Guide on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples

• State and NGO zoning offorest lands without theinformed participation offorest dwellers.• Potential increase onjudicial and physicalconflicts due to contestedclaims over forests andbetween recipient and nonrecipientof REDD funds.• Unequal and abusivecommunity contracts.• Land speculation, land grabbing and land conflicts (competing claims onREDD compensation).• Corruption and embezzlement of international funds by national elites.• Potential conflicts among indigenous communities because of divideand rule tactics of government and other interested parties (carbontraders, drivers of deforestation, World Bank, etc.)• Violation of the right to free, prior and informed consent.• Historical and present lack of legitimacy, equity, justice in land-useplanning and benefit sharing schemes.Perverse Incentives:• Funds for REDD may fall into the hands of deforesters (loggers,plantation owners, etc.) and will be provided only to nationalgovernments while indigenous peoples, who continue to play theirstewardship roles over forests and who practice traditional sustainableforest management practices, are not rewarded.• Unjust targeting of indigenous and marginal peoples as the “drivers”of deforestation. Identification of shifting cultivation as a driver ofdeforestation.• Unequal imposition of the costs of forest protection on indigenouspeoples and local communities, e.g., prevention of sustainabletraditional forest-related livelihood practices.• REDD could be disadvantageous for countries with large forest areas(high forest cover) and low deforestation rates. Instead of providingincentives for developing countries which have forest covers from 50%-70% (e.g., Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Congo, Malaysia,Brazil, etc.), those who will receive incentives are the highly deforestedcountries who will undertake REDD, reforestation and afforestation(Indonesia, Brazil).• Industrialized countries (Annex 1 or A1 countries, the main polluters)PART V: REDD/REDD+ and Indigenous Peoples 75