PRESS ADVISORY

WHAT: Book launch and panel on Overturning REDD Colonialism

WHERE: Venue: Lycée Jean Jaurès, 1 rue Dombasle - Salle 312 - Climate Forum (See map below)

WHEN: Sunday 6 December 2015

TIME: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Contact: Nnimmo Bassey, co-coordinator, No REDD in Africa Network

E-mail:

The key ingredient of the eminent Paris Accord at the UN climate summit and a false solution to climate change, REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is a carbon offset mechanism which uses forests and almost all other ecosystem as sponges for Northern industrialized pollution instead of cutting emissions at source.

This publication by the No REDD in Africa Network aims to demystify REDD and REDD-type projects, and all their variants, and show them for what they are: unjust mechanisms designed to usher in a new phase of colonization of the African continent. From examples presented, it is clear that the REDD mechanism is a scam and the polluters know that they are buying the “right” to pollute.

The No REDD in Africa Network warns that REDD may be the ultimate wedge to crack open the door for the invasion of the African continent with genetically modified crops and trees. It could also promote the false notion that genetically modified crops are “climate smart” agriculture. It threatens to take over soils, water (blue carbon) and entire eco-systems. It may also rekindle the culture of colonial plantation agriculture also infamously called ‘cash cropping’. In Africa, REDD is emerging as a new form of colonialism, economic subjugation, and impoverishment and must be stopped.

“The worst form of slavery is to willingly offer yourself on the auction block, get bought and pretend you are free,” said Nnimmo Bassey, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation and recent winner of the Right Livelihood Award (the alternative Nobel Peace prize). “This is what participation in the mechanism called REDD is.”

Coming at a time when climate action has shifted away from legally binding requirements to voluntary, “intended nationally determined contributions”, REDD provides a perfect space for polluters to keep polluting while claiming they are champions of climate action.

“REDD+ is a devious scheme whereby energy gluttons in the industrialized North are trying to divert their guilt and responsibility for climate change to innocent communities in the South,” commented Wally Mene of Timberwatch Coalition, South Africa.

HOW TO GET THERE

 

Information for Editors

The No REDD in Africa Network (NRAN) is a collective of African civil society and community-based organizations and individuals opposed to all forms of REDD and REDD-type projects. NRAN sees REDD as a false climate solution that merely permits polluters to pollute and further harm the climate. We work to defend forest-dependent communities while promoting community-based forest protection. NRAN works with similar networks and groups in other regions of the world.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction: A call to decolonize Africa..............................................1

2. What is REDD?.....................................................................................3

3. A few more definitions..........................................................................8

4. The evolution of REDD, REDD+ etc................................................. 11

5. What does REDD mean in reality?.....................................................13

6. Characteristics of REDD-type projects in Africa................................17

7. REDD players in Africa......................................................................25

8. The carbon market: Selling African air...............................................29

9. REDD as a driver of land grabs in Africa...........................................32

10. Climate smart agriculture is dumb!...................................................36

11. Blue carbon and wet carbon..............................................................40

12. Gourmet REDD: Privatization of air, life and culture......................44

13. Funding for REDD in Africa............................................................47

14. REDD and human rights violations..................................................51

15. Labour and work: Peonage and carbon slavery................................55

16. REDD as a new form of violence against women............................57

17. Financialization goes berserk: Offsetting the global supply chain and energy matrix..........................................................................60

18. Colonialism and REDD: The third scramble for Africa?.................64

19. Comparison of colonialism and REDD.............................................67

20. References and endnotes...................................................................74

Appendices

1: Identifying violations of indigenous peoples’ rights by REDD-type Projects................................................................................86

2: Violation of free, prior and informed consent by UN-REDD and REDD...............................................................................................93

3: South-South REDD: A Brazil-Mozambique Initiative – Of “Pan-African Relevance”...............................................................99

4: Resources for analysis and action....................................................104