UNDRIP Report - English FINAL - International Forum on Globalization

Paula Moreira of the Brazilian organization Instituto
da Pesquisas Ambiental da Amazonia (IPAM) said,
“REDD is a new thing, and people are changing and
shifting their positions on it all the time.” She
believes that indigenous peoples should not feel that
they are very behind because everyone is still
learning about it. For instance, Brazil significantly
changed its position on REDD during the UNFCCC
meeting in Accra, Ghana, in August 2008, finally
recognizing that people who have made efforts to
conserve forested areas should also receive positive
incentives for their efforts, not just those who had
high deforestation rates to begin with and are now
making efforts to help reduce deforestation. “This
was a major change,” Moreira said, “because in this
way, you avoid the perverse incentive to reward only
the deforesting countries. Now, there is a possibility
to reward conservation efforts as well.”
Moreira said there are four different meanings of
REDD, all of which are acknowledged in the
UNFCCC’s REDD definition according to the Bali
Action Plan that was approved in December of 2007.
Moreira read the following from the Decision
1/CP.13 of the Bali Action Plan:
[The Parties decided] to launch a
comprehensive process to enable the
full, effective and sustained
implementation of the Convention
through long-term cooperative
action, now, up to and beyond 2012,
in order to reach an agreed outcome
and adopt a decision at its fifteenth
session, by addressing, inter alia:
…(b)
Enhanced
national/international action on
mitigation of climate change,
including, inter alia, consideration
of:
…(iii) Policy approaches and
positive incentives on issues relating
to reducing emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation
in developing countries; and the role
of conservation, sustainable
management of forests and
enhancement of forest carbon stocks
in developing countries.
Moreira said that these four elements listed in section
(iii) illustrate the four different meanings of REDD: 1)
reducing emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation in developing countries, 2) the role of
conservation, 3) sustainable management of forests,
and 3) enhancement of forest carbon stocks in
developing countries. After explaining the meaning
of REDD in terms of policy making under the UN,
Moreira highlighted that it involves four completely
different elements, each of which people are calling
“REDD.” She suggested that when people ask you
“what do you think of REDD?” you have to clarify
what they mean by REDD. “Do you mean the four
elements in the UN convention, or do you mean
REDD pilot projects, or do you mean the World Bank
facility REDD fund, or do you mean the Amazon
REDD fund?” she illustrated. “There are four
completely different concepts of REDD. So when
people ask you to make a position statement, you
must clarify what it is that you are giving your
opinion about,” Moreira said.
Moreira added that the Bali Road Map established a
two-year space in which to design the REDD
framework. So in this two-year space, any
stakeholders can influence the process by submitting
proposals. “In my opinion,” she said, “indigenous
peoples are the most well-legitimized to submit any
kind of proposals, because they are living in the
forests. Because of them, we still have the forests kept
and preserved as they are today.” She said we have
to increase the participation of indigenous peoples,
elevate their voices, and build their capacity as
negotiators with the parties.
“If indigenous peoples feel that they cannot build their
own proposal during this two-year time, they should ask
for a moratorium in order to allow for the construction of
ideas and a gathering of background information and
data,” Moreira said.
She then described a recent proposal called the
“Stock Flow Approach,” which recommends that two
kinds of compensations, or rewards, should be given
to REDD. She said that it is a bit similar to
Greenpeace’s proposal, as it also creates a separate
fund to be distributed in two different ways. One
pool of money would go to countries that have
already reduced deforestation according to their own
baseline, and then another pool would reward
countries according to the stock of carbon that they
hold. Moreira said that this could help address the
question of how to reward countries that have low
deforestation and carbon rates in the first place. “This
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