus capacity? ASB strongly believes in learning by doing. Demonstration projects can be the most powerful tool to develop the technical know-how and attract the political buy-in needed to implement a national-level REDD-plus programme.

From Angst to Action: Moving Forward After Copenhagen

World Resources Institute, April 2010 | Since COP-15, Norway and France have taken the lead in coordinating interim finance mechanisms for developing countries that are preparing and taking a variety of actions to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and management (REDD+). The Accord commits countries to “the immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDD-plus,” and negotiators separately reached a workable, first draft on many of the key components of such a mechanism. This urgently needs to be finalized and adopted in Cancun in order to guide the interim finance processes. Other venues may also take action on REDD this year. Watch for whether advancing U.S. climate legislation incorporates REDD, and whether the European Union decides to include REDD in the next phase of its emissions trading scheme.

5 April 2010

The OCC is missing a great opportunity in not reviving the National Development Strategy

By Janette Bulkan, Letter to the Editor, Stabroek News, 5 April 2010 | I refer to the letter signed by Peter Persaud in Stabroek News (‘The LCDS is not cast in stone and there will be ongoing consultations with Amerindian communities,’ April 2), and respond here to the six points – 1. The hinterland consultations on the President’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) were guided by nine best-practice principles for consultation prepared by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED, based in Edinburgh, UK). Unfortunately the President’s Office of Climate Change and its ministerial field teams failed to follow those principles, as the IIED report notes in its many comments on the limitations of the process.

Chinese PM to visit Indonesia in April

Saigon Giai Phong, 5 April 2010 | Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao will visit Indonesia this month for talks focusing on infrastructure investment, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Rajasa said Monday. “The Chinese trade minister has confirmed that the prime minister will visit Indonesia from April 23 to 24,” Rajasa told reporters. China has agreed to lend two billion dollars for infrastructure investment in Indonesia, deemed vital to achieving the country’s growth target of seven percent a year by 2014. Growth last year was 4.5 percent. Beijing will give Jakarta 1.8 billion dollars worth of preferential export buyer’s credits as well as a concessional loan of 263 million dollars, Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said Saturday after meeting Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming. Indonesia plans to spend 140 billion dollars in the next five years to improve its poor infrastructure such as toll roads, bridges, ports and power stations.

6 April 2010

Fourth Rights and Resources Initiative Dialogue on Forests, Governance and Climate Change

IISD, 6 April 2010 | The fourth Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) Dialogue on Forests Governance and Climate Change opened on Tuesday, 6 April 2010 in London, UK, attended by representatives of more than 20 countries. Two sessions took place in the morning, addressing: (1) perspectives on the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, plus conservation (REDD+) process, architecture, standards and role of non‐governmental actors; and (2) issues, options and recommended principles and criteria for proposed interim and global REDD+ architectures.

REDD+ policy board approves $4.49m for Zambia programmes

By Mutale Kapekele, The Post Online, 6 April 2010 | THE United Nations Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policy board has approved the budget allocation of US $4.49 million for the Zambia national programme… Following a meeting on March 19, 2010 in Nairobi, the policy board approved Zambia’s allocation for the programme that would support the country to build the institutional and stakeholder capacity and for developing an enabling policy environment for REDD+… “Inter-sectoral coordination amongst key sectors like agriculture, energy and environment will be enhanced and effective strategies to combat deforestation developed,” the UNDP stated. “Zambia will also require a robust system for monitoring the forest cover and measuring, reporting and verifying the emission levels.” The UNDP stated that with the final national review and approval of the UN-REDD programme document, the programme activities are expected to commence in a few months.

Fast, Easy, Cheap But Inappropriate

KpSHK, 6 April 2010 | Via Koran Tempo (29 / 3), Meine van Noordwijk of ICRAF called mitigation of climate change through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is a false concept. One reason, the concept of REDD is too much put its focus on the funding (money), while the aspect of justice (social and environmental) is abandoned. Meine opinion is a severe blow to the bearers of REDD’s myth (fast, easy and cheap way) for climate change mitigation efforts in Indonesia, which touted the post-UNFCCC COP 13 in Bali. Moreover, if it were combined with investments of carbon trading in which REDD will tend to become offsets schemes, developed countries does not have to reduce its emissions by buying carbon sequestration services in developing countries that have forests and peat.

REDD Forest carbon incentive rules need time, definition

By Nina Chestney, Reuters, 6 April 2010 | Talks to define a mechanism for global forest protection should not be rushed if it is to work efficiently and fairly, a panel of experts said on Tuesday. Talks began in Paris last month to define an interim and global architecture for a financial incentive scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation called REDD-plus. “We know any system which looks good on paper on day one is no good if it doesn’t stimulate long-term results,” said Lars Lovold, director of the Rainforest Foundation Norway… “We need to revise the timeframe to allow for proper consultation. Putting a document on a website is not enough,” said Francesco Martone, policy adviser at the Forest Peoples Programme. Defining financial rewards for governments that make progress in cutting emissions and sustaining forests was also key, said Dan Nepstad, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center.

Chaos and the Accord: Climate Change, Tropical Forests and REDD+ after Copenhagen

John O. Niles, mongabay.com, 6 April 2010 | The Copenhagen Accord also creates two new mechanisms. Mechanisms in climate change policy are how developed and developing countries shake hands, pay for, and measure emission reductions. Under the Kyoto Protocol, it was the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that oversaw the carbon market between developed and developing nations. The CDM was only a ten-paragraph Article (Article 12) yet its implementation channeled hundreds of billions of dollars in green investments. The two new mechanisms in the Copenhagen Accord have the potential to become vital engines for climate change mitigation. But, right now, these two mechanisms have been authorized by an accord that has no clear authority. Of the two mechanisms, the REDD+ mechanism is conceptually more advanced.

CSO Representative Reviews UN-REDD and World Bank’s Forest Carbon Facility

Climate-L.org, 6 April 2010 | Global Witness, a non-governmental organization (NGO) representing civil society on the UN-REDD Policy Board, has submitted an assessment of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) Readiness-Preparation Proposals (R-PPs) and Joint Program Documents (JPDs) of the UN-REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries) Programme. A key finding of the assessment is the need for further guidance on non-carbon monitoring from the FCPF, the UN-REDD Programme, and the international community.

Indonesia battles deforestation with U.N. support

By Claire M. Umali, EcoSeed, 6 April 2010 | ndonesia’s Ministry of Forestry has joined forces with United Nations to launch a program that will combat deforestation and forest degradation, consequently reducing emissions brought about by such devastating actions… U.N.-REDD will launch its activities in Sulawesi Islands, adding to Indonesia’s existing REDD initiatives in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java… Meanwhile, Norway also expressed its commitment to work with the U.N. as its sees REDD as a launch pad for further engagement in similar initiatives in Indonesia. The Norwegian government will provide approximately $5.6 million from 2009 to 2011. “We are also ready to discuss further cooperation between Indonesia and Norway on this important issue,” said Eivind S. Homme, the Norwegian ambassador for Indonesia. “Indonesia is a part of global solution in mitigating the effect of climate change,” he added.

7 April 2010

US$200,000 World Bank grant approved

Stabroek News, 7 April 2010 | A US$200,000 grant from the World Bank to support information sharing activities on forest preservation strategies has been available for more than a month but government has not moved to sign the document. Approval for the release of the money was given by the bank in mid-February, Giorgio Valentini, the World Bank Country Representative for Guyana, said. The Guyana government was notified that the document was available for signature since March 2, he said. It is not clear why the administration has made no move to access the money.

Nations Pledge Billions for Forests

By Karin Rives, America.gov, 7 April 2010 | Armed with $4.5 billion in new funding pledges, world leaders are beginning to tackle a major contributor to climate change: deforestation. In mid-March, representatives from more than 60 nations met in Paris for the International Conference on the Major Forest Basins to begin to develop a global plan to implement REDD — the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program. It was the first follow-up to the Copenhagen climate summit in late 2009, and the 10 countries leading the effort say they will have a REDD plan completed for the United Nations climate meeting in Mexico in December.

Protecting Forests is ‘All About the Economy,’ Experts Say

By Fidelis E Stariastanti, Jakarta Globe, 7 April 2010 | “It has to be about the economy, because otherwise people will not be able to appreciate the value of the trees,” said Agus Sari, chief executive officer of PT Pelangi Energi Abadi Citra Enviro. The company is a consulting arm of Yayasan Pelangi Indonesia, a research institute in natural resources and the environment. Agus said the idea of REDD was to protect forests, but if people did not know about the incentives for not cutting down trees, they would continue to do so to earn money. He said people would only comply with the REDD campaign if they knew there was money in it for them. Eka Ginting, the director of PT Rimba Raya Conservation, said environmental issues could not be separated from economic issues. “Who says that when we’re talking about the environment, we don’t talk about the economy? It’s all about the economy,” he said.

Exactly Whose Language Is REDD Talking?

By Fidelis E Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe, 7 April 2010 | Yuriun, coordinator of the Indigenous Community Network of Aceh, said he had heard about a thing called REDD, but was unsure what it was all about. “This REDD shows up and is heard everywhere but nobody can really explain to us how it works, who’s doing it, what kind of incentives we can get out of it,” he said. “I only know that it’s a program to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation. But those are the words of smart people, the words of academics – us villagers don’t really understand the meaning of it.”… Yuriun is wary of the initiative, saying it could just be another way to expel indigenous people from their lands. “It’ll be our enemy if more traditional lands are occupied, casting us out from the source of our livelihoods,” he said… WCS-IP’s Alexander said REDD should not be written off by indigenous groups. He said these groups should instead use the initiative to fight for acknowledgement of their rights.

Forests at a Climate Crossroads

By Stephen Leahy, IPS, 7 April 2010 | According to Anne Larson, who works in Nicaragua as an associate at the Indonesia-based Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), “REDD presents lots of risks.” “Most countries are simply not ready. They do not have policies to protect the rights of local and indigenous peoples, to determine land tenure or even work out who owns the ‘carbon rights’ to a forest,” Larson told participants at an international conference on smallholder and community forestry in Montpellier, France, in late March… In late March another billion dollars was promised and a 10-nation steering group established to drive the implementation of a REDD+ global programme. It could be approved at the next annual United Nations climate conference, to take place in Cancun, Mexico. That may be too soon in Larson’s estimation.

UNPFII to Consider Indigenous Peoples’ Local Adaptation and Mitigation Measures

Climate-L.org, 7 April 2010 | The ninth session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), which will convene in New York, US, from 19-30 April 2010, will focus on “Indigenous peoples: development with culture and identity: articles 3 and 32 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” … The report on the “Results of the Copenhagen meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC; implications for indigenous peoples’ local adaptation and mitigation measures” (E/C.19/2010/18) addresses equity and justice issues, the agreements reached on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD-plus) and the ways forward, and the Copenhagen Accord.

Sebai developments to benefit Amerindians

By Priya Nauth, Guyana Chronicle, 7 April 2010 | “The LCDS is a visionary strategy that our President, Bharrat Jagdeo came up with and, today, he is respected throughout the world as one of the leading thinkers and one of the movers and shakers, in terms of the environment and global warming,” [Minister of Housing and Water, Mr. Irfaan] Ali said. He went on: “The LCDS is now an international strategy. It is now all over and we have some people in Guyana, they are not concerned about development. All they are concerned about is criticise, criticise and criticise… So, even on this strategy that the world has accepted as visionary, as a masterpiece, they are negative about it here… We have to ensure, as a people, that the LCDS is implemented, because it is very important and necessary for the well-being of the planet and for the future of Guyana.” Ali said the LCDS is not about stopping people from utilising the forest. “It is about us becoming responsible for how we use the forests.”

Forestry to have big role in U.S. carbon plan

By Timothy Gardner, Reuters, 7 April 2010 | Domestic deals to convert bare lands into forests and keep tree stands healthy could supply 60 percent of available offsets in any U.S. cap-and-trade plan on greenhouse gas emissions, a Barclays Capital analyst said. The overall supply of domestic offsets could hit 250 million short tons annually by 2020, Trevor Sikorski, a London-based director of carbon markets at Barclays said in a research note. U.S. forestry and agriculture projects could supply 150 million short tons of those offsets by 2020, the note said. “Given the political importance of forestry and agriculture in the United States … (such) offsets will be included in any federal cap-and-trade system,” Sikorski said. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow

8 April 2010

Myanmar cooperates with int’l organizations for mitigation of deforestation

iStockAnalyst, 8 April 2010 | The Myanmar Forestry Department and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) held a workshop in Nay Pyi Taw Thursday on reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Friday. Papers on forest resources, forest management system and enabling conditions for REDD in Myanmar, role of forestry sector in climate mitigation through REDD and procedure and potential implication on how to link with UN-REDD program were discussed by officials from both sides respectively.

Indigenous people speak up on climate change

By Kevin James Moore, MediaGlobal, 8 April 2010 | “[Indigenous people] have very long histories of adapting to the changes in the climate and they continue to adapt up to the present,” Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) told MediaGlobal. “Therefore it is important that they are able to share how they are affected by climate change and also how they are adapting.” A seminar held from 25-26 March in Manila, the Philippines was attended by the parliaments of 12 countries of the Asia-Pacific region to discuss the impact of climate change on indigenous people. The seminar was meant to raise the awareness of parliamentarians in Asia and the Pacific on indigenous people’s concerns and activities relating to climate change, explained Corpuz.

9 April 2010

ASEAN Leaders’ Statement on Joint Response to Climate Change

Voice of Vietnam, 9 April 2010 | WE, the Heads of State/Government of Brunei Darussalam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Republic of Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Union of Myanmar, the Republic of the Philippines, the Republic of Singapore, the Kingdom of Thailand and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Member States of ASEAN, on the occasion of the 16th ASEAN Summit; … DO HEREBY DECLARE TO: Towards a global solution to the challenge of climate change at COP 16/CMP 6 … 9. Reaffirm that agreement on and effective implementation of Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)-plus mechanisms is critical for contributions by ASEAN Members States to mitigate emissions, and offers major opportunities for enhancing biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, as well as supporting the livelihood of local communities in a sustainable manner.

Venezuela, Bolivia Urge UN to Set Aside Copenhagen Climate Pact

By Ben Sills, Bloomberg, 9 April 2010 | Venezuela and Bolivia urged negotiators at United Nations climate talks to set aside the Copenhagen agreement on global warming, threatening to keep open a rift that led to a breakdown in the discussions last year. The accord represents “the economic interests of the few which are standing in the way of a broad, democratic agreement,” Venezuelan delegate Claudia Salerno told negotiators at a meeting today in Bonn, Germany. “No one should congratulate themselves for this.” … “Getting that deal we have, every country gave up something but we all gained things in getting a deal that could be implemented,” Pershing said. “We should not drop that or lose that.”

Organizational Issues in Spotlight as Climate Talks Resume in Bonn

By Steve Zwick, Ecosystem Marketplace, 9 April 2010 | Delegates to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have gathered in Bonn, Germany, for the first meeting since Copenhagen. This three-day meeting, however, is more about process than product. Ecosystem Marketplace drops in for a quick look at the negotiations.

10 April 2010

Where to now on Deforestation

By David Ritter, Global Policy Journal, 10 April 2010 | The Fourth Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) Dialogue on Forests, Governance and Climate Change held at Stationers Hall in London this week, provided a timely opportunity to test the temperature on international negotiations on deforestation in the aftermath of the Copenhagen climate conference… Although it also evinced plenty of optimism, the RRI dialogue meeting in London this week made clear some of the tensions associated with the Paris-Oslo initiative.

From ‘Avatar’ to Amazon – James Cameron’s Crusade

By Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times, 10 April 2010 | The focus is the huge Belo Monte dam planned by the Brazilian government. It would be the third largest in the world, and environmentalists say it would flood hundreds of square miles of the Amazon and dry up a 60-mile stretch of the Xingu River, devastating the indigenous communities that live along it. For years the project was on the shelf, but the government now plans to hold an April 20 auction to award contracts for its construction. Stopping the dam has become a fresh personal crusade for the director, who came here as indigenous leaders from 13 tribes held a special council to discuss their last-ditch options. It was Mr. Cameron’s first visit to the Amazon, he said, even though he based the fictional planet in “Avatar” on Amazon rain forests. Still, he found the real-life similarities to the themes in his movie undeniable. The dam is a “quintessential example of the type of thing we are showing in ‘Avatar’.

Illegal logging ‘must end’ before REDD takes effect

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta Post, 10 April 2010 | The government should work out how to stamp out long-standing illegal logging within two years if the country wants to secure funding from carbon trading in the forestry sector, say environment activists. They warned that failure to tackle illegal logging would also jeopardize the government’s pledge to implement the UN system of measurable, reportable and verifiable (MRV) scheme on emissions cuts. “It will be difficult for Indonesia to claim the emission cuts if illegal logging persists after REDD takes effect after 2012,” Jatna Supriatna, director of International Conservation told reporters on the sidelines of an international conference on Muslim action against climate change on Friday… Executive director of the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) Berry Furqon agreed that tackling illegal logging should aim to protect the forest and not be used for political gain.

11 April 2010

Carbon credit documentary should not have been shown, BBC admits

By Mark Olden and Michael Gillard, The Observer, 11 April 2010 | A BBC documentary about socialite Robin Birley and his carbon credits business venture in Africa should never have been broadcast, an internal inquiry by the corporation has found. Millions of viewers were misled because the sympathetic documentary shown on BBC World News failed to declare that it was financed by a secretive trust that was linked to Birley. The BBC acted in response to an Observer investigation into Birley’s “philanthropy capitalism” venture in Mozambique. Taxpayers’ money was used to subsidise poor farmers there to protect forests and plant trees that absorb carbon dioxide. Envirotrade, Birley’s company, then sells “carbon credits” to celebrities and businesses wanting to offset their emissions. Customers who used Birley’s venture to offset emissions included the agency that handles Brad Pitt and George Cloone

LCDS transitional arrangements

By Dr Clive Thomas, Stabroek News, 11 April 2010 | This week I wrap up that part of my assessment of the LCDS that focuses on the several misstatements and computational errors found in the draft text and related official documents, especially as they pertain to such basic data as the area under forest and estimated rates of deforestation for Guyana. I am aware that these disclosures have been disconcerting to several readers who cannot comprehend how such weaknesses could persist in a text claiming global attention, while being simultaneously advertised as officially sponsored by the Government of Guyana. To those other readers who sarcastically ask me: what else would you expect from third-rate politically preferred know-it-alls? I hasten to remind them that if careful thought is given they would acknowledge that Guyanese are capable of producing a far better product. That is why, personally I am more disappointed than critical.

Anti-LCDS politics

Guyana Chronicle, 11 April 2010 | It would not have been an easy decision for representatives of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) and the Minister of Amerindian Affairs (Pauline Sukhai) to stage a picket protest on Friday outside the venue of a workshop organised by the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA). The workshop was an activity in relation to the government’s internationally recognised Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and, according to the APA, it was designed as a “knowledge-building” initiative for its members and others. The association, therefore, criticised the picket demonstration as a violation of the right to freedom of assembly. However, the peaceful picket demonstration was considered necessary, according to the NTC’s chairperson, Yvonne Pearson, in view of continuing misinformation and misrepresentations by the APA to undermine the LCDS in the face of significant consultations that have taken place since last year, and continues at various levels.

Scourge of the rainforests

By Jonathan Leake, The Times, 11 April 2010 | The renewable-energy industry faces new controversy after a Northamptonshire firm became the latest to win planning permission to burn tropical palm oil to make electricity. Chelveston Renewable Energy has been told it can build a bio-oil power station on a disused RAF bomber base near Wellingborough. Such projects have infuriated environmentalists who say the burgeoning market for such oils is accelerating the destruction of tropical rainforests as they are cleared for biofuel plantations.

REDD-Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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Low Mekong levels provide wake-up call for regional cooperation

The low levels of the Mekong River this year have provided a "wake-up call" for the need to improve cooperation in managing the vital regional resource, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Monday

Earth Times | 05 Apr 2010

"Our economic, social and environmental prosperity depends on how we protect and share the benefits of our common water resources through cooperative mechanisms," Abhisit told the first Mekong River Summit being held in Hua Hin, 130 kilometres south-west of Bangkok.

The summit marks the 15th anniversary of the Mekong River Commission, which consists of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

The prime ministers of those four countries attended the summit along with Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Song Tao and Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win.

Neither China nor Myanmar are members of the commission although they are dialogue partners with the regional group.

China's role in managing the Mekong, South-East Asia's longest waterway, has been the main theme of the first Mekong summit.

The river hit its lowest level in 50 years in February, raising key questions about how to equitably share the regional resource.

The 4,350-kilometre-long river originates in southern China and meanders through Laos and Thailand into Cambodia, where it feeds Tonle Sap Lake before reaching southern Vietnam and emptying into the South China Sea.

An unusually severe drought in southern China and South-East Asia has been blamed for the unusually low river level, but environmentalists and non-governmental organizations have also blamed China, which has constructed four dams on the shared waterway.

China has adamantly denied the dams have contributed to reducing the river's downstream flow, claiming the structures are only used for generating hydroelectricity and not for irrigation.

The Chinese delegation provided data to substantiate their claims during pre-summit meetings in Hua Hin.

Abhisit praised China's willingness to provide such information in his opening address to the summit.

"Sharing knowledge and data is one of the crucial means to mitigate problems," Abhisit said. "I also hope that such genuine efforts of cooperation would become more regular."

The Mekong River Comission hopes to get a commitment from China to be more forthcoming on sharing information on the river, half of which lies in southern China.

"At the technical level, we have had good cooperation with China, but we clearly want more information, more data," commission chief executive officer Jeremy Bird said.

"I think China is taking a step-by-step approach to this cooperation," he said.

Copyright DPA

© 2010 www.earthtimes.org, The Earth Times, All Rights Reserved

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PERU: The Tangled Paths of New Forest Law

Indigenous protests prompted the introduction of a new legislative bill on forests and wildlife in Peru, the second most forested country in South America. Experts consulted by Tierramérica pointed to what the initiative gets right, but also to what's wrong with it

By Milagros Salazar* | Tierramérica in Inter-Press Service | Apr 1, 2010

The open wounds of the Amazon. Credit:Rolly Valdivia/IPS

The bill proposes a land registry to identify the zones with forest resources, which would help prevent disputes related to different economic activities, according to the experts.

"This is an advance because decisions about what to do with the forests can't be made if we don't know where they are," José Luis Capella, of the non-governmental Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, told Tierramérica. This gap in knowledge reveals a major problem, given that nearly 60 percent of Peruvian territory is suitable for forest.

However, Sandro Chávez, president of the Ecological Forum, warns that the initiative lacks a mechanism to ensure legal security for ancestral lands. "That must be a prior guarantee so that third parties do not impose their plans," he said.

The text, according to Chávez, does not clear up the communities' doubts about the expansion of agriculture that is occurring to provide inputs for biofuels, or the mining and fossil fuel projects in the Peruvian Amazon region.

The number of petroleum lots approved in the area jumped from 30 in the year 2000 to 151 in 2006, covering 89 percent of the country's Amazon region with exploration projects, according to official data.

Chávez told Tierramérica that the incorporation of communal land ownership into the proposed law came from an agreement between officials and indigenous groups. That dialogue was initiated by the Alan García government following the deaths of more than 33 people, including Indians and police officers, in protests in the northern province of Bagua last June.

The government set up taskforces, including one dedicated to overturning legislative decree 1.090, which modified the old forestry law and left 60 percent of primary forest unprotected.

The former national forest director Gustavo Suárez de Freitas, who participated as a representative of the Agriculture Ministry in the dialogue, committed to incorporating the issue in the bill and is now a consultant to the technical secretariat that is drafting the initiative.

Suárez de Freitas told Tierramérica that in Article 61 of the bill it is made clear that the "government will not submit a forest law about the lands of the communities, it is about forests."

In Peru, forests are only granted in concession for use, not property. The forests are considered part of the national wealth. Suárez de Freitas believes that creating a legal mechanism implies "a change."

The Ecological Forum responded that the indigenous peoples call for prior approval of a law on use rights that provides them with greater security over their lands, and regulation of territory and community ownership.

There are currently more than 1,200 native communities, but there are many more that have not been recognised.

In contrast, Capella noted that the initiative improves institutions by creating the Forest Service, a technical body under the Ministry of Agriculture, and encourages the participation of civil society and the private sector by upholding the creation of the National Forest Commission.

However, he admitted that it is one thing to have the law on paper, and yet another "to guarantee mechanisms that work." One example is the transfer of forest management powers to the regional governments, which are often not provided with the resources to complete that work.

Chávez, meanwhile, warned that the bill opens up some cracks in controlling the illegal exploitation of the forests and changes in land use.

He questions the exclusion of a proposal for stiffer requirements for those transporting forest products. As it stands, almost any documentation is acceptable.

He also criticises the lack of a ban on forest products that are endangered or a system for tracking timber taken from the forest, which would help prove irregularities ranging from the logging to the export of the lumber.

The initiative states that the lands suitable for forest or under protection cannot be approved for agricultural purposes, but just a few lines further on, it refers to a provision of land classification for its "capacity of greater use." Indigenous groups want that overturned because it would allow changing land use for extractive industries or infrastructure, said Chávez, underscoring the contradiction.

The experts and NGOs will be able to send their comments on the bill up to Apr. 9. Afterwards, the Executive branch will approve a final version to be presented to Congress for a vote.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Copyright © 2010 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.

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Malaysian palm oil grower loses case over damages to rainforest community

IOI group suffered a legal setback this week when the Miri High Court — a court for Miri District in Sarawak, a state in Malaysian Borneo — ruled that the palm oil grower is liable for damages caused by the destruction of land belonging to Long Teran Kanan, a Kayan native community. The legal battle has dragged on for 12-years but now represents an important precedent for forest-dependent communities in Malaysia, reports the Bruno Manser Fund, an NGO that campaigns on behalf of Sarawak's forest people

mongabay.com | April 01, 2010

According to the Borneo Resources Institute Malaysia (BRIMAS), Senior Assistant Registrar of the Miri High Court, Abdul Raafidin bin Majidi on behalf of Justice Datuk Abdul Aziz bin Adul Rahim, ruled that members of the village of Long Teran Kanan possess native customary rights over land that had been granted to IOI by the Sarawak state government. The court said the leases had been issued unconstitutionally and were therefore "null and void."

"With this decision, the court declared that the first and second defendants or its agents or servants are trespassing over the native customary rights land of the plaintiffs and that any damages and loss suffered by the plaintiffs be assessed by the Deputy Registrar of the High Court at a date to be fixed," said BRIMAS in a statement.

"The court awarded both exemplary and aggravated damages against the defendants."

The defendants — the Sarawak Government Land and Survey Department, the Land Custody Development Authority (Pelita) and IOI Pelita Plantation Sdn. Bhd. — are expected to appeal the decision.

Implications for sustainable palm oil

Deforestation by a logging company around a Penan village in the Middle Baram region in Sarawak. Image courtesy of the Bruno Manser Fund

The court ruling is another blow to the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an initiative that aims to improve the environmental performance of palm oil production through a certification standard, says Bruno Manser. IOI is a prominent member of the group, but last month a report from Friends of the Earth linked the palm oil grower to deforestation in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.

Legal battles for Sarawak's forest people continue

The Long Teran Kanan ruling comes less than three months after authorities destroyed, without warning, 39 Iban homes in the village of Sungai Sekabai in Sarawak in a dispute between the community and state-backed land developer, Tatau Land Sdn Bhf. A Sarawak court shortly thereafter issued an injunction to prevent further demolition.

One of the destroyed homes belonged to Nor Nyawai, a community leader in Sungai Sekabai who famously won a court case in 2001 which recognized native rights over primary rainforest. But while the ruling set a precedent that strengthened native claims to customary lands in Sarawak, the community of Sungai Sekabai has been battling developers ever since. A timber company at the root of the dispute has cleared much of the forest around the community, replacing it with acacia plantations, despite the 2001 court decision.

The Sarawak state government has long backed industrial interests over those of native peoples like the Penan and Iban, both by investing in projects — including oil palm plantations, mines, hydroelectric projects, and logging operations — and by sending in the military and police to crush local opposition. Its newest scheme is known as SCORE, a set of projects that will turn a large swathe of Sarawak into an industrial corridor for mining and energy development. SCORE includes at least four hydroelectric dams (up to 28,000MW of power), aluminum-smelting and steel plants, coal mines (1.46 billion metric tons), and natural gas development (nearly 41 billion cubic feet), according the state government.

Copyright mongabay 2010

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Minister Hatta backs much-debated food estate

Environment Minister  Gusti Muhammad Hatta has thrown his weight behind a plan to set up a food estate in Merauke, Papua province, a plan many environmental groups see as a setback

Adianto P. Simamora | The Jakarta Post | April 3, 2010

Gusti said the project should first develop 366,612 hectares of ailing forested land of while waiting for assessments on the planned 1.6 million hectares.

“The food estate projects should be implemented in steps without victimizing primary forests in Merauke,” Gusti said.

He made the statement after Greenomics Indonesia had a meeting with Gusti and other senior staff about the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) on Thursday.

Gusti also cautioned that the massive 1 million hectare forest conversion for agriculture in Central Kalimantan province under Soeharto administration was not to be repeated.

The deputy minister for environmental damage control at the Environment Ministry, Masnellyarti Hilman said the ministry was working on a proposal that the environmental impact analysis for the MIFEE project should be made by the central government.

She insisted that Merauke administration should first assess its environmental condition to determine  whether the province could accommodate such big projects.

The 2009 Environmental Law requires local authorities to run strategic environmental assessments to identify capability of environment to accommodate the projects.

The impact analysis will be issued based on the findings of the strategic assessment.

The law says the project developers should first secure an environmental permit from the Environment Ministry before applying for business permits.

The MIFEE project was under the Agriculture Ministry’s program that aimed to boost food production. A number of big companies, including from energy sector will reportedly take part in the project.

The Agriculture Ministry has not yet secured licenses from the Forestry Ministry to convert the forest.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan previously said he would issue a permit to convert the virgin forest for food estate projects.

Greenomics Indonesia agreed that priority should be given to the primary 366,612 hectares, with permission from the Forestry Ministry.

“If there is progress, the project could be expanded to another 139,333 hectares of ailing production forest but permits should be [obtained] from the House of Representatives,” Greenomics executive director Elfian Effendi said.

He said that the total natural forest which could be converted for MIFEE projects was only 505,945 hectares.

Greenomics said that if the government continued its plan to dig 1.6 million hectares in Merauke, some 1.1 million hectares would be from the conversion of natural forests, which would be against the government’s pledge to protect forests to cut emissions.

“Minister Gusti must continue comparing the impacts of massive forest conversion for food estates to the government’s pledge to cut 26 percent emissions by 2020,” he said.

He said that the ministry should apply the 2009 law as instrument to control the project through the impact analysis and environmental permits.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved

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Indonesia: Agriculture expansion plan under fire

The Indonesian government's plan to develop a food estate in Papua has come in for heavy criticism for potentially marginalizing small farmers and threatening the environment

By IRIN | SperoNews | March 28, 2010

The government hopes the 1.6 million hectare Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate in Merauke District will turn Indonesia into one of the world's biggest food producers.

The project will need between 50 and 60 trillion rupiah (US$5.5 billion-$6.6 billion) in initial investment and is expected to create thousands of jobs, Deputy Agriculture Minister Bayu Krisnamurthi said.

Some 36 local and foreign companies have expressed interest and the government will spend between 2.5 and three trillion rupiah on infrastructure, he said.

"We need major investors to come in first," Krisnamurthi told reporters this month.

Crops to be grown include rice, sugar cane, soya beans and maize, he said.

NGO activists have rejected the plan, saying the estate could bring more harm than benefit to the local population.

"Food is not just a commercial commodity but is also a basic human right, and leaving food provision to the private sector can hinder people's access to food because corporations are driven by profit," Elisha Kartini, an activist from the Indonesian Farmer Union (SPI), told IRIN.

The Papua region, comprising most of the western half of the island of New Guinea, is divided into two provinces – Papua and West Papua. They are the poorest of Indonesia’s 32 provinces, with 35 percent of its 2.6 million inhabitants living below the poverty line, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, against a national poverty rate of 14.15 percent in 2009.

A traditional food market in Papua, one of Indonesia's poorest regions. Photo: Jefri Aries/IRIN

Competition

Indonesia's leading environmental group, Walhi, warned that the project would amount to a land grab and cause local farmers to suffer because they would be unable to compete with major corporations.

"The foundation of our food security is still vulnerable," Muhammad Islah, Walhi's water and food campaigner, told IRIN

"Farmers are still struggling with scarcity of land in the face of market liberalization and government policy unfavourable to small farmers," he said.

"If this project goes ahead, it would amount to legalised land-grabbing when domestic and foreign businesses are allowed to compete with small farmers."

Agriculture Minister Suswono said Indonesian companies would control interests in the estate and foreign ownership would be limited to 49 percent.

Deputy Minister Krisnamurthi said the estate was expected to contribute one million metric tonnes in rice production annually and between 800,000 and 1.2 million metric tonnes of sugar. Indonesia produces about 60 million tonnes of rice annually.

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Radjasa said the project would start this year but details were still being worked out and tried to allay fears that it would damage the environment.

A local Papuan man tends to his sweet potato plants on a hillside in Papua. Photo: Jefri Aries/IRIN

"We have to really make use of idle land, so forest areas must remain intact and deforested areas will be converted into plantation areas," he said.

Environmental threat

But Walhi warned that the estate would threaten the ecosystem and its ecological balance.

"Large-scale land conversions in Merauke, which consists of predominantly low-lying land and marshes, could cause it to lose its land areas," Walhi said in a statement. "The decrease in forest and water catchment areas could result in a faster intrusion of sea water to the land."

The West Papua Advocacy Team, a Papuan pressure group, said the plan entailed an expansion of Merauke's population of some 175,000 people to up to 800,000.

The group warned that the project would likely involve a state-supported inflow of non-Papuans along the lines of decades of "transmigration policies" adopted by the government of former president Suharto.

The policy has in the past been blamed for ethnic conflict in the Indonesian part of Borneo and Sumatra islands.

"That conflict has arisen as local populations are marginalized in their own homelands as government supports programmes that favour the internal migrants to the disadvantage of locals," the group said in a statement.

"There is growing opposition to the scheme from small-scale Papuan farmers who say they fear their traditional livelihoods will be threatened by the large-scale, state-subsidized commercialization of agriculture," it added.

© Copyright Spero, All rights reserved

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Food estate projects to dig deeper into forests

Greenomics Indonesia predicted Wednesday most of the planned 1.6 million of hectares of food estates in Merauke, Papua, would open forested areas

Adianto P. Simamora | The Jakarta Post | March 25, 2010

An assessment of forestry data by Greenomics said there were only 300,000 hectares of production forest there, which could be converted into other purposes such as food estate projects.

“The area is not large scale; they are scattered and the permit should be issued by the Forestry Ministry,” Executive Director Elfian Effendi said.

He said that if the project developers wanted to use the land, they should secure from the Forestry Ministry  the approval from the House of Representatives.

“There must be an independent team to assess the area, and all mechanisms in securing permits should be implemented before utilizing the land,” he said.

The Agriculture Ministry planned to establish 1.6 million of hectares of food estates and energy in Papua.

But the Forestry Ministry has yet to provide the license to convert virgin forests into food estates.

Data from Greenomics said that out of 4.7 million hectares of land in Merauke, 95 percent was still forested area. It says there are 3.42 million hectares believed to be virgin forest in Merauke.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.

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Indonesia opens protected rainforests to mining and other developments

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has issued new regulations, which will allow underground mining in protected areas, according to the Jakarta Post. The new rules will also allow power plants, renewable energy, and transportation such as toll roads in protected forests

Jeremy Hance | mongabay.com | March 16, 2010

"We are now waiting for a presidential decree to bring the regulations into force. A number of firms have applied for mining permits in protected forest areas," a senior official at the Forestry Ministry, Bambang Mulyo, told the Jakarta Post Monday.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan defended the move, saying that strict environmental regulations will apply to the mines.

Deforestation of peatland forest in Indonesian Boreno. Photo by Rhett A Butler.

"The regulation will only allow mining activities to operate under the forest areas. So this is not for open mining and hopefully will only bring a minimum impact to the ecosystem in protected forests," he said as reported by the Jakarta Post.

"Because of the lack of regulations, most of the areas were being exploited without considering reforestation," Hasan added. "In addition, they will be obliged to pay taxes for operating mines under the protected forest."

The move is being made in part to attract more mining investment through clarifying regulations, cutting red tape, and allowing mining in numerous areas long off-limits.

Indonesia loses more than a million hectares of forest every year to logging for timber and plantations such as oil palm and pulp, as well as fires. Largely because of this widespread deforestation, Indonesia is number three in carbon emissions after China and the United States.

Recently the Indonesian government stated that it would reduce greenhouse gas emission by 26 percent in a decade. It has said that 14 percent of this would be related to deforestation. The government also plants to plant a billion trees on degraded lands.

Covering over 17,000 islands, Indonesia is home to a large number of well-known endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger, both the Bornean and Sumatran orangutan, the Sundaland clouded leopard, the wild cattle anoa, the Asian elephant, as well as both the Sumatran and Javan rhino. Many of these species last strongholds are in the nation's protected forests.

Recently a government official estimated that only half of Indonesia's species are known.

In all, scientists have currently catalogued over 30,000 species of plants and over 3,000 mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians in Indonesia. Its number of recorded mammals—515—is second only to Brazil.

Copyright mongabay 2010

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It's Possible to Reverse Climate Change in Africa

A small environmental revolution is taking place among peasant farmers and villagers in West Africa, a region once devastated by drought and systematic land degradation, and it is peasants like Yacouba Sawadogo and Sakina Mati leading it

Luc Gnacadja | East African in AllAfrica.com | 15 March 2010

Sawadogo, an illiterate peasant farmer in Burkina Faso, has become a celebrity in his village.

He traverses the world's capitals in his open Sahelian sandals to share his expertise with policy-makers.

Undaunted by neighbours who were burning his crop and calling him a madman, this man "single-handedly has had more impact on conservation than all the national and international researchers put together," claims geographer and natural resource management specialist, Dr Chris Reij of the Netherlands, who has followed Sawadogo's agricultural innovation for over 25 years.

Building on a soil nurturing technique known as Zaï handed down from his ancestors, Sawadogo has enabled his village to reclaim the biological and economic productivity of their land, and in the semi-arid Sahel region.

In the language of experts, they have figured out a way to beat land degradation in the drylands, a process referred to, in such regions, as desertification.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), the technique has also been used to plant trees in the region and in other villages in Niger.

The results are astounding. Up to 1.5 million people have benefited and 5.2 to 5.3 million hectares of land made suitable for cultivation; an area almost equal to Togo's territory.

Sawadogo's story captures the essence of the environment ministers' message to the African Community last week at their two-day gathering on Wednesday and Thursday, 3-4 March, at the East African Community headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.

Meeting at the observance event to mark the African Environment Day held on March 3 every year since 2003, they chose the theme, Africa Resilience to Climate Change: Biodiversity Conservation and Enhancing Traditional Knowledge.

The decision by the ministers to focus on climate change is a bold move for not only is the scientific basis of climate change now under serious attack, but sceptics also claim that climate change has become the scapegoat of any and all of the world's environmental problems, especially in Africa.

Sceptics are correct to the extent that desertification, land degradation and drought remain the primary threats to Africa's future economic, human and environmental wellbeing, as Sawadogo's struggle for survival demonstrates.

Also consider that land degradation costs Africa up to $9.3 billion every year, affects about half of the population, and that by 1990, an area covering 17 per cent of Africa, twice the size of Sudan, was degraded.

Economic reasons

Therefore, Africa must not be distracted from its primary focus on combating land degradation and desertification and recovering such land.

There are good economic reasons for this too. With this level of land degradation and a growing population that stands at over 1 billion people today, the region's food security is under serious threat.

Second, and fortunately, the demand for food is set to increase globally in the next 40 years, and Africa and Latin America are the two regions with the greatest potential to increase food production to meet this global food demand.

This is a big opportunity for Africa's agricultural sector.

With a little support, self-motivated people like Sawadogo and Mati can achieve unimaginable economic fortunes.

Experts agree that agriculture remains the most effective route out to eradicate poverty in Africa.

Lastly, there is strong evidence that the recovery of land is possible.

In fact, a large proportion of the degraded land recovered over the last two decades is in the dryland regions.

The constraint to rapid and vast progress is the lack of trust and faith to invest in peasants like Sawadogo who dominate land production in such regions.

The threat of climate change, however, is a challenge Africa must not ignore because the gains made so far by Sawadogo and others are still not sufficiently widespread to absorb the anticipated climate shocks such as high moisture loss, more intense and frequent droughts, water scarcity and increased pressure on the land.

Meantime, and as scholars debate these issues, the achievements of Africa's peasants and farmers who have painstakingly made incredible gains with modest support risk being rolled back by peculiar droughts such as that which hit Africa last year.

Africa must take measures to climate-proof all the sectors that could be adversely affected by a warming climate.

So how do biodiversity conservation and traditional knowledge fit into this equation?

There are four ways to deal with climate change.

One is to cut down emissions, but Africa's contribution is miniscule at the moment, so its investment needs to be channeled elsewhere.

Inaction is an irresponsible response because it makes room for future political instability, should the crisis eventually unfold at the projected levels.

Waiting to respond as events unfold, which is adaptation, is a reactive and expensive tactic; an incoherent firefighting approach with short- and medium-term solutions.

A country may also opt for resilience, the comprehensive national approach to planning measures that will safeguard the economic basis and wellbeing of the people and environment against climate change shocks, so that long-term sustainable development in the country is not hampered.

As is evident from the African Environment Day theme, the ministers call for resilience, with traditional knowledge and biodiversity conservation as centrepieces.

Ironically, the value of traditional knowledge and the role of local populations are in the Copenhagen accords.

But as demonstrated by peasants in West Africa, the continent has affordable technologies that can be built upon to help its economies to withstand the climate shock.

But these have to be accompanied by a determined effort to scale up and to scale out this experience and knowledge. But it is a race against time.

Experts agree that in Africa, land degradation often takes the form of soil erosion and loss of organic matter, the same challenge that Sawadogo's Zaï technique seeks to rectify.

His ancestors had long discovered that digging pit holes to bury manure attracts termites that break down the organic matter which produces needed plant nutrients that enhance land productivity.

Luc Gnacadja is Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification based in Bonn, Germany.

Copyright © 2010 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)

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REDD in the news: 8-14 March 2010

A round up of the last seven days’ news on REDD, in chronological order with short extracts (click on the title for the full article). For those who can’t wait until Monday for their REDD news, REDD-Monitor’s news page is updated daily: REDD in the news. Johann Hari, author of “The Wrong Kind of Green“appears on Democracy Now!and governments meet in Paris to discuss REDD

By REDD-Monitor | 15th March 2010

Moving the REDD Debate from Theory to Practice: Lessons Learned from the Ulu Masen Project

By Ross Andrew Clarke, Law, Environment and Development Journal, 6/1, 2010 | As the dust settles after Copenhagen and the barriers to reaching global consensus on combating climate change are put into stark relief, REDD still has potential to become a UNFCCC success story. In relation to REDD, there is agreement on many core issues and significant momentum remains towards a REDD mechanism firmly engrained in the post-2012 climate change framework. Yet most debate occurs in the abstract with policy and methodological decisions made with minimal conception of how these issues will play out in REDD participant countries. This article aims to break this trend and takes a prominent REDD pilot activity as its reference point. The Ulu Masen Project in Aceh , Indonesia , while only in its infancy, provides valuable lessons on legal frameworks, benefit-sharing and financing. [R-M: The full article is available here: http://bit.ly/97KLCg]

Getting REDD to work locally: lessons learned from integrated conservation and development projects

By Benjamin Bloma, Terry Sunderlandb and Daniel Murdiyarsoc, Environmental Science & Policy, April 2010 | Integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) have been a pervasive, although widely criticized, approach to tropical conservation for more than 20 years. More recently, international conservation discourse has shifted away from project-based approaches and towards reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). While REDD is based upon experience with payment for environmental services (PES) initiatives and forest-related discussions in the United Nations (UN), REDD implementation will still require sub-national projects. Issues of equity will likely pit these sub-national projects against some of the same challenges that have dogged ICDPs. This suggests that REDD project developers stand to learn a great deal from the lessons generated by experience with ICDPs.

8 March 2010

Carbon fat cat companies could share at least €3.2 billion by 2012

Current Climate Issues blog, 8 March 2010 | New research out today from Sandbag Climate Change compiled in association with www.carbonmarketdata.comreveals the top ten companies set to profit from the EU carbon market. The Carbon Fat Cats List, dominated by steel and cement companies, could share a surplus of pollution permits worth €3.2 billion by 2012 [1]. This is more than double the EU’s investment of €1.5 billion in renewable energy and clean technology as part of the economic recovery plan. [R-M: Sandbag's report is here: http://bit.ly/bI9MKi]

Getting REDD Ready to Cross the Finish Line

By Maria Bendana, Eko-Eco, 8 March 2010 | REDD is the biggest pool of money that will ever go into the forest sector so deal with it responsibly Northrup advises. For one, actors involved should be aligned. Certification providers (like the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the American Carbon Registry and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity standards) should collaborate since they have a small staff and they need a global network. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) should get involved with REDD by sitting down with the standards folks as well. The United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could support good governance metrics on REDD for national level programs and help craft a compliance grade standard based on the lessons learned from the voluntary standard providers. A shining example of collaboration and alignment of disparate actors is British Columbia and practical lessons could be gleaned from the forestry sector in that region.

9 March 2010

Carbon Markets Conference in Singapore Shares Insights on the Carbon Trade, CDM and Global Carbon Marketplace Post 2012

PRWEB, 9 March 2010 | How will the Carbon markets evolve? the Carbon Markets 2010, meeting on 6-7 May 2010 in Singapore offers clarity on key issues influencing the global carbon marketplace, its effects on carbon trade and CDM. top Carbon experts from BNP Paribas, Bloomberg & more will share views on the reality & drivers of the global carbon market. Attend to pinpoint strategies to combat current market uncertainties over Post- 2012!

The Real Climategate: Conservation Groups Align with World’s Worst Polluters

Democracy Now!, 9 March 2010 | [Amy Goodman interviews Johann Hari and Christine MacDonald.] The second issue is more complex to explain and buried in acronyms, which I apologize to your viewers for, but is really important. It’s called REDD. It’s the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation program. And it’s the absolute centerpiece of how we’re going to build a global agreement to get beyond this. It failed at Copenhagen. It’s going to have to be there in any agreement. And at the moment, it’s based on a very worrying bargain supported by Conservation International and these other groups.

Climate change to be key topic at Australia-Indonesia talks

Radio Australia, 9 March 2010 | WANDOJO: We need to learn what emissions will be in the forest that we conduct selective cutting, and in the protected areas and community forests and other managements of the forest. MOTTRAM: The projects are trial schemes to find out what drives deforestation and forest degradation and to design sustainable livelihoods for local people outside of culling forests. Wandojo Siswento again. WANDOJO: Australian Indonesia co-operation or partnership tries to find out what is the best answer to that. Then from there we could also try to say to the international community what really happen in the forests and how could REDD become one mechanism that could be adopted.

WTO 2010 Focus on Natural Resources in World Trade Report

Climate Commercial Blog, 9 March 2010 | One aspect of interest from a climate change perspective is the support given to the concept of leakage: that forest conservation efforts in one or more jurisdictions or locations can lead to compensating higher rates of deforestation elsewhere – thus not necessarily a net improvement in emissions rates. This phenomenon has been a core part of the REDD debate and, in climate change ’speak’ is known as ‘leakage’. The authors quote a 1990 estimate that between 11%-39% of all anthropogenic emissions may emanate from the forestry sector. As such, it is critical that the international community reaches a uniform, multilateral approach to reducing deforestation, and improved forest conservation, for the purposes of stabilising greenhouse gas emissions. Otherwise, ad-hoc bilateral or unilateral investments may be costly, and undertaken in vain.

Forests, Climate Change and the Challenge of REDD

By Manish Bapna, World Resources Institute, 9 March 2010 | The stakes are high this year. We are going to see how US climate legislation moves forward and how it incorporates REDD. The European Union will decide whether to include REDD in the next phase of its emissions trading scheme. Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will decide how to ultimately operationalize REDD in a global climate deal. These decisions are going to shape global efforts to protect forests. 2010 is the year in which the momentum to address the interlinked challenges of forest loss and global warming can either lead to real change or fade away.

COP 15: What is the Impact on Malaysia and South East Asia?

By Daniel Chandranayagam, CSRdigest, 9 March 2010 | Shekelle continued on about the UN-REDD Programme and about “aid” to countries who sought to conserve their rich, diverse and ancient rainforests. He said, in a nutshell, that he believed that each nation has a right to do what it wanted to do with its natural resources, but it was his job to provide scientific evidence so that the state in question might make an informed decision. If the state in question chose not to destroy its rainforests and sought aid, that would be a good thing. However, if the state in question sought aid from the West, then it would have to consider its ‘customer’. Shekelle drew a commercial analogy, stating that the customer’s needs and desires need to be known in order to get a sale (so to speak). Shekelle said, “If we want foreign sponsored projects, we must practise good business sense.”

Event Announcement: Workshop on Forest Governance, Decentralisation and REDD in Latin America

Climate-L.org, 9 March 2010 | The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF), with a number of government collaborators, are organizing a workshop with participants from government, development and environmental NGOs and local community and indigenous peoples representatives to discuss regional perspectives on REDD and develop a better understanding of how decentralisation and forest governance contribute to sustainable management of forests. The results are expected to feed into the 9th session of the UN Forum on Forests. CIFOR is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Location Mexico City, Mexico Start Date 31 August 2010 End Date 03 September 2010

The energy fetish

By Glenn Hurowitz and Stephen Lovett, TheHill.com, 9 March 2010 | As Congress scrambles to cobble together the votes for legislation that addresses climate change, some are advocating “energy-only” options that could entirely exclude forests and farms from participation in a solution. Such an approach, no matter whether through legislation or regulation, is a huge mistake that would needlessly drive up the cost of climate action and dramatically reduce its environmental and jobs benefits.

10 March 2010

Amerindian community slams LCDS consultation

Kaieteur News, 10 March 2010 | The Amerindian community, in a hard-hitting statement last evening, has demanded action from the government and the international community to advance the land rights of indigenous peoples and ensure that the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is respected. “Our top most priority is to secure our traditional lands and territories,” said Toshao Devroy Thomas, from Arau, Region 7. “Outstanding land claims must be resolved and our rights secured before mining, logging, or any other project that may have direct or indirect impacts on our traditional lands, territories and resources proceeds.”

The Nation Slams REDD and sub-national accounting

By John-O Niles, Tropical Forest Group, 10 March 2010 | This has to be one of the most self-righteous article ever written. It is sure to bring more fire works to the issue. Democracy Now followed up on Hari’s article in The Nation with this interview… http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/hari_video. The key thing Democracy Now and Mr Hari miss is that REDD+ has been approved by all nations signing up to the Copenhagen Accord. If the United Nations and the UNFCCC trying to tackle climate change and deforestation is not international democracy (Now), then I don’t know what is. No one thinks the Copenhagen Accord is perfect, but it will probably have more traction than Hari’s suggestion that we all put ourselves in front of coal trains.

Deforestation conference to turn plans to action

By Elaine Ganley, Associated Press, 10 March 2010 | French President Nicolas Sarkozy will open a daylong conference Thursday of some 40 nations to start turning plans into action to save the world’s forests and help rein in the noxious gases blamed for climate change. Ministers from countries of the Amazon and Congo river basins and Indonesia – whose massive forests, most at risk, are at the heart of efforts to end deforestation – were among those attending the one-day conference. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for May in Oslo, Norway. “The forest in danger. Massive planet-wide destruction continues,” France’s influential environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo said to reporters Wednesday ahead of the conference… Gabon’s environment minister, Martin Mabala, said the world and indigenous populations need to view the forest differently. For example, he said the term “wood cutter” should be replaced by the term “forest manager.”

World Agroforestry Centre and Partners Convene REDD Workshops

Climate-L.org, 10 March 2010 | Workshops for countries participating in the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD) and the Forest Carbon Partnership Fund (FCPF) were held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 1-3 March 2010, and Hanoi, Viet Nam, from 8-10 March 2010. The workshops were hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre and Alternatives to Slash and Burn Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins (ASB), both of which are members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). The workshops follow previous meetings in 2009 on “REDD at the Copenhagen Climate Talks and Beyond- Bridging the Gap between Negotiations and Actions.” [R-M: A background paper is available here: http://bit.ly/aqqsca]

Indigenous leaders call for hold on LCDS, REDD+ projects

By Gaulbert Sutherland, Stabroek News, 10 March 2010 | Indigenous leaders are calling on government and international agencies to shelve policies related to projects like the LCDS, REDD+ until free, prior and informed consent guidelines for land use are in place. As they prepare to meet with a Norwegian team today, the leaders say that they are concerned that current local and international policies do not adequately recognise their positive role in maintaining the environment and forests and has failed to protect their rights, including the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).

11 March 2010

Indigenous leaders’ objections to LCDS, REDD+ ‘malicious distortion’

Stabroek News, 11 March 2010 | The Office of Climate Change (OCC) last night described the objections by some indigenous leaders to the LCDS and REDD+ policies as “malicious misrepresentations and distortions” and a deliberate attempt to mislead the public on the two policies. The OCC referred to articles published in this newspaper and the Kaieteur News following a statement issued after a workshop on ‘Indigenous Peoples Rights, Extractive Industries and National Development Policies in Guyana.’ The statement had, among other things, called for the policies to be shelved until free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) guidelines for land use are in place.

Gov’t calls accusations malicious

Kaieteur News, 11 March 2010 | Government’s Office of Climate Change (OCC), in response to a highly critical statement by an indigenous people’s group on Tuesday on the LCDS consultations, says that it is surprised and disappointed over what “appears to be a carefully timed release” of what can only be described as malicious misrepresentations and distortions. OCC, part of the Office of the President, said that following the publication of the group’s statements in the Kaieteur News of Wednesday and another daily, it is of the view that there has been a deliberate attempt to mislead the Guyanese public on matters relating to the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and REDD+ activities.

Sarkozy: more funds needed to fight deforestation

By Elaine Ganley, Associated Press, 11 March 2010 | Thursday’s meeting, to be followed by a May conference in Oslo, was focused on how to implement forest-preserving measures agreed on in principle at the last U.N. climate conference in December in Copenhagen, Denmark. Specifically, nations need to work out how to disburse the $30 billion pledged by rich countries over the next three years. In total, world leaders agreed to spend $100 billion by 2020 to help poor nations preserve forests, protect coasts, adjust drought-threatened crops, build water supplies and irrigation systems, and adopt low-carbon energy options such as solar and wind power. French officials said they expected 20 percent of that to go to fighting deforestation. Sarkozy said he wanted the Paris conference to bring more funding pledges for forests while working out how to organize the aid and find mechanisms to guarantee transparency. He said he wanted the private sector join in, too.

European Commission Position on Carbon Markets Undermines UN Climate Convention

By Rebecca Sommer, Huntintonnews.net, 11 March 2010 | The proposals from the European Commission on post-Copenhagen climate policy that were released on March 10, 2010 will undermine the UN negotiations on climate change, warns a group of forest campaigners. They say the report paves the way for highly volatile carbon markets that jeopardize forest-dependent peoples’ livelihoods, and urges policymakers to focus on domestic emission cuts and finance for forest conservation and restoration instead. The European Commission communication proposes to work together with ‘interested’ developed and developing countries to create sectorial carbon market mechanisms, outside the scope of the UN Climate Change negotiations. Forest campaigners fear chaos if a scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is included in these carbon markets.

Sarkozy opens Paris deforestation summit

RFI, 11 March 2010 | French President Nicolas Sarkozy opens an international conference on deforestation in Paris on Thursday. Ministers from 30 heavily forested countries and 12 potential donor countries are attending the conference. “Forests are in danger,” France’s Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told a press conference on Wednesday where he called for efforts to fight deforestation to “step up a gear”. Preserving woodland, which store carbon, is seen as an essential part of the fight against climate change.

Shame on Brazil: Stop the Amazon Mega-Dam Project Belo Monte

By Rebecca Sommer, Huntingtonnews.net, 11 March 2010 | International groups expressed in a joint letter their outrage and opposition against Brazil’s plan to build Belo Monte, a mega-hydroelectric project… “The decision of the Brazilian Government to go ahead with this devastating project is particularly cynical in the light of the massive amounts of funding they are currently receiving from donors like the Norwegian Government to presumably “reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation”(REDD). ” said Simone Lovera, Executive Director of the international group Global Forest Coalition.

WWF – Forest and donor countries stump up to reduce emissions

WWF press release, 11 March 2010 | Forest and donor countries have kicked off an important joint process which could speed up action to reduce the 15 per cent of global carbon emissions linked to deforestation and forest degradation… “Slowing deforestation would help the world significantly cut global emissions,” said WWF Forest Carbon Initiative Leader Chris Elliott. “That’s an opportunity we simply cannot ignore as any delay in reducing emissions only makes it more difficult to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees C.” “The REDD+ Partnership process must build real momentum for countries to move ahead with REDD+,” said Elliott, “It is important this remains an open and inclusive process.”

Meeting on deforestation boosts morale, budget

By Elain Ganley, Associated Press, 11 March 2010 | French President Nicolas Sarkozy, opening the conference, said defending the world’s forests demanded more aggressive funding. “Those who don’t want to do anything are those who don’t want to pay,” he said. He reiterated his appeal for a tax on financial market transactions worldwide that could be earmarked for a global climate fund. “Together, we will demonstrate that it is possible to achieve concrete and measurable results, as of this year, starting with … the fight against deforestation,” Sarkozy said. He called the Copenhagen conference “frustrating.” France, Norway and four other countries pledged an initial $3.5 billion to REDD Plus through 2012. The core coordination group established in Paris will, among other things, see where the funds are spent and ensure it is done fairly. Minc, the Brazilian minister, said: if “we will arrive in Cancun with things that work, we won’t repeat the problems of Copenhagen.”

12 March 2010

Indigenous NGOs baffled at APA’s workshop results

Guyana Chronicle, 12 March 2010 | The National Amerindian Development Foundation, The Amerindian Action Movement of Guyana and the Guyanese Organisation of Indigenous Peoples are baffled by the misleading statements carried in the Stabroek News under caption ‘Indigenous Leaders call for hold on LCDS, REDD+ projects’ published March 10, 2010, and Kaieteur News ‘Amerindian Community slams LCDS consultation’ published March 10, 2010. “Our collective responses to these articles were not done under duress, political direction or animosity,” a statement signed by Ashton Simon on behalf of the Indigenous NGOs said yesterday.

Why does Congress want to raid our best carbon bank?

The Seminal, 12 March 2010 | The need to do right by Alaskan Natives needs to be balanced against the need to do right by the planet. Rather than a simple no vote, Congress could consider the concept of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in the bill. If we’re willing to consider paying Indonesia and Brazil not to cut down their tropical forests, perhaps a similar solution for any land transferred to Sealaska can be found close to home? The Wilderness Society believes that the economic realities in the Tongass work in favor of conservation, recreation, and carbon sequestration, and against logging.

13 March 2010

Greenpeace demands immediate end to forest destruction

Antara News, 13 March 2010 | Greenpeace activists scaled the Ministry of Forestry building in South Jakarta and unfurled a giant banner reading “Plantations are not forests”. Greenpeace feared that the inclusion of `plantations in the definition of forests, would lead to massive concealment of the ongoing emissions from peatland and forest destruction that has made Indonesia the world`s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to information on the Greeanpeace Southeast Asia`s official website, Saturday. Greenpeace, along with a number of environmental and civil society organizations, have condemned the Indonesian government`s attempts to classify `plantations as forests while allowing continued destruction of critical habitats like peatland forests and the last remaining biodiversity hotspots.

Indigenous people start mapping territory

By Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta Post, 13 March 2010 | Indigenous people have begun mapping their customary land across the country in an effort to gain recognition amid conflict with the government and business communities over land ownership. The Alliance of Archipelagic Indigenous People (AMAN) estimated the indigenous people had traditionally occupied about 20 million hectares of land, most natural forest. AMAN, with its 1,163 communities occupying about 7.5 million hectares of land, mapped 2.3 million hectares of customary land. “We will submit the map to the government as a reference for land policies,” secretary-general of AMAN, Abdon Nababan, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Some Indigenous leaders ‘harassed’ for voicing concerns over LCDS, REDD+ consultations -APA

By Gualbert Sutherland, Stabroek News, 13 March 2010 | Some Indigenous leaders, who recently voiced concerns about the scope of government consultations over forest preservation plans, have since been victims of intimidation tactics, the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) disclosed yesterday, while maintaining that genuine concerns of communities cannot be ignored. Meanwhile, Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai has acknowledged that there is more to do to help Amerindians understand the government’s plans but accused the APA of communicating “misconceptions and half-truths.”

Guatemala reasserts challenges to Belize’s sovereignty

Ambergris Daily, 13 March 2010 | Officials of Belize and Guatemala, including a representative of the surveillance group Comision de Belice, a department in the Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, held a high-level meeting in Belize City, Belize … in the wake of flared tensions along Belize’s western and southern border with Guatemala. There are 60 small communities of Guatemalans living in the border area inside the so-called “adjacency zone.” “They are coming over and exploiting Belize’s forests, because they have depleted the forest on their side,” Gibson said, describing the incursions as catastrophic. “It has been a burgeoning problem for us to deal with that.” He added: “What we have done under the heading of science diplomacy, is to harness science and technology to deal with this problem under the heading of the Copenhagen UN REDD Plus [Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation]… to which all countries subscribe, including Guatemala.”

14 March 2010

Compounding errors of measurement: An LCDS concern

By Dr Clive Thomas, Stabroek News, 14 March 2010 | There are two further statistics, which readers may find intriguing. First, during the same FAO assessment period (1990-2005) Norway increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent! As I shall show later, this supports my contention that Norway’s relations with Guyana are based, as it should be, on protecting Norway’s interests. It is at best the typical, naked, cynical, and self-serving relation often found between rich and poor countries. Those pushing the LCDS as the key to Guyana’s future, therefore, should not try to deceive us or them that the MOU between the Government of Guyana and the Government of the Kingdom of Norway has a moral or philanthropic basis. Or, for that matter, it is inspired by deep humanitarian concerns over the threats posed by climate change and global warming to the world’s environment. This would be very naive.

New Norwegian Counsellor to Strengthen Focus on Deforestation In Vietnam and Indonesia

ScandAsia.Com, 14 March 2010 | The Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta has recently established a new counsellor post to strengthen the focus on deforestation and low carbon development in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam. Ms. Ragnhildstveit will work to prepare a strategy for implementation of the Government of Norway International Climate and Forest Initiative. She started working for the Embassy in the beginning of January, but she knows the region well and speaks Bahasa Indonesia. Background: The Government’s Climate and Forest Initiative was launched by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg at the climate summit on Bali in December 2007, and started in the spring of 2008. One of the key objectives of the project is to include the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries in a new global climate agreement.

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