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Indigenous Peoples do it Cheaper
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Rich countries should try to cut the greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation
by first investing in the people who live and use forests, rather than relying on the
financial carbon markets to encourage conservation, leading development experts have
proposed.
If not, they risk unleashing a wave of land grabs, corruption, cultural destruction and
civil conflict, said the Washington-based Rights and Resources Initiative, a coalition of
of UN- and government-funded research organisations including the World
Conservation Union and the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor).
The loss of trees is responsible for almost a fifth of the world's emissions of carbon
dioxide – stopping and reducing it is seen as one of the quickest and cheapest ways of
cutting emissions
The call for human rights to be put at the centre of the issue came after Johan Eliasch,
Gordon Brown's special adviser on forests, proposed this week that tropical forests be
included in future carbon markets.
UN climate change negotiators are trying to set up a new financial mechanism, known
as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (Redd) which could
generate billions of dollars a year for reducing forest loss in the tropics.
But initial findings of World Bank-commissioned research presented at a conference in
Oslo, Norway, suggest it will cost far less to save carbon by recognising forest
community rights rather than relying on the future money markets.
A study by Jeffrey Hatcher, an analyst with Rights and Resources in Washington, found
that it costs about $3.50 (£2) per hectare to recognise forest people's land. The costs of
protecting forests under Redd have been estimated as about £2,000 per hectare.
"There is lots of evidence from around the world that communities conserve their forests
when their [land] rights are recognised. There are now about 400m hectares of forest
formally owned by communities. These 400m hectares conserve about 20-40m
Gigatonnes of CO2. This means that it costs about $1.6bn (£925m) to achieve this
conservation. The Eliasch review suggested it would cost about $17bn year to to stop
deforestation, which works out as far more expensive", said Hatcher.
Norway's Minister of Environment and International Development, Erik Solheim, said
that efforts towards reduced emissions from deforestation in developing countries
should be based on the rights of indigenous people to the forests they depend on for
their livelihoods, and should provide tangible benefits to them consistent with their
essential role in sustainable forest management.
"In addition to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, early
action, pilot projects and demonstrations should safeguard biodiversity, contribute to
poverty reduction and secure the rights of forest-dependent communities in order to
achieve any degree of permanence, legitimacy and effectiveness," said Solheim.
The UK and Norwegian governments pledged £108m earlier this year to protect the
forests of the Congo basin.

-John Vidal "The Guardian"

February 4, 2009 | 9:48 AM Comments  0 comments


Keepers of the Earth
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Indigenous Peoples:
total five percent of the earth’s population

represent 90 percent of the earth’s cultural diversity

have traditional land claims for 18-24 percent of the earth’s land surface

have territories spanning most of the last remaining biodiversity-rich conservation priorities of this century

inhabit over 85 percent of the earth’s protected areas

are being forced off their territories at an alarming rate - in the name of conservation

receive little or no direct conservation funding

Background of Keepers of the Earth

Indigenous Peoples’ territories span many of the last remaining biodiversity-rich wilderness areas and most of the major conservation priorities for this century. Outside parties such as conservationists and environmental NGOs routinely carve protected areas out of Indigenous territories without notice to or consultation with the inhabitants. In many cases the Indigenous Peoples are involuntarily removed from their ancestral land to create “pristine” (people-free) protected areas.

As their lands are stripped, their sources of food, trade and medicines are taken away, and their livelihoods threatened by outside interests Indigenous Peoples are at increasing risk of poverty, disease, social unrest, and, in some cases, cultural extinction. It is absolutely imperative to the survival of Indigenous Peoples that the effects of external biodiversity conservation efforts be stopped and reversed, and addressing this issue is a priority for First Peoples Worldwide.

First Peoples believes that Indigenous Peoples’ traditional management systems are based in valid principles of biodiversity conservation. Traditional knowledge is invigorated and validated by continued application and adaptation, but without a contemporary operating context, traditional knowledge is in danger of dying out. First Peoples will help to hardwire traditional knowledge into biodiversity conservation programs by helping Indigenous communities codify cultural and traditional stewardship practices and incorporate them into natural resource management plans.

Purpose of the Initiative

First Peoples Worldwide has developed the KOE Program to help build the capacity of Indigenous Peoples through technical support and training and to establish and manage protected areas on their own homelands. Immeasurable human costs, in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative costs, could be saved by empowering Indigenous Peoples to practice biodiversity conservation and sustainable land use on their homelands rather than evicting them in favor of outside management.

The KOE Program strives to protect the rights to subsistence hunting and gathering, access to sacred sites, and traditional and cultural practices—all with an understanding of how to balance biodiversity protection with sustainable economic development in Indigenous territories.

The Initiative calls for conservation projects and initiatives to be held legally accountable to international human rights standards: no evictions, no forced relocation, and no torture in the name of conservation. Ongoing research and advocacy will demonstrate the success of the Indigenous Stewardship model, which will be used to advocate for equitable conservation funding for Indigenous communities. Initial analysis by the Indigenous Stewardship Initiative suggests that less than one percent of the billions of dollars spent annually on biodiversity conservation goes to Indigenous Peoples.

The Impact of our Keepers of the Earth Program

The convergence of significant, biodiversity-rich areas and Indigenous territories presents an enormous opportunity to expand efforts to conserve biodiversity beyond any of our current strategies and on a scale to save the planet.

If only half of Indigenous territories became Indigenous Stewardship Areas, it could place an additional 12 percent of the world’s land surface under protected status. These protected areas, combined with the over 12 percent of the earth’s land surface already under conventional protected status, would double the amount of the entire world’s land surface under conservation protection.

The KOE Program will advocate that Indigenous communities receive equitable funding for conservation efforts on their own territories.

October 27, 2008 | 10:47 AM Comments  0 comments
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Grantee Profile: The Batwa
Related to country: Botswana
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

In 2007, First Peoples made a grant to the Union of Associations for Gorillas Conservation and Community Development in East DRC (UGADEC) in conjunction with the Pygmee Integration and Development Program (PIDP) that is helping these two groups aid in the survival of the Batwa of Central Africa. You can read more about the grant here.

The Batwa (Twa) forest people (also known as Pygmies) of Central Africa are the Indigenous inhabitants of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and live traditionally as hunter-gatherers.


According to Minority Rights Group International, there are an estimated 70,000-80,000 Batwa people living in Africa. The Batwa have a cultural distinctiveness which needs to be preserved. Batwa tradition is rich in song, dance and music, and cultural gatherings are firmly integrated in the social life of the Batwa.

The forest is another vital and integral part of the Batwa identity. Forest-based Batwa people consider themselves to be in an intimate, nurturing relationship with the forest; the forest will always be there for them and provide for their needs. The Batwa believe the forest is the source of all abundance, and this is maintained by proper sharing between people or between people and forest spirits, and by singing and dancing rituals which ensure the support of spirits to help them satisfy all of their needs. The Batwa have a wide range of specialized skills and knowledge necessary to carry out their forest-based livelihoods, including an incomparable knowledge of plants and animals, and skills in medicine, music, dance and crafts.

Today the Batwa population is rapidly decreasing. Since the 1960s, international conservation groups have joined with national governments to forcibly expel the Batwa from newly declared game parks and forest preserves. The Batwa have been evicted from their homelands and offered no compensation or alternative. Homeless, they are marginalized and pushed to the fringes of local communities. The opening of several conservation parks, including the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (331 square kilometers) and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park (33.7 square kilometers) in Uganda, succeeded in displacing the Batwa still living in those forests. In 1991, forest life essentially came to an end for the remaining Batwa. Since that time the Batwa have become second-class citizens in their own countries. They lack marketable skills, having neither access to their traditional forest economy nor to any public services. Education, healthcare, land ownership, and equal treatment by the justice system are all less accessible to the Batwa than to the general population. While other citizens are issued birth certificates and identity cards free of charge, the Batwa must undergo an involved bureaucratic process because the government does not consider them as a sector of the general population that should automatically receive rights. Without these identity cards, it is difficult to enroll in schools and receive government-funded health care, which are otherwise guaranteed to other vulnerable people in the country. Without the availability of traditional or state resources, the Batwa have become the most vulnerable and the most easily exploited population during the conflicts that began in the 1990s.


Today, the large majority of Batwa live in and around cities. Most began to produce pottery as a source of income after displacement from their forest homes. The pottery they make is used for farming and in other industries for storage and transport. Eventually, foreign producers began marketing goods that were more readily available on the market resulting in cheap plastic and metal containers replacing Batwa pottery. Without the resources of the forests and the ability to sell their once popular pottery in a highly competitive market, many Batwa now work as day laborers, servants, and tenant farmers or in other unskilled menial jobs. It is estimated that 80% of Batwa earn capital from begging. Even those who do attempt to survive in the cities face struggles due to their Indigenous ancestry. They continue to suffer ethnic prejudice, discrimination, violence, and general exclusion from society.

Faced with these threats to their physical and cultural survival, the hunter-gatherer people of Africa’s forest are beginning to organize themselves. It is no coincidence that the Twa people of the Great Lakes region who have now lost almost all of their lands and are suffering severe deprivation, were the first to set up their own organization to press for their rights to land, resources, justice and services, and to counter the deeply-rooted prejudice and discrimination they face. In 1991 a group of educated Batwa created the Association for the Promotion of Batwa (APB). APB’s aims were to defend the rights and interests of the Batwa of Rwanda, to act as an intermediary for the Batwa community in its contacts with national and local authorities, to promote the socio-economic and political development of the Batwa, with the emphasis on primary health care, education and employment and to promote Batwa culture. In January 1993, the Batwa of Rwanda represented by APB became a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).

In 1995, the Batwa founded the Community of Indigenous Peoples of Rwanda (CAURWA) by uniting three existing Batwa organizations: the Association for the Promotion of Batwa (APB), the Association for the Global Development of the Batwa of Rwanda (ADBR) and the Association for the Protection of Unaccompanied Children in Distress (APEDE). The mobilization of the Twa acted as a catalyst for the Indigenous movement in Central Africa, spreading awareness among similar groups and informing outside agencies of Indigenous rights and concerns. Relationships are now developing between Indigenous organizations and hunter-gatherer groups across Central Africa, helping to strengthen their voices and find common ground. Despite this good work, the Batwa are still facing the issues of poverty and becoming social, economic and political outcasts.


July 21, 2008 | 1:21 AM Comments  0 comments
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