WHO OWNS THE CARBON

With over one billion of the world's poorest people living in and near areas classified as forests, urgent reforms need to be implemented to give them secure rights on which to rebuild their lives. In much of the developing world, the human, civil and political rights of forest-dwelling communities, including indigenous peoples, are denied or insecure. Governments in developing countries claim ownership and assert direct control over some 75% of the total area of forest lands, even though indigenous peoples, local communities and households have legitimate, longstanding customary ownership of much—in many places the majority— of these lands. The property rights of new settlers and migrants are similarly unclear and often controversial. Forest and land laws commonly constrained by forest and land use regulations.

This lack of recognition of local rights contradicts international human rights laws widely ratified by developing country governments, which require the recognition of human, civil and political rights, including the right of indigenous peoples to own, use, control and manage the lands and natural resources they have customarily occupied or used. Grievances over the allocation of natural resources frequently lead to violent conflicts recognizing local land ownership and reforming regulatory frameworks is part of a larger challenge of rethinking and rationalizing the public domain and reforming the role of the state. Most people’s lives in forests remain insecure and even illegal. The result is increasing poverty, continuing marginalization and, at times, violence. The air we breathe, the waters we all rely on to fall from the sky - is now in peril due to pollution from the burning of fossil fuels and forests. An urgent cry has gone up to stop deforestation - to 'save the rainforests' and billions of dollars are being mobilized to this end. But allocating these monies is not so simple - who will be rewarded for storing carbon in trees?'

Who will be benefitted from REDD; state or local community: Forest of Nepal has significantly been contributed in reduction of global climate change due to contribution of the forest in increasing carbon sequestration; Nepal has been included in the list of carbon trade country by Forest Carbon Partnership Meeting organized by World Bank in Paris on the third week of the July 2008. One major issue is that of community forestry where tenure right is not given. So the question is, whose pie is the REDD? Who will be rewarded for storing carbon in trees?'

Unless steps are taken, traditional forest owners, and the forests themselves, will be the big losers. It will mean more deforestation, more conflict, more carbon emissions, more climate change and less prosperity for everyone. Second, there is a growing divergence between the international commodity wood markets and domestic wood and non-wood markets. Demand for industrial wood fiber will continue to increase; supply is already tight. It is plausible that industrial wood consumption will grow to around 1.85 billion m3 per year by 2020 and to more than 2 billion m3 per year by 2030. Measuring and pricing of carbon' the rights of the forest communities should be addressed. A number of risks associated with carbon forestry have been identified: renewed and even increased state and ‘expert’ control over forests support for anti-people and exclusionary models of forest conservation violations of customary land and territorial rights unequal and abusive community contracts land speculation, land grabbing and land conflicts (competing claims for compensation for avoiding deforestation).

The question of who owns the carbon—whether emitted or avoided—has been little debated at the national and international levels. Nor have many countries begun to address the property rights issues surrounding carbon sequestration, emissions and trade. Mired in issues of national sovereignty, most proposed schemes for emission reduction from forest areas overlook questions of equity, ownership, benefit sharing, and development outcomes.

References:

Bächler, Günther, 1999. Violence Through Environmental Discrimination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Collier, Paul. 2007. The bottom billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Griffiths, Tom. 2007. S eeing ‘RED’? ‘Avoided deforestation’ and the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.

Moreton-in-Marsh: Forest Peoples Programme. http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/ifi_igo/avoided_deforestation_red_jun07_eng.pdf

Homer-Dixon, Thomas, 1994. ‘Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases’, International Security 19(1): 5–40.

Kahl, Colin, 1998. ‘Population Growth, Environmental Degradation, and State- Sponsored Violence: The Case of Kenya, 1991–93’, International Security 23(2): 80–119.

Luttrell, Cecilia, K ate S chreckenberg, and Leo Peskett. 2007. The implications of carbon financing for pro-poor community forestry.

Suliman, Mohamed, 1993. ‘Civil War in the Sudan: From Ethnic to Ecological Conflict’, The Ecologist 23(3): 104–109.