Bloodshed with REDD. Talks of saving the world’s last remaining forests and the communities who depend on them came to a grinding halt at the end of the Copenhagen Climate Negotiations. Initial agreement on a global target to reduce deforestation and other safeguards were either moved from operational part of the text to the preamble or were deleted altogether.
The REDD agreements were being touted as an easy document for nations to agree on, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that most working on the initiative were deeply dismayed by the results.
What’s Left? Other processes intended to address the rapid destruction of the world’s tropical forests, including the UN-REDD initiative and the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, will continue but without the safeguards that were put forth in the initial global REDD agreement. This patchwork approach runs the risk of simply shuffling deforestation from one location to another, failing to reduce overall emissions from deforestation, and failing to protect the people who live in and around forested ecosystems.
According to the three-page draft text published by The Guardian, negotiations on how to handle world’s forests will continue into 2010, but it is uncertain whether the draft agreement on REDD negotiated in Copenhagen will be used as the basis for those negotiations. Moreover, the weak paragraph on forests in the draft text represents a backward step in comparison to the Bali Action Plan mandate, which prioritized the protection of forests over the preservation of logging interests.
All this being said, organizations like Global Witness and Rainforest Action Network are gearing up for continued forest protection. Additionally, money is being allocated to promising REDD programs, such as the Rukinga Wildlife Reserve in Kenya, the first REDD project in Africa. More on forests coming soon…
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