Community Rights, Forests and Climate Change

Transcription

1 International Conference on Community Rights, Forests and Climate Change August, 2009 New Delhi, India Organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), USA Supported by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), UK

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3 Background Deforestation and forest degradation account for almost 17 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, 2007). Forestry sector mitigation measures have gained importance in the global climate change debate as they are considered to be cost effective means to combat global warming while providing an array of social, environmental and economic benefits. Any efforts in the forestry sector to mitigate or adapt to climate change will necessarily have to first address the issues related to forest tenure rights and governance. In the context of REDD Plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), secure rights and good governance, and participation of communities 1 at various stages of the REDD Plus process are important for ensuring effective public compensation for reduced emissions and increased sequestration. It is also essential to develop safeguards and accountability mechanisms to ensure that rights of communities are respected, that they receive a fair payment for their efforts, and that carbon benefits are additional to and do not replace their existing rights and benefits from forests. At a time when the world is looking at the modalities of instituting REDD Plus interventions (in Copenhagen in December 2009) under the post-2012 mitigation options, these issues assume added significance. Over 50 representatives from both governments and civil society from Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand and India discussed the prospects of such a forestry sector scheme through a conference on Community Rights, Forests and Climate Change organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (India) and Rights and Resources Initiative (USA) in New Delhi, from 17 to 18 August, In addition, there was participation by multilateral and bilateral organizations as speakers and observers. Do not do things simply from a climate perspective; integrate carbon concerns with other developmental concerns Nitin Desai Former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Distinguished Fellow, TERI, India Key Messages from the Conference The REDD Plus interventions under negotiation provide yet another opportunity as well as an impetus to protect, manage and increase forests for better provision of all their services. While carbon in the forestry sector is significant today, the issue of governance and community rights must also be addressed to ensure benefits to forest users. The REDD Readiness funds and mechanisms (and other climate change investments) should be simple and transparent, and there should be adequate safeguards to protect the rights of communities. There is a need for both the market-based and the fund-based approaches to exist together to cover the possible mitigation options and to accommodate varying national circumstances. Also, participating countries need to develop transparent, equitable and accountable benefit-sharing mechanisms for distribution of the future carbon-based revenues. The MRV (Measurement, Reporting and Verification) system should be simple and comprehensive so as to not only account for the carbon, but also take into consideration the social and environmental parameters. And, the participating countries would benefit by cooperating among themselves to learn from past experiences in forest management, governance and tenurial reforms. In the very short window of opportunity for reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases, forestry is going to be an important option R K Pachauri Director General, TERI and Chair, IPCC 1 Community in this context refers to indigenous people, other local people and individual households who have either customary rights or ownership rights over forests, and have been managing the forests either individually or collectively 1

4 Key Points and Recommendations In recent climate change discussions forests are considered an important sector because of their mitigation and adaptation potential. The mitigation potential of forests, coming from the trees ability to sequester carbon, is often given more importance than other services like water recharging, biodiversity conservation and livelihood generation for forest communities. The REDD Plus interventions under negotiation provide an opportunity as well as an impetus to protect, manage and increase forests. If properly designed these could address the goals of conserving and managing forests, not just for the climate mitigation function they perform, but for better provision of all traditional forest goods and forest services as well. Good Governance and Tenurial Reforms To make the most of the present opportunity, we need to be cognizant of the fact that many of the previous interventions in the forest sector to address deforestation have had limited success due to lack of recognition of the tenurial rights of communities. Most the forest-rich countries in the developing world have either not recognized these rights (to property, access and use) or have not satisfactorily carried out the required tenurial reforms. In addition to securing tenurial rights, it is necessary to have strong and effective forest governance to ensure that forest owners have the incentive to invest in maintaining and increasing their forests. Investing in tenurial rights will provide climate benefits at a very low cost even without a carbon market. However, good governance and clarifying property rights requires concerted actions from different sets of ministries and is far beyond the capacity and competence of forest agencies alone. Nevertheless, many country experiences show that in the initial stages of the REDD Readiness process, particularly during preparation of Readiness Plan Idea Notes (R-PINs), the issue of land tenure rights has either been superficially dealt with or simply ignored. The corrective measures initiated need to be scaled up and intensified both at the national and international level, i.e., during the design and assessment of proposals. It should also be noted that there have been instances in many countries where, under the garb of climate change initiatives, the government has laid claim to the ownership of carbon on lands owned by communities, and sometimes to ownership of the forests themselves. This raises concerns about further erosion of rights of communities under the REDD Plus regime if adequate safeguards are not built into the regime. In Papua New Guinea when you want to put a price to the forest or land you need to think about the people s breakfast, their lunch and their dinner as well because that comes from the forest Israel Bewang Ecoforestry Programme Coordinator, Foundation for People and Community Development, Papua New Guinea REDD/REDD Plus is not just about money, it is about good governance. It is not just about carbon, it is about welfare of the people through forests and multiple products and services from the forests Varghese Paul Fellow, TERI, India Informed and Voluntary Participation REDD Plus cannot be imposed on the communities. It has to be voluntary and based on communities understanding of the issues, their expected roles and associated benefits. REDD Plus must be based on the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) at the national as well as global level. However, at present there is an asymmetry in information exchange, with information often not percolating down to the local community level. Civil Society Organizations and national governments need to organize and sensitize communities about the REDD Plus processes and modalities. There is also the need for community representation (including adequate gender representation) at different stages of the REDD Plus process. People have been using forests for their subsistence and to collect medicinal plants and fuelwood. What will be their fate in terms of continuation of using the resources once REDD is introduced? Charles Meshack Executive Director, Tanzania Forest Conservation Group, Tanzania 2

5 Financing and Regulations For successful and wider adoption of REDD Plus, different REDD Readiness mechanisms and funds must complement each other in defining and demarcating various components of readiness, and coordinate their funding. They must also address the issues of language barriers in their communications and guidelines. In order to cover all the possible mitigation options and to accommodate varying national circumstances, there is a need for market-based and fund-based approaches to co-exist to support a full implementation phase of the REDD Plus activities (after the Readiness and Pilot phase activities). The REDD Readiness funds (and other climate investment funds for REDD Plus) should be simple, transparent, and there should be adequate safeguards to protect the rights of communities. Furthermore, there should be independent enforcement mechanisms at the national as well as global level. However, there is a risk that the regulations and safeguards under various stages of development (for Readiness mechanisms and other funds to support REDD Plus activities) may not be applicable to a market-based mechanism. Therefore, there is a need for agreed prior regulations specific to a market-based mechanism, to ensure respect of rights of communities and fair payments to them. It is not financial investment but just a set of policy reforms, a set of reforms in the right regimes, a set of reforms in giving the people the opportunity to manage their resources that made the community forestry movement in Nepal successful Arvind Khare Director, Rights and Resources Initiative, USA Transparent Benefit Sharing Mechanism The REDD Plus participating countries need to put in place a fair benefit-distribution framework based on a sustainable institutional structure. This will help not only prevent the elite capture of the carbon benefits but also ensure an equitable and accountable distribution of the carbon-based revenue to be generated through REDD Plus. Such a mechanism would also have to address issues of differential rate of sequestration by different types of forests, and help in working out compensation for communities who have put in equal efforts, but achieved unequal levels of sequestration and emission reduction. Need for Simplified Methodologies and Comprehensive Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) The experience from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) forestry reinforces the need for simple and robust methodologies, modalities and procedures for the REDD Plus process. In addition, the MRV mechanism needs to be simple, credible and transparent both at the national and the global level. The scope of MRV should not be limited to carbon; social and environmental parameters such as recognition of rights of communities, level and extent of community participation, and biodiversity conservation must also be taken into account. Enhancing South-South Cooperation For REDD Plus to be successfully adopted and implemented, participating countries need to build their capacities in various aspects of community-oriented forest management and measurement of forest cover and carbon stocks. Technology transfer from developed countries to developing countries and also between developing countries would help bridge the gaps that many countries face in reliably estimating forest and carbon stock. Developing countries would also benefit from cooperating among themselves to learn from past experiences in forest management, governance and tenurial reforms. Many developing countries have endured colonization earlier but MRV dominated by Western observers under this mechanism will give rise to a new kind of climate change colonization Ghan Shyam Pandey Chairperson, Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal REDD cannot be imposed on people. It has to be voluntary and based on communities understanding of the crisis, their understanding of their capacity and then building up of that capacity to respond and creation of opportunities for them to do so Kyeretwie Opoku Director, Civic Response, Ghana 3

6 Dr Ahmad Fauzi Masud speaking on Indonesia s redd Readiness Representatives and delegates of various countries actively participating in the discussions. The discussions saw different aspects of community rights brought forward by different stakeholders For further information, please contact: Mr Varghese Paul Fellow The Energy and Resources Institute India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road New Delhi , India Tel : Fax : vpaul@teri.res.in Website: Mr Arvind Khare Director, Finance and Policy Rights and Resources Initiative 1238 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Suite 204 Washington, DC 20007, USA Tel : / Fax : akhare@rightsandresources.org Website: