REDD Communique from GREENCODE, ERA and RRDC in Nigeria

COMMUNIQUE ISSUED AT A ONE-DAY ROUNDTABLE STRATEGY MEETING ON REDD,

 CALABAR, NIGERIA.

18-AUG-2010.

PREAMBLE

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) in collaboration with Rainforest Research Development Centre and Green Concern for Development (GREENCODE), organized a one day strategic meeting on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) as pursued within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The thrust of the meeting was to build the capacity of critical stakeholders to understand, analyze, criticize and as necessary resist the REDD scheme prior to its adoption in Nigeria. Participants were drawn from non-governmental organizations, representatives of civil society groups, forests communities and students from Calabar.

OPENING

In his opening remarks, the Executive Director ERA/FoEN and Chair, Friends of the Earth International, FoEI, Nnimmo Bassey  said that forests in Cross River State have been targeted for the REDD in Nigeria hence the need for participants to examine the process embarked upon by government and what the impacts will be on community forests and the environment.

Presentations and positions articulated by the resource persons, actions and reactions from the representatives of CSO’s, forest communities and individuals, during the incisive brainstorming session, formed the basis for observations which were made and articulated thus:

OBSERVATIONS

• Forests in Cross Rivers State including some of the few remaining tracks of mangrove and rainforest reserves in the world targeted for REDD are in grave danger due to lack of critical engagement in the scheme.
• Carbon trading/market mechanism promoted by the REDD are false solutions to climate change. 

• REDD does not aim to stop deforestation and may in fact promote deforestation and conversion of forests into plantations. 

• REDD could become a vehicle for corporate land grabs in the country. 

• Nigeria’s forest dependent poor may be forcefully evicted from their land and denied access to the forests that form basis of their culture and livelihoods by the REDD. 

• Forest-dependent communities that have been the original custodian of native forests have not been engaged or incorporated by government in the REDD negotiation process. 

• Awareness on REDD is very low at all levels of engagement in Nigeria as there are obvious capacity gaps among government negotiators who are principally looking at the financial potentials in the REDD processes. REDD attraction for the Nigerian government is the huge funds involved not the devastating environmental and socio-cultural implications. 

• There are no known Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) on all REDD targeted forest communities in Nigeria. 

• The World Bank and other financial institutions are positioning themselves to act as climate banks to the detriment of our forests and environment. They should be kept out of REDD and all climate finance processes. 

•  African, particularly Nigerian forests and environment are in crises and require urgent action to rescue them from the path of grave degradation and attendant consequences. 

RESOLUTIONS

Recognising that our forests play key role in our lives, protection of our forests and environment is a duty we all owe the earth and humanity hence the forum resolved and recommended as follows: 

·         Forests and REDD must be out of carbon markets.

·         Our forest is not for sale! It is our life and source of livelihoods for millions of forest-dependent peoples in forest-bearing communities in Africa. 

·         Government at all levels in Nigeria should take honest and practical steps aimed at stopping deforestation and tackling climate change instead of gambling and trading with our forests. 

·         Plantations are not forests. REDD should reward community people who protect the forests and not drivers of deforestation and degradation like plantation merchants and unsustainable logging contractors.

·         The Nigerian Government should actively engage forest community dwellers; civil society groups in the ongoing REDD negotiation process and adopt Community forest management practices as one of the concrete solutions to climate change. 

·         All civil society groups on environment in Nigeria and Africa must deepen their struggles against environmental and climate injustices by building alliances, solidarity and sharing experiences on REDD and its versions. 

·        Government should conduct Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on REDD-targeted forest communities. 

·         Governments should engage civil society groups and forest community people in the entire REDD process. 

·         Allowing rich Annex 1 countries to keep polluting in the North while claiming to offset their emissions in the south through plantations such as those for rubber, palm oil, agro fuels, and palm oil is not the answer to climate change. This is unacceptable. They owe us a climate debt as a result of inequitable use of global commons and disproportionate contribution to emissions that have resulted in climate change. 

·         Awareness should be raised at all levels on the implications of REDD.

We stand together for our planet and for our future!