2023-12-06 03:30:00
Jordi Zamora*
At COP28, Brazil presented a multi-million dollar initiative to protect rainforests, which aims join forces with other governments but raises caution among the main guardians of biodiversity, indigenous peoples.
Promoted by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Dubai, the Brazilian proposal basically consists of the creation of an international fund that would reward countries for each hectare of jungle or forest conserved, through international verification.
The fund, from which 80 countries could benefit, should start with 250 billion dollars.
Candidate countries cannot exceed a maximum percentage of annual deforestation.
For each hectare deforested in excess, the country would suffer a penalty or discount equivalent to 100 hectares preserved.
Monitoring must be transparent and mutually accepted by investors and beneficiaries.
“It’s really a very bold initiative,” acknowledges Cristiane Julião, an indigenous pankararu and leader of the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB).
But Brazil has had the problem of demarcating indigenous properties for decades, this activist reminds AFP.
“We already have agreements that have been made, agreed upon, but they have not been executed,” he says.
One soccer field every five seconds
Deforestation is both a vector and a consequence of climate change.
The Earth lost an area of virgin rainforest equivalent to a football field every five seconds in 2022, according to a study by the World Resources Institute (WRI) from June this year.
The 41,000 km2 of area cut down or burned last year is equivalent to the area of Switzerland or the Netherlands.
The role of indigenous peoples is essential to protect these native forests, as recognized by the UN climate conferences (COP) since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
80% of the planet’s biodiversity is found in areas where there is an indigenous presence, according to the UN.
But conservation is a prerogative jealously guarded by each State that signs the climate agreements.
The Brazilian initiative “is a good idea (…) but we have to find a way in which forests can attract investments, attract funds that can rival perverse investments,” Joseph Itongwa Mukumo, an indigenous Bambuti from the Democratic Republic, explains to AFP. of the Congo.
The carbon credit system, through which companies can offset greenhouse gas emissions through reforestation or giving money to indigenous communities, generates a lot of controversy.
The fight against climate change is generating an unprecedented combination of private and public funds that is an explosive novelty for very unprotected populations, culturally and financially, experts warn.
“We don’t want closed forests, like protected areas, and people living outside,” warns Itongwa Mukumo, representative at COP28 of an entire network of African indigenous organizations, Repaleac.
The first step, believe the activists present at COP28, would be to distribute property titles to communities.
But this comes up against very different legislative realities in each country.
Is a piece of jungle the property of the indigenous people who have ancestrally inhabited it, or of the group of citizens of countries that emerged from decolonization?
Slowness and bureaucracy
Two years ago, at COP26 in Glasgow, Western governments and private institutions such as the Ford Foundation announced a $1.7 billion fund to help indigenous people around the world fight for these tenures.
Two years later, the fund has already disbursed about half the money.
But only 2.1% went directly to the indigenous people on the ground, recognizes the balance presented at COP28.
There are bureaucratic problems, and there is a lack of organizations with adequate preparation on the ground, Kevin Currey, program manager for the natural resources division of the Ford Foundation, explains to AFP.
“Donor systems are cumbersome, our organizations are bureaucratic and slow. And it is not a trend that can change overnight,” this official accepts in an interview with AFP.
“The financing schemes designed in the last 30, 40 years were built without our participation. They were made in who knows what buildings,” criticizes Levi Sucre Romero, an indigenous Costa Rican Bribi.
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