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Thursday, December 27, 2012

27 December New York Times article

In today's New York Times - what is finally a focused and objective article on Bolivia, though, sadly, about cocaine which is not what Bolivia is about; one would hope that the NYT would spend time writing about the birdlife, orchids, indigenous festivals, social improvements under the MAS government, chocolate farming, mineral resources, coffee production - the list of positive things is endless, why all the attention on some stupid drug that people do to make themselves think they are cool?

 

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Coca Licensing Is a Weapon in Bolivia’s Drug War

Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Augustine Calicho, 45, separating the seeds from dried coca leaves in Villa Tunari in the Chapare region of Bolivia. More Photos »
TODOS SANTOS, Bolivia — There is nothing clandestine about Julián Rojas’s coca plot, which is tucked deep within acres of banana groves. It has been mapped with satellite imagery, cataloged in a government database, cross-referenced with his personal information and checked and rechecked by the local coca growers’ union. The same goes for the plots worked by Mr. Rojas’s neighbors and thousands of other farmers in this torrid region east of the Andes who are licensed by the Bolivian government to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine.

Multimedia
 
 
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Meri Pintas, 30, center, harvesting coca leaves with her children in the Yungas region of Bolivia. Thousands of legal coca patches are intended to produce coca leaf for traditional uses. More Photos »
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
A counternarcotics agent explained the eradication process to coca growers whose patch was two rows over the legal limit. More Photos »
President Evo Morales, who first came to prominence as a leader of coca growers, kicked out the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2009. That ouster, together with events like the arrest last year of the former head of the Bolivian anti-narcotics police on trafficking charges, led Washington to conclude that Bolivia was not meeting its global obligations to fight narcotics.
But despite the rift with the United States, Bolivia, the world’s third-largest cocaine producer, has advanced its own unorthodox approach toward controlling the growing of coca, which veers markedly from the wider war on drugs and includes high-tech monitoring of thousands of legal coca patches intended to produce coca leaf for traditional uses.
To the surprise of many, this experiment has now led to a significant drop in coca plantings in Mr. Morales’s Bolivia, an accomplishment that has largely occurred without the murders and other violence that have become the bloody byproduct of American-led measures to control trafficking in Colombia, Mexico and other parts of the region.
Yet there are also worrisome signs that such gains are being undercut as traffickers use more efficient methods to produce cocaine and outmaneuver Bolivian law enforcement to keep drugs flowing out of the country.
In one key sign of progress in Bolivia’s approach toward coca, the total acres planted with coca dropped 12 to 13 percent last year, according to separate reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. At the same time, the Bolivian government stepped up efforts to rip out unauthorized coca plantings and reported an increase in seizures of cocaine and cocaine base.
“It’s fascinating to look at a country that kicked out the United States ambassador and the D.E.A., and the expectation on the part of the United States is that drug war efforts would fall apart,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group. Instead, she said, Bolivia’s approach is “showing results.”
Still, there is skepticism. “Our perspective is they’ve made real advances, and they’re a long way from where we’d like to see them,” said Larry Memmott, chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy in La Paz. “In terms of law enforcement, a lot remains to be done.”
Although Bolivia outlaws cocaine, it permits the growing of coca for traditional uses. Bolivians chew coca leaf as a mild stimulant and use it as a medicine, as a tea and, particularly among the majority indigenous population, in religious rituals.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Rojas placed a few dried leaves into his mouth and watched the sun set over his coca field, slightly less than two-fifths of an acre, the maximum allowed per farmer here in this region, known as the Chapare.
“This is a way to keep it under control,” he said, spitting a stream of green juice. “Everyone should have the same amount.”
Mr. Rojas is a face of a changing region. He makes far more money growing bananas for export on about 74 acres than he does growing coca. But he has no intention of giving up his tiny coca plot. “What happens if a disease attacks the bananas?” he asked. “Then we still have the coca to save us.”
The Bolivian government has persuaded growers that by limiting the amount of plantings, coca prices will remain high. And it has largely focused eradication efforts, of the kind that once spurred strong popular resistance, outside the areas controlled by growers’ unions, like in national parks.
The registration of thousands of Chapare growers, completed this year, is part of an enforcement system that relies on growers to police one another. If registered growers are found to have plantings above the maximum allowed, soldiers are called in to remove the excess. If growers violate the limit a second time, their entire crop is cut down and they lose the right to grow coca.
Growers’ unions can also be punished if there are multiple violations among their members.
“We have to be constantly vigilant,” said Nelson Sejas, a Chapare grower who was part of a team that checked coca plots to make sure they did not exceed the limit.
But there is still plenty of cheating. Officials say they are going over the registry of about 43,000 Chapare growers to find those who may have multiple plots or who may violate other rules.
“The results speak for themselves,” said Carlos Romero, the minister of government. “We have demonstrated that you can objectively do eradication work without violating human rights, without polemicizing the topic and with clear results.”
He said that the government was on pace to eradicate more acres of coca this year than it did last year, without the violence of years past. A government report said 60 people were killed and more than 700 were wounded in the Chapare from 1998 to 2002 in violence related to eradication.
But even as Bolivia shows progress, grave concerns remain.
The White House drug office estimated that despite the decrease in total coca acreage last year, the amount of cocaine that could potentially be produced from the coca grown in Bolivia jumped by more than a quarter. That is because a large amount of recent plantings began to mature and reach higher yields; new plantings with higher yields replaced older, less productive fields; and traffickers switched to more efficient processing methods.
Yet the glaring paradox of Bolivia’s monitoring program is that vast amounts of the legally grown coca ultimately wind up in the hands of drug traffickers and are converted into cocaine and other drugs. Most of those drugs go to Brazil, considered the world’s second-largest cocaine market. Virtually no Bolivian cocaine ends up in the United States.
César Guedes, the representative in Bolivia of the United Nations drugs office, said that roughly half of the country’s coca acreage produces coca that goes to the drug trade. By some estimates, more than 90 percent of the coca in Chapare, one of two main producing regions, goes to drugs.
Two Chapare farmers explained that they generally sell one 50-pound bag of coca leaf from each harvest to the government-regulated market. The rest, often 200 pounds or more, is sold to buyers who work with traffickers and pay a premium over the government-authorized price. One of the growers said he recently delivered coca leaf directly to a lab where it would be turned into drugs.
The central question is how much coca is needed to supply traditional needs. Current government policy permits about 50,000 acres of legal coca plantings, although the actual area in cultivation is much higher. The United Nations estimated there were 67,000 acres of coca last year.
Whatever the exact figure, most analysts agree that far more is produced than is needed to supply the traditional market.
The European Union financed a study several years ago to estimate how much coca was needed for traditional uses, but the Bolivian government has refused to release it, saying that more research is needed.
The push to reduce coca acreage comes as the Morales government is lobbying other countries to amend a United Nations convention on narcotics to recognize the legality of traditional uses of coca leaf in Bolivia. A decision is expected in January.
On a recent morning just after dawn, a squad of uniformed soldiers used machetes to cut down a plot of coca plants near the town of Ivirgarzama.
They had come to chop down an old coca patch that had passed its prime and measure a replacement plot planted by the farmer. The soldiers determined that the new plot was slightly over the limit and removed about two rows of plants before going on their way.
“Before, there was more tension, more conflict, more people injured,” Lt. Col. Willy Pozo said. “This is no longer a war.”
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky contributed reporting from Ivirgarzama, Bolivia.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Jacob Ostreicher out on bail in Santa Cruz

While still not free, Jacob Ostreicher got a Chanukah present from the Bolivian government: he was allowed out on bail. There are complications to his case, which is not being helped by the presence of US politicians, journalists and out of work actors who are known to punch women. No need to name names.
Jacob is caught in this circus, an innocent victim of drug dealers and the GOP.
We continue to support his release, and to support the MAS government in Bolivia as it tries to clarify what is going on.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Fernando Rivera and GOP collaborators arrested in Bolivia

Jacob Ostreicher remains in jail in Bolivia, after having been used unwittingly as a pawn of the GOP in America - as I posted on 8 August at this site. Secret talks failed, as the GOP did not know how to deal with the situation, got scared after talk about this leading to Mitt Romney, and eventually lost interest in Jacob's case; they also knew by about mid-September that they were going to lose the elections, and Jacob was no longer needed. So he got left to the dishonest folks in Bolivia who did not mind making a bigger diplomatic mess of it than it was - and the formerly unnamed official, Fernando Rivera, to whom I alluded on this site, saw his only chance to make some dinero was to extort Jacob or take his assets. The Bolivian govnerment, headed by Evo Morales, sensed something was wrong, and arrested Rivera and five of his partners-in-crime. They are now in jail, but so is Ostreicher, and it is not clear what the next move is.
Ironically, there are still parties who want to use this against MAS and the Morales government, which is only trying to do the right thing, though they do not have all the facts.
But we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully Ostreicher will be set free and the MAS government will have more useful information about the GOP and its antics.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

JACOB OSTREICHER IN PRISON IN SANTA CRUZ

Since Spring of 2011, a New York businessman has been in 'la jaula'- that is, prison,  in Bolivia -
and it is a strange case indeed; contrary to popular thought, it is not local corruption
that wants to extort money from the family - there are other forces keeping him from
getting a fair trial. He is BTW innocent of the money laundering charges that got attached to him after he bought land to grow rice from a Colombian drug dealer, now knowing what his sellor's past was. He did in fact grow rice and employ 200 people. So what's this about?
It all has to do with the US GOP, which has pulled strings, or rather a small power group inside the GOP, to keep the trial delayed so that he can be sprung mid October to help the hapless GOP candidates.
But it is not quite working, and most likely Jacob will stay in jail. The Bolivian government is also being set up in this, there are GOP members who want to use it against Evo Morales, who is not directly involved.
A top official I will leave unnamed in Bolivia is, but not without ties to shadowy figures who go in and out of the US Embassy.
I am posting this here to start to document the fraud. If the Bolivian government knew exactly what was happening, he would be set free ASAP, but they are being set up and lied to.
So we'll see.










Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Mineral Resources in Bolivia

A history of Bolivian mining with a list of its most important mineral resources

From 1557 to 1985, mining dominated the Bolivian economy. By 1987 mining accounted for only 4 percent of GDP, 36 percent of exports, and 2.5 percent of government revenues. Spurred by a massive increase in gold production, the mining sector rebounded in 1988, returning to the top of the nation's list of foreign exchange earners. Tin and silver had been the major products in this sector, making fortunes for a few select families who saw fit to take their wealth out of the country, or for foreign companies with little regard for the native workers. This was much a factor in Bolivia's struggle for independence from Spain. It was not until 1952 that an agency that answered to the governemnt, at least partly, was established; Comibol, which was decentralised into five semiautonomous mining enterprises in 1986. This was a huge multimineral corporation controlled by unions and was the second largest tin enterprise in the world. It operated 21 mining companies, spare-parts factories, electricity plants, farms, a railroad, and other agencies. The decentralisation of Comibol under the Rehabilitation Plan reduced the company's payroll from 27,000 employees to under 7,000 in less than a year. All of Comibol's mines were shut down from September 1986 to May 1987 to examine the economic feasibility of each mine; some never reopened. Comibol's mining and service companies were restructured into five autonomous mining subsidiaries (in Oruro, La Paz, Quechusa, Potosí, and Oriente) and two autonomous smelting companies (the Vinto Smelting Company and the still unopened Karachipampa smelter in Potosí), or they were transferred to ministries. Medium miners, small miners, cooperatives, and other producers, which made up the rest of the mining sector, produced more minerals in 1987 than Comibol. The medium miners consisted of Bolivian and foreign mining companies in the private sector that were involved in the production of virtually every mineral, especially silver, zinc, antimony, lead, cadmium, tungsten, gold, and tin.

Gold Gold prospecting in the country's rivers and mines was brisk in the late 1980s. Because of Bolivia's vast territory and the high value of gold, contraband gold accounted for approximately 80 percent of exports. Official gold exports were approximately five tons in 1988, up sharply from less than one ton in 1985. In order to capture gold as a reserve for the Central Bank, in 1988 the government offered a 5 percent bonus over the international price of gold on local sales to the Central Bank. Gold was mined almost exclusively by over 300 cooperatives throughout the country, along with about 10,000 prospectors. A large percentage of the cooperatives worked in Tipuani, Guanay, Mapiri, Huayti, and Teoponte in a 21,000-hectare region set aside for gold digging and located 120 kilometers north of La Paz. Mining cooperatives in the late 1980s had requested an additional 53,000 hectares from the government for gold prospecting. Others panned for their fortunes in remote villages like Araras along the Brazilian border in Beni. Small-scale operations were very traditional and wasteful. Analysts predicted that more commercial production, such as the dredging of alluvial deposits, would maximize gold output. A few medium-sized mining operations, as well as the Armed Forces National Development Corporation (Corporación de las Fuerzas Armadas para el Desarrollo Nacional--Cofadena) became involved in the gold rush in the 1980s. Government policy favored augmenting gold reserves as a means of leveraging more external finance for development projects. Bolivia's gold production has been steadily rising since 1998. Gold production in the first 6 months of 2003 was estimated at 4 600 t a 18.6% increase from 2002. Production is still dominated by the Into Raymi gold mine that is responsible for over 75% of Bolivia’s production. The mine is situated at Kori Kollo on the Altiplano north of Oruro with Newmont Mining owning 88% and Zeland Mines SA (12%) of the project. The mine began production in 1993 and produced 306 000 oz gold in 2001. However, reserves at the mine are rapidly being exhausted and are currently estimated at 700 000 oz.
Through a local subsidiary, Empresa Minera Paititi, Orvana Minerals has purchased a gold mining concession and related equipment from Comsur. The Don Mario gold deposit is located in eastern Bolivia and has mineable reserves estimated at containing 1.17 Mt grading 10.24 g/t gold for 386,000 oz gold.
Bolivia has several smaller scale gold projects currently undergoing feasibility studies by several foreign companies. Apart from hard rock gold finds, Bolivia has several high grade alluvial gold fields. The largest and highest grade fields are located on the Challana, the Kaka, the Mapirí, and the Tipuani river valleys in northern part of La Paz. Golden Eagle Bolivia are currently evaluating the Tipuani region where the company has secured mining rights over 74 000 acres. The Araras area near the border with Brazil has also been identified as prospective for alluvial gold, in particular the Madera and the Madre de Dios Rivers. More gold as also been discovered this year, along with much silver (see below) at Malku Khota.

Silver Three centuries after being the world's largest producer of silver, Bolivia still produced 225 tons of silver in 1988, as compared with about 140 tons in 1987. Recent finds, such as the one in 2010 by the South American Silver Company at Malku Khota, which is known to be one of the world's largest undeveloped silver resources, will increase mining activity.
Potassium Bolivia also has approximately 110 million tons of potassium, much of which is mixed in with the lithium (see below).

Lithium The lithium and potassium deposits located in the brines of the southern Altiplano's Uyuni saltpan are estimated to be the largest of their kind in the world. The United States Geological Survey, the Bolivian Geological Survey (Servicio Geológico de Bolivia), and others discovered large reserves of lithium in 1976. By 1985 Bolivia's National Congress had made lithium extraction a national priority and created the Industrial Complex of the of Uyuni Saltpan (Complejo Industrial de los Recursos Evaporíticos del Salar de Uyuni) to explore and market lithium. Because the extraction of lithium is an expensive, technically complex process, the government sought bids for some foreign investment in lithium in the late 1980s.
Presently, Bolivia is believed to have over 50% of the world’s supply, and bids are being accepted for mining, with the proviso that lithium batteries be developed in Bolivia.
Manganese The Mutun reserves are located in Bolivia's German Busch province in Santa Cruz, and extend into Brazil. They contain an estimated 10bn tons of manganese. Bolivia's government may seek an agreement with Brazil, similar to the recent gas pipeline contract between the countries, to develop the reserves.

Lead The lead and silver Karachipampa facility in Potosí was the nation's largest smelter. Although the authorities considered lead a minor metal, production increased from 9,000 tons in 1987 to 11,000 tons in 1988.

Tin Bolivia's mines had produced cassiterite, the chief source of tin, since 1861. By the mid-twentieth century, four famlies controlled all or most of the tin, the most prominent being the Patino clan. Between 1978 and 1985, Bolivia fell from the second to the fifth position among tin producers. In the late 1980s, however, tin still accounted for a third of all Bolivian mineral exports because of the strong performance by the medium and small mining sectors. The largest tin-mining company in the private sector was Estalsa Boliviana, which dredged alluvial tin deposits in the Antequera River in northeastern Potosí Department. The Mining Company of Oruro operated the country's richest tin mine at Huanuni. The country's tin reserves in 1988 were estimated at 453,700 tons, of which 250,000 tons were found in medium-sized mines, 143,700 tons in Comibol mines, and 60,000 tons in small mines. In the late 1980s, tin was exported mainly in concentrates for refining abroad. Eighty percent of all exports went to the European Economic Community and the United States, with the balance going to various Latin American countries and Czechoslovakia.
Bolivia was a founding member of the International Tin Council (ITC), a body of twenty-two consumer and producer countries that since 1930 had attempted to regulate tin markets through buffer stocks. Bolivia, however, did not sign the ITC's International Tin Agreements in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1983 Bolivia joined the newly formed Association of Tin Producing Countries, which attempted--unsuccessfully--to control tin prices through a cartel approach to commodity regulation. After a period of decline, tin prices rebounded in the late 1980s.
Government policies since the early 1970s had sought to expand the percentage of metallic or refined tin exports that offered greater returns. As a result, smelting increased during the 1970s, but in the 1980s the excessive costs of the nation's highly underutilized smelting operations contributed to the decision to restructure Comibol.

Bismuth Reserves were estimated at 4,100 tons, and production in 1987 reached two-thirds of a ton entirely by small miners. Bolivia, the site of the International Bismuth Institute, was once the sole producer of bismuth in the world. One of the applications of bismuth is in the making of high grade, long lasting paints, such as bismuth yellow.

Uranium The last mine closed in 1974. The government has set aside $500,000 for research into continuing mining in the future, but there is no date set as yet.

Tungsten Bolivia was also the leading producer of tungsten among market economies. But the dramatic decline in tungsten prices in the 1980s severely hurt production, despite the fact that reserves stood at 60,000 tons. Medium and small producers accounted for over 80 percent of the country's tungsten production in the late 1980s. The International Mining Company's Chojilla mine was the source of most tungsten output. Tungsten production sank from 2,300 tons in 1984 to barely more than 800 tons in 1987 because of falling international prices. Tungsten was sold to West European, East European, and Latin American countries, as well as to the United States.

Zinc This is Bolivia's leading export from the mines. Zinc output also rose in the late 1980s from roughly 39,000 tons in 1987 to over 53,000 tons in 1988, compared with 47,000 tons in 1975. Nearly all zinc was exported. In 1987 the government declared the construction of a new zinc refinery in Potosí a national priority.
Present plans for zinc mining include a $500 million investment in two new plants, to be located in Potosi and Oruro, with production expected to be 200 tons per year. Exports stand at 429 tons (2009), up from 385 the previous year. The 2009 production netted a profit of $685 million.

Magnesium Unknown amounts of magnesium are found in association with lithium. Boron 3.2 tons of boron are known to exist.

Antimony Bolivia mined about a fifth of the world's antimony in the late 1980s and was the leading producer among market economies. Private companies were responsible for all antimony production. The largest output came from the United Mining Company (Empresa Minera Unificada), which controlled the two largest antimony mines, located at Chilcobija and Caracota, both in Potosí Department. Medium and small miners generated an average of 9,500 tons of antimony a year in the mid-to late-1980s, all of which was exported. Antimony, a strategic mineral used in flame-proofing compounds and semiconductors, was exported in concentrates, trioxides, and alloys to all regions of the world, with most sales going to Britain and Brazil. Antimony reserves in 1988 stood at 350,000 tons.
Deposits also exist in Oruro, in western Bolivia, where Glencore, a Swiss firm, had contracts to mine. However, after it failed to invest, and was found to be dismantling the smelter, Mining Minister Jose Pimentel traveled to Oruro to carry out the legal steps necessary for state-owned Empresa Metalurgica Vinto to take control of the smelter.
Iron After years of planning, the Mutún iron mine was scheduled to open its first of two plants in 1989. The Mutún mine, the sole responsibility of the Mining Company of the Oriente, was expected to yield 592,000 tons of iron in its first five years of operation, with an estimated total of 40 billion tons of ore. The prospects for the steel industry, which was controlled by Bolivian Iron and Steel (Unidad Promotora de La Siderurgia Boliviana, formerly known as Siderúrgica Boliviana), however, were bleak. After more than a decade of planning a national steel plant, Bolivia was still unable to obtain financing for such a project, especially given international overcapacity in steel. The possibility of a national steel plant appeared unlikely at the end of the 1980s.
Recent contracts with Jindhal Steel of India came to a halt after Jindhal failed to comply with dealines in the contract. Bolivia has the largest supply of iron in the world, albeit of a medium grade, some mixed with sulfur compounds.

Cadmium Reserves exist in western Bolivia, often mixed with sulfur compounds.

Chromium Like cadmium, it is mined in the west, where it is mixed with sulfur compounds. Neither is mined presently in any great quantities if at all; oxides of both are used in quality artists' paints.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

CLACS Event at Columbia University

Columbia University will host Bolivian leaders on Thursday, 15 December, talking
about environmental and indigenous politics. Complete info below:

Político Medioambiental y Pueblos Indígenas de la Amazonia Boliviana
Fernando Vargas Mosua, Sergio Paita Siles
document.write(FullDate(15,12,2011));
Thursday, December 15th, 2011, 2:00 p.m.
Location: Room 802 of the International Affairs Building, Columbia University, 420 West 118th St, New York NY 10027 (map)
On the 15th August 2011 the “Great Indigenous March for the Defense of the Isiboro Secure Indigenous Territory and Dignity of Indigenous People in Amazonia, Chaco and the Eastern Lowlands” left Trinidad, Bolivia. After 65 days and more than 600 kilometers a group of 2,000 indigenous men, women and children arrived to the Bolivian seat of government, La Paz. The clarity, legitimacy and legality of their demands for respect for their territories, and their rights to previous and informed consultation regarding large development projects leveraged massive support from the general population. Additionally, the peaceful movement sensibilized the citizens of La Paz and half a million people received them as heroes. One of the central debates of conservation is the impact of protected areas on local livelihoods. However, indigenous people in Bolivia have promoted a model of co management which recognizes their territorial righst and establishes a constituency for conservation and indigenous rights. This experience shows that protected areas in Bolivia are highly valued by indigenous populations that are generally excluded from the benefits of development projects, in particular large ones.
TIPNIS (Isiboro Secure Indigenous Territory and Protected Area) is the collective land of 64 indigenous Chimane, Yuracare and Mojeño people. Their movement looks to avoid the destruction of 611,000 hectares as a result of induced development resulting from a road project which would cut in half an area of global biodiversity importance in the montane tropical forests of Bolivia.
Fernando and Sergio will talk about the values of TIPNIS for the indigenous population and the conflict with the road proposal. They will present the development of the march and the alliances which led to it. Finally they will present the results of this mobilization and remaining challenges.
Fernando Vargas Mosua is Mojeño indigenous leader of the Isiboro Secure Indigenous Territory and Protected Area. As a child he was only able to finish primary school but as a 38-year-old he had the opportunity to finish secondary school and then obtained a scholarship to obtain a technical diploma on Indigenous Rights and Hydrocarbons from the prestigious Social Sciences Faculty of Latin America (FLACSO). In the past decade he has supported indigenous rights and conservation from a diversity of positions ranging from technical advisor to the local municipal government, coordinator of socio-environmental mitigation programs linked to gas pipelines, implementing information programs on land titling and hydrocarbon activities in indigenous territories and implementing information programs on developing mechanisms for indigenous people in timber management projects. More recently he has been advisor to the executive direction of the Bolivian Protected Area Service (SERNAP) and since the 1st August 2011 president of the Isiboro Secure indigenous organization.
Sergio Paita Siles, lawyer from Cochabamba Bolivia with a Masters in Environmental Law and over 20 years profesional experience. He is of indigenous Quecha origin and his areas of expertise are planning and implementation of conservation and indigenous development plans including the development of community regulations. He has also worked for a decade in the Bolivian Protected Area Service (SERNAP) leading land-titling projects, reviewing relevant legislation projects, establishing conflict management platforms and developing alliances with social organizations in support of the consolidation of protected areas and indigenous territorial rights.

Seeing REDD in Bolivia

The carbon credit scammers are being help up by the Bolivians again...read below an article from Links, an Australian based think tank:

December 4, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- "Bolivia came out swinging at its first press conference of the climate change conference" on December 1, reported the Durban Mercury's Yusuf Omar on December 2. Head of the Bolivian delegation Rene Orellana criticised the Green Climate Fund "– which is meant to help developing countries adapt to climate change – and opposing the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation scheme (REDD). "The role of the forest is not for carbon stocks”, he said.
REDD is designed to use financial incentives to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation and forest degradation. The forest produces carbon credits and therefore becomes an emissions offsetting scheme.
"While most countries have been hesitant to overtly state their positions at such an early stage in the negotiations, the Bolivian delegation took a strong stance against the mainstream consensus of the talks thus far", Omar reported. “As people who live in the forest, we are not carbon stocks. We disagree with REDD because we oppose the commoditisation of the forest... It’s a complex and dangerous situation to see forests as carbon stocks. The forest provides a role as food security, a water source and biodiversity for our Indigenous population. REDD reduces the function of the forest to just one, carbon stocks. We have an alternative proposal, not based on market solutions.”
Bolivia has proposed a mitigation and adaptation plan called “sustainable forest life”. Rene Orellana outlined its three main principles: to find different sources of finance for climate change mitigation and adaptation (other than carbon credits); recognition of multiple forest functions such as its environmental, social, economic and cultural functions; and methodologies for integrated forest management.
“We have put the proposal on the table, but no attention is being paid [to it]", Orellana noted.
"In Cancun, Bolivia was the irritating thorn in the side of the US and the EU", the Mercury's reporter observed. "This year, the South American country also passed the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. 'We must have respect for the rights of Mother Earth,' said Orellana. The Law of Mother Earth defines the country’s rich mineral deposits as 'blessings'. The 11 rights for nature include the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right not to have cellular structure modified or genetically altered."
Opposition to REDD
Oppistion to the REDD scheme is widespread among the grassroots climate justice activists who have travelled to Durban to demand real action action -- not false solutions -- to combat climate change. Anti-REDD placards and demands featured strongly in the December 3 day of action march through the streets of Durban.
On December 1, a new report published today by Peruvian Indigenous organisations, AIDESEP, FENAMAD and CARE, and international human rights organisation the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), that reveals the impact that REDD projects and programs are already having on the lives of Indigenous peoples, reported the Global Justice Ecology Project. Entitled The reality of REDD+ in Peru: Between theory and practice –- Indigenous Amazonian Peoples’ analyses and alternatives, the report finds that REDD pilot projects run by some NGOs and companies are already undermining the rights of Indigenous peoples, and are leading to carbon piracy and conflicts over land and resources.
Carbon piracy
The Global Justice Ecology Project reports:
The AIDESEP-FPP report highlights how, without any form of regulation, carbon piracy is already rife in Peru. Project developers are roaming the jungle attempting to convince Indigenous peoples and local communities to enter in to REDD deals with promises of millions of dollars in return for signing away their rights to control their land and forest carbon to third parties. Many deals are being conducted using strict confidentiality clauses and with no independent oversight or legal support for vulnerable communities. Some of these peoples are not yet fully literate in Spanish, but are being asked to sign complex commercial contracts in English that are subject to English law. Many communities have already come to regret some early deals made with carbon traders and NGOs, and are now attempting to extricate themselves. One leader from the community of Bélgica in South East Peru explained:
We were presented with a trust fund in which the community is obliged to hand over the administration of communal territory and be subject to the decisions of the developer for 30 years ... this will not allow us to make decisions about our territory or plan for the future of our children.
Land grabs
Many other communities have no secure land rights, as an estimated 20 million hectares of indigenous peoples' customary territories in the Peruvian Amazon still possess no legal recognition (including those of isolated or "autonomous" indigenous peoples). This is in violation of Peru’s international obligation to recognise and secure indigenous peoples’ traditional possession of their forest lands. At the same time, hundreds of formal requests for ‘conservation concessions’ (with the intention of establishing REDD projects) have been submitted to the government by private individuals and environmental NGOs. Many of these ‘would be concessions’ directly overlie indigenous peoples’ territories still awaiting legal recognition, thereby setting the stage for a state-backed land grab.
Conrad Feather, project officer for FPP and the report’s other lead author said:
REDD is not just a policy instrument being negotiated at the UN; unregulated REDD developments are already turning Peru into a centre of international carbon piracy and the site for a potential land grab of indigenous peoples’ territories on a massive scale. Urgent measures are needed to protect the lands and livelihoods of indigenous peoples.
Indigenous alternatives to REDD+
Indigenous peoples’ organisations, however, are not only ringing alarm bells, they are also proposing alternatives. They are urging the new Peruvian government to re-think the forest and climate plans developed by their predecessors and use REDD funds to secure indigenous peoples’ forest territories and support community-based solutions to tackle climate change.
The report concludes that instead of squandering the money on unproven and unstable carbon markets, more modest and selective funding could be targeted to secure the land and territorial rights of indigenous peoples and support sustainable community forest management. These community and rights-based approaches are cost-effective and proven to protect forests. Community-based alternatives will not only reduce emissions from deforestation and keep forests standing but will also lead to poverty reduction, increased livelihood security and biodiversity conservation. In the words of Alberto Pizango Chota, president of AIDESEP, “Only in this way can REDD truly become an opportunity for indigenous peoples instead of a threat.”
The reality of REDD+ in Peru: Between Theory and Practice: Indigenous Amazonian Peoples’ analyses and alternatives is available for free download at: http://www.forestpeoples.org/the-reality-of-redd-plus-in-peru-indigenous-amazonian-peoples-analyses-and-alternatives.
No REDD Papers
A book by the Indigenous Environmental Network, Carbon Trade Watch and others arguing that current proposals to address global warming through projects to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) constitute a "threat to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, forests, our climate and your future". Download at http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/no-redd-papers.

Open letter of concern to the international donor community about the diversion of existing forest conservation and development funding to REDD+

Marlon Santi from Ecuador, former president of CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nations of the Ecuadorian Amazon) speaks at the press conference that released the following document at the UN Climate Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa. Photo: Langelle/GJEP.
We the undersigned NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations (IPOs) want to express our profound concern about the way funds for forest conservation and restoration, and poverty eradication, are being misdirected toward REDD+ projects and policy processes (ostensibly to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and to enhance forest carbon stocks).
Our organizations are working to halt the continued loss of the world’s forests, and to address the impacts this forest loss has on the rights and needs of forest-dependent peoples and on the climate. As such, it is our considered opinion that REDD+ as a mechanism suffers from a large number of inherent risks and problems which cannot be remedied.

Winnie Overbeek from World Rainforest Movement, based in Uruguay, speaks at the press conference. Photo: Langelle/GJEP.
1) REDD+-type projects are already having severe negative impacts on the environment and on economically and politically marginalized groups in society, particularly Indigenous Peoples, small farmers, other forest dependent communities, and women.[i] Most of the world’s remaining forests are found in areas that are relatively unattractive for industrial agriculture, cattle ranching or other land uses and are inhabited by Indigenous Peoples, small peasant communities and other groups. Many of these groups have insecure title over their land, yet due to their social, economic and cultural circumstances, the resources found in forests play a major role in sustaining their livelihoods. A sudden increase in the economic value of forest land due to the introduction of performance payments for forest conservation will definitely lead to an increased risk of conflict over land between these communities and more economically and politically influential groups that see an opportunity to profit from these payments. For this reason, increased conflicts over land, elite resource capture, forced displacements, involuntary resettlements and human rights violations are inherent outcomes to REDD+ as a forest conservation approach.
2) Performance-based payments for forest carbon storage address only one presumed driver of forest loss: the lack of proper economic valuation of the role of forest carbon storage in overall carbon sequestration. This approach fails to address other direct and indirect drivers of forest loss. Such drivers include lack of recognition of the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and other customary caretakers of forest areas; overconsumption of and trade in forest products and products that directly or indirectly impact on forests; and perverse incentives such as subsidies for export crops and monoculture tree plantations. Other important drivers that are ignored by REDD+ include mineral, oil, gas or coal exploration and extraction activities, shrimp farming and large-scale infrastructure projects such as hydroelectric dams, as well as incoherent government policies in general.[ii]
3) Performance-based payments for forest carbon will by definition lead to a situation where one value of forests dominates forest policy decision-making, thus undermining what the Executive Director of the UN Forum on Forests has called a “360 degree” approach to forests, an approach in which all functions and values of forests are taken into account in a balanced manner. This deficiency will not only lead to a marginalization of the social and cultural values of forests in forest policy-making, but also to a marginalization of biodiversity values. Already, there has been a strong tendency in forest carbon offset projects to support growing monoculture plantations of rapidly growing tree species, despite their negative impacts on biodiversity.[iii] This problem is exacerbated by the flawed forest definition that has been used by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, which includes monoculture tree plantations as well as “temporarily unstocked areas”, and allows the use of Genetically Engineered (GE) trees.
4) Forest carbon cannot be equated to carbon stored in fossil fuel deposits. There will always be a high risk of non-permanence in forest carbon offset projects, yet it is broadly recognized that no satisfactory solutions for this problem have been developed. .[iv] In fact, this problem cannot be resolved as non-permanence is an inherent feature of forest or tree plantation carbon.

Indigenous Environmental Network's Tom Goldtooth speaks at the conference. Photo: Langelle/GJEP.
5) Another inherent problem with REDD+ is that performance-based payments will require a significant investment in monitoring, verification and reporting (MRV) systems that can claim to ensure that the forest carbon benefits of a certain initiative are real and additional. Such MRV systems could take up more than half of the overall budget of REDD+ initiatives. As a group of international market specialists have noted:
“Assuming that forest carbon requires a quantification process similar to the one used today, there is no reason to expect that the market for REDD forest carbon will behave any differently. The expertise, travel requirements and operational scale required to follow IPCC-like standards almost certainly requires a multinational organization, one that is well-capitalized and capable of managing many clients at once. Will these organizations be numerous? Unlikely. Will they be domiciled in developing countries? It seems improbable. These skills and scale will cost money to deploy, and that – far more than avarice or inefficiency – explains why REDD projects are likely to spend so much on MRV… Forest carbon is likely to behave as any commodities market would, which implies that producers will derive only marginal benefits from the market as a whole. Moreover, the unique logistical challenges posed by counting carbon to IPCC-like standards imply a very limited population of providers willing to do this for projects.”[v]
This is an unacceptable waste of money in times when resources are scarce and funding for REDD+ is likely to come from the same sources that could also finance other sorely needed real climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Moreover, these costs make it impossible for economically marginalized groups including Indigenous Peoples, forest dependent communities and women, as well as poor countries, to participate in an equitable manner in REDD+ projects.
6) All these problems will be exacerbated if, as is virtually certain, REDD+ is financed through carbon offset markets. This is the funding option supported by many influential countries and other major stakeholders including the World Bank; even those REDD+ initiatives currently being supported through philanthropy and public monies are generally designed to help jump-start forest carbon markets.[vi] In addition to undermining forest conservation, such markets can only make climate change worse, due to irresolvable problems relating to permanence, additionality and leakage, while continuing pollution in the North and creating toxic hotspots in vulnerable community areas already disproportionately impacted by toxic exposures and environmental injustices.
7) REDD+ is inherently about commodifying and privatizing air, forests, trees and land. This approach runs counter to the cultural and traditional value systems of many Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent communities.[vii]

Simone Lovera, from Global Forest Coalition, presents GFC's point of view. Photo: Langelle/GJEP.
There is a severe risk the market-oriented approach inherent to REDD+ will undermine value systems that are an essential element of successful community-driven conservation of forest areas, and Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and conservation practices.
In numerous places in the world, REDD+ projects and policies are being implemented in violation of the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). In Ecuador, the government continues to develop a REDD+ program despite the fact that the most representative organization of Indigenous Peoples, CONAIE, has explicitly rejected REDD+ policies in the country.[viii] As Kenya’s Mau Forest is made “ready” for a UNEP-funded REDD+ project, members of the Ogiek People continue to suffer evictions, and Ogiek activists are attacked for protesting land grabs.[ix] In Indonesia, the Mantir Adat (traditional authorities) of Kadamangan Mantangai, district of Kapuas in the province of Central Kalimantan, “reject REDD projects because it is a threat to the rights and the livelihoods of the Dayak community in the REDD project area”, and have called for the cancellation of a project that has “violated our rights and threatened the basis of survival for the Dayak community.”[x]
Many companies and organizations which have historically caused pollution and deforestation are promoting REDD+ as a profitable opportunity to “offset” their ongoing pillaging of the planet, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, Dow, Rio Tinto, Shell, Statoil, BP Amoco, American Electric Power- AEP, BHB Billiton and the International Tropical Timber Organization. In Brazil, Chevron-Texaco, infamous for causing significant forest loss in the Ecuadorian Amazon and threatening Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation, which might lead to genocide, backs a REDD+ project in the Atlantic Forest which uses uniformed armed guards called Força Verde who shoot at people and jail them if they go into the forest.[xi] In Bolivia, BP, whose oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the biggest environmental disaster in the history of the United States, participates in the biggest REDD+-type project in the world, which helps it to greenwash its destruction of biodiversity and communities’ livelihoods.[xii] As noted in the New York Times, “REDD could be a cash cow for forest destroyers.”[xiii]
In Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Peru and elsewhere, ’carbon cowboys‘ are running amok, conning communities into signing away their land rights with fake contracts.[xiv] In the words of one Indigenous leader, REDD+ may be “the biggest land grab of all time” [xv] REDD+ is inherently about commodifying and privatizing air, forests, trees and land and corrupts everything that Indigenous Peoples hold sacred, including their traditional knowledge systems. Where REDD+ projects target the territories of Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation, as in the Peruvian Amazon or the Paraguayan Chaco, they might even threaten the very survival of these Peoples[xvi].
These risks and problems have been recognized by a large number of UN organizations and other international institutions, as well as by the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change themselves.[xvii] The so-called “safeguards” adopted by a majority of Parties to the UNFCCC show that they are already concerned about the potential negative environmental and social impacts of REDD+. However, these REDD+ “safeguards” will not save forests from being converted into plantations, or Indigenous Peoples’ rights from being violated in REDD+ projects. Nor can they prevent the damage that REDD+ carbon offsets would do to genuine efforts to address climate change. Voluntary, weak and relegated to an annex, they are unsupported by any consensus to make them legally binding, let alone establish a compliance and redress mechanism. In the past, such voluntary safeguards schemes have usually proven to be ineffective, many even serving as greenwash for corporate malpractice.
For that reason, many institutions have emphasized that all land tenure conflicts have to be resolved and that rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women have to be secured, before REDD+ projects and policies are implemented.[xviii] However, this is not a realistic proposition. We strongly support any policy efforts to address land tenure conflicts and human rights violations, especially as far as the rights of Indigenous Peoples are concerned. But land tenure problems and human rights violations in forest areas are far too complicated to be fully resolved in a foreseeable timeframe, and REDD+ will not help. On the contrary, as stated above, the promise of potential performance-based payments would make it more instead of less difficult to resolve these issues, and would tend to weaken instead of strengthen communities’ struggles for their rights.

GFC's Andrei Laletin. Photo: Langelle/GJEP.
Considering this long list of broadly acknowledged and inherent risks and negative impacts of REDD+, it is remarkable that an estimated 7,7 billion US dollars has already been committed to it by donor countries.[xix] Still more remarkable is the fact that foundations formerly renowned for supporting human rights and justice work are adding millions of dollars to projects and initiatives that promote REDD+.[xx] Meanwhile, there is a financial stranglehold on the often small and independent civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations that denounce the growing list of human rights violations and environmental destruction caused by REDD+-type projects.[xxi]
Unintentionally or not, this extreme, unjust funding disparity constitutes a form of de facto financial censorship, and this means that the right to Free, Prior, Informed Consent of the custodians of the majority of the world’s forests, Indigenous Peoples, is being compromised. If there is almost no funding to support detection, documentation and rejection of the negative social and environmental impacts of REDD+ projects, to say nothing of reasoned criticism of its underlying premises, it will be impossible to expose and disseminate all of the crucial information that remote communities need in order to make decisions about REDD+, and any consent they grant will not be thoroughly and fully “informed”. It must be noted that REDD+ and its relationship to the world of carbon markets and offset regimes is a very complex area that many NGOs involved in climate policy do not fully understand. In this respect it should be taken into account that Indigenous Peoples’ fundamental right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent is a pillar of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This right is also recognized in the REDD+ safeguards adopted by the majority of Parties to the Climate Convention, and by UN-REDD and other donors. Funding the painting of a rosy REDD+ picture in which communities get paid to take care of forests and share in the costs-benefits of REDD+ programs without showing the darker realities in the background is at best negligent and at worst implicates funders in a severe violation of one of the most important rights of Indigenous Peoples. This letter is intended both as a wakeup call to funders and an invitation to bridge this funding gap.
In this respect it is also important to ensure that community capacity-building and awareness-raising projects provide fair and unbiased information about the quite desolate state of the climate negotiations, and the unwillingness of large Northern polluters to agree to legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or financial support for needed climate measures. In the eyes of many social movements, REDD+ is a paltry fig leaf in this respect. The 100 billion USD that was mentioned as possible climate finance in Copenhagen has not been concretized yet, and it is increasingly clear that some of the most important donor countries expect the bulk of this funding to come from carbon markets.[xxii] Already, carbon markets have proven to be a highly volatile and inequitable source of funding, and the current lack of political momentum for a legally binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol will only create more market uncertainty. It is important this information is shared with communities and Indigenous Peoples when they are informed about the “opportunities” of REDD+.
Although protecting forests is a critical piece of the climate mitigation puzzle, a market-oriented and corporate-driven system of performance-based payments comes with inherent risks that are both overwhelming and unavoidable. The irony is that at the same time REDD+ is being so aggressively promoted, there are numerous examples of Indigenous Peoples’ territories and areas where forests have been conserved or restored successfully by communities without performance-based payments based on individual land titles and questionable carbon rights. Examples from countries like India, Gambia, Nepal, Brazil and Rwanda have demonstrated that recognizing community governance over forests and Indigenous Peoples’ rights over their territories provides more effective and ethically sound incentives for forest conservation and restoration, while the Ecuadorian proposal to keep fossil fuels in the ground shows the way toward a more realistic approach to mitigating climate change. In addition to such direct approaches to the fossil fuel problem, it is essential to assure the necessary space for the empowerment of communities that have successfully conserved their forests, and to address the direct and underlying drivers of deforestation such as over-consumption and over-production for and by industrialized societies.
In conclusion, we believe that REDD+ is a fundamentally flawed symptom of a deeper problem, not a step forward. It is a distraction that the planet –- our Mother Earth -– does not have time for. We should build on the many existing examples of successful forest conservation and restoration rather than investing billions of dollars in an untested, uncertain and questionable REDD+ scheme that is likely to undermine the environmental and social goals of the climate regime rather than support them.
Addressing climate change and forest loss require measures that contribute to thorough economic, ecological and social transformation. To present all sides of the REDD+ story as part of a larger effort to build the diverse and powerful global alliances that can support the transformation that our planet and peoples need, will require the full support of the charity, gift-giving and philanthropy community.
We’re up for the task.
Are you?

Some of the press conference presenters. Photo: Langelle/GJEP.
Notes
[i] No REDD Platform, No REDD, A Reader (2010), http://noredd.makenoise.org.Lohmann, Larry (2008), Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold?, The Corner House, London, UK, www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/chronicle-disaster-foretold.
[ii] Moussa, J. and Verolme, H. (ed.) (1999), Addressing the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation, Case Studies, Analysis and Policy Recommendations, Biodiversity Action Network, Washington, USA.Global Forest Coalition (2010), Getting to the Roots, Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Drivers of Forest Restoration, Global Forest Coalition, Amsterdam, Netherlands.Mery, G. et. al. (2011) Forests and Society = Responding to Global Drivers of Change, International Union of Forest Research Institutions, January 2011.
[iii] See for example: Acción Ecológica and World Rainforest Movement (2005) Carbon Sink Plantations in the Ecuadorian Andes, Impacts of the Dutch FACE-Profafor Monoculture tree plantations project on indigenous and peasant communities, World Rainforest Movement, Montevideo, Uruguay.
[iv] http://unfccc.int/methods_and_science/lulucf/items/4122.php.
[v] The Munden Project (2011) REDD and Forest Carbon, Market Critique and Recommendations, the Munden Project, USA.
[vi] Swedish EU Presidency (2009) The REDD Initiative: EU Funds and Phases prepared for the Interparliamentary Conference, September 2009, the_redd_initiative -EU-Funds and Phases.pdf.
Indigenous Environmental Network, Funds and Phases: Prep Cooks, Midwives and Assembly Plants for Carbon Market REDD/REDD+, IEN.
[vii] Goldtooth, T. (2010), Cashing in on Creation: Gourmet REDD privatizes, packages, patents, sells and corrupts all that is Sacred, http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf.
[viii] http://www.movimientos.org/enlacei/show_text.php3?key=19549.
[ix] See International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs (2011), Kenya’s ‘Forest People’ in Bitter Fight for their Ancestral Homes, April 15 2011, http://www.iwgia.org/news/search-news?news_id=277.
Minority Rights Group International (2011), Minority Rights Group Condemns Targeted Attacks on Ogiek Activists, March 7, 2011, www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_12373.html.
First Peoples International (2011), In new Kenya, old guard ‘land-grabbers’ attack key leaders -Ogiek land activists survive assaults, http://firstpeoplesblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/ogiek-land-activists-survive-assaults.pdf.Interim Coordinating Secretariat, Office of the Prime Minister on behalf of the Government of Kenya, Rehabilitation of the Mau Forest Ecosystem, www.kws.org/export/sites/kws/info/maurestoration/maupublications/Mau_Forest_Complex_Concept_paper.pdf.Los Angeles Times (2010), Kenyan tribe slowly driven off its ancestral lands, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/04/world/la-fg-kenya-forest4-2010jan04.
Survival International (2010), Kenyan tribe’s houses torched in Mau Forest eviction 8 April 2010, Video at: www.survivalinternational.org/news/5722, http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/ogiek.
REDD Monitor (2009), Ogiek threatened with eviction from Mau Forest, www.redd-monitor.org/2009/11/19/ogiek-threatened-with-eviction-from-mau-forest-kenya/.
[x] REDD-Monitor (2011), Stop the Indonesia- – Australia REDD+ Project In the Customary Area of the Dayak People in Central Kalimantan, www.redd-monitor.org/2011/06/15/stop-the-indonesia-australia-redd-project-indigenous-peoples-opposition-to-the-kalimantan-forests-and-climate-partnership/#more-8887.
[xi] PBS/ Frontline World, Carbon Watch Centre for Investigative Journalism, www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/moneytree/
Mother Jones (2009), GM’s Money Trees, www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/11/gms-money-trees.
REDD-Monitor (2009), Injustice on the carbon frontier in Guaraqueçaba, Brazil, www.redd-monitor.org/2009/11/06/injustice-on-the-carbon-frontier-in-guaraquecaba-brazil/.
National Museum of the American Indian, Conversations with the Earth, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, http://www.americanindian.si.edu/.
[xii] Cardona, T. et. al. (2010) Extractive Industries and REDD: No REDD A Reader, http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf.
[xiii] Durban Group for climate Justice, www.durbanclimatejustice.org/press-releases/durban-statement-on-redd.html.
[xiv] Gridneff, I. (2011), Carbon conmen selling the sky, The Sydney Morning Herald, www.smh.com.au/world/carbon-conmen-selling-the-sky-20090612-c63i.html.
See video, A Breath of Fresh Air (2009), by Jeremy Dawes, http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/09/11/more-questions-than-answers-on-carbon-trading-in-png/.
[xv] Carbon Trade Watch, http://www.carbontradewatch.org/issues/redd.html.Stevenson, M (2010), Forest plan hangs in balance at climate conference, Associated Press, http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/12/09/forest_plan_hangs_in_balance_at_climate_conference/?page=2.
[xvi] Cabello J. (2010), Enclosure of Forest and Peoples: REDD and the Inter-oceanic Highway in Peru, No REDD, a Reader, http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf.
[xvii] See for example Poverty and Environment Partnership -- ODI, IUCN, UNDP, SIDA, IIED, ADB, DFID, the French Ministry of the environment and UNEP WCMC, (2008) Making REDD work for the Poor, http://www.povertyenvironment.net/?q=filestore2/download/1852/Making-REDD-work-for-the-poor-FINAL-DRAFT-0110.pdf.
Karsenty, A (2008) The architecture of proposed REDD schemes after Bali: facing critical choices, in International Forestry Review Vol. 10(3), 2008 (pp. 443 – 457), ONF International, 2008. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), Analysis of 7 outstanding issues for the inclusion of tropical forests in the international climate governance. ONF International, Paris, France, and Peskett, L. And Harkin, Z., 2007. Risk and responsibility in Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Overseas Development Institute, London, UK.
[xviii] Poverty and Environment Partnership, 2008, Global Witness, 2008. Independent Forest Monitoring and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Global Witness: Cotula, L. and J. Mayers, 2009.Tenure in REDD: Start-point or Afterthought?, Natural Resource Issues No. 15, International Institute for Environment and Development: London, UK; Grieg-Gran, M., I. Porras, and S. Wunder, 2005. “How can Market Mechanisms for Forest Environmental Services help the Poor? Preliminary Lessons from Latin America”. World Development, 33(9): 1511-1527.
[xix] REDD+ Partnership (2011), REDD+ Partnership Voluntary REDD+ Database Updated Progress Report, 11 June 2011, page 6, table 1.
[xx] See the Climate and Land Use Alliance, a joint funding initiative of the Ford Foundation, the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and ClimateWorks: “The projected 2011 budget for the initiatives described in this strategy overview is approximately $32.5 million”, http://www.climateandlandusealliance.org.
[xxi] As little as US$500,000 may be going to these organizations for work critical of REDD+.
[xxii] See for example http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/articles/financial_operations/pdf/sec_2011_487_final_en.pdf.