After gaps in UN Agreement, National laws must step up to protect Community Land Rights by Rebecca Iwerks, Alain Frechette IPS, Rights and Resources Initiative, Namati   Dec. 2024   This time last year, the forestry space was abuzz with news of the big Blue Carbon deals. The deals set a staggering amount of land in Sub-Saharan Africa – 20% of the land in Zimbabwe, 10% of Liberia and Zambia, 8% of Tanzania, and an undisclosed amount of land in Kenya – to be managed by a firm in the United Arab Emirates.   Without involvement of communities impacted by the projects, countries across Africa were strapped into memorandums of agreement with 30 years of commitments. Reports suggested that Blue Carbon was retaining upwards of 70% of the project revenues while impacting the livelihoods of millions. The audacious scale of the project shocked the conscience.   One year later, among the jumble of headlines coming out of the recent UN climate change talks in Baku was the adoption of new rules intended to jumpstart the carbon credit markets.   These financial initiatives were included in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to provide incentives for efforts that reduce carbon emissions. The new UN rules, however, have already been criticized for not providing sufficient guardrails to avoid transactions like the Blue Carbon deals from happening elsewhere.   With the new rules, it won’t be clear whether communities who have lived on and worked their territories for generations should be consulted as part of a project. If things go well, it won’t be clear that they are entitled to benefits and if things go poorly, it won’t be clear that they should be able to claim remedies.   Carbon projects have run afoul of community land rights throughout the Global South, from Brazil to Laos to Malaysia. In many places, communities have not received revenue – or, worse, have been removed from their land – after keeping the landscapes intact for generations.   The repeated headlines have impacted market confidence – volume and value have decreased for two consecutive years. Unfortunately, policy makers have yet to make changes that would reduce the risks.   Governments and companies have repeatedly asserted the important link between community land rights and better outcomes for the planet.   At the start of November, at the UN talks on biodiversity, the governments emphasized the critical importance of tenure security to protect biodiversity.   Ten days later, leaders from 12 countries joined with Indigenous leaders to stress the importance of land tenure to protect forests as part of the Forest Climate Leaders Partnership.   Governments are saying this because study after study shows that when Indigenous Peoples and local communities have clear tenure over their forest, the forest is better protected.   National legislation is murky, however. Most countries do not recognize the rights of people living on the land impacted by carbon projects.   We collaborated with experts at McGill University to study the legal frameworks of 33 countries and found only three countries recognized community-based carbon rights.   The lack of national legal guidelines for the carbon markets is alarming. More than half of the countries we studied do not have regulations for carbon trading.   Almost two-thirds have no evidence of a registry of carbon projects and, of those that do, only six have this information publicly available. Only seven have designed or implemented benefit-sharing policies that apply to carbon market projects and only four of the seven have established a minimum allocation requirement for affected communities.   Policy makers at the global level had the opportunity to fix this problem. But now, all eyes turn to national governments. Before they rush to create new carbon policies after Baku, they can make their countries a place where carbon projects are more secure by making community land rights front and center.   This is still a story that has yet to end. Just a few months ago, the Liberian National Climate Change Steering Committee (NCCSC) put a moratorium on all carbon credit projects until they have proper carbon regulations in place.   Liberia had two things going for it: strong land laws and strong organizing. Now it needs regulations to handle carbon trading.   The international carbon markets need recognition of community rights to be integrated in the national and international supporting regulations and guidance. The markets are like any other financial market – transparency, guardrails, and enforcement measures are needed to bring about confidence, and at this point, they’re needed very quickly.   * Alain Frechette, is Rights, Climate & Conservation Director at Rights and Resources Initiative. Rebecca Iwerks is Director of Global Land and Environmental Justice Initiative at Namati.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/12/gaps-un-agreement-national-laws-must-step-protect-community-land-rights/ Visit the related web page
	Tens of Thousands march for Indigenous Rights to New Zealand Parliament by NYT, news agencies   19 Nov. 2024   Over 50,000 people marched to outside New Zealand's Parliament in Wellington on Tuesday to protest legislation that would dilute Indigenous rights by reinterpreting a treaty signed in 1840 by the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs.   The peaceful demonstration was the culmination of a nine-day march, or hikoi, that began at Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand and the most spiritually significant place in the country for Maori, who comprise 20% of the 5.3 million-person population.   The Treaty Principles Bill targeting the Treaty of Waitangi, or Te Tiriti o Waitangi, is being pushed by the ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the right wing coalition government, which also includes the National Party and New Zealand First (NZF).   Although the National and NZF have said that they are only supporting the legislation for the first of the three readings—meaning it is highly unlikely to pass—Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of the Maori Party, or Te Pati Maori, said that even allowing it to be tabled is a "deep shame."   "We deserve better than to be used as political pawns," said Ngarewa-Packer. "The fact that National Party has decided that we were tradeable and the mana of the coalition agreement was so much more important than the mana of Te Tiriti and tangata is the deepest betrayal that we've ever had from a National government."   Pointing to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who won earlier this month after being ousted in the previous cycle, Ngarewa-Packer added, "We're a country that had the first women's vote, we have always punched above our weight in the anti-nuclear space, the anti-discrimination space, and here we are in 2024 with the sort of Trump-like culture coming into our politics."   The New York Times noted that "a year before American voters' anger over the cost of living helped Donald J. Trump win the presidency, similar sentiments in New Zealand thrust in the nation's most conservative government in decades. Now, New Zealand bears little resemblance to the country recently led by Jacinda Ardern, whose brand of compassionate, progressive politics made her a global symbol of anti-Trump liberalism."   "The new government—a coalition of the main right wing party and two smaller, more populist ones—has reversed many of Ms. Ardern's policies. It has rescinded a world-leading ban on smoking for future generations, repealed rules designed to address climate change, and put a former arms industry lobbyist in charge of overhauling the nation's strict gun laws.   And in a country that has been celebrated for elevating the status of Māori, its Indigenous people, it has challenged their rights and the prominence of their culture and language in public life, driving a wedge into New Zealand society and setting off waves of protests".   Parliament was briefly suspended last Thursday after Maori members staged a traditional dance called a haka to disrupt the first reading. The haka—which garnered global attention—was started by Member of Parliament Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who tore up a copy of the bill.   Speaking to the Wellington crowd on Tuesday, Maipi-Clarke, "We are the sovereign people of this land and the world is watching us here, not because of the system, not because of the rules, but because we haka."   Other participants in the action included the Maori Queen, Nga Wai Hono i te Po, and Te Pati Maori Co-Leader Rawiri Waititi, who led the crowd in a chant to "kill the bill."   The Northern Advocate reported taht ACT Leader David Seymour, "the architect of the Treaty Principles Bill, was booed inside the Beehive today by the tens of thousands protesting against his controversial bill."   Ella Henry, professor of Maori Entrepreneurship at Auckland University of Technology, warned the bill was an effort to roll back New Zealand's previous progress in terms of relations with Indigenous people.   "So we have gathered in our tens of thousands, not just Maori, but others who support an inclusive, diverse, equal partnership that our country has been a world leader in pioneering," Henry toreporters. "Those are the people who are marching."   Hayley Komene, who is from the Ngati Kauwhata tribe, told Guardian News that there was a "real strength and pride" at the march, and "there are people from lots of different backgrounds here for the same reason to protest the Government and the outrageous bill."   Komene also criticized the government's Maori policies as "absolutely ridiculous" and stressed that "Te Tiriti is a constitutional document of our country."   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/tens-of-thousands-to-converge-on-nz-parliament-as-march-to-protest-controversial-maori-rights-bill-reaches-capital http://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/world/asia/new-zealand-conservative-maori-protest.html
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