Supporting the rights of the world's forest-dwelling peoples has long been seen as an essential part of reducing deforestation. Yet policymakers have been unwilling to take on the economic and political costs of enforcing these rights.
Fresh research has now shown that the monetary costs, at least, are meagre compared with the overall price tag of the United Nations' proposed Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme.
The study was launched today at the Rights, Forests and Climate Change conference in Oslo, Norway. It estimates that just US$3.35 per hectare could implement legal and regulatory frameworks ensuring land ownership and habitation rights for forest communities. The estimate includes the direct costs associated with demarcating territory, registering land, raising awareness and resolving local disputes.
By comparison, the estimated costs of setting up and implementing the REDD programme could be up to $3,500 per hectare each year for the next 22 years.
"The idea of the study is to put things in perspective," says Jeffrey Hatcher, the report's author and an analyst at the Rights and Resources Initiative, a coalition of conservation groups. "There is strong evidence that local people are good at forestry management. So even if REDD does not come about, if you at least recognize people's rights you will get a good outcome and reduced emissions."Credit to the nations
The UN-REDD programme was launched in September this year with $35 million from the Norwegian government, and is still taking shape. Under the programme, governments would be paid by the international community to preserve forests in global efforts to combat climate change.
But campaigners have warned that unless the proposals take greater account of the rights of forest-dwelling communities to live, manage and take resources from the land, the plans will fail, and could provoke corruption and land grabs.
Erik Solheim, Norway's environment and international development minister, told the conference, "Indigenous peoples are rightly concerned about how these new investments could affect their access to the forests that they depend on for their livelihoods. These rights need to be respected, not just for moral reasons, although that is vital. It is also a matter of pragmatism and effectiveness."
Hatcher's report comes as the European Commission today announced its proposals for cutting emissions from deforestation and for tackling illegal logging. Deforestation contributes around 20% of the overall greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.
The European Commission backs a plan announced on Tuesday from Johan Eliasch, a businessman appointed by UK prime minister Gordon Brown to be his special adviser on forests.
Eliasch proposed that countries should be rewarded with carbon credits for not cutting down forests and for reforesting previously logged areas. The credits could be exchanged for cash in the emerging global carbon market, but it would be left up to governments to decide how money earned would be spent and what measures are needed to prevent illegal logging.
World leaders will decide on whether to include UN-REDD as part of a new suite of measures to combat climate change at the United Nations' COP15 climate-change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009.
