The Indigenous people and carbon credits

The purchase of 37.5 million carbon credits here over 15 years by the Hess Corporation, a member of the consortium exploiting oil in the Stabroek Block, is something which the average Guyanese, absorbed as he or she is with cost-ofliving constraints, probably regards as beneficial for this country. Navigating the report’s complexity and the labyrinth of mechanisms and programmes involved, not to mention their associated acronyms, demands a level of effort and application which the average citizen is unlikely to invest in, particularly when they have been told that these credits represent an anticipated US$750 million for saved carbon in our forests.

This does not mean to say that the Hess sale has not been subject to significant and perceptive criticism by specialists such as Dr Thomas Singh, whose observations were further pursued in our editorial of December 5th. However, there is one aspect of the deal which does not require much technical or semi-technical grasp of the larger processes, and this is the section affecting the Indigenous people.

It was Dr Janette Bulkan who first pointed out in a letter to this newspaper that the announcement from the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions as well as Winrock, which designed Guyana’s measuring, reporting and verification system, contained a paragraph which stated: “Endorsement for the government to sell credits from Guyana’s Indigenous lands – both titled and untitled – including the terms of benefit sharing, was given by the National Toshaos’ Council, which includes leaders elected by each community and is the legal representative of Indigenous peoples in Guyana.”

Both Dr Bulkan and a former Chairman of the NTC Nicholas Fredericks have pointed out there is nothing in the Amerindian Act of 2006 which gives the Council any authority to sanction the government selling carbon credits from Indigenous land, either titled or untitled. It seems that the government in its customary offhand fashion assumed that no objections would be raised because 15% of the revenues from this scheme would be designated for Indigenous peoples in line with its commitment under the Low Carbon Development Strategy.

In giving his account of how the administration secured the agreement of the NTC, Mr Fredericks said that the resolution was signed by some members of the executive under pressure from the government at the last minute in July. It concerned endorsement for the Low Carbon Development Strategy and the sale of carbon credits. He went on to say that the “socalled consultations on the LCDS were more of a limited information-sharing exercise.

Communities did not have time to ask questions, let alone deliberate on whether they supported the revised strategy.”

Mr Fredericks correctly explained that under the Amerindian Act the legal representatives of Indigenous communities are the village councils, where decisions are made at village council meetings. Rhetorically he asked which village authorised their Toshao to sign the resolution, and going on from that whether the villages in general authorised the NTC executive to speak for them in this matter.

As he went on to remark, as such the government was in dereliction of complying with the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent, a principle which is recognised by international agencies such as the UN in relation to Indigenous peoples. But then it must be said that this is not anything new where the government and the local situation is concerned. There is the administration granting mining licences on titled and customary lands without any reference to the communities who either hold title or are affected by the activity.

In perhaps the most egregious case, Chinese Landing, despite all the publicity and a report from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination the government has done nothing about the mining taking place on the community’s titled land, and its associated destruction of the environment, poisoning of the creeks and intimidation of villagers. In other instances too, mining wins out against Indigenous concerns, and Free, Prior and Informed consent is nowhere followed. If the Indigenous population has been preserving the forest for millennia, the government can’t be accused of the same uniform diligence across the length and breadth of the hinterland.

And then there is the question of how the money reserved for the Indigenous communities is to be spent, and who decides how and where it is to be spent. In our December 5th editorial we said that the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent must be applied. Mr Fredericks, unquestionably with justification, has his doubts that this will happen. He said that the benefit-sharing mechanism set forth in the LCDS constituted little more than a “continuation” of the community development grants. These were disbursed at the discretion of the government, and had been used in the past for political purposes.

And this last comment reflects the underpinning of the government’s whole approach to the Indigenous people. Given the decline in Indian numbers, the former have become an important voting bloc to allow the PPP/C access to office. Everything becomes, therefore, a matter of ensuring that the communities vote in the ‘right’ way, and through the disbursement of funds from the centre are suitably rewarded – or deprived, as the case may be.

How to wean Freedom House off its obsession with control over all sectors of society owing to its fear it might lose a national election, is not something anyone has yet solved.

With pressure from international bodies and agencies, perhaps the government could be prevailed upon to learn the distinction between consultation and manipulation where the Indigenous nations are concerned.

It would indeed be a disgrace if the funds for the carbon credits were spent following decisions by the unimpressive and inept Minister of Amerindian Affairs on behalf of the government, whether or not with the cover of executive approval from the NTC which had not first secured the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the villages.

Mr Fredericks made reference to the South Rupununi District Council which presented its own plan on how to protect its territory to COP 27. The world listened. The government did not. It is long past time it began to do some listening.