* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The island of New Guinea, which is shared by Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian province of Papua, supports the world's third-largest continuous tropical rainforest after the Amazon and the Congo Basin. The forests of Papua Province however are under serious threat and are increasingly becoming a main frontier for Indonesia's agricultural expansion.
REDD-plus strategies to curb deforestation are nevertheless receiving a lot of attention in Indonesia both at the national and the sub-national level. At a G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in May this year Indonesia indicated that it wants a 26 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. That was followed by the signing of a $1 billion REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) agreement with Norway a month later.
The province of Papua for its part has proposed a low-carbon development strategy and has since 2008 been active in the promotion of international coordination on REDD-plus together with governors from Brazil, Aceh Province and the US. But how can national and sub-national interests be combined to stop the advance of deforestation in Papua Province?
Indonesia has committed itself to a moratorium on the conversion of forests as part of its cooperation with Norway, but many civil society and indigenous peoples' representatives are doubtful about how effective the moratorium will be, given Indonesia's weak record of forest law enforcement. The influence of powerful players such as the oil palm industry also has to be reckoned with.
Another problem is the fact that the moratorium will only go into effect after Jan. 1, 2011, and applications from before that date are probably not going to be affected. A program launched by the Indonesian government in southwest Papua for example, that plans the conversion of 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres) of mostly forested land into oil palm plantations and other agricultural crops, is expected to go ahead.
WHAT IS 'DEGRADED LAND'?
Indonesia has stated that it wants to limit oil palm conversion to degraded land nation-wide, but because of ambiguity over what is meant by 'degraded land', fears are that the expansion of oil palm plantations will continue to affect biodiversity and people. There is a general concern over the lack of consultation with local interest groups as part of REDD planning.
IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is working with the Indonesian NGO Samdhana Institute and Papuan partners to support Papua Province in preparing for the implementation of REDD-plus with a pro-poor focus. The joint program hopes to ensure that a future REDD program in Papua will take the interests of local communities fully into account.
The program is part-funded by the Danish International Development Agency and develops standards, practices and participatory mapping and planning for REDD-plus strategies that strengthen the livelihoods of the forest-dependent poor and protect their practical and cultural relationship with forests. The capacity of local organizations is built through workshops and training so that their interests are more effectively presented to provincial authorities who translate these concerns into proposals that can be accepted by national-level policy makers.
The Papua Low Carbon Development Task Force fulfils a crucial role in linking Papua's REDD proposals to the national level.
Augustinus Rumansara, the chairperson of the task force, explains how Papua's plans to fight deforestation could favor a more sustainable development path for the province. "We are committed to ensure that at least half of the forest area allocated for conversion in Papua is conserved, and Papua wants to avoid the conversion of any primary forests. The funds that we can receive for this under REDD-plus would be invested in a green fund which will help promote a low carbon economy in Papua."
IUCN's work stresses the importance of including people in decision making and preventing negative impacts on people and on ecosystems and biodiversity. One of the potential threats from REDD-plus is the possibility that a failure to engage local people and native communities in the planning stages will lead to the development of schemes that benefit the new 'carbon business' sector but do little for, or even undermine, local livelihoods.
The fears and hopes expressed by people in Papua are similar to those in many tropical regions that are now engaged in REDD preparation. Pete Wood who leads the joint IUCN program with the Samdhana Institute says: "People in Papua are afraid that their customary rights might not be recognized, that their forests will be sold to others and that REDD-plus may limit their access to forests. If REDD schemes are too bureaucratic and technical, local communities will not be able to participate. Only if these concerns are taken into account will REDD-plus be able to create effective and equitable interventions."
It is the responsibility both of REDD donors and REDD implementing governments and agencies to address concerns over social and environmental safeguards and turn the fears of forest-dependent communities into hope for a more sustainable future.
Implementing agencies should guarantee that REDD action will be based on the recognition of rights over the use of resources and that it will respect customary norms. They should show that processes can be transparent by providing timely information and by ensuring that communities are able to participate pro-actively. Finally, mechanisms that are put in place to share benefits must be transparent and accountable and should not create conflict within communities.
