Seeing REDD: Communities, Forests and Carbon trading in Nigeria - New Report

 

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT HERE.

A new report released today highlights how forest dependent communities in Cross River State, southeast Nigeria, are losing rights and livelihoods, as their forests are being locked down by the government, which seeks cash through a United Nations backed ‘carbon trading’ scheme, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).

The report, ‘Seeing REDD: Communities, Forests and Carbon trading in Nigeria’, by Nigerian organisation, Social Action, was presented today in Lima, Peru at an event at the People’s Summit on Climate Change, which coincides with the 20th Conference of Parties (COP20) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in the Peruvian capital city.

The report shows how the implementation of the REDD+ mechanism is having a devastating effect on the economies of affected communities around the Cross River forests. With neither adequate consultation nor alternative livelihood options, community members, who have depended on the forests for generations, are now being victimised by government agents following a ban imposed on economic and cultural activities in the delineated forests. Thus, REDD+ has restricted access to forests where indigenous communities gather food, medicine and energy. Local nutrition and livelihoods are seriously threatened and the attendant scarcity of food products caused by government’s actions have led to increase in the prices of basic food products. Ironically, higher wood prices, occasioned by REDD+, is encouraging illegal logging in the forests.

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Zimbabwe: Outcry Over Kariba Redd+ Project... .as NGO Seeks to Tighten Governance, Accountability

By Jeffrey Gogo

CRACKS are beginning to emerge in the implementation of Zimbabwe's biggest privately-funded project aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) in Kariba. Carbon Green Africa (CGA), a UK firm, has since 2009 implemented the REDD+ project across the four Mashonaland West rural district councils of Mbire, Nyaminyami, Binga and Hurungwe.

Under REDD+, monetary compensation is paid for projects that limit greenhouse gas emissions growth in tropical forests.

Those carbon savings are later sold to Western countries or firms in the form of credits (a.k.a offsets or units), keen to neutralise pollution in their home economies.

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The Heat Is On: Via Campesina and Allies Challenge Climate Capitalism

By: Salena Tramel

"There is no excuse to turn nature into a commodity," said Tom Goldtooth, director of the U.S. and Canada-based Indigenous Environmental Network, a close ally of Via Campesina. Both groups are strongly opposed to REDD and work together in spaces such as the No REDD in Africa Network. Goldtooth spoke powerfully at the Peoples Summit in Lima, warning against the interconnected nature of imperialism, militarization, and market-dependent strategies. "We reject the WTO of the sky," he concluded.

A new report by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) indisputably confirms what many scientists had predicted: 2014 is officially the hottest year on record. And this past year is not an anomaly -- the previous 10 hottest years on the books have all occurred since 1998. This announcement adds to the urgency expressed just last month in Lima, where political leaders and business tycoons from around the world met for the 20th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 20) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The gathering in Peru was historic in that it was the last time the decision-making body would meet before COP 21 in Paris next December, where an international and legally binding agreement on climate will be signed.

However, growing movements of those on the frontlines of climate disruption argue that the high-level political remedies touted at venues such as the COP amount to false promises and leave out marginalized voices. Via Campesina is perhaps the most prominent of these movements, with more than 250 million peasant, pastoralist, and indigenous members from around the world. Along with allies ranging from labor to environmental networks, Via Campesina organized the Cumbre de los Pueblos (Peoples Summit) in its own grassroots rendition of the COP 20 process in Lima to promote bottom-up solutions to the climate crisis and refute the corporate-driven and exclusionary nature of the official negotiations.

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Africans denounce REDD as a false solution to climate change

The No REDD in Africa Network organized a very successful and well attended workshop in the Peoples' Summit on Climate Change in Lima, Peru to denounce the impacts of REDD-type pilots projects in the continent. Ruth Nyambura of the African Biodiversity Network from Kenya, Asume Osuoka from Social Action of Nigeria and our co-coordinator Nnimmo Bassey of Health of Mother Earth Foundation also from Nigeria were joined by Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network. An article by the indigenous news agency for Latin America Servindi follows in Spanish.

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CP, 8 de diciembre, 2014.- En el marco de las actividades por la Cumbre de los Pueblos, representantes de África condenaron las políticas de Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación de los bosques (REDD) que se ejecutan en sus países.

Asimismo, ellos cuestionaron a organismos como la ONU que, según ellos, sirven a los intereses de las grandes empresas petroleras y mineras.

Ruth Nyambuza, representante de Kenia señaló que las políticas de REDD están terminando con los bosques de su país. Precisó en ese sentido que el propio gobierno actúa en contra de los pueblos, habiendo llegado incluso a quemar espacios habitados por indígenas hace solo unos meses.

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