AIDESEP Visits Washington, DC | Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch

AIDESEP Visits Washington, DC

An Indigenous Organization's Fight for Community-Based Conservation

March 4, 2012 | Caitlin Doughty | Eye on the Amazon

Daysi Zapata

Imagine you live in a tropical forest teeming with the flora and fauna, the very resources of your own subsistence. The trees that provide you and your family with fruit and materials for your home, however, represent something completely different to international developers: money. If you were asked to sign a legal document written in a foreign language, regarding the future use of land and resources on which you depend, would you? What if the contract was written in your own language but required that 50 percent of the potential income made from “conserving” the forest went to an international developer with no liabilities for any potential losses?

These are just two of the options given to indigenous communities by what rights advocates call “carbon cowboys.” These international developers and investors are looking to make a profit by financializing carbon and taking advantage of those living in carbon rich forests.

On the ground in Peru, there are already 35 pilot projects being implemented as a part of United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program. To date, these projects encompass roughly a tenth of the 70 million hectares of rainforest in Peru. The questions posed above are not deranged notions of an indigenous rights activist but actual situations and terms of contracts for several of the pilot projects that have been initiated in Peru.

The Reality of REDD+One of the key groups advocating for the rights of indigenous peoples in the REDD+ discussion and implementation is the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP), which represents 57 local federations across the Peruvian rainforest. In a recent report, AIDESEP documented how REDD+ is affecting indigenous communities on the ground.

Reading a case study gives you a sense of the discrimination indigenous communities’ encounter in the face of projects ostensibly designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Key proponents of REDD like the World Bank agree that a community’s free, prior and informed consent is essential to any project. In reality, communities are often mistreated and misled into signing outrageous contracts.

This coming week, Amazon Watch will be joining a coalition of partner organizations to host AIDESEP Vice President Daysi Zapata and Forestry Advisor Roberto Espinoza, in Washington, DC. Our Peruvian partners will bring their indigenous rights advocacy to the international playing field. Daysi and Roberto’s agenda is laden with meetings with multilateral banks, U.S. government offices and NGOs. These spaces with key decision makers involved in the REDD+ process will give Daysi and Roberto the opportunity to promote a rights-based approach to forest conservation.

Human rights reports like the one AIDESEP co-authored are easily thrown to the side, gathering dust with others of their kind. But the representatives at the World Bank and Department of State will have a much harder time ignoring Roberto’s concise and detailed analysis of why AIDESEP’s community-based proposals will ultimately protect more forest (and reduce more carbon emissions) than the current plan. Daysi will speak to the strong push from Amazon indigenous communities for expanded indigenous land tenure as an integral part of any conservation effort.

Daysi and Roberto will offer their analysis on the reality of REDD+ in Peru to the public on Wednesday, March 7th. If you’re in Washington, DC feel free to join us at lunchtime in Amazon Watch’s Dupont Circle offices. For more information please email me at caitlin@amazonwatch.org.

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