Fiona Watson, Survival International, Advocacy and Research Director

1.    Introduction – the global climate crisis, Indigenous peoples, and Nature Based Solutions

Indigenous peoples are on the frontline of the global climate crisis. Their lands and livelihoods are most affected by it, even though they have the lightest footprint on the planet and are the least to blame.

Despite this, efforts to address the climate crisis vary in the extent to which they recognize the specific perspectives and roles of Indigenous peoples. And even those responses which purport to acknowledge the centrality of Indigenous people often pay lip service to Indigenous engagement without being rooted in – or in any way properly taking account of – the rights of Indigenous peoples, and in particular their collective land rights.

By failing to properly respect Indigenous rights, current efforts to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises are threatening Indigenous peoples, while also falling far short of meeting their own aspirations. This paper will set out how, in contrast, taking Indigenous rights as the starting point is not only a moral and legal imperative, but will also lead to better outcomes for the planet.

Increasingly, projects to address climate change are being designed – or branded – as ‘Nature-based Solutions (NBS)’, which sounds innocuous, or even positive. Yet such projects in Indigenous territories often result in land theft and are increasingly commodifying and monetizing their lands and knowledge, posing serious threats to Indigenous peoples’ rights – without tackling the cause of the climate crisis.

NBS uses mechanisms such as planting trees, restoring habitats and preserving forests to absorb or avoid release of atmospheric CO2. “Nature” is considered a capital or an asset where, for example, polluting companies can buy carbon credits to offset their CO2 emissions. Indigenous peoples’ careful stewardship of their territories means they store much CO2; a recent study found that Indigenous community forests contain 36% more carbon per hectare than other areas of the Brazilian Amazon. As a result, their territories are prime targets for NBS such as carbon-offsetting schemes now rebranded as NBS.

NBS are heavily promoted and supported by governments, companies (particularly the fossil fuel industry) and financial markets and are frequently imposed without Indigenous peoples’ free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The conservation industry is pushing carbon offsetting hard because it can make huge sums selling carbon credits from Protected Areas which it creates and manages.

However, NBS have failed to tackle the central issue: i.e. they enable the biggest polluters and emitters of carbon dioxide (such as the fossil fuel industry usually based in the global north) to carry on polluting as usual by offsetting their emissions elsewhere. In other words, emissions are not being reduced as fossil fuel emissions continue to rise.

Carbon offsetting doesn’t reduce CO2 overall. The carbon stored in trees and other ‘natural ecosystems’ is very easily released again through fires (a major concern for example in parts of the Amazon Basin) or other disturbances. It can also result in vast monocultures of fast-growing trees which destroy biodiversity – 80% of the planet’s biodiversity is found in Indigenous territories.

This huge monetary value NBS puts on Indigenous owned ecosystems makes them the targets of unscrupulous investors which puts even more pressure on territories that are already invaded and plundered for their natural resources. As Tom Goldtooth of the Diné people and executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network says: “What we are fighting here is the privatisation of nature … Who owns nature? The way things are developing it will be the corporations that own nature…. Energy companies are getting rich while the local people suffer”.

For many Indigenous peoples, putting a monetary value on nature is inconceivable as Pope Francis recognises in his Laudato Si’ encyclical “On care for our common home”: “For them, land is not a commodity but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values. When they remain on their land, they themselves care for it best”.

2.    The impact of NBS on Indigenous communities

2.1 Protected Areas

A heavily promoted NBS is the creation of Protected Areas. There is a long and shameful history of colonisers stealing land from Indigenous peoples since the first national park in the USA was created over 150 years ago. Yet fortress conservation is still being pushed by big conservation NGOs like WWF, WCS and African Parks as the “solution” to our environmental problems, including the biodiversity and climate crises. They divert attention from the real causes of environmental destruction, climate change and biodiversity loss, and from those who are most responsible for it.

Indigenous organizations and NGOs including Survival have denounced widespread and horrific human rights abuses in Africa and Asia where Indigenous peoples have been violently evicted from their lands by armed rangers funded by large conservation organizations in the name of conservation.

Once their land is stolen, Indigenous peoples’ sustainable ways of life are criminalized, and they are pushed into “alternative livelihoods” to conform with mainstream society. Self-sufficient people are rendered landless and dependent “beneficiaries" of conservation-funded projects or into tourist attractions; while the real culprits of environmental destruction, like mining, oil and logging companies, and trophy hunters are considered “partners” of conservation and allowed to carry on with business as usual.

While African Parks has been at the forefront of the militarization of conservation areas in Africa and runs the largest counter-poaching force of any private organization on the continent, other conservation organizations like WWF and WCS are also deeply involved. Rangers often receive paramilitary training from former military officers. In some cases, bonuses are awarded to the most zealous rangers, who have made the most arrests or discovered the most animal traps, giving an economic incentive to carry out arbitrary arrests, torture and other human rights violations.

Odzala-Kokoua National Park is one of the oldest parks in Africa which was established in 1935 by French colonisers on Baka land in the Republic of Congo. The park has been managed by African Parks since 2010 when Baka people say that violence and abuse dramatically increased. Rape, torture and evictions at the hands of African Parks’ rangers have been widely reported in the area. While the Baka are being persecuted for hunting to feed their families and accused of destroying the forest, two mining concessions are located inside the park and its buffer zone, and six logging concessions hug its borders. There are now reports of plans to sell carbon credits from Odzala-Kokoua park.

This is the daily reality for Baka on the ground, as one woman describes: “My Baka relatives were handcuffed. The rangers forcibly removed their clothes and made them lie down on the ground. They lit a candle and let the burning wax drip on them. Then they hit their burnt skin with a whip”. Baka people told Survival researchers that rangers held their heads underwater in a river; raped a Baka woman while she was holding her two-month-old baby and sexually abused an 18-year-old Baka boy among other horrific abuses. As a Baka leader says: “This is not conservation, it’s destruction”.

Yet the Baka are the best conservationists. Their relationship to the forest is central to their way of life and their identity as a people and they cannot survive without it. Generations have developed their own sophisticated conservation practices which prevent overhunting, since the Baka believe that successful hunting and gathering depends on sharing well, both between themselves and with their environment. They have in-depth knowledge of forest plants and are expert botanists, using around 500 plants for medicinal purposes, soap. epilation, and birth control. Baka say that important medicines are only found in specific forests which have become “Protected Areas” which are now no-go zones following their eviction.

The Baka are expert zoologists and astute observers of animal behaviour – they have dozens of words for the forest elephant, depending on its age, sex and personality. Studies show that the Baka work to improve the forest environment for their animal neighbours. For example, when the Baka harvest wild yams, they often leave part of the root intact in the soil, or bury parts of the tubers, with the intention of encouraging their regeneration. This spreads pockets of yams through the forest, which are a favourite food of elephants and wild boar. There is evidence that when Baka discard inedible parts of the yam in new places density increases. When they make seasonal camps, the Baka they clear vegetation, creating “secondary forest” which improves levels of light that favour yam growth in new areas. This has been called “paracultivation” rather than simply gathering.

Many Baka report that all this important knowledge is not being passed on to the younger generations, as parents are too afraid to take their children into the forest because of abusive anti-poaching squads.

2.2 Carbon offsetting and credits

Under a carbon offset scheme, a company which is releasing CO2 into the atmosphere can carry on releasing exactly the same amount of CO2 and yet claim to be “carbon neutral”, as long as it “offsets” its emissions by also supporting the creation of a Protected Area that stocks the same amount of CO2, or planting some trees that are supposed to absorb the same amount of CO2. This exchange is carried out in the financial markets, through the creation of carbon credits. This is what governments mean by “net zero”: they do not really intend to reduce emissions to zero, they will simply claim to “offset” those emissions somewhere else.

Carbon offsetting is largely unregulated – and much of it is based on Indigenous land. Increasingly, Indigenous land that has been seized to make a Protected Area is now being used to sell carbon credits. Research by Rights and Resources Initiative shows that despite more than a decade of investment in REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries) programs, few countries have established the necessary conditions for fair, effective, and transparent carbon or REDD+ transactions.

Two recent cases in Brazil involved Carbonext, a company partly owned by oil giant Shell. Carbonext allegedly got Tembé people to sign blank pieces of paper, and pressurized Kayapo into signing agreements. When federal prosecutors launched investigations into these irregularities, the company cancelled its contracts with the communities. Many Indigenous peoples have been locked into non-negotiable contracts which run for 50 years or more, clearly unfair as nobody can predict conditions of future markets. Some face draconian conditions and have effectively lost control of their resources and are banned from harvesting produce or cutting down trees. Others receive a paltry percentage of the profits, most of which go to companies and shareholders while the Indigenous peoples on the ground are doing the work conserving their forest homes.

In February, Akawaio from Guyana attended a hearing on the impact of carbon market expansion on Indigenous Peoples, held by the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. They denounced a carbon offsetting scheme on their land by a private US-based carbon credit certification body called ART (Architecture for REDD+ Transactions) about which they were not consulted. Akawaio leader Mario Hastings said: “We have not seen any proof that selling carbon is helping Mother Earth. Even though the Government is selling carbon credits and promising to keep the trees standing, the Government continues to give out mining concessions without caring about the destruction of our forests. My village of Kako is covered with mining concessions. We have a land title, but the Government refuses to acknowledge that the title exists. And the Government is now doing oil drilling and polluting the climate. In all these ways, our rights have not been respected and protected in this carbon credit process. The true solution to the climate crisis is to recognize that Indigenous peoples are the owners and stewards of our lands and forests”.

In some cases, it has proven nearly impossible to track whether offsetting projects have actually taken place, and how much carbon has truly been offset. A recent investigation into Verra, the world’s leading certifier of carbon offsets, found that more than 90% of the rainforest offset credits were likely to be “phantom credits” and did not represent genuine carbon reductions and may have worsened global warming.

2.3 Afforestation

To date, supposedly the most effective way of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is by planting trees. According to 2017 estimates, afforestation accounted for nearly half of the potential for climate mitigation through NBS. To chieve this would require planting trees over an estimated area of nearly 700 million hectares, almost the size of Australia. Where is that land going to come from? Certainly not in countries like France and the United Kingdom who are pushing NBS. Most likely Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ lands will be targeted.

In India, when forests are destroyed for resource extraction like mining, the companies responsible must give money to a fund called CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority), which is spent on afforestation projects. However, biodiverse forests are usually replaced with monoculture plantations, often on the land of Adivasi (Indigenous and tribal) peoples. For example, much of the Baiga’s land has been taken as part of a compensatory afforestation project as Amarlal Baiga explains: “The forest department has forcefully put fences around my field and around everyone else’s fields and planted teak trees. They made us plant the trees, they made fools out of us saying: ‘These plants will benefit you’ but now they are harassing us and saying: ‘This jungle is ours and this land doesn't belong to you anymore’. But this land is ours and belonged to our ancestors”.

The territories of uncontacted tribes, also known as peoples living in isolation, are extremely vulnerable to NBS. Their rejection of contact with neighbouring peoples and national society means it is impossible to obtain their FPIC for projects on their land, like carbon offsetting. They are also vulnerable to so-called green alternatives to fossil fuels, such as electric car batteries that rely on minerals like nickel. The world’s largest nickel mine on Halmahera Island in Indonesia is operating on the territory of uncontacted Hongana Manyawa, who only number between 300 and 500 people. They face annihilation through the introduction of diseases by mine workers, to which they have no immunity, and the wholesale destruction of their forests on which they rely totally for food and shelter.

3.    What are the solutions?

There is a clear solution to this situation: full respect for Indigenous rights, including formal recognition and active protection of collective land ownership rights. As UN Special Rapporteur John Boyd says: “Implementing rights-based conservation approaches is both a legal obligation under international law and the most equitable, effective, and efficient conservation strategy available to protect biodiversity at the scale required to end the current global crisis”.

Indigenous land covers a significant portion of the globe: one study found that Indigenous peoples manage or have tenure rights over at least a quarter of the world’s land surface. Ensuring that this land is legally held and controlled by the Indigenous peoples who have always stewarded and protected it is crucial for the full realisation of Indigenous rights, the protection of Indigenous knowledge, and for the future of the planet.

International Labour Organization Convention 169, the international law on Indigenous and tribal peoples, and the UN and the American Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples uphold their collective land ownership rights. However, many states, especially in Africa, Asia and Oceania have yet to enshrine this fundamental right in national law. Even where land rights are legally recognised, as in most Latin American countries, there is an ongoing struggle against concerted efforts by politicians and industries linked to agri-business and mining, oil and gas sectors to overturn the laws which uphold Indigenous land rights.

Scientific studies show that when Indigenous peoples’ land rights are upheld there is minimal or significantly less deforestation (and therefore fewer carbon dioxide emissions), fewer forest fires and high levels of biodiversity which includes ecosystem diversity, genetic diversity and species diversity. One study in the Brazilian Amazon found that a 75% decrease in deforestation in Indigenous territories that were demarcated and ratified.

Indigenous peoples must be the decision makers in all projects and initiatives that affect them and their territories. It is simply not ethical to expect them to engage meaningfully in projects and exchange of knowledge, let alone give their FPIC when they are not in full legal and actual possession of their territories, and thus not in a position to assert their full authority over what happens on their land.

This needs a radical change in mindsets. We need to sensitise public opinion, governments, consumers, scientists, industry and conservationists – to counter the ingrained prejudice and racism which prevails in many regions, and which fails to understand that Indigenous peoples are contemporary and dynamic societies, continually adapting and changing whether hunter-gatherers, shifting cultivators or nomadic herders. For example, Bushmen or San in southern Africa are extraordinarily resilient and have perfected ways of living in the Kalahari desert, but are persecuted for hunting sustainably, and many have been evicted from their ancestral lands.

As Felipe Tuxá, an Indigenous anthropologist from Brazil, says: “We keep talking about the importance of cultural diversity, but nobody talks about territorial demarcation and nobody solves it, even though it is a central problem for the existence of Indigenous peoples in Brazil today. This creates a narrative that everything is fine as long as you have policies that promote cultural diversity, but these policies don't resolve the indigenous territorial issue”.

Recognising land rights takes not only political will, and administrative commitment, but also financing. Governments and foundations should prioritise direct funding for grassroots, Indigenous-led initiatives which promote land rights and self-determination, territorial demarcation, land defence and land management and Indigenous knowledge. A report by the Rainforest Foundation found that less than 1% of funds from international donors for climate aid between 2011 and 2022 was given to Indigenous peoples’ forest conservation. This needs to be massively increased, and the funds must go to securing land rights first, so that Indigenous-led conservation can follow.

In the absence of the state, many Indigenous communities are mapping out their lands to secure them. Some have produced land management plans and encyclopaedias of medicinal plants in positive collaborations with non-Indigenous scientists and specialists. Many are devising protocols for consulting with their communities. Others have formed groups of “Forest Guardians” or environmental defenders risking their lives on the frontline to protect their territories from violent invaders and land grabbers. Many have been murdered defending their land and communities. They need tools and technology for these initiatives: drones, GPS, satellite imagery, video cameras, mobile phones, and two-way radios. One study found that communities supplied with satellite data via smartphones saw 52% less forest loss than similar communities that did not adopt the technology, in the first year alone.

Another critical area for funding is recording and revitalisation of Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered or have already disappeared – today about 200 known Indigenous languages have fewer than 10 native speakers. Knowledge is embedded in language and there is a strong correlation between biodiversity and linguistic diversity – research suggests that biodiversity hotspots contain great linguistic diversity – about 70% of all languages.

Biodiversity and species are also preserved due to Indigenous histories and myths, which give immense value to sacred spaces and certain plants, animals, birds and insects, and thereby ensure their protection.

Concerted lobbying of governments and institutions which fund fortress conservation has seen some progress. For example, following concerns raised by the Baka people and Survival, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) carried out its own investigation which found that rangers supported by WWF beat up and intimidated hundreds of Baka in Messok Dja in the Congo Republic, where WWF is pushing for the creation of a park on Baka land. UNDP decided to scrap its funding for the project because of the violation of Baka rights.

Survival met with the European Commission team in charge of the Messok Dja project in February 2020, and stressed that it had never had the consent of the Baka and other local people. As a result, the European Commission announced in May 2020 that it was suspending its funding of Messok Dja. It is currently working to set up a framework for human rights compliance in the conservation projects its funds and has supported a consultation process for the creation of Messok Dja, carried out by the Congolese government. It’s the first time that this kind of process has been attempted for a Protected Area in the Congo. Nevertheless, the consultation process does not mean that the Baka have given their FPIC for the Protected Area: several villages rejected the project and many community representatives reported that they felt pressured and intimidated into “agreeing” to it.

4.    Conclusion

We know that keeping forests healthy it critical for our future. We will only achieve this with a radically different model to the current one, that is, one that has Indigenous peoples and their skills and wisdom – and rights – at the centre. Their collective living based on sharing and reciprocity is increasingly seen as the most intelligent and best response to living within our means.

We must ensure that Indigenous and tribal peoples not only survive but thrive for the well-being of humanity. This can only happen by recognising the land is theirs by right, and by dint of having lived there for generations, caring for and nurturing it. Despite these deep roots and spiritual connections to their land, many will not survive as peoples unless the violence, invasion, and dispossession are stopped. Time is not on our side and governments must act now before it is too late.

Finally, we must heed Indigenous voices who warned about climate change years ago. Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa said: “What the xapiri [shamanic spirits] teach us has far more weight and strength than all the white people’s money… I would like the white people to hear our words and dream about all they say: if the shamans’ songs stop being heard in the forest, white people will not be spared any more than we will”.

 

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