Report from the Frontier: securing forest peoples’ rights to curb tropical deforestation Marcus Colchester, Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests Oxford University 17 th February 2017
Linguistic and biological diversity overlap
Why are forests undefended and Forest Peoples landless? • Emperor Charlemagne first instituted ‘forestry’ laws in Europe • England’s first ‘forest’, the New Forest, was created by the Norman conquerors as a royal hunt (1079). • Some 3,000 peasants were torched out of their houses to clear the ‘New Forest’ • By Henry II 25% of England was ‘forest’. Less than half this ‘forest’ was in fact wooded. • In law and history, ‘forests’ are not vegetation types, they are (royal) jurisdictions. • Robin Hood symbolises this struggle between the Saxon people and Norman forests
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich, 1818 Looking Down Yosemite Valley, by Albert Bierstadt, 1865 Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Thomas Moran, 1827
‘The consent of the governed’ and the end of imperialism ‘No peace can last, or ought ‘ to last, which does not recognize the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed ...’ We believe that every people has the right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live... The small states of the world shall enjoy the same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity ’ ‘Self - determination’
WWII and the Atlantic Alliance
The right to self-determination All peoples have the right to self- determination , by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources … . In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence (Common Article 1 of ICESCR and ICCPR)
Indigenous Peoples at the UN
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) Recognises IPs ’ rights to: • self-determination • lands, territories and natural resources • exercise customary law • self-government • choose their own representatives • give or withhold their free, prior and informed consent + + +
Forestry law or peoples’ rights? • Forests • Territory (IP land) • State controlled for • Community controlled for strategic purpose livelihoods and identity • Customary rights • Customary rights upheld diminished or denied and enforceable • Regulated by statutory • Regulated by people laws through customary law • Administered by • Managed by self- designated State agency governing community • Violations are crimes • Infractions subject to against the State customary fines
Forests for Peoples : Peoples for Forests
Source: RF-Norway
Indonesia: ‘Unity in Diversity ’ Indonesia has 240 m people speaking more than 500 languages (about 200 are ‘Austronesian’ and 300 are Papuan (New Guinea and Eastern areas)). 70% of Indonesia classed as ‘forest’. About 33,000 villages overlap forests = up to 90 million forest people. Some 2/3 are long term residents with customary rights. Case study
Deforestation in Indonesia • 1900: 170 m ha • 1990: 128 m ha • 2005: 99 m ha • 2014: (est) 80 m ha Over ½ Map shows forest loss in Sumatra Island forest lost
Direct drivers of deforestation • Logging (600 large logging licences: 62 m ha) • Timber plantations (5 m ha expanding at c.250,000 ha / year > govt. target 9 m ha) • Oil palm plantations: near 12 million ha, expanding at c.800,000 ha / year • Transmigration (State sponsored colonisation programme) was major and still continues • Spontaneous expansion of agriculture frontier especially on Sumatra
Weak or Absent Tenures • Less than 20% of all land holdings on Outer Island have been titled • %age is declining as holdings being created faster than BPN can register • BAL reduces customary rights to weak usufructs on State lands that must give way to national interest • Forestry laws limit rights even further • Administration treats forests as ‘State forest areas’ • Being contested…. • Rural people v. vulnerable
Development policy • Constitution gives State control of all natural resources for the benefit of the people • Government promotes large- scale natural resource exploitation with foreign investment • Spatial planning: carve up landscapes into economic Peatlands being cleared development areas • Peoples rights ignored in land use planning
12 million hectares of oil palm
5 million hectares of pulpwood
People being squeezed off their land
The real economy • Forestry and land • Regents make most concessions major money releasing source of elections agricultural lands to funds concessionaires • Massive graft in hand • US$3 million estimated out of concessions need for election (2010) • Rent seeking for every • Election campaign funds permit and payback • Permits to release • Ministries, companies forest land for palm and local politicians all benefit from status quo
Land conflicts and human rights abuses • 4000 land conflicts with palm (BPN) • Land grabs trigger resistance & repression: companies pay army and police • Killings and violence • Destruction of properties • Deprived of livelihoods • Labour disputes, debt slavery • Criminalization of subsistence See : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF1h9chcWVo&feature=plcp •
Oil palm main direct driver today Source Mongabay
Protest & Private Sector response • Civil society protests: market sensitization • Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil – Just land acquisition – Customary rights – FPIC – No clearance of primary forests and HCV s • ‘Zero Deforestation’ demands. • High Carbon Stocks ( HCS ) Approach (GP and TFT) • No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy
High Conservation Values 1. RTE species 2. Landscapes 3. Ecosystems 4. Environment al Services 5. Basic needs 6. Critical to cultural identity
Location of case study Source: GAR
Palm concessions in Kapuas Hulu Red permits granted to Sinar Mas group (Govt data) Danau Sentarum NP peat-swamp, lake and forest. Rich fishery. PT Kartika Prima Cipta, Golden Agri Resources, part of Sinar Mas
University of Maryland data Screenshot showing forest loss in PT KPC area KPC palms
Deep Peat areas in PT KPC
Market campaign • GAR’s forest and peat clearance exposed • Nestle and Unilever targetted • Call for them to stop buying from GAR • GAR agrees to zero deforestation • GAR works with TFT and GP to develop HCS system
High Carbon Stocks (HCS) • RSPO 2013 standards revision did not make requirements to curb GHG emissions • ENGOs campaigned for brands to adopt ‘Zero De forest ation’ pledges: CGF • HCS method identifies what is ‘ forest ’ • Uses biomass as a proxy for carbon content (35 TCO2e/ha. guide threshold) and then stratifies forests into classes: what can be cleared and what cannot. • Refined method as ‘HCS Approach’
Biomass-based land stratification
2 3 Mining area 7 1 9 Kenabak Hulu 4 8 5 6 Main interview sites Source: GAR
Sustainable landscape?
Land Acquisition without FPIC • No participatory mapping, boundaries unclear • No study of customary land ownership system • No process to let communities choose representatives • ‘ Simpak beliung ’ (‘thanks’ for temporarily surrendering land in exchange for wider benefits) but recorded as land surrenders. • Fixed payments (told it was a government rate) • Told land would come back after 30 years • No copies of agreements held by original land owners • US$26/ ha (company valuation US$930/ha) • Only half of promised smallholdings provided
Promised benefit sharing • Jobs • Shares in the smallholder scheme • Scholarships • Schools • Road improvements • Piped water • Buildings • Clinics • Few realised (yet)
HCV Assessment • Done after land acquisition • HCV 1-4 only • Not well explained • Not understood by people • No copies in communities • Resented because: – Limits their livelihoods – Reduces area of smallholding (as proportion Forbidden!!! Open land, burn land, take of planted area) plants, illegal logging, hunting game and destroy conservation area.
HCS Assessment • Not yet explained • Not widely or well understood • ‘What is ‘carbon’?’ • Unclear implications for land use • ‘We don’t want this HCS, we’ve given up too much land already’ ‘ Forbidden!!! Opening or burning land, taking plants’
‘slash and burn’?
or ‘rotational farming’? HK 1 BT BM LT
Sequester carbon in rotational farming (whole rotation is HK1) Mean 78 t Ce
How can we put communities rights & livelihoods into land use plans?
Concerns: fisherfolk Majority of population in Suhaid are Melayu fisherfolk
Recommend
More recommend
