The idea behind this is that if the carbon stored in forests is valued and quantified, forests will be seen as more valuable standing than they would be cut down. Companies will have to earn the right to cut down trees or emit carbon either by planting new trees somewhere else (plantation) or by instituting better forest management in order to cut down on logging.
But the problem is that these programmes have actually opened the door to the legal destruction of rainforests. They have also led to the confiscation of land from local people who often do not have formal ownership deeds to the land they have used in common for generations.
This has led to the criminalisation of indigenous communities who stand accused of 'illegal' logging for continuing practices they have employed for centuries. In some cases this happens while trees are cut on an industrial scale by logging companies that have purchased the right to do so
For example, in Uganda over 22,000 people were evicted from their land at gunpoint to allow UK firm New Forest Company to plant trees to earn carbon credits.
REDD+ threatens the survival of indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities and could result in the biggest land grab of all time.
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