Glen Besa, Virginia Chapter director of the Sierra Club, lives and works in Richmond. He is attending the U.N. Climate Conference in Lima, Peru, as a volunteer and conference observer with the Sierra Club.
LIMA, PERU -- I started my activism with the Sierra Club in the late eighties as the Forest Chair for the Western Maryland Group. As fierce as the forest debate was back then - - whether it was the fights in the Pacific Northwest to save the Ancient Forests or those us in the east fighting to save scraps of old growth -- I can't say that I ever feared for my life.
Unfortunately, that is not the case in countries where illegal logging is common. Such was the case in Brazil in the eighties when Chico Mendes was organizing local rubber tappers who earned a living from the Amazon rain forest without destroying it. Chico was assassinated in 1988 for his efforts to protect the forest and preserve a way of life for rubber tappers.
Since that time, numerous individuals, mostly indigenous people, have been killed and thousands more displaced from their forest homes by illegal logging as well as petroleum development. Just months before the UN Climate Conference (COP) convened in Lima, Edwin Chota, an indigenous forest organizer in the Amazon forests of Peru, and three of his colleagues were shot to death for their activism in front of local villagers.
Whether it is trees or petroleum, the rush to exploit resources is heating up the planet. Forests -- rainforests especially -- have been called the lungs of the earth. Undisturbed forests are a massive carbon sink that once destroyed, release that stored carbon into the atmosphere. Additionally, the massive Amazon forest drives regional weather and the loss of the forest is linked to current drought conditions in Brazil.
The importance of the forests is recognized in climate negotiations ongoing in Lima right now at the COP20. According to the UN, forest destruction and degradation accounts for as much as 20 percent of all carbon pollution, which is more than the transportation sector and second only to the energy sector. The United States has taken action to fight illegal logging by implementing the Lacey Act, a landmark environmental law that prohibits the import of illegally-harvested wood products. Since it's implementation in 2008, the Lacey Act has had a successful track record in reducing demand for illegally-harvested timber; however, much more must be done to reduce deforestation and protect communities.
These negotiations on REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) are of intense interest to NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) like the Sierra Club and especially NGOs based in less developed countries with extensive rainforests. It's not just the Amazon that needs to be protected. Logging in Indonesia makes that country one of the top emitters of carbon pollution in the world.
Forest issues are very complex. There are the rights of indigenous people who live in these forests and the desire of less developed countries to grow their economies by exploiting their natural resources to benefit their broader population -- including converting forests to agricultural use, and, of course, demand for wood products all factor into the challenges of saving the forests.
The subject of UN agreement and ongoing negotiations, REDD+ goes beyond stopping "deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks." The UN program is designed to compensate countries for not destroying their forests and to ensure that any logging is carried out in a responsible manner.
The problem is how do you monitor forest practices when in too many countries, illegal logging is common and there is disagreement about what constitutes sustainable forest practices? Also, if you stop logging in one country through REDD+ payments, will the demand for wood products simply mean that forests in another country will be logged? And how can we accurately calculate carbon pollution reductions of the REDD+ program with these illegal logging and leakage issues?
The developed countries contributing to the UN's Green Climate Fund want assurances that the money spent on REDD+ programs is resulting in real and permanent reductions in carbon pollution. The countries with the forests subject to REDD+ programs bristle at outside interference in the management of their forests. NGOs share carbon accounting concerns but also worry that REDD+ practices don't go far enough to protect the forests and the indigenous people that live in the forests.
There are no easy answers to these questions, and that makes the REDD+ program so contentious. Getting answers to these questions is critically important to us all in addressing climate disruption, but it is a matter of life or death to the indigenous people who live in harmony with the natural forests.
-- Glen Besa, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter director