Forest funding 'could put billions in wrong hands'
The rush to protect forests as a way to tackle global warming could
see billions of pounds handed over to corrupt politicians, criminals
and polluting industries, experts have warned.
The Rights and
Resources Initiative, a coalition of groups from around the world, says
not enough has been done to address land rights in tropical countries,
where much of the money is being directed. Without clearer guidelines
on land ownership and involvement by local people, they say, the funds
provided by rich countries, including Britain, to protect trees could
fuel violent conflict and fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Deforestation
causes about a fifth of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, and how to
protect the huge stocks of carbon locked in tropical forests has become
a key issue in the climate change debate. Sir Nicholas Stern, in his
2006 review of the economics of the problem, said that £2.5bn a year
could be enough to prevent deforestation across the eight most
important countries. Britain and Norway have already pledged £108m to a
fund to protect forests in the Congo basin. Rich countries paying
tropical regions to protect forests is likely to form part of a new
global climate deal to replace the Kyoto protocol, which could be
agreed next year.
Stern also said that a series of institutional
and policy reforms were needed, including forest property rights.
Without such changes, said Andy White, coordinator of the initiative,
the money aimed at protecting trees could go to central government
officials, many of whom were closely tied to illegal logging and mining
activities. He said direct payments to local groups would be more
effective, but that required them to be given clear land rights.
Evidence from Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil showed that local
communities protected the forests better than governments, he said.
White
added: "These forests are often in lawless regions with a history of
conflict. We have huge concerns about sending all this money in the
name of fighting climate change if the land rights for people living
there are not resolved. It could cause more violence, benefit only a
wealthy elite and lead to even greater carbon emissions.
"We
think it would be a terrible mistake to reduce development funding
purely to carbon and mitigating climate change. This poses a real
dilemma for governments of conscience like the UK. They risk
undermining all of their development and human rights work in this area
if efforts to protect carbon don't support and strengthen community
land rights and organisations."
Two reports from the Rights and
Resources Initiative, published today, show that progress on land
rights has slowed in recent years. The group says just 27% of
developing-country forest is owned by local communities, or designated
for their use. It warns that the next two decades could see the
remaining forests threatened by the "last great global land grab", with
booming demand for land to grow food, biofuels and wood products.
White
said more effort was needed to map remote forests and register the
people who live there to protect their interests. "We know how to do
this. It's not rocket science, it just needs to be scaled up." He
praised steps Britain has taken in the Congo basin.
Gareth
Thomas, green minister at the Department for International Development,
said: "We don't spend money on any project if we can't be certain that
the money is going to go where it is needed. But we have to step up
work on land-use management, ownership issues and improving governance.
We have made quite a lot of progress, but it is not realistic that we
can sort out every land use issue by the time of the next climate
treaty."
James Heneage, the director of the Prince's Rainforests
Project, a group set up by the Prince of Wales to work out a mechanism
to fund forest protection, said a focus on land rights risked delaying
efforts to protect the climate. He said: "The issue of land rights is
important and must be looked at, but it is also an intractable problem
and will take time to solve. We are in a state of emergency with
climate change and we cannot allow the issue of land rights to delay
getting serious amounts of money into forests to stop deforestation."
David Adam
The Guardian
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The person with a bone in his/her nose is probably the one who has most to lose by deforestation not the con-man who talks of education and the environment in 'feel-good' terms