Fidelis E. Satriastanti – Tribal groups have been faithfully protecting and preserving rain forests for hundreds of years, but their input at national and global talks on the highly anticipated carbon trading mechanism has been constantly denied, a representative of the country's indigenous people said here on Monday.
The 15th UN Climate Change Conference is scheduled to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Dec. 7 to 18 to determine several international deals in tackling climate change issues, including setting new emission targets for developed countries and funding mechanisms for developing countries in mitigating the effects of climate change.
Given Indonesia is home to the world's third largest area of forested land, after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, its main focus at the conference will be on the carbon trading mechanism – also known as REDD – used to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
Abdon Nababan, secretary general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), said REDD had two implications for indigenous people here: the scheme could exacerbate land conflicts or it could ease the burden in protecting forests.
"The REDD scheme could threaten indigenous people if it follows the same land concession system used now, because that system is the source of ongoing conflicts with both forest concessionaires and industrial forest estates," Abdon said.
"On the other hand," he said, "it could be a good opportunity because it puts the indigenous people and the scheme on the same page – we both want to prevent deforestation and forest degradation."
"So, [the indigenous people and the REDD scheme] are basically fighting the same evil," he said, adding that this partnership could lead to a new, more workable land concession system
Agus Purnomo, head of the secretariat of the National Council on Climate Change, said conflicts in forest areas had been going on for a very long time, had become very complicated and would be difficult to change.
"REDD can't be used as a magic potion to solve all those issues because its main aim is to prevent more carbon being emitted from the forested areas, even though the mechanism will require improved forestry management to succeed," Agus said.
"So the challenge is to solve these conflicts while at the same time implementing REDD," he said. "While there will be no quick fix, I'm optimistic [that it could work] because the funds are quite big, which could encourage people to work harder to find a solution."
The director general of the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research, Frances Seymour, said the scheme should give indigenous people more say at the national and international levels.
"AMAN now have more political clout because [the state] needs the involvement of those [local people] who have long been the caretakers of the forests," Seymour said, adding that indigenous people could also use the scheme to find a way around the land conflicts.
"The indigenous organization has done an amazing job in raising awareness [among local people] on both opportunities and threats, and are now well prepared to represent their own interests in this issue," Seymour said.
Wahjudi Wardojo, a senior adviser for the International Forest Carbon Policy of the Nature Conservancy, said REDD needed to be more detailed and include the interests of local people.
"Breaking down REDD and making it more detailed needs to be considered because the groups that make up indigenous people have their own unique characteristics. Even if indigenous groups live in the same area, they can have quite different backgrounds and attitudes," Wahjudi said.
Abdon said the only issue the government needed to solve immediately was the recognition of indigenous people's rights over their ancestral lands.
"These people only want their rights as indigenous people to be recognized by the government, and nothing else," he said. "They don't want money, in fact they don't care about that. They just want their rights to be acknowledged as stipulated in the 1945 Constitution."