Support a scheme for preserving forests and the environment based on the rights and knowledge of local people.

Wednesday, 18 November 2009, JAKARTA - According to a briefing paper which was released today by a coalition of environmental and social justice organisations from Indonesia and Australia, the Australian government’s recent plan to develop a carbon offset scheme in Indonesian forest is fraught with problems.

Concerns include uncertainty about the level of emissions reduction that will result from the plan, social debate about false solutions to climate change and the exclusion of local people from the decision-making process. In addition, this project fails to address the roots causes of deforestation in Indonesia.

The report, entitled REDD Offsets: Australia’s new Scam for Copenhagen, focuses on a forest carbon offset project which is among the most advanced in the world, located in a peat-land region of Central Kalimantan. The project—which is funded by AusAID (the Australian Government’s Overseas Aid Program)—is named Forests and Climate Partnership and is designed to demonstrate that carbon forest trading must be included in climate change negotiations on an international level. However, local people oppose the use of forests for offsetting Australian emissions and encourage Australia and to instead develop its own scheme onshore.

Carbon trading and offsetting is being proposed as a solution to climate change in the UNFCCC negotiations, especially through the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) program. However, this program has resulted in Indonesia selling its land and oceans in an attempt to benefit from the scheme – while attempts to save the people and their land rights have been forsaken.

Environmental activists, peasants, traditional people and other social movement participants agree with the values of environmental preservation and forest protection. The lifestyle and income of most people is still very much connected to the sustainability of forests, lakes, rivers, peat-lands and swamps. And in many cases, traditional people and local people who live in forest regions have undertaken millions of hectares of reforestation. The people value the sustainability of forests, and have long protected this through traditional and communal forest management systems. “This occurrence is very different from the international carbon trading scheme, which tends to be neocolonialist and fundamentally fails to recognize land rights or communal rights – especially those of indigenous people,” said Tejo Pramono from the Indonesian Peasants’ Union.

Land rights are a fundamental issue in the debate about global trade mechanisms and climate change, as the schemes proposed within international agreements often undermine land rights, while at the same time failing to correct the real problems that are the cause of climate change.

“In this title, Indonesia is presented as the ‘carbon toilet’ for Australian emissions. But for many decades Indonesia has been affected by agrarian conflict and human rights violations. Until land rights, communal rights and indigenous people are recognized, REDD will only worsen these conflicts,” stated Teguh Surya from WALHI.

“Australia’s commitment of 30 million dollars over four years to this project is proof that foreign aid in the form of either donations or loans tends to support the interests of the donating country itself. For the sake of polluting, energy-intensive Australian industry, the Australian government has thrown off its obligation to reduce emissions with the excuse of donations or loans to the Indonesian government” explained Dani Setiawan, Director of the Anti-Debt Coalition.

“The Australian government has been absolutely clear about this: the main purpose of carbon offset schemes like the aid-funded project in Kalimantan is to give polluting Australian companies a cheap offset option instead of reducing their emissions. Aid money is being used to serve Australia’s own economic interests, not the long term interest of the people of Indonesia,” said James Goodman of AidWatch.

The Indoensian Peasants’ Union, WALHI, the Anti-Debt Coalition and the Action-Study Circle for Indonesian Democracy oppose all forest carbon offsetting schemes, and demand the resolution of agrarian conflict in Indonesia. The people’s movement believes that the REDD pilot project, including developments in Central Kalimantan, must be stopped if they continue to undermine the people’s basic rights and fail to take into account the local knowledge of indigenous people and local inhabitants. On the other hand, an alternative, community-based scheme to prevent climate change must be supported, especially one which truly addresses the problem of the people’s rights (social, economic and cultural) as well as supporting the people’s ecological rights by cooling planet earth.

Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI)