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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 30-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT COMMITTEE
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation
MR TOM GRIFFITHS, MS SASKIA OZINGA and MS FIONA WATSON Evidence heard in Public Questions 153 - 181
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on Members present Colin Challen Martin Horwood Mr Nick Hurd Mark Lazarowicz Jo Swinson Dr Desmond Turner Joan Walley ________________
In the absence of the Chairman, Joan Walley was called to the Chair
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Memorandum submitted by Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN)
Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mr Tom Griffiths, Co-ordinator, Finance, Programme, Forest Peoples Programme; Ms Saskia Ozinga, Campaign Co-ordinator, FERN and Ms Fiona Watson, Campaign Co-ordinator, Survival International, gave evidence. Q153 Joan
Walley: Welcome to our Select Committee this morning,
and thank you for coming along. I think
you are probably aware our Committee went out to Ms Watson: I am Fiona Watson, Campaign Co-ordinator at Survival International, which is a human rights organisation working with indigenous and tribal peoples on their rights. Ms Ozinga: I am Saskia Ozinga. I am with FERN. I am the Campaign Co-ordinator from FERN, and I would like to make one opening comment, which is that I understand that this Committee looks specifically at indigenous peoples rights in relation to REDD and the forest climate agreement, but the point I want to make is that when we look at forests we look at 20 per cent of the emissions, and the forests will be gone if we do not address the 80 per cent of the emissions, which are probably more crucial to keep the forests alive. So I would like to make a few points on that, and specifically on carbon trading, during this evidence. Q154 Joan Walley: Perhaps some of our questions will cover that as we go through. Mr Griffiths: Hello. My name is Tom Griffiths; I am Co-ordinator of the Responsible Finance Programme of an NGO called the Forest Peoples Programme. Our main concerns regarding the topic of your investigation and this Committee's work are that climate change mitigation instruments and plans, including REDD, actually, if not addressed could pose a threat for forest peoples communities, and we are very concerned that these risks are addressed by donors and governments in interoperable countries. If they are not there is a risk that these instruments and finance for them could exacerbate the marginalisation of forest peoples. Q155 Joan Walley: Perhaps we can start off by looking at the risks that forest peoples face and the extent to which there is respect for forest peoples in the lives that they live, the indigenous people's rights that they have and the challenges that they face. Perhaps you could help us to understand some of those challenges. Ms Watson: I think it is very important
to bear in mind that with indigenous and forest peoples you are talking about
possibly the most marginalised of any groups; people who have very little and
in some cases no access to any information about potential developments on
their land and what their rights are under national let alone international
law. I think it is important to bear
that in mind. So the problems they are
facing are massive. For example, I think
the key question has to be collective land ownership rights, which are recognised
in a number of international conventions which we can go into later, but
specifically ILO 169 and the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination. A number of governments,
particularly in Q156 Dr Turner: Clearly, having heard your last comments, you are unlikely to say "yes" to a question which says: are forest dependent peoples' rights and interests adequately being represented in the UN climate change negotiating process? Does the negotiation process take into account the fact that these people are highly, both politically and socially, living on the margins and, as you say, very disadvantaged in every respect? You are unlikely to say "yes", I take it. I do not want to lead you! Mr Griffiths: I am afraid, sir, the only
conclusion has been no, it does not take proper account of the risks, their
marginalisation and their vulnerability.
Within the climate convention process indigenous peoples and certain
social justice groups have complained repeatedly that the participation process
in the climate convention does not enable adequate access to the
negotiations. They are allowed to make
statements but only at the beginning and close of government text negotiations,
whereas best practice in other UN conventions allows indigenous peoples, in
particular, which is one major group identified under agenda 21 at the Real
Convention, to speak to text in a negotiation where the issue directly affects
them. Of course, in this issue of
forests it affects indigenous peoples in particular directly. Most of the world's remaining standing
forests are located on the traditional lands and territories of indigenous
peoples, so this is a prime case where indigenous people should be given the
opportunity by the chair of these negotiations to intervene on text. They are not currently allowed to do so. There is also a question, of course - they
are marginalised and they lack resources - of a long-standing demand for a
voluntary fund to enable these representatives to get to these meetings that
are often in capital cities and in Q157 Dr Turner: Do you think the UK Government is doing enough on behalf of indigenous peoples? Are we advocating for them adequately? Ms Watson: I do not believe so. On one level the UK Government supported the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples and voted to approve it, but when it comes to international law - for example, the ILO convention 169, which a number of European countries have ratified, talks we have had with the Foreign Office have not progressed and there seems to be a major obstacle for this government to sign. It is a very key convention because it is one of the few conventions (there are a number of other ones) dedicated specifically to indigenous peoples rights. So therefore it is a benchmark and we believe that the provisions in it are important not only for governments but for companies that operate, say, in the UK or who are listed on the London Stock Exchange that they abide by this international law, which specifically recognises indigenous peoples rights to collective land ownership. Mr Griffiths: If I could add a comment on that: is the UK Government supporting? It is difficult to give a definitive answer. In some cases yes, in other cases no. One area where it has been obstructive, in fact, on this issue is on the issue of collective rights. The FCO and UK Government officials have stated in international fora, including the planet convention, that they do not support collective human rights. The Forest Peoples Programme has questioned this on a number of occasions as being contrary to international law. These rights are established in human rights instruments. I can provide details to the Committee if need be. The reason why collective rights are so important in this debate on forests is that the land rights and tenure of indigenous peoples are fundamentally based on collective rights, and later in this discussion I will show why that is key to sustainable management of forests and tropical forests. So that is obstructive. On the other hand, there is some useful work being done by DFID and others in the FLEGT process, which Saskia can talk about - very progressive work - on rights and public participation, and indeed there is something called the rights and resources initiative, of which DFID is a member, along with Forest Peoples Programme and other organisations. So it is a mixed picture, but this particular objection to collective rights is unhelpful and we would urge the British Government to change its position on that. Q158 Joan Walley: Can I follow that up a little bit? You talked about the ILO and you talked about the FCO not following up work that you tried to get on the agenda, through the ILO, on collective rights. I am not quite clear how those negotiations, or lack of negotiations, dovetail with the different climate change negotiations which are going on within the UN. I think it would be very helpful to our Committee to have a little bit more detail about the linkages between the two separate strands of negotiations and how they actually integrate. Ms Ozinga: What we very much would like
the UK Government to be doing is to support those countries, of which there are
a few in the EU, but, also, countries like Japan and Norway, who have made very
clear statements that a recognition of rights should be a precondition for any programme
or REDD scheme coming into operation. If
the Q159 Colin
Challen: Given the timescale, Ms Ozinga: There are two questions in one. I read on the train coming here the discussion you had with Barry Gardiner, previously, on 10 February, I think, and reading that report it seemed to me there was a confusion that some - including Barry Gardiner - seemed to think that it was a done deal; that REDD would be based on carbon trading. In our view, it clearly is not. If you looked at the countries' submissions, some countries are clearly in favour of carbon trading and other countries are clearly against, and the majority of countries are going for a mixed approach. So REDD cannot be equated with carbon trading. That is the first point I want to make. My organisation, specifically, but increasingly supported by a large number of environmental and social NGOs, has a serious problem with carbon trading, full-stop, as a solution to the climate crisis. The reasons for that are basically three-fold. The first one is that the consensus that we need to go towards a low-carbon economy, everybody will be agreed with that, and that means 80 to 90 per cent reductions of CO2 emissions by 2050 or after. It is very clear that a trading instrument cannot do that and never has done anything like that in the history of humankind. When you look at space innovation, and so on, and so forth, there has always been massive research and development led by government and the private sector. Carbon trading is tinkering around the edges; it is not going to create that shift which is really needed to come to a low-carbon economy. Secondly, what carbon trading can do and is supposed to do is reduce emissions, but if you look at since the ETS has come into force in 2005 emissions have only gone up, even by 5 per cent if you look at 2007 from 2005. So it is clearly not working in that regard. I have to say I am very disappointed with Ed Miliband who I heard on the Today programme recently saying that offsetting was not a real problem because only 3 per cent of emissions were being offset. That is misguided. I looked very hard to see where he got the figure of 3 per cent from, and the only thing I can find is that if you look only at the emissions sharing position then 3 per cent of the emissions can be offset but what we, of course, should be looking at is the percentage which you offset of the emission reductions, and we should look not just at the emissions sharing position but, also, at ETS, and it is a combination of both. If you look at those figures, it is actually a rise of 61/62 per cent which is going to be offset. So the actual emission reduction is very, very little. That is the second problem we have with carbon trading. It is not really doing the emissions reduction either, let alone the shift to low-carbon economies. The third problem is, of course, the offset itself, because I presume you will know there have been big problems with the CDM. I noticed that, also, Barry Gardiner made this comment that the flaw with the whole offsetting within the CDM is putting this whole REDD debate on the wrong track too, and I would definitely agree with that. Offsetting is not really leading to emissions reduction as well because of the problems with leakage, which Barry Gardiner mentioned very clearly, and also additionality, and the temporary need for it. So there are three overall problems why we think carbon trading is the wrong way to go when we look at something big which addresses the climate crisis. Then, if we want to continue, there is another problem when you come to carbon trading specifically to REDD and specifically when you look at local communities. Tom was telling me on the train coming here that he has recently been in Guyana and local communities in Guyana have currently been negotiating a REDD climate agreement, and the agreement is being sold to them as a way of getting money in the same way as they got money from something like rubber tapping. So you tap rubber, you sell it to the market, you get money - so that is a good thing. The problem is that carbon trading is something very fundamentally different than, say, rubber tapping. When you have a community which taps rubber, it is up to the community how much rubber they tap, when they tap the rubber, when they sell it, how they sell it; of course, there are international forces which influence that but, in principle, that is what they do - they own the rubber and they can sell it. With carbon trading what is being sold is a contract between the buyer, who basically buys the right to continue to emit greenhouse gases, and the seller, who allegedly is the community but which, in reality, is usually an intermediary in between who basically gets the control over the use of the forest. I do not know if you have seen an article fairly recently by Carmen which basically noted that these intermediaries which are big, large conservation organisations - such as TNC, which are carbon consultancies, and such as EcoSecurities - take 40 to 50 per cent of the profits. Hence, it is not quite a surprise that they are so much in favour of carbon trading, because that is where a lot of the money goes; there is very little that goes to the community. Secondly, the community does not see the contract because the contract is between the intermediary and the buyer. The contract is usually in English and the contract is in almost all cases confidential. The ones we have seen we have only seen because they were either leaked or we got them via a Freedom of Information request. So it is not a particularly transparent process. Thirdly, the contracts are about for 100 years, so the community is signing off in this carbon trading deal for 100 years to keep the carbon in the forests. Nobody knows what is going to happen even in 50 years, let alone in 100 years, or 99 years, but they are forced to keep the carbon in that forest for those 99 years. If the forest burns in that time, which is quite likely, particularly with increased climate change, they are liable to then find those carbon credits somewhere else. So it is a very, very dodgy deal, to say the least. Apart from the big problems with carbon trading as such, which we think do not address the climate crisis (and if we do not address the climate crisis this whole debate is a nonsense because the forest will be gone anyway), there is a separate problem that the carbon trading in terms of doing any benefit for the forest and the community, in our view, simply does not work. Mr Griffiths: Just to add something to what
Saskia was saying about the potential impacts of the carbon market, there is
already evidence emerging that this carbon market is marginalising and
violating the rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities. For example, in Q160 Colin
Challen: I am getting the impression that market
trading is an insuperable difficulty for you; that, actually, there is an
alternative that might be better. What
would that alternative be? Would it be,
for example, a funded scheme? A number
of governments have proposed direct funded schemes and, to quote one example,
the Ecuadorian Government proposed the Ms Ozinga: I think what we are saying is
that when the issue is how to keep the forest standing, which is what the issue
we think should be about, then only looking at money and only looking at
markets is the wrong way to look at it.
You need to look, first of all, at the drivers of deforestation because
if you do not address the drivers in any forest and climate agreement or
anything else you will not solve the problem.
Then if there is going to be a forest and climate agreement, which we
think there will be (maybe not in Q161 Mr Hurd: Can you be a bit more specific about how the REDD process is undermining the FLEGT process? Ms Ozinga: I can speak about Mr Griffiths: Just to reiterate something Saskia is saying, what sort of agreement would organisations like ourselves who work on environmental and human rights issues want to see? First and foremost is that any agreement fully upholds human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples, as established in international norms and international law. That is one of the things that is a fundamental precondition of an acceptable agreement on forests and climate. Without that, as we mentioned in the opening of this discussion this morning, there is a risk these instruments and agreements could exacerbate the problems for forest peoples. So one of the first things you want to see is the upholding of human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples. That includes, in particular, the right to free, prior and informed consent but also that is a procedural right. It also includes substantive rights, as Fiona mentioned, to land, resources and territory. So any agreement has to have provisions for that, and binding commitments. Optional guidelines, general principles are not acceptable; there has to be a decision in the climate convention and other related agreements that governments are really bound to this. Also, any agreement must address the perverse incentive and moral hazards that are inherent in current proposals on the table which seem to be proposing that only deforesters would be compensated or rewarded. Any scheme would have to meet criteria for fairness and equity, and that means that traditional peoples, indigenous peoples and other custodians of forests in developing countries should be recognised and rewarded. So you need a combined approach in looking at standing forests, and the protection of those, and of course areas to look at deforestation - high risk deforestation - where you need a combined integrated ecosystem, landscape liberal approach to this. Another thing that any scheme would have to do, as Saskia said, is have this phased approach. If you do not address the governance, land rights and, particularly, the land tenure rights up front in these schemes you will have a real risk, as we have said this morning, that you will exacerbate existing inequalities and vulnerabilities of forest communities because many state frameworks in the developing world currently do not adequately recognise these rights. So without a proponent for reform, promotion and incentives for good governance in the forest sector there are real problems with this international agreement, and any related finance mechanisms could cause serious problems. So it is essential, this phased approach that Saskia is talking about. There are tensions there because, of course, there is an urgency with the climate issue and so on. What many scientific studies show is that, particularly in the forest sector, issues are complex and they need time - tenure issues need time - to be resolved. So there is a need for balance there and this step-wise approach is the preferred approach to any type of REDD agreement; that these rights and tenure issues are addressed upfront and then the financial issues and possible incentives may come in in a second phase. Q162 Colin
Challen: Perhaps a better approach would be to keep
deforestation out of the Mr Griffiths: Saskia may wish to comment,
but I think keeping it out of the Ms Ozinga: I would agree with that. For me, it does not matter whether it is on the UNFCCC or not, it depends on what the content of the agreement would be. The debate is clearly under the UNFCCC and I noted that Barry Gardiner seemed to make the point in his submission that he feels we have already gone so far on the road that we have to make certain compromises. I would agree with that although, in my view, he goes too far on compromising on the trading, which is really going to undermine the whole thing. So that is the compromise I would not make. However, if an agreement could be made under the UNFCCC but outside the Kyoto protocol trading mechanism that would be a possibility, but it would have to be a similar type of agreement as is now being done by the EU with timber producing countries as part of the FLEGT process. The eminence of the FLEGT process would have to be reflected in a future climate agreement. Q163 Martin Horwood: My apologies, Chairman, for being late, and I have to, also, declare an interest because as Chair of the All Party Group for Tribal Peoples we are supported by Survival International. I wanted to make that clear for the record. As you said, the tenure issues for most of these mechanisms have to be sorted out upfront, and a number of witnesses have emphasised that getting tenure sorted out is almost a prerequisite for this kind of thing to work anyway. Have you got experience that you can tell us about of an actual process that has already happened anywhere where tenure has been sorted out in the forests and where, in a sense, tenure and ownership did not exist before? Either successful or unsuccessful. Mr Griffiths: There are a number of
examples in particular in Q164 Joan
Walley: We saw this in Mr Griffiths: You can involve communities in that process to help demarcate or document their occupational use of forest land, including proposed boundaries of their areas. So there are participatory tools that prove it, and crucially they are cost-effective. There is evidence to show that this technology is cost-effective and it is an effective way to help communities to secure their right if it is done, as I say, in partnership with legal and forestry reforms. Q165 Martin Horwood: Are there any examples you can think of where that has actually translated into legal title and ownership in the sense that we might understand it for land ownership in this country? Or is it more about a special category of rights? Mr Griffiths: It has definitely been used,
this technology, in Q166 Martin Horwood: Is it directly parallel? Is it, in effect, a form of ownership? What I was coming on to is, really, are there any examples of that ownership being established and then actually being lost - the ownership being appropriated by governments or by other sort of third parties who actually, in effect, buy out that ownership once it has been established? Ms Watson: Most Latin American countries
recognise collective land ownership in their national constitutions, but not
all of them. So, on one level,
communities or peoples have collective title to their land and they are deemed
the owners of the land. The problem
comes with other legislation, and that is particularly in the case of mining
where most states retain subsoil rights.
So, for example, in Q167 Martin Horwood: Are there any examples of indigenous peoples being effectively bribed to be evicted? Ms Watson: Yes. Q168 Martin Horwood: Do you want to tell us about any particular examples that you can think of? Ms Ozinga: In the case of REDD, Papua
New Guinea is an interesting example where the people do have the ownership
rights to the land and where you see, now the whole REDD debate is coming up,
that the government is suddenly claiming it has a form of ownership which it
did not have before, and that battle still has to be fought. We see that battle playing out in Mr Griffiths: Yes, there are examples, as
you say, where communities have been put under pressure to lease their lands,
and so on, but it must be made very clear to this Committee that there is ample
evidence to show, also, that secure collective tenure is a very effective means
of forest protection. There is more than
one scientific study in Ms Watson: It is also worth pointing out that most of the definition of collective title in virtually every constitution that I have seen says that collective title is inalienable. So that means it is vested in the community and cannot be sold. So you would not get the case where individual members of a certain people could sell; that is simply not allowed, and so that is the most secure form of collective title, and a very important one because that means the people cannot be bribed into selling bits of land. Q169 Martin Horwood: You are saying this is fine where that kind of process is well-established and where title is respected, but is not one of the reasons behind the idea of a market mechanism - one of the possible benefits of it, if you could establish those kind of social benefits were guaranteed - that it does actually provide some kind of financial driver to protect the forest? Can you imagine that working in combination with the kind of social safeguards that you were talking about? Ms Ozinga: In theory, yes, but in practice no, because what we see in practice is that the opposite is happening in those cases where you have the voluntary carbon market financing community-based projects. In none of these cases it has actually strengthened the right of the communities, and in almost all of these cases the opposite has happened because the power shifts, first of all, to the intermediary who does the carbon trading deal, and it is often even unknown to the community what is in the deal, and so on and so forth. In theory, I would like to believe what you are saying might be the case, but I think there is nothing in practice that really substantiates the argument. You can also argue that even for a fund-based mechanism you would need to clarify the land rights first anyway as well, and hence the phased approach, because clarification of land rights and improving governance would have to be the first phase of any mechanism. Q170 Martin Horwood: If we had to argue for an international gold standard on this, is there one you could suggest? Is ILO 169 applicable or suitable, or is that only a beginning? Ms Watson: Yes, I think, definitely, ILO 169 because there is very clear provision for collective land ownership rights. However, there are also a number of others. The UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has been very active in promoting indigenous peoples rights and also has a number of clauses. We can provide the Committee with a number of international instruments that we believe would certainly strengthen indigenous peoples' rights if these were applied as a basis for the negotiations. Q171 Martin Horwood: One last question, really: the role of the UK Government. In evidence to us they have talked about the rights of indigenous peoples, but, at the same time, they do seem to be enthusiastic for some kind of market-based mechanism. How would you see their role? Do you think they could do more, or improve their performance, or do you think they are broadly on the side of the good guys? Ms Ozinga: We had a meeting with Ed Miliband and his staff a few months ago and I understood from the meeting that the UK is increasingly open, at least, to understanding that carbon trading as a financing mechanism for REDD might be more problematic than they thought in the beginning. I do not have the illusion that we can convince the UK Government, or the EU for that matter, that carbon trading is not the way to solve the climate crisis because the whole carbon trading scheme has been set up and it will take a decade or more to unwind, but I do hold some hope that we can convince the UK Government and the EU that carbon trading is not the way to go for a forest climate agreement. If I did not have that hope I would not be sitting here either. I would hope that this Committee also understands that case and can make the case to the Government that actually carbon trading, for REDD specifically, brings in a whole bunch of other problems which are not necessarily the case with carbon trading per se. Q172 Mr Hurd: Could I ask Tom Griffiths to expand a little on the point that you made, or point the Committee to a body of evidence that shows what happens to deforestation rates when this tenure issue is sorted or where local communities have, if you like, community ownership of assets? What is the evidence base? Presumably there are potential conflicts between the need to preserve forests and their use by local peoples for their own needs. Mr Griffiths: In terms of evidence, there
are specific scientific papers which substantiate this which we can provide the
Committee with. There is an eminent
forestry expert, David Connor (?), who has published a paper which we can
provide the Committee with in regard to Central America where it is very clear
that the intact forest and healthy forest ecosystems are, to a large extent, on
indigenous peoples' collective territories.
Some of them are in protected state-run areas but most of them are
indigenous peoples' territories, for the whole region, in fact; there are no
exceptions in that region. In the
Brazilian Amazon we can provide you with scientific literature upholding that
information. As regards some sort of
tension between communities' ownership and use and adequate protection of
forests, I really do want to make a strong point here to the Committee. What is most disturbing, going on in the climate
convention at the moment, are the discussions about definitions of
deforestation and degradation, implying that communities, including indigenous
peoples, are culpable of degradation.
Again, there is a vast body of scientific literature, particularly in
the case of indigenous peoples to show that their land use systems are
sustainable, in fact, and can enrich the forest ecosystems and enrich biodiversity
and other values in the forest. That is
well documented. Again, we can provide
the Committee with that evidence. There
is a real concern among indigenous groups that the convention could adopt
prejudicial definitions that identify some of these traditional practices as
being harmful and with illegitimate emissions when, in fact, these emissions
are sustainable and there is a need to look at the medium and long-term forest
dynamic. These are extensive land use
systems where forests are able to regenerate and re-grow, so that the carbon is
put back in these agri-forestry systems so that they are carbon neutral and
even carbon positive. Again, there are
scientific papers to show this. So there
is a lot of prejudice out there. When we
opened this discussion you asked about the general challenges facing the forest
peoples. One is deep-seated prejudice
against their shifting cultivation practices, particularly in Ms Watson: One point to follow up on
what Tom was saying, one of the best scientific studies was carried out by a
Brazilian and a Q173 Joan
Walley: While we were out in Ms Watson: That is a very difficult
issue, and it depends which country you are talking about. I have worked a lot in Mr Griffiths: You asked the question about how can these issues and possible tensions be dealt with. One of our main recommendations is that a forest and climate agreement and any national level schemes should adopt rights-based methodologies. You need a combination of rights-based and natural science methodologies. Crucially, these methodologies recognise that the social and rights issues need to be addressed and respected and that the forest has multiple values and uses that need to be recognised and respected. Any methodology or agreement that reduces forests solely to carbon and emissions functions, or metrics, is flawed. We have had 30 years, again, of evidence and long-term advocacy by social justice movements to explain to government forest policymakers and international agencies that forests are about much more than timber. Now we are at risk of reducing forests to carbon, when forests are much more than that; they hold livelihood and subsistence values, they hold spiritual values for indigenous peoples. These values and these uses - and crucially these rights that are linked to them - must be recognised and respected. Q174 Joan Walley: How would you go about putting a value on that? Mr Griffiths: When I talk about value I am not talking about monetary value. It is crucial that these methodologies recognise these non-monetary values of forests as well as monetary values, where they are appropriate. What we do not want to do is reduce the forest to purely monetary values. That is unhelpful and will risk marginalising crucial substantive rights, like the rights to livelihood and rights to food and so on. If there is a rights-based approach that looks at these rights to livelihood, rights to food and security and rights to culture and integrity, which may include hunting rights and so on, then these issues can be addressed in a meaningful way. However, any scheme that simply wants to put a price on this and pay compensation for them to forego these practices really runs the risk (1) of being contrary to, as I mentioned earlier, international norms that uphold these rights and (2) they could risk impoverishing these communities, because it is well proven (you may have seen in Cameroon) that payments are often late, there are intermediaries and you could really risk causing serious adverse impacts by offering compensation for people to surrender these rights when, often, there is no science to prove in the first place that they are unsustainable and unhelpful. So the crucial point here is that these issues need to be addressed through careful rights-based methodologies that uphold these legitimate rights. Ms Ozinga: Coming back to the case of
Cameroon, there are conflicts, no doubt, and there have been conflicts for as
long as we know in who owns what and who can do what with the forest. In the case of Cameroon, which is a FLEGT
country negotiating the VPA with the EU, what we have learned is that when you
get a national process in place which gets all stakeholders round a table - it
is a true, generally, multi-stakeholder process and it is given sufficient time
to put all the conflicts on the table and try to work towards a solution - that
is a way forward. So if we get an
international forest climate agreement under the UNFCCC or elsewhere which is
not based on carbon trading and which recognises rights, and which will then
have to be further negotiated at the national level, that would provide a
platform to get at least all the stakeholders round the table and then define:
"What does it mean, a rights-based approach?
Who owns these rights?" We have
seen the same with this definition of legality.
What is legal is not very clear in any of these countries. It has taken three years in Q175 Jo Swinson: Eliasch said that community forestry could play an important role, both in reducing deforestation but, also, in ensuring that communities were able to continue benefiting from the land. Do you agree with this and do you have any examples where there have been successful schemes in promoting this? Ms Ozinga: There have been successful
schemes in Q176 Jo Swinson: What are the hallmarks of successful ones, then? Ms Ozinga: The hallmarks of successful
ones, I think, are that you are in a country which is a big trading
country. If you compare, for instance,
Mexico with Cameroon, when Cameroon had this new forestry legislation it wanted
to make itself into almost the largest timber exporting country in Africa,
which is a very different situation in Mexico, which does not focus as much on
the outside market as Cameroon does, but the whole competition element is very
different. The rights situation is very
clearly defined in Mr Griffiths: Just to follow up on what Saskia is saying, some of the hallmarks of sustainable community forest management are that the community itself is in control and has some jurisdiction over the management of forest, and if there is any enterprise involved they control the enterprise. It is where, as Saskia says, there are middlemen or intermediaries involved that they often become compromised and in an exploited position. Where they are able to control the enterprise and have control over the management of the forest then there is evidence that it is sustainable and really can deliver benefits and empower communities. Crucially, as Saskia says, there are strong community institutions and very often this means that, in the case of income generation, community enterprise, capacity building, and so on, is a crucial component of success, and the communities need that support for capacity building. However, the traditional forest management systems, I reiterate again to the Committee, are proven to be sustainable. This is because one of the underpinning factors is they have extensive land-use systems; what are called "horizontal economies", spread over a large area. This is low-intensity use. They also have their own traditional belief systems and customary norms for the protection and use of the forest, based on concepts of replacement, regeneration and sensible, careful use. So the traditional regimes are very often sustainable, and that is proven, as we have mentioned. Where you get a commercial element involved with income, as I say, you often need to be sure that there is capacity put in there to deal with the money, economy and financing, and that they have proper support to establish their own control over that business. Q177 Jo
Swinson: As you have highlighted there, some of the
issues that we saw in Mr Griffiths: One of the main
preconditions, as we have said throughout this evidence this morning, is
securing of land and resource rights.
The Convention on Biological Biodiversity's ad hoc working group on
climate change and biodiversity met here in Ms Watson: As Tom was saying, the question of working through communities' own organisations is essential because there have been cases in the Amazon where individuals have negotiated agreements which have been disastrous. In fact, too much money has gone into the hands of several individuals which has destabilised communities. You also have to think, if you are dealing with isolated communities, it is not just getting the money from trade in sustainable logging or whatever, it is what comes with that, which is the whole infrastructure, because it necessarily means interacting with people from outside, possibly building roads - and with that you get a whole set of social and health problems, and those all have to be taken into the equation when it comes to matters to do with remuneration and other safeguards. Q178 Mark Lazarowicz: On that point, is it conceivable that if that type of substantial increases in funds occurred, and if fundamental and market mechanisms were actually to come about, that actually communities would be able to have the capacity to do anything with that kind of money, as they do in Eliasch and others - very large sums of money? If that really was to be applied through community forestry schemes to communities, it would require a great deal of capacity, first of all, to spend it and, then, as you point out, there will be issues about what would the money be spent on. Would it be spent on things like roads, which would then have other consequences for both local communities and, also, for carbon emissions as well? What is your view on the capacity to deal with that kind of step-change in funds, if that was to come about? Mr Griffiths: This comes back to the initial point about the need for a phased approach in the implementation of these agreements. Issues of governance and issues of secure tenure must be addressed and if there are needs for capacity building and institutional strengthening then that has to be part of the package, otherwise, as we have mentioned, pouring money into this could actually exacerbate problems and could cause unforeseen consequences. This step-wise approach is essential. Also, the point to make is that it is not just about money, REDD. If the focus is only on income, as we said, this may well cause problems; you need to look at these non-monetary elements, like governance, like community institutions and indeed state institutions, and you need to look at these drivers of deforestation and the whole policy framework - the cross-sectoral framework within a country that is putting pressure on forests and on peoples' lands; just looking at money and the management of money is not going to solve this. It is true there is a question about absorption, and that will need, in some cases, capacity building, but in other cases indigenous peoples are quite well adapted at management; it depends on the particular cases. Also, of course, there are options for non-monetary benefits, like support for land titling schemes and others, in a phased approach rather than simply flooding these communities with money at the outset. There needs to be a phased and step-wise approach. Q179 Mark Lazarowicz: We are talking about a phased approach again. What is the type of timescale we are talking about for a phrased approach? I know you cannot be, in any sense, specific but, on the one hand, there is pressure to meet 2020 and 2050 targets when it comes to carbon emissions, but a phased approach here is suggesting a pretty gradual build-up to the process. What kind of timescale are you talking about? Ms Ozinga: I think, again, coming back, the first point is if we want to keep the forest standing we need to address the 80 per cent first. If we do not address the 80 per cent we will get a two-degree temperature increase and the forest will be gone. So the 80 per cent is where we need the quick action, and where we do not see the quick action because carbon trading is not delivering any quick action. I think that is the first point to make. The timescale we think about, it takes about three to five years to come to an agreement at national level, which includes local communities, indigenous peoples, NGOs and any other stakeholders in the forest, to come to a national level plan about how that forest can be protected. Once that is agreed, once that is in place, you can start implementing that plan and, depending on the country and depending on whatever else, that might be another five years, or something like that. So it is not massive timescales, but the problem is that the timescales which we have seen work with the EU FLEGT programme are now undermined by the whole REDD programme, which requires much quicker timescales, which we think are actually really going to undermine the whole forest problem. In the climate debate the issue is permanence: how can you guarantee that the forests stay standing in a permanent way? We believe the only way that that can happen is if you have clarity of ownership over the land and over the forest. That is a precondition. In countries where that is not the case, either because the government is not willing to discuss that or for whatever reasons, you will not keep the forests standing. We do not believe you can actually keep the forest standing. So the permanence has to be linked to the rights issue, and the rights issue has to be solved, including with good governance. So the permanence is directly linked to that. If you are talking in the REDD debate about monitoring, when they talk about monitoring they talk about monitoring carbon flows, which are incredibly difficult to account for. They do not talk about monitoring implementation of rights agreements, international law and improvements in governance, which are part of the EU FLEGT agreement as well, so that is another element which has to be fed into that REDD discussion to move that in the right direction. Q180 Mark Lazarowicz: Can I ask you a bit more about your evidence on the problems of carbon trading which you referred to earlier? Obviously, your scepticism reminds me of carbon trading in relation to forestry; that is pretty clear, but are there any steps which could be taken in terms of developing a carbon trading mechanism which might at least reduce the kind of negative consequences which you fear? If there was going to be one how could we make it better, or maybe you think it cannot be made better: the system is inherently flawed? I understand that is your position but what could be done? Ms Ozinga: The first thing that could be done is to take the offset out of the equation. If carbon trading was just a cap and trade system without any possibility to offset it would be massively more effective in terms of emission reductions than it is now, but the offset is basically placing a massive hole in the whole carbon trading system. It undermines the whole emissions trading. If you were to auction all permits rather than only part of them that would be another improvement. An even bigger improvement, as has been said by economists, the Financial Times and people who think purely economically, would be a carbon tax. Q181 Mark Lazarowicz: And in relation to emissions application to forestry, could there be anything done to reduce the negative consequences there? Ms Ozinga: Because we believe carbon trading does not address the climate crisis; it will have a negative effect on the forest, full stop. That is the first problem. If we were theoretically to ignore that fact for the moment and just look at carbon trading financing forestry offset projects, and then you come to your gold standard question, you still have the problem that the contracts are confidential, they are not written in the language of the communities, they are not between the community and the seller; but they are with an intermediary who takes 40 per cent of the profit, so you are creating again this whole middle-man situation, which you have seen in Cameroon is not really beneficial for the community. There is a whole raft of things which go wrong there which would need to be addressed first if you wanted to look at that as a mechanism to work and we have not seen that working anywhere yet. Theoretically it could but there is no real evidence to base that on. Joan Walley: That brings us to the end of our session. Can I thank all three of you very much for coming to help us. |