UN deforestation plan ‘hurting communities’

THE only UN-approved financial mechanism to curb deforestation and slow global warming has bulldozed the rights of forest-dwelling people on three continents and needs fixing, experts say.

The latest sign that these schemes – which pay to restore tropical forests rather than cut them down – are falling short comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Here, 20 pilot projects in the province of Mai-Ndombe have upended indigenous communities, according to a detailed report from the Rights and Resources Initiative, a research group based in Washington DC.

Backed by the DRC government and international financing, private companies that manage huge tracts of forest have ignored the land rights of local people, engineered displacements and avoided prior consent requirements, the report says.

They have also failed to share the windfall such programmes can bring, lead author Marine Gauthier said. She has monitored the projects in the western province of Mai-Ndombe since 2012.

“Indigenous peoples simply do not benefit because there is no benefit-sharing plan in place,” she said.

So far, more than $90-million (R1-billion) has been disbursed or committed in the province for climate change projects.

But tropical forests provide livelihoods and anchor the cultural identities of at least 250 million indigenous people, the report says. – AFP