BIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS - Portal do Professor

PART II / CHAPTER 4
These so-called “carbon cowboys” have been linked to “carbon
fraud” or situations of “conflict carbon” in which carbon credits
are generated by projects that are objected to by the
local communities. 15
Many forest-dependent communities are faced with the same
double-edged sword as ILCs with commercially-lucrative TK
in the ABS framework. A community’s participation in a REDD
project may deliver much-needed income and development
opportunities, but it may also result in their exclusion from
the forest and the severance of linkages instrumental to
the maintenance of both the forest and the community’s
bio-cultural ways of life.
There are still major decisions to be made regarding the
financing of REDD, including whether it will be financed by
market-linked revenues such as the selling of carbon offset
credits, by a fund based on contributions from developed
countries or by some combination of the two. The integrity
of both systems is in question. Similar to the challenges of
using TK within the ABS framework, there are serious
concerns about allowing the market to decide how forest
carbon will be valued and how ILCs’ interests and rights will
then be protected. As for a fund-based mechanism, it is
unclear if and how REDD funds received by states will be
distributed to forest-dependent communities that could
benefit most. 16
3.2 Governance and Land Tenure
Many of the countries that suffer from the highest rates
of deforestation and forest degradation are also those with
the poorest governance and highest levels of corruption.
There are concerns that this will pose a major barrier to REDD
funds reaching the communities that need it the most,
allowing for further entrenchment of the political and social
elites that have benefited the most from deforestation to date.
Forest communities often lack formal rights and title to their
traditional territories and the forests that they depend on.
This has led to concerns that they could be effectively
excluded from the forests that are earmarked for reducing
BIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS AND REDD
deforestation and forest degradation. As observed by Cotula
and Mayers (2009), much has yet to be determined regarding
how REDD benefits will be allocated from the national to local
level, but it is clear that resource tenure is critical to REDD’s
ability to benefit ILCs. 17
3.3 Disembodiment of Carbon
Another underlying issue with REDD is that it encourages
a carbon-centric view of forests, which concerns ILCs that
depend on forests for their livelihoods and have long played
a role in their conservation. There is a risk that by viewing
forest carbon as a tradable commodity, REDD could
disembody it from ILCs’ bio-spiritual values and bio-cultural
ways of life that have actively maintained the forests.
As with ILCs that have developed TK over many generations,
communities that have succeeded in maintaining forest
cover have been able to do so not because of their
proprietary rights, but because they maintain a way of life
that is integrally linked to that of the forest. Thus, because the
well-being of the forests (and the carbon stored within)
is contingent on the well-being of forest peoples, REDD
must enable those ILCs to continue to live according to their
bio-cultural values.
4. The Potential Role BCPs in REDD
The potential pitfalls highlighted above illustrate the dangers
that a regime intending to save forests may pose to ILCs.
The large amount of available funds will inevitably serve as
an incentive to establish REDD projects, which may lead to
the further marginalization of ILCs by other stakeholders
trying to minimize threats to the agreements being entered
into. Like the future IRABS, REDD requires careful local
calibration to ensure that it achieves both environmental
and social justice. The development of bio-cultural protocols
by forest-dependent ILCs is one way in which communities
may be able to respond to and ensure the local integrity
of REDD. This section explores the ways in which the
development of a REDD community protocol could assist
ILCs to prepare for REDD deals and to assert their rights to
continue their ways of life.
15. Mongabay.com. 2008. Conflict in PNG between government and landowners over REDD carbon trading. November 17, 2008.
Available at: http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1117-png.html
16. At the time of writing, the most current version of the negotiating text was FCCC/AWGLCA/2009/INF.2. UNFCCC 2009. Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative
Action Under the Convention: Annex III C: Enhanced action on mitigation. Available at: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/awglca7/eng/inf02.pdf Accessed 27 September 2009.
17. Cotula, L. and Mayers, J. 2009. Tenure in REDD – Start-point or afterthought? Natural Resource Issues No. 15. International Institute for Environment and Development. London, UK.
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