Copenhagen & the Climate Conference Carnival (2)

The second big COP15 side event I went to was Forest Day 3.
This one day conference was a follow-up on the previous Forest Day 1 and 2 side events to climate negotiations in Bali and Poznan (Poland) respectively. It was a free event (always nice) where I had not only the chance to listen to important and influential voices on the climate change debate but also have a mini reunion with forestry friends from all over. Some of my colleagues I studied with in Sweden (who are from Germany) were there, as well as my thesis advisor from Sweden Mattias, and I even ran into Somying, a Thai woman I interviewed during my master's thesis research in Thailand a few years ago who works at a forestry NGO called RECOFTC.

One of the big name speakers for the event was the most recent Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Elinor Ostrom. She is the first female recipient of the economic prize. She has worked for many years on dispelling Hardin's claim of the tragedy of the commons, namely the idea that individuals will operate on self-interest and consume common pool resources recklessly and with disregard to others to meet their own needs. Ostrom's studies in common pool resources (could be forests, grazing lands, marine areas) has shown that when resources are limited people in fact can govern natural resources responsibly. Her work is a foundation for many ideas related to community forestry and local governance of forestry resources that is promoted by many institutions and NGOs around the world, particularly in developing countries.

To some this may sound like pie in the sky idealism, that people can and will be responsible for using resources responsibly, but I interviewed several people in my research in Thailand and found many of them have seen this in practice. In fast the resounding message I got from those I talked to from development organizations was that IF the responsibility for managing land lies supremely with the state (as is the case in many many developing countries) then people are likely to try to use up the resources more and more until they get caught...this happens particularly when the state makes a new conservation park off limits to locals who rely on the area for their food/housing etc. Additionally, these same people I spoke too said they have seen that when forestry management is devolved to the local level that people are inclined to be more responsible as then they can see their future in that place and want to sustain the resources so they may continue to live there.

Here is a photo of Professor Ostrom.















We also got to listen to speeches both by R.K. Pachauri the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Nicolas Stern from the London School of Economics and key writer of the Stern Report. Both of them (as well as Ostrom) pointed out that deforestation and forest degradation account for some 17-20% of global carbon emissions (due to burning of trees, decomposing of the trees/leaves rather than them absorbing carbon, and the drying out of peatlands which releases a tremendous amount of CH4-Methane). Therefore, all of them made the case that reducing deforestation and forest degradation was infact the cheapest way to reduce global emissions in the short term.

That sounds simple doesn't it? Unfortunately, its not that simple because something like 1/5 of the world's population (more than a billion people, if I remember this statistic right) rely on forest resources for their livelihoods (many of which are already below poverty levels). This challenge gets back to the question I had in my Thailand field work - why should the poorest in society pay the highest price for conservation? Its simply not justifiable, so alternatives need to be found.

The alternative being discussed at the moment goes by the name of REDD (or REDD+) which stands for Reducing Emissions for Degradation and Deforestation (or something like that :-). The idea is that developed countries would establish a fund for developing countries to access to somehow compensate forest living communities and those using forest resources in a way that exacerbates deforestation and degradation.

Of course like any solution, the reality is very complex. We know from the history of development aid that corruption and leakage tends to result in little of the big bucks actually getting into the hands of locals, and even when it DOES it is rarely happening in an equitable way. Then there is the issue of what should these people DO if they cannot carry on with their way of life? The past has shown that solutions born outside the local context and imposed on local communities (for example now instead of harvesting endangered flowers to sell you will make baskets) rarely works. In my view this means that the solutions need to arise from the local context in conversation with communities to ensure the money they get is invested in a way that benefits all and that there isn't a dependence on REDD funding forever, AND most importantly that the new activity is embraced and sustainable in the eyes of locals.

As you can imagine all of THAT is going to take money and capacity building, and TIME which is what we are running short with. All of those urgencies makes indigenous groups nervous that REDD will be run by national governments, local people kicked out with no compensation or livelihood options and the world will look away because reducing carbon emissions is more important than protect the rights and providing a future for poor people (with no political power).

In principle it seems there is agreement on REDD although many details still remain to be worked out and in particular where the money is going to come from and when is still unclear...

The last point on Forest Day 3 I will make is that I had the opportunity to work with a group of students from the Natural Resources Conflict Management course (that I took 2 years ago) and helped them craft their message to meet with the Danish Environment Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, but called Tracktor Troels by many since his background is in agriculture. Here is a pic of the students and the Minister.