‘No RIGHTS–No REDD’: Some Implications of a Turn Towards Co-Benefits

Abstract

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) is a new and very ambitious global programme which seeks to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering performance-based payment to reduce CO₂ emissions from forested lands. From an initial perception of REDDF+ as a relatively straightforward forestry project, it has turned into one that is increasingly focusing on the rights of the people who live in the forests. This is largely due to pressure from international and national environmental and human rights NGOs. A result of their activities is that several of the original co-benefits to REDD+, such as alleviating poverty, tenure reform, improving local livelihoods and forest governance, and protecting rights have become major concerns. The introduction of REDD+ in Indonesia is used as an example to highlight some challenges encountered in its implementation.

Keywords:

• REDD+
• forest protection
• performance-based payment
• carbon emissions
• rights-based approach
• NGOs
• Indonesia

Acknowledgements

The research on REDD is part of a project at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, entitled Cultures of Biodiversity: Precepts and Practices funded by the Norwegian Research Council. The research in Indonesia is funded by the Norwegian Embassy, Indonesia.

Notes on contributor

Signe Howell is Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo. She obtained her D.Phil from Oxford University and has undertaken multitemporal ethnographic fieldwork with an aboriginal group in Peninsular Malaysia and with a community in Eastern Indonesia. Until her research on REDD she has published widely on social organization, kinship, gender, ritual and religion, and the relationship between nature and culture. Her publications include Society and Cosmos: Chewong of Peninsular Malaysia, Societies at Peace: anthropological perspectives, The Ethnography of Moralities, For the Sake of our Futures: Sacrificing in Eastern Indonesia, and Returns to the Filed: Multitemporal Fieldwork and Contemporary Anthropology.

Notes

¹Several pluses have been added to the original REDD project. I will use the simple form without any pluses in this article, unless the particular project is amended as REDD+, or I am quoting from a document.

²FPIC is a rights-based model that has been designed to give more autonomy and ownership to Indigenous populations. It is not a set of consultations with already established outputs that is ‘presented’ to a said community; it is a process of informed and mutual negotiations that benefit counterparts and stakeholders involved in an ethical fashion.

³Kalimantan Forest and Climate Partnership.

⁴States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their FPIC prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources. (Article 32(2) UNDRIP, 2007).

⁵Guidelines 2012. Downloaded from: http://www.unredd.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=1120&Itemid=53

⁶However, these demands have not been substantially included in the documents from the various COPs, despite massive pressure from NGOs.

⁷This is not an actual example taken from a community FPIC meeting, but made up in order to demonstrate the confusion about the actual aims of REDD and how little can be promised.

⁸This is not to suggest that the activists are wrong in insisting upon the involvement of local communities. Anthropologists, amongst others, have long argued that projects that fail to take account of local values and practices are less likely to be successful (e.g. Klausen, 1995; Mosse, 2005).

⁹United Nations Development Program.

¹⁰AMAN (The Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago) is the national organization of indigenous people in Indonesia. It has more than 1000 local branches. They are skeptical to REDD because they argue that the question of land rights has to be resolved first. But they are furthering that claim under the REDD umbrella.

¹¹I base these and other statements about local situations on five to six months fieldwork undertaken by my master students in several countries in Latin America and Indonesia in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and by my visits to Indonesia in 2011 and 2012.

¹²Small and medium enterprises.

¹³ http://www.redd-monitor.org/ is a privately run information bulletin on REDD by Chris Lang.

¹⁴These were mainly from Sulawesi, but also representatives from national NGO Head Quarters such as AMAN, Sawit Watch, WWF, and HuMa were represented. It was an event that was seen as an opportunity to discuss REDD in Indonesia more generally.

¹⁵One reason for the slow selection of sites can be brought back to competition at the local level. REDD is perceived as potentially financially rewarding and the various local authorities fight for inclusion.

¹⁶I was not able to find out exactly how this this shift in attitude had occurred. It is possible that the national debates about REDD had influenced some local activists. The reason given by some locals was that they feared appropriation of land.

¹⁷Participants are given a daily allowance for attending such meetings in addition to a meal. When the leaders from the AMAN HQ office visited a village in an earmarked REDD locality, they went only to the house of their local representative who was also a kinsman. Apart from a handful of other kin, no one, including the village headman, was informed. Attendance allowance was handed out to those present. Rumours of the visit spread throughout the village and created resentment amongst those not invited.

¹⁸Further, as the workshops had been completed, the media, radio, television, and newspapers were informed. However, newspapers are not read by the villagers: if they listen to the radio, most listen only to music, and in the areas where there was television, soap operas, and sport were the only programmes watched.

¹⁹This particular village was quite a prosperous one. People own large coconut plantations where they cultivate rice, coffee, and chocolate. There are several categories of forest in the neighbourhood, most of which were designated as protected. Illegal logging was a major problem. It was difficult to see how REDD could be implemented in the area. According to Christy, two main reasons may account for the rejection: “their [negative] experience with previous forestry programmes, and their own calculation of loss and benefit that the programme seemed to offer” (Christy, 2013, 1).

²⁰There have also been critical reports written by consultants (e.g. Gaia Report commissioned by Norway) or by NGOs (e.g. Forest People's Programme about REDD pilot schemes in Central Sulawesi and Central Kalimantan).

²¹Norwegian and Indonesian master students could find no concrete discussion about alternative livelihoods.

²²A shift towards encouraging active involvement of the private sector is noticeable and was widely discussed at the 2013 Oslo REDD Exchange.

²³I was shown a draft of this letter during my visit to the region in April 2012. Sentiments ran high in the affected villages, but there was no clear consensus in people's attitudes towards REDD.

²⁴At the suggestion of the Indonesian government, the Norway–Indonesia REDD+ Partnership pilot project was located in Central Kalimantan. Its office was located in the governor's compound, and a training centre was established near by. After a year, the office was closed. I have been unable to ascertain the reason for this and the fate of the effort to involve local NGOs.