Community Forestry Management, Indigenous Peoples, and REDD

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I recently visited the community of Ixtpal de Juarez, an indigenous community in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico. The 19,000 hectares of forest that the community manages generates almost $2 million/year in revenue and more employment than the community can fill.

The heart of this operation is a forestry management unit that uses sustainable practices on the 3600 hectares. This timberland supplies their saw mill enough logs to produce 25,000 cubic meters of sawn lumber per year. While the lumber could be sold on the market for ~$1/ board foot, it is instead transformed into furniture that sells for the equivalent of $3/board foot.

The project started almost 25 years ago when the community took control of the timber concession previously managed by a private timber company.

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Failure of Climate Bill - How does it affect Forestry and REDD?

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I think we would all agree that it is a disappointment that the US Senate didn't take up a climate bill that included a cap and trade system to finally put a price on carbon and begin reducing emissions.

The failure of the bill affects REDD not only in Panama, but throughout the world. Primarily, it hamstrings any meaningful encapsulating agreement coming out of Cancun in December, and probably even South Africa in 2011. More and more it looks like the best thing that can come out of Cancun for REDD is a "REDD+ Readiness" package that the new REDD+ Partnership can build off of. More on that Partnership later...

Most importantly for REDD, it doesn't look like we will have a significant market for any credits generated in the next 5-6 years; not a great signal to the private sector and investors.

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REDD in Panama

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How should REDD work in Panama? The basics are that it should:

  • Be a national system (potentially nested with a definite end for projects);
  • Ensure the majority of the benefits reach those living in the forests.
  • Not count enhanced forest carbon sequestration that comes from plantations (monoculture Teak, Oil Palm).

Why a national system? Independent projects are great, but they will just push the deforestation around the country - leakage, in other words. If these projects are to be included, it should be within a "nested" approach. This means that projects have a set amount of time (between 5-7 years) to merge their project into the national system, or "nest" it.

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Ecuador trip

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Guest post from Chris Meyer, writing from Ecuador

Deforested land in Arimae's reserve to be replantedDeforested land in Arimae's reserve to be replantedFellow co-founder Andrew Wulf and I visited a Guarani indigenous village outside of Tena while on vacation/work. While there were numerous similarities between Panama and Ecuador in relation to conservation, economic opportunities, problems with land, and resource management, there were also many differences.

I arranged to stay with the brother of the President of the regional Guarani organization. He lives in his own little "compound" consisting of a couple of houses where his various children now live with their children. In total, about 15 people lived in the compound (10 under the age of 13). Along the river they had cleared about three hectares (7.5 acres) to plant corn (mostly for animals), papaya, cacao, yucca, plantains, bananas, and other fruiting trees indigenous to the area.

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REDD update from Bonn

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Guest post from Chris Meyer, writing from Bonn

I was in Bonn last week for the first of two weeks of post-Copenhagen climate change negotiations. As I wrote in a blog post for the Environmental Defense Fund, indigenous rights language in the negotiating text - specifically the REDD+ section - is significant.

I wrote in that post:

Most promising in this is that the two-year-old brackets around the text – text is [bracketed] when it is controversial and does not have unanimous support from countries – have been removed.  This is a big victory for indigenous leaders, as it indicates strong support for indigenous peoples' rights.

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