Indigenous Peoples protest World Bank carbon scam in Bali

Indigenous Peoples, including Navajo and Mohawk representatives of the Indigenous Environmental Network, are now in Bali at the 13th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Indigenous Peoples from around the world are protesting both the exclusion from the climate negotiations and the World Bank's carbon scam.
During protests outside the climate negotiations, Indigenous people wore symbolic gags that read UNFCCC, the acronym of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, symbolizing their systematic exclusion from the United Nations meeting.
A delegation of indigenous peoples was forcibly barred from entering the meeting between UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer and civil society representatives, despite the fact that the indigenous delegation was invited to attend. This act is representative of the systematic exclusion of indigenous peoples in the UNFCCC process, the group said.
"There is no seat or name plate for indigenous peoples in the plenary, nor for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the highest level body in the United Nations that addresses indigenous peoples rights," said Hubertus Samangun, the Focal Point of the Indigenous Peoples delegation to the UNFCCC and the Focal Point for English Speaking Indigenous Peoples of the Global Forest Coalition.
"Indigenous peoples are not only marginalized from the discussion, but there is virtually no mention of indigenous peoples in the more that 5 million words of UNFCCC documents," argued Alfred Ilenre of the Edo People of Nigeria.
Indigenous Peoples said this is occurring despite the fact that they are suffering the most from climate change and climate change mitigation projects that directly impact their lands.
Indigenous peoples are in Bali to denounce the false solutions to climate change proposed by the United Nations such as carbon trading, agrofuels and so-called "avoided deforestation" that devastate their lands and cause human rights violations.
"This process has become nothing but developed countries avoiding their responsibilities to cut emissions and pushing the responsibility onto developing countries," said Fiu Mata'ese Elisara-Laula, of the O Le Siosiomaga Society of Samoa, in a statement. "Projects like REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries) sound very nice but they are trashing our indigenous lands. People are being relocated and even killed; my own people will soon be under water. That's why I call the money from the projects blood money," he added.
Marcial Arias of the Kuna People of Panama reminded the international community that indigenous peoples' right to participate was recognized in the Earth Summit in 1992 and reaffirmed this year. "On September 13th of this year, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [1] which enshrines the fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples to their lands, territories and environment. It is precisely these rights recognized by the UN itself that the UNFCCC is violating," he explained.
Jihan Gearon, Dine’ Navajo Nation, IEN energy & climate campaign organizer and Benjamin Powless, Mohawk, Six Nations, Ontario, Canada, IEN youth representative, are in Bali and taking on the world's super powers.
Gearon, writing from Bali, said Indigenous People need a much bigger and better seat at the table.
“Our communities and livelihoods are the first affected by climate change. We are also the most affected by the unsustainable solutions being proposed to solve climate change – nuclear power, clean coal, carbon sequestration, reforestation, carbon trading, etc. Yet, instead of having real input in the UNFCCC process, we have to spend our time picking through words. And while we’re busy doing that, those people who want to sacrifice us to put some dollars in their pockets, make the decisions.
"This past September 13th, the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which protects the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories and environment. Yet through the faulty process and false climate change solutions of the UNFCCC, it’s these fundamental human rights that are being violated.
"The Indigenous Peoples here in Bali are asking the United Nations to live up to their words, to listen to us, and to stop with the false solutions that devastate our lands, threaten our ways of life, and deny our human rights."
Environmental groups at the United Nations climate talks in Bali urged governments to reject a new World Bank initiative promoting the inclusion of forests in carbon markets.
The World Bank initiative, known as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) is set to be launched in Bali as part of the discussions on Reducing Emissions through Deforestation in Developing countries(REDD).
The initiative, which would allow tropical forests to be included in carbon offsetting schemes, fails to combat climate change, the groups said, because it allows industrialized countries and companies to buy their way out of emissions’ reductions, the groups said in a statement.
Between 18-20 percent of annual global carbon emissions are caused by deforestation, and Indonesia is the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter as a result of deforestation.
The World Bank has a particularly appalling track record in relation to funding forests and carbon projects, not least because it provides substantial funding to oil, gas and mining projects; and as a broker, has a vested interest in promoting carbon trading.
Its planned Forest Carbon Partnership Facility would have serious negative social and environmental impacts, the groups said.
Torry Kuswardhono, Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Indonesia(WALHI) said, “Carbon offsetting is extremely unfair. Forests provide livelihoods for over one billion Indigenous and other forests peoples. Wealthy companies and countries are able to buy the right to continue to pollute, while poor communities in developing countries can find themselves locked into unfavorable, long-term commercial contracts over forest management."
Sandy Gauntlett, Pacific focal point of the Global Forest Coalition and chairman of the Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition, said, “Indigenous Peoples and local communities will bear the real costs of forest-related climate mitigation projects based on carbon finance because they will increase the pressure on their lands and territories and undermine land rights claims. With this proposal, the World Bank is violating the principle of Prior Informed Consent, which is enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples should not just be consulted on this facility. Without their full and prior informed consent this facility should be disbanded.”
World Rainforest Movement spokesperson Ana Filipini said, “Carbon finance mechanisms in developing countries result in forests or sold off to large corporations who hope to acquire profitable 'carbon credits’ associated with those forests at some point in the future. The current proposals are set to reward logging and palm oil corporations and countries with high deforestation rates whilst undermining Indigenous Peoples’ and other forest-dependent communities’ rights, in particular those of women.”
Some of the genuine and urgent measures needed to address the deforestation problem include:

1. Giving the highest priority to halting the development, production and trade of agrofuels, and suspend all targets and other incentives, including subsidies, carbon offsets and public and private finance related to the development and production of agrofuels.
2. Keeping tropical forests out of carbon finance mechanisms, which are unpredictable, inequitable and discourage the reduction of emissions at source. This includes keeping forests out of the Clean Development Mechanism and all carbon trading initiatives; and rejecting the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).
3. Redirect the very substantial amounts of public funds, tax exemption sand other forms of subsidies currently provided to the fossil fuel and agrofuels industries, into avoided deforestation assistance funds, the effective promotion of public transport and the development of solar, wind, geothermal, wave and energy efficiency industries.
4. Strengthen weak forest conservation policies and institutions, encouraging bans or moratoria on industrial logging and forest conversion, and addressing corruption and lack of enforcement.

Photos of protests at:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/