Bentang Alam

Press Release, 10 December 2009
Indonesian Civil Society Forum for Climate Justice - www.csoforum.net

(Copenhagen, 101209) Once again the Indonesian delegates appeared unprepared during the SBSTA meeting (8/12) to carry the mandate to save Indonesian people and forests from the negative impacts of climate change. They said, government of Indonesia welcomes any kind of funding for capacity building, technology transfer, as well as the reliable, predictable, and steady financing through REDD (1). This opportunistic gesture  in effect opens the gate for more irresponsible funding schemes which likely to endorse more deforestation and human rights violations for forest dwellers and forest dependent people.

It is ironic that the Indonesian delegates  are more interested to grab funding than to address the impacts of climate change and to rescue the remaining forests for own people. They did not reject the 'leaked' draft of Copenhagen Agreement (2), that mentions forest merely as an element to reduce emission instead of as an integrated ecosystem. The document states that increasing forest cover is a way to enhance carbon removal. This can be interpreted as allowing expansion of big scale mono-culture plantations, which in fact has been the main cause of deforestation and forest destruction in Indonesia.

As a country vulnerable to climate change with vast forest area, Indonesia should have rejected financing mechanism based on loan and offset. The Indonesian delegates and other countries involved in the negotiations must stop using CoP as a fund-raising arena.

During the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) meeting, Indonesia  mentioned that REDD should benefit local communities. The use of such rhetoric should be abandoned, while in reality forest dependent communities have been consistently becoming the victim of forest exploitation to meet the demand of industrial countries. Conflicts have risen following the conversion of forest into productive forest, plantations and large-scale mining.   Under current poor management of forest, REDD will only make livelihood more precarious.

Testimonies by representatives of nine countries promoting REDD (8 December 2009) have revealed that REDD is not able to reduce deforestation. Those countries applying REDD pilot scheme are not able to implement it due to issues such as  lack of database and public participation in designing REDD, no conflict resolutions, and villagers of REDD targeted area are not even clear of what is REDD(3). In Papua New Guinea, REDD has been evolving out of control. ”Carbon cowboys” or brokers make deals with political parties. Somebody from the ruling party “National Alliance” had received 200,000 Kina (AUSD 85,000) from a broker, the Australian Environment Firm Carbon Planet, for carbon trading consultation (4).

Unfortunately, despite all the lacks, the talk about REDD in CoP 15 has been pushed far more advanced than the achievement of the industrial countries to make commitment for emission reduction. Nonetheless, the success of REDD will depend on their commitment. If the industrial countries are not willing to reduce their demands for extractive commodities such as timber, crude palm oil, and pulp from the developing countries, then any project to provide solution for climate change may not solve the problems. Furthermore, such project may pose  more risks to increase carbon emission and further impoverish the local and forest dependent communities.

The Indonesian Civil Society Forum for Climate Justice (CSF) is calling the Indonesian delegates to stop humiliating own people by promising to reduce emissions through REDD while the existing domestic forestry problems have not been sorted. Stop using forest as commodity and object for fund-raising in CoP 15 UNFCCC
Notes:
(1)     REDD Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Land Degradation.
(2)     Copenhagen Agreement is a “leaked” documents, which content undermining developing countries. See: http://www.jatam.org/content/view/998/1/
(3)     Please refer toSee REDD Realities: How strategies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation could impact on biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples in developing countries, by the Global Forest Coalition, December 2009.
(4)     Chris Lang, 29th September 2009: http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/09/29/more-bad-news-from-papua-new-guinea/)

For further information, please contact:

Copenhagen:

Giorgio Budi Indrarto: +4560831329 ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Siti Maemunah: +4550499567 ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )
Teguh Surya: +45 269 94 305 ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Bernardinus Steni +45 531 456 01 ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Jakarta: Berry Nahdian Furqon: + 62 8125110979 ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )