Durban Declaration on REDD

Durban, South Africa – September 9, 2015

We, local communities, peasants movements, Indigenous Peoples and civil society organizations from Africa and all over the world, call upon the United Nations, the World Forestry Congress, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Bank and states to reject top-down forms of development, including false solutions to climate change and forest and biodiversity conservation that only serve the dominant market economy.

We are united to oppose and reject the commodification, privatization and plunder of Nature, which include REDD+[1] and other market-based mechanisms including biodiversity and conservation offsets that put profit above the well being of humanity and the planet.

These mechanisms include the “financialization of nature,” which commodifies, separates and quantifies the Earth’s cycles and functions of carbon, water, forest, fauna and biodiversity – turning them into “units” to be sold in financial and speculative markets. However, Mother Earth is the source of Life, which needs to be protected, not a resource to be exploited and commodified as a ‘natural capital.’

REDD+ is also the pillar of the Green Economy. REDD+ is being misleadingly billed as saving the world’s forests and climate and is the anticipated main outcome of the UN’s Paris Accord on climate change in December 2015. In addition, REDD+ is a false solution to climate change that is already including forests, plantations and agriculture in the carbon market.

Reports show that deforestation and the related emissions continue, and that REDD+, instead of reducing them, is harming and vilifying forest-dependent communities and those who produce the majority of the world’s food – small scale farmers. Furthermore,

• REDD+ promotes monoculture tree plantations and genetically modified trees
• REDD+ increases land grabs and human rights violations
• REDD+ restricts access to forests, threatening livelihoods and cultural practices
• REDD+ causes violence against peasants, Indigenous Peoples, women and forest-dwelling communities
• REDD+ is combined with other offsets including payment for environmental services (PES)
• REDD+ imposes market driven neo-liberalism on forests, which undermines and monetizes community conservation and social/cultural processes and creates inequalities
• REDD+ projects tend to force subsistence communities into the cash economy and exploitative wage-labor
• REDD+ hinders and prevents much needed policies that support endogenous, bio-cultural approaches to biodiversity conservation and

Therefore, we join with the No REDD in Africa Network and the Global Alliance against REDD to demand that governments, the United Nations and financial institutions stop the disastrous REDD+ experiment and finally start addressing the underlying causes of forest loss and climate change!

Put forward by the No REDD in Africa Network (NRAN) and the Global Alliance Against REDD, with endorsement and support by the following. To be presented to the World Forest Congress 2015, the UNFCCC COP21 and beyond:

 

Organizations: 

1. No REDD in Africa Network
2. Global Alliance Against REDD
3. Indigenous Environmental Network
4. JA!/Justica Ambiental – Friends of the Earth Mozambique
5. All India Forum of Forest Movements/India
6. Carbon Trade Watch
7. CENSAT Agua Viva – Friends of the Earth Colombia
8. Womin (Womens in Mining)
9. Foundation Help/Tanzania
10. Centre for Civil Society/University of KwaZulu-Natal,Durban
11. Democratic Left Front
12. Health of Mother Earth Foundation- Nigeria
13. Fundaexpresion – Colombia
14. Vasundhara- India
15. SRDS Subdarban -India
16. Envirocare-Tanzania
17. COECOCEIBA – FoE Costa Rica
18. The Development Institute – Ghana
19. GFC – Global Forest Coalition
20. Afrikagrupperna , Sweeden
21. Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (US)
22. Just Transition Alliance,  United States
23. Border Agricultural Workers Project Border, El Paso, Texas
24. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
25. CLEAN (Coastal Livelihood and Environmental Action Network)
26. Khulna, Bangladesh
27. ETC group (international)
28. Oakland Institute, USA
29. Community Alliance for Global Justice, Seattle WA
30. Family Farm Defenders
31. Indian Social Action Forum – INSAF
32. All India Union of Forest Working People AIUFWP
33. WILPF US Section, Boston MA
34. Geasphere
35. Leave it in the Ground Initiative (LINGO)
36. Indigenous Perspectives-India
37. Global Justice Ecology Project
38. Khulna, Bangladesh
39. Biowatch South
40. Timberwatch
41. All India Union of Forest Working People AIUFWP
42. Focus on the Global South
43. The Corner House (UK)
44. Friends of the Earth International
45. PLANT (Partners for the Land & Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples)
46. Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria
47. Attac France
48. FoE France
49. Friends of the Siberian Forests,Russia.
50. Indigenous Perspectives-India
51. EcoNexus UK
52. Biofuelwatch US and UK
53. Maendeleo Endelevu Action Program (MEAP)
54. Fundación Solon
55. WRM (World Rainforest Movement)
56. Groundwork
57. FOEAfrica
58. TCOE ( Trust for Community Outreach and Education) South
59. Rural Women’s Assembly (Southern Africa)
60. People’s’s DialogueInternational
61. Development Exchange (IDEX)
62. Marea Creciente Mexico – Rising Tide Mexico
63. Marea Creciente Ecuador – Rising Tide Ecuador
64. Caravana Climatica por America Latina
65. Center for Earth Jurisprudence
66. Other Worlds (USA)
67. Finnish Asiatic Society
68. Accion Ecologica
69. Soil Generation,of Philadelphia, Pa
70. Ammesty International, Durban
71. We Love This Coast – Vancouver, BC,
72. CanadaAlliance for Democracy (U.S.)
73. Ecohermanas
74. NAPE/FoE Uganda
75. Afrika Kontakt.
76. Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya ( KILUSAN) – Philippines
77. Centar za životnu sredinu/FoE Bosnia and Herzegovina
78. NOAH/FOEDenmark

Individuals:

1. Peter Newell, Professor of International Relations, University of Sussex UK
2. Pascoe Sabido,Researcher and Campaigner
3. Michael K Dorsey
4. Ruben Solis, University Sin fronteras, San Antonio Tx and Atlanta Georgia-USA
5. Reynaldo padilla (Puerto Rico-San Juan)Caribbean Institue of Social Movements
6. Michelle Pressend, South
7. Brian Tokar, Institute for Social Ecology (Vermont USA)
8. Elizabeth Henderson, organic farmer – Peacework Organic CSA, New York USA
9. Leon Spencer, former Executive Director, Washington Office on Africa.
10. Joshua Dimon, researcher
11. Peter Steudtner, Germany,
12. Lucia Jofrice, Moçambique
13. Kirtrina USA
14. Jim Kirkwood, Africafiles
15. Cristian Guerrero- Quito, Ecuador
16. Ruth Nyambura, Kenya
17. Boaventura Monjane, Moçambique
18. Hasan Mehedi
19. Mareen Getse
20. Christine Karstens
21. Jeanetta Lattering
22. Sarah Paff
23. Charmaine Jacobs
24. Dirk Boonzarier
25. Theresa Falats
26. Maggie Jacobs
27. Mary Keyster
28. Sharon Filander
29. Andrew Kortze
30. Ricardo Bhotsha
31. Zelrene Luiters
32. Linda Minnaar
33. Elsie Muller
34. Andrew Laletin
35. Anatoly Lebedev
36. Vanessa Meintjies
37. Elizabeth Olivier
38. Maria Palenova
39. Karel Pietersen
40. Henry De Villiers
41. Fezeka Mndaweni
42. Thabang Nkozela
43. December Molhborn
44. Mzame Dlamini
45. Bongeka Nhota
46. Karewn Read – Biowatch
47. Sibuya BS
48. Khumalo MH
49. Mena Ayanda
50. Mkhungo Nomusa
51. Nobuhle Mbothwe
52. Mariann Bassey Orovwuje

 

Signatures are open until November 30, 2015.

[1]                REDD ( Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) is a global initiative to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests and all other ecosystems to compensate governments and companies or owners of forests and agriculture in developing countries not to cut their forests or to reduce their rate of deforestation and forest degradation as a market mechanism to avoid GHG emissions. REDD+ expands REDD to develop methods for carbon sequestration through conservation of forest (and wetlands, agricultural systems) carbon stocks, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

7 Oct, 2015
Posted in Forests and Climate Change