RAN sent a delegation of four staff to lobby for human rights and rainforest protections at the 9th Annual RSPO Meeting in Malaysia.

As the 9^thAnnual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meeting wrapped up on the island of Borneo, the crisis stemming from the uncontrolled expansion of palm oil plantations into rainforests and communities reached a fever pitch.

Consider this: In the few days that RAN’s four staff-member delegation attended the RSPO meeting in SE Asia, the Forest People’s Programme (FPP) released a comprehensive and scathing report that documents Cargill supplier and palm oil giant Wilmar’s complicity in the bulldozing of homes and the use of live ammunition to forcibly evict Indigenous community members on the island of Sumatra.

In a press conference on the human rights impacts of palm oil held during the RSPO meeting, Rukaiyah Rofiq, who goes by Uki and works with the human rights advocacy group Yayasan Setara Jambi, warned that companies producing palm oil under the RSPO umbrella are failing to resolve the social conflict caused by plantation expansion. In a November 24 article in the print version of the Borneo Post titled “RSPO Emboldens Violators of Indigenous Rights – NGO,” Uki said:

Ideally, we had hoped that with the RSPO, these conflicts would be stopped or at least reduced, and the rights of the communities be restored. But we’re not seeing any impact with the RSPO. This is evident in the ninth meeting we’ve had with the RSPO. There has not been any change; the conflicts have not decreased. The presence of RSPO has not reduced or resolved the conflicts.

Uki is referring to the more than 600 cases of social conflict related to palm oil in Indonesia documented by Sawit Watch. In the same press conference, Jefri Gideon of Sawit Watch said: “There is a big hope among everyone that the RSPO can help resolve these conflicts.” He urged RSPO members to go beyond talking about the RSPO principles and criteria and code of conduct and actually implement them.

During the same week, the Jakarta Globe published two articles, “Indonesian Palm Oil Dispute at ‘Crisis Point’” and “Paradise Lost at Hands of Palm Oil Companies“, about a separate conflict surrounding the village of Muara Tae on the island of Borneo.

Muara Tae is in a stand-off with a palm oil firm whose forest clearing threatens the villagers’ entire way of life. Community member Petrus Asuy issued an impassioned plea, saying, “Because of the palm oil plantations, our water has become polluted and many of our springs have dried up. We took our case to the local government, but they ignored us. We are completely against these companies because they have compromised our way of life. What hope is there now for our grandchildren? We are pleading for help for our situation and for this activity to stop.”

It has become abundantly clear that wherever massive international commodity corporations are granted huge forest concessions and allowed free reign to manage them, community conflict and environmental devastation quickly follow.

It is more imperative than ever that companies like Cargill and Wilmar immediately address the serious problems of human rights abuses and rainforest destruction in their supply chains and become a part of the solution to this crisis instead of indiscriminately trafficking palm oil into North American and European markets. Please take a moment to ask Cargill CEO Greg Page to adopt safeguards to keep controversial palm oil out of American food products.

The smoke hanging over Pekanbaru

If you think this title sounds hyperbolic, you probably have not visited Sumatra lately. Before traveling here, I had heard stories about the oceans of oil palm that have been planted where rainforest once stood. But I was not prepared for this.

The first sign that something is terribly wrong came before our plane even landed. From 30,000 feet over the Java Sea between Jakarta and Sumatra, there was no sign of land or ocean below. Just a sickly haze stretching to the horizon.

Global climate change is usually an abstraction — a concept that must be imagined or made academic to understand. But here, it’s in your face, tangible and acute. Incredibly, Indonesia has become the world’s third largest carbon polluting country, behind only the US and China — and 80% of those emissions are the result of deforestation.

Stepping off the plane in Pekanbaru, the capital city of the Province of Riau, the assault on my eyes and nose and lungs was immediate. I actually had to suppress an initial panic that I would suffocate from the smoke. Our friends here later told us we were lucky to land at all, as air traffic would likely be cancelled again for lack of visibility. Shipping traffic from Singapore is sometimes similarly interrupted by the intensity of the smog. Our hosts laughed a little uncomfortably, explaining that before the vast deforestation of the past decades there used to be two seasons here: the wet season and the dry season. Now, they said, there are four: the wet season, the flooding season, the dry season and the smoke season.

This land was once rainforest, but has now been cleared, burned, planted, harvested and burned again

The acrid air is the smell of burning peat. It is the smell of palm oil plantations expanding deeper into the heart of what’s left of Sumatra’s once vast lowland jungles. Sumatra’s forests have been so lush, so wildly productive, for so many millennia unbroken, that their photosynthesis has processed immense amounts of carbon out of the air. The trees have quite literally breathed the atmosphere in, sinking its carbon through eons of leaf litter, forming massive reservoirs of underground organic material that has actually built land dozens of miles into the sea.

These steamy, amphibious ecosystems swarm with a cornucopia of life. Elephants and orangutans, tapirs and tigers and every manner of bird and beetle the human imagination can fathom. The truth is, no one has any idea how many species used to live here. Scientists estimate maybe half the species in these forests have yet to be described to science, and with most of these forests now suddenly gone, we will never know what’s already been lost.

These unusual deposits are called peat domes, and Sumatra’s are among the deepest in the world. To make this land fit for industrial palm oil and pulpwood production, however, it must first be cleared and drained, marring the natural landscape with a matrix of massive canals. Exposed to the air, the peat begins to decay, and when it ignites, it smolders in unstoppable fires that open the flood gates of the reservoir, releasing catastrophic quantities of carbon back into the tropical air.

The clearing of these forests has been so fast and merciless, the land and its people are in a distinct state of shock. Both are still reeling from the ongoing assault while struggling to pick up the pieces. Already, what is forever lost is devastating. Many wildlife biologists consider the remaining populations of endemic Sumatran Rhino to be the living dead. Their habitat is too sparse, too fragmented and too disturbed, their numbers too few.

RAN forest campaigner Lafcadio Cortesi walking through decimated forest that is set to become a palm plantation

Yesterday I was able to visit a peat forest for the first time, and to witness the advancing edge of its destruction firsthand. To get there, we traveled ten hours through the night from Riau to Jambi Province, then four hours by car over horrendous dirt roads to South Sumatra. From there we rode motorcycles on thin trails through a barren palm oil plantation to the edge of the peatlands. We continued by foot on a rough trail along a canal dug by illegal loggers to remove logs from the forest. We arrived at the forests edge, battered, sweaty and spent.

Thrilled to see tall trees still standing, I could hardly suppress tears at the tragic effort it took just to reach them. Monkeys howled in the distance. An electric blue butterfly swirled around me. Spiderhunters, dollarbirds, and bulbuls flit overhead while giant crested treeswifts carved gracefully through the air. Then, as if on cue, a chainsaw began to roar just out of sight, followed quickly by the terrible sound of trees crashing through trees to the ground.

A few days ago we watched video footage of an 18 month-old Sumatran tiger slowly dying in a trap set by a pig hunter on an Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) acacia plantation a few hours from our hotel in Pekanbaru. He was one of the last of his kind. 150 breeding pairs are estimated to remain in the wild. These majestic animals have been pushed to desperation in their search for the basics of food, habitat and mates amidst a biological desert of palm oil and pulpwood plantations.

This peat forest took days of travel to reach and was falling as we watched

I would like to tell a happier story, but not at the expense of the truth. Indonesia is at a critical tipping point. But, as severe as the destruction is, all is not yet lost. Taken as a whole, a recent estimate puts Indonesia’s forest loss at 49%. Orangutans still swing freely through the canopy of forests in Borneo and new species of lizards and birds continue to be described to science in West Papua. There remains some hope for the struggling Sumatran populations of pygmy elephants.

And, as communities across Indonesia are struggling to regain their livelihoods and the future livelihoods of their people from being sacrificed for quick profit by companies turning the rainforest into international commodities, there are signs the government is turning around.

Feeling discouraged and distraught after our disheartening trip to the forest, we returned last night to the hopeful news that the Indonesian government has announced a potentially major new direction in forest policy.

Declaring the establishment of a new 89,000 hectares of community-managed forest lands and the enforcement of a decade-old provision of forest law that requires the government to identify areas within the national forest estate that are in conflict with existing forest community land rights, Presidential advisor Pak Kuntoro said that Indonesia’s president supports protecting the land of indigenous communities and that “this is our chance to untangle our convoluted past and make a lasting difference.”

People in the know seem to think the government may be serious this time. After his speech, Kuntoro said to Reuters, “Paradigm shift is imperative, from exploitation to sustainable and responsible use of natural resources.”

Indeed. More power to him.

A RAN investigative study shows rainforest destruction in Indonesia. Will Sarawak follow this trend?

It appears the Malaysian government has decided to allow its drive for industrialization to trump the preservation of some of the world’s most important natural resources. Do the two really have to be at odds in the 21^st century?

The county of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo, contains one of the oldest and most diverse rainforests in the tropics. It is home to thousands of species (many of them found nowhere else in the world), hundreds of potential pharmaceuticals, and a large portion of the world’s carbon stores. Why would anyone give up these unlimited benefits to make way for factories and heavy industry? Ask Malaysia.

A recent BBC article from Mike Williams, entitled Malaysia Picks Industrialisation Over Natural Treasures, details Malaysia’s choice to chase short-term goals of economic development in Sarawak while sacrificing its ancient forest resources.

Malaysia certainly didn’t do its math right. Developing steel, aluminum, palm oil, and various other industries in Sarawak may be economically effective at this moment, but it will cause long-term devastation that cannot be reversed as well as destroying potential revenue from natural sources.

In a report entitled the Economic Value of Biodiversity, The World Conservation Union (IUCN) stated: “We know that many biological resources do have significant economic value. We also know that many of the destructive activities themselves have very low economic value; therefore something is wrong with the way actual economic decisions are made.” Industries such as the palm oil industry continue to destroy rainforest at an alarming rate in order to provide product to consumers, and are blind to the grave consequences of their actions, particularly the destruction of valuable biological resources.

In my opinion, Malaysia failed to incorporate “ecosystem services” into revenue calculations. An “ecosystem service” is any benefit provided to humans from a natural system, ranging from natural water filtration to pharmaceuticals found in nature to eco-tourism. One important “service” of tropical rainforests is the storage of carbon. It is estimated that the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere has increased by 30% since the advent of industrialization, which will only continue to increase with Sarawak’s industrialization. The cost of reversing the carbon emissions released into our atmosphere from deforestation, the cost of restoring species on the brink of extinction, the cost of cleaning up polluted water supplies, and the lost revenue from potential bioprospecting and ecotourism are just some of the risks Malaysia faces, risks that will far outweigh any profit Sarawak will gain in its planned rapid development of such industries as logging, food processing, and petrochemical production.

The decision to develop Sarawak at the expense of the forest reveals a distressing lack of care and understanding of the rainforest as well as an outdated model of ‘development’ at the expense of the environment. When asked whether trees are treasured in Borneo, Adie Abad, from the Bintulu Development Authority, simply responded: “We will plant those trees later on — alongside the road, no problem. But we have to give way to the industry to come in.” Planting new trees simply cannot replace a primary dense rainforest that took thousands of years to develop into the biodiversity hotspot we see today.  Science tells us that primary forests are healthier, livelier, and contain more biodiversity than secondary stands, and are additionally an important carbon sink.

Adie Abad also demonstrated “concern” for local people, insisting that industry development in Sarawak will create jobs and benefit locals. RAN’s work with Long Teran Kenan, a local Sarawak community struggling with Indigenous rights violations against a palm oil developer in the area, IOI Group, has shown that development in Sarawak has thus far only hurt local people.

Have we not learned our lesson from history?  Western Europe, and even the East Coast of the United States, are today left with only secondary forest stands as the result of a model of industrialization that did not value environmental resources. As the wise conservation biologist E.O. Wilson once said, “Destroying the rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.” The Western World has already made its mistakes. It is up to Malaysia to look at history and science, and find a new development pathway that values its rich natural resources.

RAN forest campaigner Lafcadio Cortesi talks with elders of the village of Siabu in central Sumatra

It’s a good thing RAN’s forest campaigner, Lafcadio Cortesi, speaks Bahasa Indonesian so well. Otherwise I almost certainly would have gotten in the car with the undercover intelligence agent who told me to come with him because he “wanted to practice his English.”

We had just arrived in the small village of Siabu, in the Kampar region of east central Sumatra. Our plan was to meet up with a group of displaced villagers and participate in a land reclamation and planting party. The villagers are engaged in a land conflict with a subsidiary of pulp and paper giant APP, and their plan was to plant crops on their traditional lands and prevent the company from further establishing a pulpwood plantation in the disputed area.

Of the dozens of men milling about when we got out of the car, the first to approach me began asking questions about who I was with, what I was doing there, and the like. It quickly became apparent that the whole group was loading onto their motor bikes and moving to a less public location and we were to follow. We were all meant to meet up at the same place, so I was contemplating jumping in with my gregarious new friend, but Lafcadio said, curtly, “No. Travel with us.”

Not generally a curt fellow, Laf explained when we got in the car that our hosts were concerned the mystery guy was there to gather intelligence, though for whom he was gathering it was not quite clear. This was the first of many lessons and insights I gained that day into just how deeply dark and deranged the situation here has become.

Getting to the designated meeting place required hours of travel on a labyrinth of dirt roads through a 250,000 acre acacia plantation that stretched across the land like an infestation of neatly ordered rows of scrawny twigs. We were made to pass through several check points staffed by security personnel who sported the SOS corporate logo of their employer on a patch on one shoulder and a police badge on the other — a fitting display of the cozy relationship between the security state and the corporations whose interests they serve.

Lafcadio with customary elder Pak Datuk

At the second security post we picked up the Tokoh Adat, or customary elder of the local village, a man called Pak Datuk. The armed guards took the identification cards of our driver and Pak Datuk for safe keeping — and so they’d have leverage over the drive and Pak Datuk if anything untoward were to occur beyond the gate.

The gathering place was a promontory at the edge of the plantation overlooking a post-apocalyptic landscape cleared of all vegetation and scarred by a maze of roads leading nowhere. Later we would learn this spot was chosen because it is within the villagers’ ancestral territory, and is an area they hope to reclaim. It had been decided no planting would occur this day, but a meeting would proceed to discuss community goals and next steps.

About a hundred people had gathered, and our arrival created quite a stir. Half of the group surrounded us and jockeyed with one another to shake our hands and have their pictures taken with us, after which it was insisted that we eat. The group included pockets of animated young men smoking clove cigarettes and blaring pop music from mobile phones, elderly women wearing headscarves, and lots of adult men wearing the weathered look of hard-working farmers whose fortune had not come easily.

In the tense environment of present day rural Sumatran society, the simple act of gathering together on disputed territory is an act of resistance, and the day’s meeting did not go unnoticed. In addition to the undercover character we had met earlier, a group of armed law enforcement personnel — including private security, police officers, and at least one quasi-military looking gentleman — had amassed on the outskirts of the villagers’ assembly.

When Pak Datuk stood to speak, everyone circled and fell silent. He spoke with the elegance and authority of a strong and self-assured leader. From the bits whispered to me in translation I understood that he began by stating that his people are bound by three laws. In order, they are God, custom, and then the government. He said the goal of his people is to take action to reclaim their land rights and ancestral territory.

He said his people were given rights by their ancestors and that it is their duty to protect those rights so they can be passed on to their children before they are lost. He said they are bound to be peaceful, to be safe and not to use violence. He said it is crucial they maintain their unity in the face of those who would divide them. He finished each series of pronouncements with the question “Ingat?” (Remember?) or Mengar ti? (Do you understand?) to which the crowd in unison responded “Ingat!” or “Mengar ti!”

A canal cuts through a former village site and elephant habitat

When he was finished speaking, other village leaders spoke and details were discussed about what to plant and how to collect and distribute funds to make the provocative planting project possible. When the group disbanded, we drove away with an older, well-dressed village member named Pak Sudirman who guided us to the site a few miles away where their original village stood.

As we passed through a sea of sterile oil palm plantations, crudely dug canals and dry, exposed earth, he told us how rich this land had once been, not so long ago. Before his people were forcibly evicted by the military in the late 1980’s, their riverside territory had been habitat for elephants and monkeys, and his village practiced a sustainable form of mixed agroforestry that included crops like rubber trees, cassava, banana, chile, papaya, durien, mango, rambutan, jack fruit and a variety of vegetables.

In a darkly ironic twist, the only natural forest still standing in the area was saved because it was made part of a military bombing range. Entering this verdant forest felt like a full sensory massage. The sight of the towering trees, the feel of the moist air, the smell of dank richness, the sound of birdsong and the buzz of insects stood in stark contrast to the vacuous devastation just outside.

Back at the village where the day began, we shared smokes with the village’s men in the home of the traditional village chief. Pak Datuk told us in clear and passionate terms what the demands of his people are for APP, the company behind their conflict. He said the company never asked for their permission to use the land that belongs to them and they have never received any benefit. His demand is for APP to return the land to the community. He followed by asking that customers of APP stop buying products that come from their lands until the important issues of their traditional rights are resolved.

Laf speaks with the village's chief

The stories of these people and this place are a microcosm of what’s happening all over Sumatra and  in Borneo and the rest of Indonesia and Malaysia. People are displaced, forests are cleared, ecosystems are destroyed. Repeat. And until APP and their ilk among the all-powerful logging behemoths are convinced that business as usual is not in their own or Indonesia’s interest, these injustices will continue. Our meetings this week with allies and community leaders are a piece in the growth of a larger movement that is gaining momentum here and at home in the US. Companies like APP can no longer expect to act with impunity.

Dr. Bayu Wirayudha, founder and CEO of Friends of National Parks Foundation

I’ve only been in Indonesia for a few days and already I’ve heard multiple accounts of intimidation, corruption, kidnapping, torture and even murder suffered by our allies here who have been bold enough to speak out and resist the destruction of their forests and villages by palm oil and pulp and paper companies. But I am going to save those dark tales for another post and start this one with a happier story.

I didn’t expect to encounter evidence of RAN’s work in Indonesia until after I finished a three-day personal trip to the island paradise of Bali. After that, my plans were to immerse myself in two weeks of conservation-related meetings and site visits on the islands of Java and Sumatra — that’s what I traveled across the world for. But a close friend of mine who knows of my strong passion for birds told me that while I was in Bali I had to make a point of seeking out Dr. Bayu Wirayudha, the man widely credited with rescuing the iconic and critically endangered Bali Starling from the very brink of extinction (a truly incredible and ongoing story of its own).

It turns out Bayu is also the founder and CEO of Friends of the National Parks Foundation (FNPF), an inspiring organization that I learned has received funds from RAN on more than one occasion. I spoke at length with Bayu at his office/educational center/activist-organizing hub on the outskirts of the village of Ubud, Bali, and learned why FNPF is exactly the sort of frontline ally RAN is proud to support.

It’s important to understand that the threats facing the rainforests and communities of Indonesia are extreme and the challenges encountered by those trying to stem the destruction are immense and extraordinarily complex. Corruption is pervasive throughout the government and corporate spheres, and challenging those entrenched interests often means put your life on the line. The power wielded by the forces of profit and politics are almost beyond comprehension when viewed from the perspective of a villager fighting for their home or a conservationist struggling to save a species from extinction. So it takes some serious savvy to make headway against the seemingly unstoppable tide of forest conversion and community displacement sweeping rapidly across the country.

FNPF staff educate villagers about the importance of conservation

Bayu and his team understand that human rights, cultural survival and biodiversity preservation are inextricably linked in Indonesia. Conservationists here have learned the hard way that without the endorsement and involvement of local communities, desperate and disenfranchised villagers inevitably return to a slash and burn, extraction-based existence, dooming even the best-funded and well-intentioned conservation initiatives to failure. The approach of FNPF is a sophisticated melding of wildlife conservation, habitat protection and community development. Bayu praised RAN for supporting his organization’s vision at a time when other donors were unwilling to invest in such far-sighted plans.

With RAN’s help, FNPF has spent years gaining the trust of communities surrounding the huge and species-rich but conflict-ridden Tanjung Puting National Park on the island of Borneo. More than half of the forested land within the park has already been degraded by logging and agricultural encroachment. They built this trust partially by providing the villages with their first-ever cows and chickens, and the know-how to tend them for sustenance. At the same time, FNPF staff helped the villagers establish agroforestry operations with crops like rubber trees and agar wood that provide sustainable income while maintaining high levels of biological diversity. FNPF is also training local villagers to offer outstanding ecotourism opportunities in and around the National Park, giving locals a way to benefit from this lucrative emerging industry (before, ecotourism profits went exclusively to outsiders).

Villagers learn how to propagate key tree species

Bayu relayed a heartening story about how local palm oil workers now call his staff at FNPF when an orangutan enters the palm plantations, so the animal can be relocated unharmed, whereas previously they would have killed them on sight or called the notorious Forestry Ministry, which would have done the same.

These hard-fought, piecemeal advances may be just a drop in the ocean compared to the immensity of devastation underway across Indonesia’s rainforests, but they provide preciously rare living proof that a cooperative way forward is possible from the heinous mess that exists now. People like Bayu, and projects like those of FNPF, are like saplings rising up from a clear cut forest. With enough light and nourishment, it is these fresh starts that can take root and provide shade for others to do the same.

Geraldine Thomas-Flurer at the BMO Shareholder meeting in Vancouver

As Canadians were casting their votes in the Federal Election, another important decision was playing out in the board rooms of Canada’s top banks: what to do with Enbridge, sponsor of the Northern Gateway Pipeline.

Over the last several weeks, RAN  teamed up with First Nations of the Yinka Dene Alliance to put senior banking executives on notice as they gathered for this season’s round of annual shareholder meetings. The message? First Nations are rights-holders, not stakeholders.

Here’s how they reacted (each bank’s name is followed by the total amount of funds raised for Enbridge since 2007):

• Bank of Montreal: $286 million

Geraldine Thomas-Flurer, Ann Ketlo and Jasmine Thomas of the Yinka Dene Alliance pressed CEO Bill Downe to dump Enbridge and update long-outdated policies on human rights and the environment. Downe invited them to a meeting to discuss community concerns. More than 50 supporters rallied outside.

• Toronto Dominion: $5 billion

CEO Edmond Clark accepted the invitation of Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik’uz First Nation to visit her community. He also pledged to to uphold the bank’s recognition of Indigenous Rights based on Free Prior Informed Consent. (See this video of the exchange, starts at 64:32.)

• Scotiabank: $10 billion (!)
  

No comment from CEO Rick Waugh after a moving speech by Jasmine Thomas, a youth representing the Yinka Dene Alliance. (Listen to her presentation at this link, starts at 1:58:20). Scotia’s written response to the Alliance was equally vague.

• CIBC: $220 million

Jasmine Thomas and Supporters at the CIBC AGM in Winnipeg

Unlike the other banks, CIBC hasn’t responded to a letter from Chiefs of the Yinka Dene Member Nations raising concerns about Enbridge. This despite (or maybe because of) Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel’s position on the bank’s Board. After Jasmine’s remarks, Board Chair Charles Sirois also failed to say anything of substance (catch the meeting here).

RBC has also been a big fundraiser for Enbridge (as in $1.5 billion raised since 2007), but didn’t get a visit from the Yinka Dene Alliance or RAN. We opted out this year as a sign of good faith in RBC’s new policy announced in December. The policy ostensibly requires the bank to consider whether clients obtain free, prior, informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous communities impacted by client activities. How this policy will apply to Enbridge remains to be seen.

Learn more about why FPIC is important here.

Learn more about the Yinka Dene Alliance here.

Two Girl Scouts have been working very hard to change this, Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva. Our next step in pushing GSUSA CEO Kathy Cloninger to make the right decision for Girl Scouts and rainforests is a little nudge from thousands of people on Facebook and Twitter brought to you by Rainforest Action Network and Change.org. That’s where you come in…

1 Update Your Facebook Status

If you are a Girl Scout, alum, troop leader or family member:

As part of the Girl Scouts family, I am disappointed to see rainforest destroying palm oil still in our cookies. Please help me convince our CEO Kathy Cloninger that Girl Scouts must do right by the world’s last rainforests. Please sign this petition today! http://ran.org/girlscoutcookies

If you are not a member of Girl Scouts, copy/paste:

Will Girl Scouts get rainforest destroying palm oil out of their cookies? Girl Scouts of the USA claims they “have little say if not no say in the recipes used by the bakers.” We don’t buy it. Sign this petition telling CEO Kathy Cloninger that the power to save rainforests is in her hands. http://ran.org/girlscoutcookies

2 Update Girl Scouts of the USA Facebook Wall

9:00am PST update: After the Girl Scouts of the USA Facebook Page was flooded this morning with comments by Girl Scouts, troop leaders, alumnae, parents and Facebook users concerned about the rainforest, Girl Scouts USA panicked and removed all the individual comments from their page. GSUSA also disabled the Facebook function that allows you to share a link on that page. Therefore, instead of commenting on the Girl Scouts of the USA Facebook Page, you can do it on the Girl Scout Cookies Facebook App page. Here’s the latest version of instructions:

If you are a Girl Scout, alum, troop leader or family member, click “Like” on the Girl Scout Cookies Facebook App page, then copy/paste:

As part of the Girl Scouts family, I am disappointed to see rainforest destroying palm oil still in our cookies. I’d like to see Girl Scout cookies be rainforest safe by our 100th anniversary!

If you are not a member of Girl Scouts, click “Like” on the Girl Scout Cookies Facebook page, then copy/paste:

Will Girl Scouts get rainforest destroying palm oil out of their cookies? Girl Scouts of the USA claims they “have little say if not no say in the recipes used by the bakers.” We don’t buy it. Sign this petition telling CEO Kathy Cloninger that the power to save rainforests is in her hands. http://ran.org/girlscoutcookies

3 Tweet @ Girl Scouts

If you are a Girl Scout, alum, troop leader or family member:
As part of @GirlScouts, I pledge to help get #rainforest destroying #palmoil out of our cookies. http://su.pr/1WTU7i via @RAN RT!

If you are not a member of Girl Scouts:
#Rainforest destruction doesn’t belong in your cookies @GirlScouts USA. Your girls deserve better. http://su.pr/1WTU7i via @RAN RT!

***Follow Girl Scout activists Madi & Rhiannon on Twitter @GirlScoutHonor.

4 Tweet @ Celebrities

Get some celebrity spokespeople on our side!

Choose 1 or 2 celebs from our list of famous Girl Scout alumnae (we recommend choosing from the top 5), then add their twitter handle to the end of the tweet below:

Example: As a @GirlScouts alum,can you help us make GS cookies #rainforest safe by RT’ing this? http://su.pr/1WTU7i @MarthaStewart @VenusesWilliams

Girl Scout Alumnae Twitter Handles

1. Venus Williams    @ VenusesWilliams
2. Martha Stewart    @MarthaStewart
3. Taylor Swift    @taylorswift13
4. Sheryl Crow    @SherylCrow
5. Katie Couric    @katiecouric
6. Jackie Joyner-Kersee    @JackieJoynerK
7. Dolly Parton    @Dolly_Parton
8. Star Jones    @StarJonesEsq
9. Amy Sedaris    @amy_sedaris
10. Dakota Fanning    @theDakeFanning
11. Gloria Steinem    @GloriaSteinem
12. Reese Witherspoon    @RealReeseW
13. Mariah Carey    @mariahcarey
14. Kristin Davis    @KristinDavis
15. Carrie Fisher    @CarrieFFisher
16. Deborah Norville    @DeborahNorville
17. Barbara Walters    @BarbaraJWalters
18. Danica Patrick    @DanicaPatrick
19. Rep. Tammy Baldwin    @RepTammyBaldwin
20. Judy Biggert    @JudyBiggert
21. Rep. Mary Bono Mack    @MaryBonoMack
22. Rep. Diana DeGette    @RepDianaDeGette
23. Rep. Anna G. Eshoo    @RepAnnaEshoo
24. Rep. Kay Granger    @RepKayGranger
25. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee    @JacksonLeeTX18
26. Rep. Barbara Lee    @RepBarbaraLee
27. Rep. Nita Lowey    @NitaLowey
28. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy    @RepMcCarthyNY
29. Sen. Barbara Mikulski    @SenatorBarb
30. Sen. Susan Collins    @SenatorCollins
31. Sen. Patty Murray    @PattyMurray
32. Donna Christensen    @DelegateDonna
33. Maria Bartiromo    @MariaBartiromo
34. Abigail Breslin    @AbigailBres
35. Laura Bush    @laurawbush
36. Vanessa Hudgens    @VanessaHudgens
37. Susan Lucci    @Susan_Lucci
38. Marlo Thomas    @MarloThomas
39. Judy Woodruff    @JudyWoodruff
40. Holly McPeak @hmcpeak1

A Group of activists deliver a powerful message to IOI Group at its Chicago HQ on Monday morning

Last Monday, IOI Group received an unexpected visit from a group of activists who delivered a large photo of the community of Long Teran Kanan, a community whose traditional lands have been converted to plantations by IOI Group. Along with this powerful photo, the group also delivered the following statement from Rainforest Action Network to IOI:

We support the community of Long Teran Kanan and its re-occupation of two IOI palm oil plots that are planted on native customary lands. Please drop your court appeal and begin to negotiate with the community of Long Teran Kanan (LTK) in good faith.

The Monday delivery came one week before IOI’s May 2nd deadline to meet certain requirements laid out by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). If IOI group does not find acceptable solutions to the social conflict associated with its palm oil operations in Sarawak, Malaysia, by May 2nd, the company will face further sanctions.

Please stand in solidarity with the growing international coalition of environmental and social groups supporting Indigenous rights and the community of Long Teran Kanan.

Cargill — the largest importer of palm oil into the United States — buys significant amounts of palm oil from IOI Group. IOI Group’s ongoing refusal to address its conflict with the community of Long Teran in good faith reinforces RAN’s demand that Cargill institute basic safeguards on its supply chain to ensure it is not selling palm oil from stolen indigenous lands to American consumers.

Click image to take action.

After fighting for the return of their ancestral lands for more than a decade, the people of Long Teran Kenan in Malaysian Borneo took a stand earlier this month and reclaimed part of their homeland with a decisive and peaceful act of collective resistance. Their territory had been taken from them and converted into oil palm plantations, which are now owned by the notorious global palm oil giant IOI Group.

In Malaysian Borneo, 2.3 million hectares of land have been converted into palm oil plantations, and there are plans to double that area within the next ten years. However, the Long Teran community has drawn a line in the sand by occupying two palm oil plots that IOI had continued to harvest despite a historic March 2010 decision by a Malaysian court that ruled the plots in question were indeed on native customary lands.

In November 2009, IOI promised not to appeal the court’s decision when it was made. IOI has now not only appealed the decision but has also continued to operate illegally on Indigenous lands and has even gone so far as to break off all negotiations with the community.

Support the people of Long Teran by taking action today.

Negotiations Fall Apart – Police Allow Re-Occupation of Lands to Continue

Last November, RAN participated in a negotiation where Marc den Hartog and Rina Rahayu Latar of IOI Group committed to work diligently to resolve the long-standing conflict at Long Teran. After months of inaction from IOI following the community’s court victory, the people of Long Teran called in the local police to ask IOI Group to leave their native lands where the company does not have the community’s permission to operate.

A few days later, with the court ruling behind them, the community blockaded access to the IOI Group plots, re-seized control of their ancestral lands, and started their own community palm oil harvesting. They were able to successfully sell the palm fruits harvested to a neighboring mill and are determined to make their own decisions on land that was stolen from them in the name of “progress”. A community meeting to discuss daily harvesting plans can be seen in the image below, and if you look carefully you will see the natural forest in the background.

Controversial IOI Palm Oil Trafficked into American Grocery Stores

For American consumers the story does not end with this inspiring example of one community determined to defend its Indigenous lands. IOI Group is a known supplier to Cargill, long a primary target of Rainforest Action Network. The story from this community is only one of many we hear from the rainforests of Borneo and beyond, stories of communities that have been devastated by the global demand for palm oil.

Cargill is the number one importer of palm oil into the US, with palm oil now found in half of all packaged foods found on grocery store shelves. This gives Cargill enormous influence over global palm oil markets, including how palm oil is produced, refined and distributed. For more than three years, RAN has pushed Cargill to adopt basic safeguards that would ensure the company is not importing human rights violations, rainforest destruction, and climate change. Because Cargill has to date failed to institute these safeguards, controversial palm oil is still found throughout American supermarkets.

As we all watch the story of Long Teran Kenan unfold, we are struck by two questions weighing heavily on our minds:

1)   Will IOI Group negotiate in good faith or will it continue to use legal technicalities and contest the legitimacy of the Indigenous community?

2)   How many case studies of dirty suppliers will it take to convince Cargill that safeguards are needed on its supply chain?

Please join RAN by taking action today in solidarity with the people of Long Teran!

I picked up a RAN pamphlet while attending an animal rights conference in Oregon, and was very much taken with their bite-back approach in challenging large corporations. I was inspired by the work RAN was doing to support Indigenous rights and communities. Nothing is more valuable, sacred, and vulnerable than our environment and the species that we share with it. I feel RAN does an amazing job through direct action, my personal favorite, and get corporations to adopt better business practices.

Environmentalism with Teeth

RAN has caught my eye with their commanding and tenacious energy to their campaigns. Not only is RAN able to find ways in which to take action on the issues facing our precious planet, but they turn that action into something exciting and compelling. RAN will get the job done!

About Kitty

In middle school I was exposed to a side of the food industry that I had never seen before through the video “Meet Your Meat.” This video opened my eyes to the animal abuse in the production of industrial foods and changed my life. I went from an apathetic and jaded teenager to an inspired and unstoppable activist for animals and the environment.

Since then, volunteering has become my favorite thing to do. I have recently started cleaning people’s houses in my free time in my efforts to support groups that work to protect the environment, the rights of animals and humans alike. So far I’ve raised over $700.

When not volunteering I simply delight in protesting, meeting new people, jogging, and cooking up a vegan storm in the kitchen!

Clearly, it means a significant about-face on tar sands for one of the world’s biggest banks. Before today, RBC trailed its peers on basic issues like Indigenous rights, water quality, and the environment. A review of the Bank’s 2009 annual report shows strong philanthropy and energy-saving initiatives across the bank, but relatively few screens for lending and other core financial services. Despite being one of the world’s biggest financiers of the tar sands, RBC’s business in the sector escaped any systematic environmental or social review. During a speech to shareholders in early 2009, CEO Gord Nixon claimed that concerns about tar sands concerns were “not a bank issue.”

What a difference a year makes. In a post to its website, RBC announced its first ever “Policy on Environmental & Social Risk Management for Capital Markets.” The policy guides the bank in assessing the environmental and social impact of its clients and deciding what to do about them. While the announcement doesn’t go into details, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) got a peek at the language in the new policy last month.

The policy breaks significant new ground on Indigenous rights. For clients with operations within Indigenous territories, the bank will document the status of consultation with those groups. That’s not especially new. In fact many banks have incorporated the World Bank standards of “consultation, leading to broad community support” into their lending policies. Where RBC raises the bar is in documenting whether clients have “policies and processes consistent with the standard of “Free, Prior and Informed Consent.”

That “consent” clause—commonly referred to as FPIC (pronounced “eff pick”)—was taken from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was endorsed by the US government just last week and by the Canadian government last month. No other bank has yet issued such an explicit expectation of its clients regarding Indigenous rights. RBC also extends this policy to its entire capital markets business — not just a handful of its biggest loans, as is the standard established by the Equator Principles.

Policies are one thing, but results for communities facing off against RBC’s clients are quite another. The first test of RBC’s new policy will happen in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, where Enbridge is proposing a 727 mile long pipeline to carry more than half a million barrels of tar sands oil per day to a tanker port in Kitimat. Along the way, 61 First Nations are (strongly) withholding consent for the project due to failed consultation over its substantial social and environmental impacts to traditional territories.

Enbridge will likely go to the bond market to finance the $5.5 billion project. If RBC steps in to underwrite that bond, the bank’s policy will have meant little to the communities which it purports to honor. If RBC opts out, it will be a new day in the banking world. Rumor has it that the World Bank will be adopting similar “consent” language in its revised IFC Performance Standards expected to be released next year. RBC’s handling of this new commitment will be a bellwether for the private banking sector’s willingness to implement this emerging international standard.

Is RBC up to the challenge?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

In a decision that reverses the position taken by the Bush administration in 2007, when the U.S. voted against endorsing the declaration even as 145 nations supported it, the Obama Administration acknowledged the importance of this decision, which Indigenous, human rights and environmental organizations and activists in the U.S. have been working towards for over 30 years.

At the White House Tribal Nations Summit, Obama said, “The aspirations [UNDRIP] affirms, including the respect for the institutions and rich cultures of Native peoples, are ones we must always seek to fulfill. . . I want to be clear: what matters far more than words, what matters far more than any resolution or declaration, are actions to match those words.”

So by lending its support to UNDRIP, just what kind of actions can we expect the U.S. to take? That remains to be seen. As Indigenous rights organization Cultural Survival points out, Obama said that the White House would release an official statement on the declaration, and until that statement is released it will be difficult to know whether his endorsement is qualified, as were those of New Zealand and Canada, or a full-fledged endorsement of UNDRIP core principles, which include:

• The right of Indigenous Peoples to live on and use their traditional territories;
• The right to self-determination;
• The right to free, prior, and informed consent (known as FPIC) before any outside project is undertaken on their land;
• The right to keep their languages, cultural practices, and sacred places;
• The right to full government services;
• And the right to be recognized and treated as peoples.

Let’s hope for a full endorsement of these principles and “actions to match.” As many Indigenous leaders are saying, the U.S. supporting UNDRIP is something to celebrate, but much work remains to be done.

After its adoption in 2007 by the UN General Assembly, UNDRIP was heralded around the world by Indigenous Peoples, states, human rights and environmental organizations. Its provisions provide much needed guidance to governments, state institutions and society as a whole on how human rights laws and obligations can be best understood and applied to the distinct circumstances and the urgent needs of 370 million Indigenous People around the world.

First Nations across Canada pushed for the formal endorsement of UNDRIP as an important step towards the country improving its record on Indigenous rights.

RAN supported these efforts through a $1,250 grant to Defenders of the Land, a network of Indigenous communities and activists involved in land rights struggles across Canada.

Toronto demonstration on eve of G20 meetings

The grant supported the organizing of a national day of action to shine a spotlight on the country’s continued policy to remove First Nations’ control over their land and resource base, with the demand that Canada endorse UNDRIP and recognize Indigenous communities’ right to self-determination. Thousands participated, resulting in coverage from all of the major media outlets in Canada and some stories in the international press as well.

Canada’s endorsement of UNDRIP is an important first step towards addressing the demands put forth by First Nations. It also leaves the US in the shameful position of being the only country to remain in opposition to universally recognized Indigenous rights.

However, the US is currently undergoing a review and consultation process to determine whether or not to reverse its position from 2007 (as the other 3 countries that initially voted against the Declaration already have done).

Its well past time for the US to catch up with the rest of the world on this critical human rights issue. Ask President Obama to endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples today!

Protect-an-Acre

KONTAK Rakyat Borneo
$4,000 to carry out a two week field investigation in and around PT Indo Sawit Kekal, a Cargill subsidiary, to gather concrete evidence and documentation of its operations in violation of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil principles and criteria and Indonesian law, as well as establish a link between Sinar Mas plantations and Cargill mills.

Red de Permacultura America Latina en el Peru (REDPAL-PERU) on behalf of Achual Sustainable Harvest Project
$1,500 to support the Achual community’s permaculture project in the in Peruvian Amazon, which will produce tropical fruits with maximum biodiversity, provide income security, result in the reforestation of depleted areas, and help secure native status recognition of 4,000 acres of rainforest territory.

Maintenance of flooded camu camu plants

Keeper of the Mountains Foundation
$1,500 to support Larry Gibson’s tireless work bringing thousands of people to witness the destruction caused by mountaintop removal coal mining to help build a movement to ensure his ancestral land on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia will not become a part of the 7,000 acre MTR site that surrounds it today.

Ya’axché Conservation Trust
$1,000 to support a comprehensive advocacy campaign to secure the Government of Belize’s commitment to protected area legislation, specifically focusing on the most recent illegal, environmentally and socially detrimental activity, a proposed hydroelectric facility within the most restricted and perhaps most pristine protected area in the country, Bladen Nature Reserve.

Bladen Nature Reserve

Global Greengrants Fund

Secwepemc Nation Youth Network
$5,000 to support a four day Indigenous Peoples Assembly on Secwepemc Nation land located within British Columbia’s inland temperate rainforest just prior to the Winter Olympics to network and draft an action plan related to Canadian mining companies, independent power projects impacting water and salmon, all-season resorts, and other local issues.

Grassy Narrows Women’s Drum Group
$3,000 to support two public events in Toronto, including a public march that will form a human wild river, to raise awareness about the health impacts of mercury poisoning on the Grassy Narrows community on the 40th anniversary of when residents were poisoned by mercury from an upstream pulp mill.

Wild river march for clean water in Toronto

Indigenous Environmental Network
$5,000 to send an Indigenous Environmental Network delegation to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in Bolivia, to provide a platform for a moratorium against new fossil fuel developments in and near Indigenous lands and territories.

ClimAmbiente
$3,5000 to support two workshops in the Ecuadorian Amazon for Indigenous leaders to strengthen participation in international climate change policy debates on adaption, mitigation, and the United Nation’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program, which could have a significant impact on Indigenous communities and rainforests.

Consejo Shipibo-Konibo Xetebo
$4,000 to provide the Council of the Shipibo-Konibo with initial seed money for a new organization to unite Shipibo-Konibo communities in the Peruvian Amazon in their efforts to protect their collective territory from the encroaching world.

Wahana Bumi Hijau Foundation
$5,000 to produce an updated field study, hold an open discussion forum and carry out a road show related to the Rimba Hutani Mas logging company’s activities in the Merang Kepayang peat swamp forest, an ecologically important area that acts as a buffer zone to Sembilang National Park in Indonesia.

Community Alliance for Pulp Paper Advocacy
$1,500 to organize a workshop for 17 representatives of Indonesian organizations to hold a facilitated discussion to share experiences, identify common objectives, and plan specific activities in support of community rights and sustainable land use in an area of Central Kalimantan that is targeted for large-scale pulp industry expansion, which would devastate natural forest and peat lands.

Youth Community Biodiversity Initiative
$3,000 to plant trees in collaboration with 10 schools throughout Uganda and reduce deforestation through the implementation of energy saving stoves that burn rice husks and coffee so less wood needs to be gathered.

Our report reveals that Cargill is clearing and burning rainforests, displacing Indigenous and traditional communities and exacerbating climate change. While Cargill claims that it is committed to sustainable palm oil, it is violating its palm oil commitments, RSPO Principles and Criteria and Indonesian law. Check out our post on GRIST.

One of the things we uncovered in our investigation is that Cargill is also failing to disclose the ownership of at least two plantations where they are actively clearing rainforests. The two plantations, located on Indonesian Borneo, are operating without legally required permits, resulting in clearing and burning of rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands and significant conflict with traditional and Indigenous communities. On one plantation, Cargill has cleared 10,500 hectares of rainforest since its operations began in 2005 – an area as large as all four Walt Disney World theme parks!

In thinking about the majestic forests of Borneo -that were once havens for orangutans, Sumatran tigers and elephants- and the people who depend on it for their survival, it’s unconscionable to think that in this day and age companies are still getting away with such egregious and rampant destruction. It’s not enough for companies like Cargill to say that they are committing to “sustainable palm oil”, they need to take bold action now!

RAN is recommending that Cargill adopt and implement a comprehensive palm oil policy, which includes cleaning up its entire palm oil supply chain and supporting an immediate moratorium on any further deforestation or draining of peatlands for palm oil plantations. We are also recommending that Cargill customers, like General Mills, cancel their contracts with the company until or unless it agrees to our recommendations. Our report and full recommendations can be found at www.ran.org/cargillreport

The media is just starting to cover our report. The Minneapolis Star Tribune says, “Rain forest advocacy group slams Cargill: Rainforest Action Network says Cargill operating outside of sustainability guidelines.” We’ll keep you posted on other updates, especially the update where Cargill agrees to clean up its act and stop clearing rainforests for palm oil plantations.

In line with the government’s election campaign promise of a better Ghana Agenda, licences are given to multinational companies to mine in our forest reserves without proper consideration of its consequences after submitting a signed “Statement of Policies on Natural Resource and Environment,’’ to the European Commission.

These multinational mining companies use their money and power to deceive our leaders to allow them mine in our forest reserve after they have destroyed the off reserves areas in the country by polluting water bodies, violating human rights, and intimidating communities.

Many of our forest reserves across the country are home to endangered species of plants and animals, in addition to containing precious minerals like gold, diamond and bauxites which the mining companies have targeted for their activities. Examples include Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District where a mining company from Australia has started their operation, Agyenuapepo Forest Reserve in the Birim North area of the Eastern Region, and Newmont Limited who want to mine royal cemeteries in the Akyem Kotoku Traditional area.

The mining companies intimidate communities by using violence that results in death of  Indigenous youth. In this year, at least seven or more death of community people have being recorded. Newmont Limited polluted several communities’ water bodies and kept it secret from the communities and the government until a local NGO raised the issue.

These mining corporations are ready to pay their way out to have whatever they want, however we cannot rule out the payment of bribery by these mining companies to our leaders,  since they protect their interest.  These mining companies falsified documents claiming that the Indigenous communities have agreed with the mining activities in their area.

RAN Ghana would challenge any mining corporations that destroy the environment and violate human rights of Indigenous mining communities especially the youth who end being killed. We would also subject for advocacy in this direction to ensure that human rights of mining communities are not trampled on.

Finally, I would like to call on the government to stop granting mining concessions to these mining companies particularly in forest reserve.

Yesterday, I learned that the state Land and Survey Department demolished 25 homes in Sebauh, near the city of Bintulu (on Malaysian Borneo). The state claims that the homes were illegally built on state land, but the department moved forward with the destruction despite the fact that the community’s land rights claim is still pending in the courts. (Sarawak’s legal system is bogged down with such cases, and they drag on for years. Our fact-finding team found multiple instances where homes or crops were demolished despite on-going legal disputes.)

The now homeless community members report that state officials intentionally destroyed all of their possessions during the demolition. In response, about a hundred community members have set up a blockade to prevent the rest of their homes from being bulldozed.

We’ll continue to monitor this situation and let you know what you can do to help. In the meantime, this is another reminder that we need to make sure that any palm oil that goes into the products we buy is produced in a manner that respects both the environment and human rights. Go to TheProblemWithPalmOil.org to take action and learn more.

The police cracked down incredibly hard on the Reclaim Power protest today – both inside and outside the Bella Center – and arrested 240 people (on top of the over 1,000 that they’ve arrested in the past week), but they didn’t prevent the protest from being an incredibly powerful and formative moment in the global movement for climate justice.

The Reclaim Power protest was co-organized by Climate Justice Now! and Climate Justice Action, two international networks of people’s movements, Indigenous groups, and grassroots activists from around the world – including Via Campesina, Indigenous Environmental Network, Focus on the Global South, Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment. The action sought to subvert the undemocratic and unjust UN COP process by creating a People’s Assembly, which would privilege the voices for climate justice of Indigenous peoples and people from the Global South – those groups that have been most marginalized from the COP-15 talks.

While thousands of activists on the streets outside were marching towards the Bella Center, our goal was to march out of the Bella Center, and hold this People’s Assembly in the streets outside the conference.At 11am, we got reports that the outside protest was nearing the conference’s massive security perimeter. At that point, about 100 delegates – including two members of the Bolivian government delegation – linked arms inside the main hall, and began chanting “Respect Indigenous Rights,” “Listen to the South,” and “Join the People’s Assembly.” We then marched through the halls and out the front entrance of the Bella Center – trailed by a ridiculous entourage of news media.

The UN security didn’t try to prevent us from leaving the building – they were clearly happy to see us leave. Once we got outside the security fence, however, the Danish police – who were working closely together with UN security – refused to let us through their barricades to join the thousands of other protestors, who were only a couple hundred meters away. We spent the next half hour negotiating with the police – initially they told us that we’d be let through once they cleared some people that they were arresting out of the way, but then they changed their story, and told us that we’d have to go several kilometers around police lines to join up with the rest of the protest.

Determined to join our sisters and brothers and hold our People’s Assembly, we refused to take hours to walk around police lines. Those of us who were willing to risk arrest linked arms, and marched across a bridge in an attempt to push – nonviolently, but firmly – through police lines.

The UN security then stepped aside, and allowed the Danish police to beat us quite severely with batons. We pushed back and tried to hold this bridge as long as possible, but were eventually beaten back. I personally was hit with police batons dozens of times on the shoulders, arms, hands, and legs, and was punched repeatedly in the head – one blow broke my ear piercing, and bloodied my ear pretty badly. Several people were hit on the head with batons. As all this was going on, we held our hands in the air to signify our nonviolent intentions; at one point, an officer was beating my arms with his baton as I held them in the air.

You can see CNN’s footage here (can’t embed it). (I’m in the grey suit at the front.)

After we were pushed back over the bridge – and after we had taken several minutes to calm down, and take care of people who had been hurt – the majority of our group of delegates marched off around police lines to go join the protest. Others tried to return to the Bella Center, only to discover that the UN had closed the center to all NGO delegates for the rest of the day.

Like myself, the Reclaim Power action was severely bruised today, but was nonetheless ecstatic about its success. While we were pushing to join our comrades in the outside protest, the thousands of people outside were standing in the Vejlands Alle to the north of the Bella Center, holding the People’s Assembly (without us, unfortunately), and discussing key points of a people’s agenda for climate justice. This outside protest also included a broad cross-section of activists – from Latin American Via Campesina activists to German autonomists, and everything in between. But this broad and diverse group of people from around the world was united in its goals: to amplify an global people’s agenda for climate justice, an agenda that stands in stark contrast to the Global North-dominated negotiations that have prevailed in the past week within the Bella Center.

In the words of Stine Gry, from Climate Justice Action:

“We have no more time to waste.  If governments won’t solve the problem, then it’s time for our diverse people’s movements to unite and reclaim the power to shape our future. We are beginning this process with the people’s assembly.  We will join together all the voices that have been excluded—both within the process and outside of it. We will be both non-violent and confrontational. We will not let fences and physical barriers stand in our way, and we call upon the police to respect our right to make our voices heard.”

It’s clear that the UN and the police do not respect our right to protest, preferring to beat us than to let delegates from inside the Bella Center join – and thus grant legitimacy to – the outside protest. It’s clear that they want the voices of civil society, from the Global South and around the world, to be excluded from the talks. But today, the world heard our voices – as we shouted our message inside and outside the Bella Center, even as we were being beaten by the police. Now, we’ll see if the negotiators inside COP-15 are listening.

REDD is intended to help developing countries protect their remaining rainforests and reduce the 15-20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, forest degradation and peatland destruction.

Yet without key safeguards, REDD will fail to protect forests. Many countries hoping to benefit from REDD funding suffer from poor legal frameworks, high levels of corruption and illegality, and weak enforcement. Our allies at REDD Monitor summed up the situation with this graphic detailing rates of illegal logging in REDD beneficiary countries.

Key text that will prevent REDD from going the way of logging in terms of feeding corruption remains bracketed in the latest REDD text. [Brackets] means that some countries do not support this text, and from our conversations with negotiators it appears that the very same countries that stand to benefit from REDD funds are also working to undermine forest conservation and human rights in REDD. For example, here is the text that RAN and our allies in the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, working to include in the REDD negotiations in order for this forest deal to be a trustworthy alternative to logging and conversion:

• safeguards for transparent forest governance structures and support mechanisms {4(c)};
• safeguards for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities {4(e)};
• safeguards on conservation of biological diversity and enhancement of ecosystem services {4(f)}.
• an objective for protecting intact natural forests.
• provisions to monitor compliance with these proposed safeguards should they be incorporated into the agreement;
• safeguards to prevent the conversion of natural forests to forest plantations.

Most worrisome is the likelihood that there is no legally-binding deal as an outcome of the Copenhagen meeting. If the parties still strike a REDD deal without a commitment from rich countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, REDD could end up as an offsetting mechanism rather than a key tool in reducing global emissions.

And without forest protection and enforcement of safeguards as its key priorities, REDD will threaten rather than preserve the world’s remaining natural forests.

Since the colonial time, the Indigenous people of Pokuase have depended on their Forest reserve, more than any other Indigenous group in Ghana. Everything about the Pokuase, including their cultural, rituals and portable drinking water, had been influenced by the rainforest. However, in the last years since corporate developers first moved to the area, the Indigenous people of Pokuase had suffered from various diseases through the contamination of their stream, forceful repression for trying to protect their forest reserve and lack of support in their struggle.

In the past, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized the unique value of Pokuase culture and the Gua Koo forest reserve by declaring that the Pokuase “have long rich history of their natural environment, as evidenced by their strong tie with the Sunkwa stream.”

RAN Ghana members with Pokuase youth

The survival of the Pokuase hinges on their ability to gain control of and sustainably manage their own traditional territory. To support the Pokuase’s struggle for Gua Koo Forest reserve and Sunkwa stream, RAN Ghana carried out an assessment, met with the traditional authority and the Indigenous people and also educated the community at a forum. RAN Ghana is also strategizing campaigns to organize with the Pokuase to keep encroachers away, build the capacity of the traditional authority and youth to protect the forest, institute environmentally friendly alternative projects and demarcation of the forest reserve.

RAN Ghana members visit a portion of the destroyed and cleared Pokuase forest reserve that the Indigenous people are struggling to protect

RAN Ghana's John F. Akwetey speaks at the Pokuase forum