Forgetting the Forest People

A new study has found that a Copenhagen climate summit deal fails the world's forest people

Deforestation accounts for about 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity.

Under the United Nations' Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) program, wealthy countries would help to combat deforestation (and the global warming caused by it) by paying developing, forest-rich nations like Brazil for every hectare (about 2.5 acres) of forest that they leave untouched.

At the Copenhagen climate summit in December, six wealthy nations -- the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France and Norway -- committed $3.5 billion to REDD. But they neglected to reach an agreement as to how this plan would be monitored and managed.

Unsurprisingly, "The End of the Hitherlands," a new study by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a US-based forest policy reform think-tank, argues that this multi-billion dollar deal might lead to conflict.

"One of the things that the world has learned over the years is that REDD is far more difficult than many people imagined," said Andy White, coordinator of RRI and one of the lead authors of the report, in a recent BBC News article.

"The forested areas of the world -- by and large -- have very high levels of poverty, low levels of respect for local rights, and a very low level of control among local people to shape and control their destiny."

The report found that "enormous profits" could be made, but warned that because of this, a new, increased competition for forest resources would develop between governments and big investors on one side and indigenous communities on the other.

The authors of the report wrote that "nations and the world at large have a tremendous opportunity to right historic wrongs, advance rural development and save forests."

But those nations -- at least the ones who have committed the REDD funds -- must figure out a how to manage the money and monitor the plan's progress.

Because when governments and multinational corporations compete against impoverished local communities for profit-making resources...well, we know how that story usually ends.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a RAN letter to General Mills CEO Kendell Powell urging him to make a commitment to source socially and environmentally responsible palm oil to help stop deforestation
  
• Download a RAN list of products that contain palm oil
  
• Download a PDF of "Do I Dare Eat That Banana," a document created by RainforestRelief.org that outlines rainforest products to avoid
  
• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Donate to the Rainforest Action Network
• Take these seven steps to help save the Amazon rainforest

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image: a Huaorani village in Ecuador (credit: Kate Fisher)