Carbon credits: a silver bullet for the planet or “market fetishism”?
Foodthink Says
The premise sounds compelling on paper. Yet, the voluntary carbon market featured prominently in the *MIT Technology Review*’s list of the eight biggest technological failures of 2024. The corporate “net zero” fantasies peddled by numerous projects are increasingly unravelling into a string of scandals.
As reported by *Dialogue Earth*, in August this year, at least half of the 37 rice emission-reduction projects cancelled in China turned out to be “ghost rice projects” that were never actually implemented. Nevertheless, the fraudulent carbon credits generated by these schemes have already been purchased by several major corporations for offsetting purposes.
What happens when carbon markets devolve into mere profit vehicles for firms chasing “dual-carbon” targets? When companies under emissions pressure purchase these hollow “indulgences” and continue to pollute with impunity, driving global emissions higher rather than lower, who will bear the responsibility?
Ultimately, can we truly expect to resolve a crisis wrought by capitalism using capitalist means?
Taking a Cambodian community forest as its starting point, this article explores the diverse perspectives and debates surrounding carbon credits from local residents, environmental NGOs, academics and others. It was originally published on Mongabay on 5 January 2024 under the title *Can Carbon Credits Really Help Communities Protect Forests?* Foodthink has secured permission from the author to translate and publish this piece.
At dawn, the calls of red-cheeked gibbons pierce the still forest canopy. By day, the thrum of male cicadas and the flutter of females’ wings intertwine into a deafening din. These are sounds you would never hear on land stripped of its trees.
For Langheng’s community of Bunong people, the forest yields fruit, honey, mushrooms, traditional medicines and resins, alongside a modest income. It is also home to their sacred sites.
Langheng and fellow villagers from Plong spent years campaigning for this 2,282-hectare “sea of forest”, finally securing its official designation as the Ngleav Krach Community Forest in 2016. Standing beside a road built in 2012, Langheng proudly traces the woodland’s boundary on a topographical map. The designation guarantees permanent protection and official backing from the Cambodian government.
Yet tears roll down Langheng’s cheeks when she speaks of the threats now facing her beloved forest. For years, rumours have circulated that 650 hectares of the woodland would be cleared to resettle 230 families and establish a new community. Then, in early April of last year, the chainsaws finally started.
To avoid detection by villagers from Prolun, loggers mostly operate in secret under cover of darkness. Prolun village opposes their destruction of the forest. The cleared land bears blackened, scorched marks, left behind by loggers attempting to burn fallen trees and undergrowth.
“I just want to die; I am so deeply disillusioned with all of this,” Langheng said. “I grieve for the forest and wildlife we have lost.”
She explained that she had lodged protests with Cambodia’s ministries of environment, land management, agriculture, and interior, along with anti-corruption agencies. She even travelled to Phnom Penh to raise the matter with officials. Yet she received little support, was accused of “opposing development,” and was briefly detained. (When Mongabay interviewed her in April last year, she noted she was out on bail.)
Langheng said she had heard of REDD+, a forest conservation initiative aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. She learned that communities near the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in Mondulkiri province were benefiting from it. The sanctuary is not far from the roadside café she rents out on Airbnb, nor from the traditional thatched-roof Bunong houses.
REDD+ not only translates the carbon stored in the Bunong community’s forests into sustained land protection, but can also fund local education, healthcare, and employment. Langheng admitted she did not fully understand how REDD+ works, but she was intrigued by the concept.
“We lack formal education, so the land and forests… are our source of income as an indigenous community,” she said.
Research indicates that despite pervasive poverty, indigenous and local communities such as Langheng’s hold the key to sustainable coexistence with forests. Their stewardship often maintains, and can even enhance, the climate benefits provided by forests, not to mention the habitat and other ecosystem services that healthy woodlands offer to biodiversity.
According to World Bank data, indigenous-owned land globally sustains 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity. Furthermore, a 2018 report by the global coalition Rights and Resources Initiative reveals that these lands store nearly a fifth of the world’s forest carbon. Yet in many parts of the world, Cambodia included, indigenous land rights remain extremely weak, even where recognised by law.
REDD+ addresses logging and agricultural encroachment by backing community-led forest management. The carbon emissions avoided in this way can be sold as carbon credits, with a portion of the revenue ring-fenced for forest conservation.
Yet the approach has proven highly contentious. Investigations and studies suggest that the climate benefits delivered by many projects may fall short of claimed levels. In the drive to profit from carbon trading, some residents have been forced off their land, while other cases have drawn heavy criticism over allegations of power abuses by project staff. These issues have prompted calls to reform both REDD+ and voluntary carbon trading, with some even recommending the scheme be scrapped entirely.
I. Rewarding Forest Guardians
For those living on the forest’s edge and hoping to secure support, such as Long Heng, it remains unclear which communities and woodlands qualify under REDD+ criteria. Project managers overseeing REDD+ initiatives concede that prioritising zones under imminent threat inevitably means leaving some without assistance.
On a global scale, leaders from indigenous peoples and local communities have voiced public backing for REDD+. In May, an international coalition of indigenous organisations issued a statement of support. While acknowledging the mechanism is far from flawless, they argue it validates the conservation work undertaken by communities and provides the necessary funding. In doing so, it safeguards cultural heritage and traditions whilst simultaneously bolstering local economic development.
“We believe the carbon market is a vital instrument, but it requires redesigning,” said Levi Sucré Romero, a Bribri indigenous leader from Costa Rica and coordinator for the Central American Peoples and Forest Alliance, speaking to reporters at the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference. “We must refocus the carbon market around the respect for indigenous rights and engage in more transparent dialogue with carbon credit purchasers.”
German Kagai Sedoyeka observes: “REDD+ equips communities with the tools they need to keep safeguarding their forests.” A member of the Datooga people, he serves as project manager for the REDD initiative in Yaeda village, northern Tanzania. Prior to partnering with the UK-based social enterprise Carbon Tanzania, the village where he was raised was experiencing a surge of migrant settlers, many of whom lacked any deep historical or cultural tie to the land.
“Indigenous peoples are the true custodians of their village forests, having tended and protected them for centuries,” Sedoyeka explains. Backed by the project, Yaeda’s community members have secured legally recognised “customary land tenure”. “This strengthens the community’s ability to protect the land and woodland, which in turn secures the livelihoods of the villagers,” he adds.
From 2012, as part of a REDD+ scheme spearheaded by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Bunong communities residing around the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary became among the first in Cambodia to secure collective land title under the nation’s 2001 Land Law.
Experts emphasise that these tenure rights are vital for the protection of forests across the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary and beyond, as well as for carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. The initiatives in Tanzania and Cambodia also deliver vital support in education, healthcare and employment.
“We are profoundly grateful that the wider world is finally beginning to recognise and validate the contributions of local communities and indigenous peoples,” Sedoyeka says.
Yet, many indigenous leaders maintain that despite this recognition, their voices still go unheard. They are keen to take part in conversations about which forms of support will genuinely benefit their communities, and how funding ought to be allocated.
“We absolutely must advance climate solutions,” says Deborah Sánchez, a member of the Miskitu indigenous community in Honduras and coordinator for forests, climate and biodiversity at the Central American Peoples and Forest Alliance, an organisation that co-signed the May 2023 open letter supporting REDD+. “But simultaneously, we must ensure these solutions do not encroach upon the rights of those who call this land and these forests home.”
Other rights advocates voice similar apprehensions. To a degree, the global system relies on these communities to preserve the planet’s final terrestrial carbon sinks, thereby allowing populations in affluent nations to maintain their carbon-intensive lifestyles. Critics argue that, in practice, such initiatives can readily be characterised as a form of “carbon colonialism”.
II. Communities face the challenge of “carbon cowboys”
In November 2021, Mongabay first reported on an agreement to monetise forest carbon and other ecosystem services in Sabah, Malaysia. Drafted and signed behind closed doors by several state leaders alongside representatives from Australian and Singaporean firms, the deal secures rights over roughly two million hectares of natural capital.
While the agreement covers more than a quarter of the state’s landmass, Peter Burgess, CEO of participating firm Terra Australia, revealed in an interview that most Indigenous peoples in the region remain unaware that their forests have been set aside for conservation.
The deal sparked outrage among Indigenous communities and human rights organisations in Sabah and beyond. Local groups stated they would have supported a more transparent and inclusive approach to marketing these ecosystem services, which could have driven sustainable economic development across the state. Yet, many observers dismiss the agreement as little more than a land grab designed to enrich a privileged few. Despite supporters’ failure to clarify key provisions to date, the deal continues to advance more than two years after it was signed.
Elsewhere, engagement with local communities has been equally shallow, failing to adequately communicate the potential consequences of similar deals. Such agreements can span a century or more. In Congo, an Indian firm called KMS—with little experience in carbon markets or REDD+—began seeking consent from local communities at the end of 2021 to commercialise forest carbon credits.
Mongabay’s reporting showed that KMS collected community consent forms swiftly, wrapping up discussions in just 35 minutes. KMS has also secured carbon rights in Papua New Guinea, home to the world’s third-largest tropical rainforest. Mongabay has repeatedly put questions to KMS since May 2022, but the company has yet to respond to specific inquiries regarding the projects.
Driven by concerns over the loss of land rights, the indigenous-led Alliance for the Pathway to Change and Transformation has called for a pause on land-based carbon credit trading.
Critics of REDD+ and the voluntary carbon market argue that the failure to adequately consider indigenous peoples and local communities is a fundamental flaw, meaning community representatives are excluded from project planning from the outset.
“Time and again, we see that indigenous peoples and local communities are not treated as equal partners,” said Catherine Loft, a senior fellow in human rights and climate change research at McGill University, Canada, during a panel discussion in September. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires states to consult and cooperate with indigenous peoples before adopting or implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them, ensuring their right to free, prior and informed consent.
“The real challenge lies not only in ensuring that the voices of these communities and peoples are heard as a matter of legal requirement, but that they are genuinely taken into account. That is where ‘free, prior and informed consent’ comes into play,” said Marco Aurelio Chavez Coyoy, legal department coordinator for the Guatemalan community forest association Utz Che’ and a member of the Maya K’iche’ community, at the same panel.
Leaders from indigenous and local communities also argue that their efforts deserve greater financial backing. According to a 2021 report by the Norwegian Rainforest Foundation, less than 1% of climate-related aid is directed towards supporting land and rights issues for these groups. Even where efforts have been made to channel funds towards them, the results fall far short of expectations.
Frustration over delayed commitments and mounting disillusionment has prompted indigenous groups to establish their own funds, such as the Nusantara Fund in Indonesia and the Mesoamerican Territorial Fund covering Mexico and Central America. These initiatives channel donor money directly into community-led climate action and conservation efforts.
Josh Tosteson, president of the REDD+ project marketing firm Everland, believes that identifying the right approach to support these groups is key to making progress.
“Of course, the most crucial element of REDD+ is the ground-level work driving change. This is a collaborative effort undertaken by communities and other stakeholders, working together to intervene in and shift the dynamics of the systems that drive deforestation,” he said. “The vast majority of funding must flow directly to those stakeholders who can influence the future trajectory of forests. That is what truly matters.”
III. What Counts as “Additionality”?
To qualify as a REDD+ project and secure follow-on funding through carbon credits, developers must prove the initiative genuinely cuts emissions. Put simply, they have to demonstrate that these reductions would not have occurred without the intervention. This principle of additionality is increasingly viewed as integral to carbon credit integrity, as credits ought to represent tangible progress in climate mitigation.
As Tostensen notes, instruments such as REDD+ are designed specifically to safeguard forests under immediate threat.
“REDD+ is an emergency measure. When a crisis strikes, you step in with REDD+ and apply its ‘prescription’,” Tostensen adds. “For forests that are not under severe threat, REDD+ mechanisms simply do not offer the right kind of support.”
This implies that unthreatened forests and their communities ought to be left out—a view that not everyone shares.
“It is completely unjust that they are penalised simply because their way of life is so sustainable,” argues Samuel Ndjifo, director of the Cameroon-based NGO Centre for Environment and Development and author of the position paper for the “Alliance for Change and Transition”.
Tostensen agrees that indigenous and local communities who actively protect their forests deserve support and compensation. “Their forests remain unthreatened precisely because they are shrewd stewards,” he says.
Tostensen points to initiatives like the Forest Peoples Partnership, which, much like the Nusantara Fund and the Land Fund for Central America, seeks to channel greater financing towards indigenous and local communities while guaranteeing their involvement in decision-making.
On a broader scale, such exclusion risks eroding the trust of affected communities in the process as a whole, warns Frances Seymour, formerly a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. “I worry that those fiercely committed to preserving the environmental integrity of carbon markets may have lost sight of the market’s true purpose: climate protection.” Seymour currently works at the Office of the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, though her views are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US government or the envoy’s office.
“To claim that this fails to meet additionality when indigenous peoples are risking their lives on the front lines to defend their lands against illegal loggers is deeply insulting to those who make such sacrifices,” Seymour adds. She previously chaired the board of the organisation behind the REDD+ transaction architecture, which administers the REDD+ Excellence Standard.
At a national level, Guyana and Gabon are regarded as “high forest cover, low deforestation” (HFLD) countries. While numerous factors have enabled these nations to retain vast tracts of forest, observers attribute the relatively robust health of these woodlands in part to government intervention policies.
“It would be unreasonable if the design of carbon market rules excluded indigenous communities or proactive government conservation efforts such as those in Guyana and Gabon, and if, precisely because of these rules, we ended up losing those forests,” said Seymour.
Some climate experts argue that the $750 million of carbon credits issued by the REDD+ Transaction Architecture from Guyana do not fully deliver on the claimed climate benefits, as they encompass forests that were never under severe threat of deforestation.
However, Seymour points out that it is nearly impossible to accurately predict which forest will face severe deforestation next.
“The pressure is relentless,” said Seymour. “We are witnessing sudden spikes in deforestation rates across ‘high forest cover, low deforestation’ regions.”
Alongside its conventional carbon removal and emission reduction categories, the REDD+ Transaction Architecture has introduced a dedicated tier of “Exceptional Environmental Standards carbon credits” for HFLD regions.
Sanchez likewise considers the debate around “additionality” to be overly narrow, as it places excessive emphasis on demonstrating deforestation risks solely to sell more carbon credits.
“When we look at a map, the only forests that truly exist are the ones we inhabit, the ones we steward, and those we call home,” she said. “This is not always about carbon; it is about people and climate justice.”
In the past, outsiders would visit Sanchez’s home community in Honduras and accuse her father of laziness for refusing to clear the forest, which they claimed prevented him from grazing cattle and building a fortune.
Yet, she explains that her family has always valued the forest far more than livestock. They harvest timber to construct homes and canoes, gather medicinal plants within the woodland, and fish in the local rivers and streams.
The Sanchez family’s experience highlights a fundamental divergence in how many indigenous and local communities perceive forests. She insists that compensation should flow directly to those on the front lines—precisely the “transformational work” Tostesen referred to.
For some, REDD+ and the voluntary carbon market appear to be viable pathways to achieving this goal. Yet Sanchez notes that the true value of a healthy forest extends far beyond what these markets can quantify. This is precisely why the world is increasingly turning to indigenous conservation practices as a vital component of the response to the climate and biodiversity crises. She adds that while these approaches are highly effective, project designers still fail to fully grasp their significance.
“The Global North must learn to see the world through our eyes, just as we are learning to see it through theirs,” Sanchez said.
– For the original article, click here–
Translated by: Carey
Edited by: Yuyang