Skip to content
Menu
REDD-Monitor
  • Start here
  • About REDD-Monitor
  • REDD: An introduction
  • Contact
REDD-Monitor

Forest communities of the Congo Basin speak out on REDD: moving the debate beyond financing

Posted on 30 November 20081 June 2012

Forest communities of the Congo Basin speak out on REDD: moving the debate beyond financing

From November 18-20, 2008, over 30 indigenous peoples and civil society representatives from throughout the Congo Basin gathered in Kinshasa to discuss forests, climate change, and proposed mechanisms for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). We report below on the outcomes.

One of the principal objectives of the meeting was to reorient the forest-climate debate from its current focus on financing to those issues and actions that indigenous peoples in the Congo Basin believe are necessary to ensure effective protection of the forests and the communities that live in and depend on them.

Participants issued a declaration at the conclusion of the workshop. Their principal demands included the following:

• Indigenous peoples must participate fully in discussions regarding forest management, as well as in the implementation and benefits from REDD;
• The recognition and protection of the rights of forest-dependent communities must be the cornerstone of any REDD mechanism;
• REDD mechanisms must address the underlying causes of degradation and deforestation; and
• REDD must not replace reductions in industrial emissions but be additional to them.

Much of the carbon emissions from the Congo Basin region is caused by forest degradation, especially from commercial logging, rather than outright deforestation. (Photo: K. Horta).

The participants also denounced the lack of transparency and inadequate participation of forest-dependent communities in the multiple new initiatives designed to support REDD in the Congo Basin, including the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the United Nations’ REDD programme. They argued that REDD mechanisms should respect the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and provide support for legislative reforms necessary to secure the land rights of forest-dependent communities.

Civil society representatives from several Congo Basin countries will be in Poznan, Poland, from December 1-12, 2008, to convey these messages to governments gathered at the UNFCCC Conference of Parties.

Read the full declaration in French and English (pdf files, 20Kb each).

  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Reddit
  • email
  • Facebook

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

SUBSCRIBE!

Enter your email address to receive notification of new posts.

Recent themes
Natural Climate Solutions
WWF's conservation scandals
Aviation and offsetting
Conservation Watch

Recent Comments

  • Chris Lang on Green IS Group: An FSC-certified Ponzi scheme
  • Tom Rayner on Green IS Group: An FSC-certified Ponzi scheme
  • Alan N. Connor on 30×30 target “not supported by the science”
  • Jeremy Sweet on 30×30 target “not supported by the science”
  • Chris Lang on Al Jazeera: Why are Tanzania’s Maasai being forced off their ancestral land?

Recent Posts

  • Statement from Kichwa Indigenous communities about the Cordillera Azul National Park REDD (PNCAZ) project: “No to the false climate solutions offered as ‘Nature Based Solutions’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ by oil and mining companies that pollute in other regions of the world, such as Shell, Total, BHP, and others, who buy carbon from the PNCAZ.”
  • 30×30 target “not supported by the science”
  • Aby L. Sène on “Land Grabs and Conservation Propaganda” in Africa
  • NIHT Inc’s misleading statements about the company’s REDD operations in Papua New Guinea
  • Global Forestry Investments scam: Andrew Skeene and Omari Bowers sentenced to 11 years in prison

Recent Comments

  • Chris Lang on Green IS Group: An FSC-certified Ponzi scheme
  • Tom Rayner on Green IS Group: An FSC-certified Ponzi scheme
  • Alan N. Connor on 30×30 target “not supported by the science”
  • Jeremy Sweet on 30×30 target “not supported by the science”
  • Chris Lang on Al Jazeera: Why are Tanzania’s Maasai being forced off their ancestral land?

Issues and Organisations

30x30 AB 32 Andes Amazon Boiler rooms California Can REDD save ... ? Carbon accounting Carbon Credits Carbon Offsets CDM Conservation-Watch Conservation International COP21 Paris Cryptocurrency Deforestation FCPF FERN Financing REDD Forest definition Fossil fuels FPP Friends of the Earth FSC Greenpeace Guest post ICAO Illegal logging Indigenous Peoples Natural Climate Solutions NGO statements Plantations Poznan R-M interview REDD and rights REDD in the news Risk RSPO-Watch Safeguards Sengwer The Nature Conservancy UN-REDD UNFCCC World Bank WRM WWF

Countries

Australia Bolivia Brazil Cambodia Cameroon Canada China Colombia Congo Basin region Costa Rica DR Congo Ecuador El Salvador European Union France Germany Guatemala Guyana Honduras India Indonesia Kenya Laos Madagascar Malaysia Mexico Nicaragua Norway Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Republic of Congo Sierra Leone Sweden Tanzania Thailand Uganda UK Uncategorized United Arab Emirates USA Vietnam West Papua
©2022 REDD-Monitor | Powered by WordPress and Superb Themes!