The Multi-Stakeholder Forestry Programme is the product of the first multistakeholder design process to be undertaken in Nepal’s forestry sector. The Programme will build on the achievements of over 20 years of forestry work of the Government of Nepal supported by the UK, Switzerland and Finland. The Programme is designed for 10 years and to be implemented in two phases. NRs 4.45 billion has been agreed as joint grant funding assistance by these three donors for an initial 4 years.
The Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, today addressed representatives of Canada’s forest industry at a luncheon speech at PaperWeek 2012 in Montreal.
The Minister highlighted the importance of partnerships, innovation and market expansion to the future of Canada’s forest industry in helping to sustain jobs in rural communities across the country.
Indigenous and community groups have made a wish-list detailing how schemes that aim to reduce deforestation and forest degradation should work for those living in and amongst the forest.
Global Forest Coalition and Global Justice Ecology Project have produced a new video entitled A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests. The twenty-eight minute video, documents opposition among Indigenous Peoples, forest-dependent communities and environmental justice groups around the globe, to controversial programs that claim to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) by putting forests into the carbon market.
After a month of escalating rhetoric from the Harper government and oil industry front groups and confirmation today from internal government documents that the government explicitly identified environmental and aboriginal groups as "adversaries" in its strategy to increase tar sands exports, ForestEthics has launched a petition calling on Canadians to tell the Prime Minister that they won't be bullied into silence on issues that effect their communities, coast, province or environment.
In this article I wrote for Earth Island Journal earlier this year detailing the fatal flaws of the climate mitigation scheme known as REDD (for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), I quoted World Bank President Robert Zoellick as calling REDD, “the best chance, perhaps the last chance, to save the world’s forests.”
Katy Clark and I studied the issue of REDD+ and its implications for indigenous rights as we evaluated a joint project currently being implemented by the Coordinator for the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Environmental Defense Fund and the
Goldtooth expresses his misgivings about agriculture being included as part of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD). Arguing that "REDD is going to be the largest legal land grab the world has ever seen", the indigenous North American warns of colonialism and forced privatisation. And according to him "those with the most money and power can – by remote control, lock up the largest land areas in developing countries".
“The outcome on REDD safeguards is a step backwards from what was agreed in Cancun last year, which itself was far short of what could have been agreed in Copenhagen. The provisions for safeguards in forest conservation are being shredded”, says Raja Jarrah, CARE’s Senior Advisor on REDD.
"This is bad news for millions of indigenous people and local communities whose livelihoods depend on forests.”
Research related to tropical rainforests involves field-based data collection. Much of this information gathering takes place in territories occupied by indigenous and other forest-based communities. Members of these communities are often used as sources of information for a wide range of topics, including the local use of plants and animals, and conditions of soil, water and forests. This information is often referred to as indigenous or local knowledge.
