Carbon offsetting and REDD

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) has become the dominant international forest policy. Variations of REDD+ include Nature-Based Solutions and corporate pledges to achieve Zero Net Deforestation. In reality, though, deforestation continues, polluting companies use REDD+ offsets to avoid reducing their fossil fuel emissions, and zero-net deforestation pledges allow forests to be cleared in one area as long as an “equivalent” area is restored elsewhere.

Articles 29 April 2022

Dangerous for Communities and the Climate: Nature-Based "Solutions" in Gabon

At the UN climate conference in 2021, the government of Gabon presented itself as champion in the fight against climate breakdown. Would fossil fuel extraction in Gabon come to an end? No. At its core are a deal signed in 2019 with the fossil fuel producer Norway and the Grande Mayumba project.

Articles 29 April 2022

The PIREDD/Plateaux REDD+ Project in Mai-Ndombe, DRC: Conflicts and a Complaint Mechanism

The design of the complaint mechanism has systematically failed to resolve the communities' complaints. But then, why does this mechanism exist?

Articles 28 April 2022

The Legacy of the Community Carbon Project in Nhambita, Mozambique: Nostalgia, Disillusionment and Indignation

The UK company Envirotrade began a REDD+ project in 2003 that involved communities in the buffer zone of the Gorongosa National Park. In 2018, the company abandoned the region, leaving behind unfulfilled obligations, debts to villagers and hundreds of perplexed families.

Articles 28 April 2022

The Katingan REDD+ Project in Indonesia: The Commodification of Nature, Labour and Communities' Reproduction

‘Carbon concessions’ established to generate and sell carbon credits are also deeply eroding communities’ structures, their organization and community reproduction.

Articles 28 April 2022

Blood Coal for Blood Carbon in Colombia: Expansion of Carbon Taxes with REDD+ underscores the Failure of Carbon Pricing

This article outlines the carbon pricing system in Colombia and reveals how mining companies have been using REDD+ to legally avoid paying taxes while claiming ‘carbon neutrality’.

Publications 28 April 2022

15 Years of REDD: A Mechanism Rotten at the Core

This publication gathers eleven articles that reflect on fundamental and dangerous dimensions of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), the dominant forest policy around the world since 2007.

Articles 28 April 2022

10 Years of REDD+ in Acre and its Impacts on Indigenous Women and Female "Extrativistas"

Letícia Yawanawa, an indigenous leader from Acre, and Dercy Teles de Carvalho, ex-president of the Xapuri Rural Workers’ Union and an advocate for "extrativistas" talk about how REDD+ has affected the lives of women in communities that depend on forests.

Articles 27 April 2022

“It is Not Just the Takings of our Land… It is the Takings of our Identity”

Interview with Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network.

Articles 27 April 2022

Ending Colonialism Means Ending REDD+

For REDD+ to work, it has to divide people in three classes. One is that which supposedly saves the forests – ‘active people with initiative’. A second class supposedly lets forests die when no REDD+ money is being paid to keep them alive – ‘predictably passive beings’. And a third class which mainly applauds the first class efforts.