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Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16): Solutions for companies, losses for communities and biodiversity

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The Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is being held from October 21st to November 1st in Colombia. This initiative has failed in its goal of halting the alarming loss of biodiversity. For 30 years, instead of putting an end to extractive companies’ destruction, the CBD’s proposals have worsened the situation – through actions that have undermined both the sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and communities, and their ability to remain in the territories they inhabit and protect.

The destruction of biodiversity to feed corporate greed is readily apparent through alarming facts and figures: 54 percent of wetlands have disappeared since 1900; land degradation from human activities is causing the extinction of one sixth of all species; and 50 percent of agricultural expansion between 1980 and 2000 occurred on razed areas of tropical forest (1). In Asia, oil palm plantations have been the main driver of forest loss during this period.

32 years ago, during the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, more than 170 countries pledged to take measures to halt this destruction. To this end, they signed the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). However, this initiative has failed spectacularly.

Despite their numerous declarations in support of taking action, and their adoption of goals and targets, governments have shown no real interest in taking the necessary measures to stop the destruction of biological diversity. By way of proof, one only has to review the targets established for the decade between 2010 to 2020, known as the Aichi Targets: none of them has been achieved.

The 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD is being held in Cali, Colombia, from October 21st to November 1st, 2024. During this gathering, government negotiators aim to evaluate the countries’ progress in achieving the new targets set for the year 2030, which are included in the so-called Global Biodiversity Framework. Yet, over 85% of the countries missed the deadline to submit their new commitments before the start of the COP, revealing their ongoing lack of commitment (2).

To stop devastating biodiversity loss and try to reverse it, it would be necessary to put an end to the destruction in the first place. This destruction is caused by extractive oil companies, mining, agribusiness, plantations, hydroelectric dams, and other industries, as well as by other economic sectors that secondarily benefit from these destructive activities – such as airlines, banking, finance, investors, etc. Yet instead of stopping the destruction, the proposals implemented by the CBD tend to worsen the situation – through actions that undermine both the sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and communities, and their ability to remain in the territories they inhabit and protect.

One of the concrete ways in which the CBD causes this kind of conflict is through the target known as “30 x 30,” which was promoted by large conservation NGOs. Its objective is for 30 percent of the planet – including the world’s land, fresh waters and oceans – to be declared as protected areas by 2030. However, this objective does not take into account the suffering and resistance of thousands of communities affected by the imposition of conservation areas in their territories – and the serious violations of their rights this has caused. Far from being a solution, this model of conservation without people actually generates conflict and violence, costing lives in the communities that lose control of the territories they inhabit.

Another major and worrisome threat coming from the Convention on Biological Diversity (and the corporate influence over it) is the inclusion of biodiversity offsets and credits as a legitimate mechanism to “repair” the destruction that companies have caused.

Through offsets, polluting industries assume the right to destroy territories, with the excuse that these damages and losses will be “offset” elsewhere on the planet. However, this is not possible. In a recent Statement, hundreds of civil society organizations warned that “biodiversity offsets can create conflicts over the right to own and use lands, fisheries and forests, and can compete with agroecology and smallholder agriculture, undermining food sovereignty. [These offset projects] will likely drive land grabbing, the displacement of communities, increased inequality in access to land, and human rights violations – just like carbon offsets do.”

This Statement warns that biodiversity offsets and credits seek to imitate carbon offsets and credits. But not only are they replicating the faults of carbon offsets and credits; biodiversity credits and offsets intensify negative impacts by including innumerable forms of life in a strategy of financialization. So far, these mechanisms have proven to benefit large corporations that continue to pollute – such as oil, mining and airline companies. They also benefit the associated chain of managers, certifiers, consultants and financiers that implement these mechanisms. Meanwhile, communities are suffering from the deception and impacts of these mechanisms, which have been widely documented by academia, the press, and other sectors.

We invite you to read the full statement, which also presents alternative proposals to another key point on the COP16 agenda: the financing of strategies to stop biodiversity loss.

This bulletin also includes articles about how tree plantations and offset projects are expanding and occupying territories, as well as other articles celebrating the resistance of communities.

One of the articles, from Gabon, documents the power of community resistance to Sequoia’s attempts to install 60,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations in the Bateke Plateau region that would be used to generate carbon credits. Another article from the Republic of Congo describes how oil companies are grabbing land to set up tree plantations for the carbon market, so that they can greenwash their image. A third article reports from two provinces in Mozambique where eucalyptus plantations have obliterated the biological and genetic diversity of the machambas (traditional cultivation areas). In the wake of the pulp industry, major homogenization occurs, and the expression of the genetic diversity of seeds and local varieties disappears.

Another article analyzes the Thai government’s strategy to implement an offset-based climate policy, a concept which is inherently contradictory and which expands corporate control over community lands. And now the Thai government wants to extrapolate this idea from the climate and apply it to biodiversity. These offset projects would be carried out in “green areas” that would cover more than 50 percent of the country.

Finally, we present the third episode of the podcast entitled “Women’s Struggles for Land,” which aims to highlight the voices of women and their multiple forms of resistance to the occupation of their territories. This third episode, from Indonesia, was jointly produced with the organization, Solidaritas Perumpuan, and it recounts the experiences of women in the Kalimantan region facing plantation projects and REDD projects.

This collection of cases reveals how the kinds of actions proposed at the COPs affect people’s sovereignty over the territories they inhabit. Their sovereignty is indispensable in stopping the biodiversity crisis. In light of this situation, many peoples and communities around the world are reclaiming control of their territories and are fighting to defend them. In so doing, they are defending biological diversity and life itself!

(1) Estado actual y resultados de la IPBES | Biodiversidad Mexicana
(2) COP16: More than 85% of countries miss UN deadline to submit nature pledges – Carbon Brief

Orginal Source: World Rainforest Movement (WRM)

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Kenya: Court halts flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix and British Airways over unlawfully acquiring community land without consent

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“Landmark Court Ruling Delivers Devastating Blow To Flagship Carbon Offset Project”, Friday, 31 January 2025.

A keenly-watched legal ruling in Kenya has delivered a huge blow to a flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix, British Airways and other multinational corporations, which has long been under fire from Indigenous activists. The ruling, in a case brought by 165 members of affected communities, affirms that two of the biggest conservancies set up by the controversial Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) have been established unconstitutionally and have no basis in law.

The court has also ordered that the heavily-armed NRT rangers – who have been accused of repeated, serious human rights abuses against the area’s Indigenous people – must leave these conservancies. One of the two conservancies involved in the case, known as Biliqo Bulesa, contributes about a fifth of the carbon credits involved in the highly contentious NRT project to sell carbon offsets to Western corporations. The ruling likely applies to around half the other conservancies involved in the carbon project too, as they are in the same legal position, even though they were not part of the lawsuit. This means that the whole project, from which NRT has made many millions of dollars already (the exact amount is not known as the organisation does not publish financial accounts), is now at risk.

The case was first filed in 2021, but judgment has only recently been delivered by the Isiolo Environment and Land Court. The legal issue at the heart of this case was identified in Survival International’s “Blood carbon” report, which also disputed the very basis of NRT’s carbon project: its claim that by controlling the activities of Indigenous pastoralists’ livestock, it increases the area’s vegetation and thus the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

The ruling is also the latest in a series of setbacks to the credibility of Verra, the main body used to verify carbon credit projects. Even though some of the participating conservancies in the NRT’s project lacked a clear legal basis and therefore could not ‘own’ or ‘transfer’ carbon credits to the NRT, the project was still validated and approved by Verra, and went through two verifications in their system. Complaints by Survival International prompted a review of the project in 2023, which also failed to address the problem.

Caroline Pearce, Director of Survival International, said today: “The judgement confirms what the communities have been saying for years – that they were not properly consulted about the creation of the conservancies, which have undermined their land rights. The NRT’s Western donors, like the EU, France and USAID, must now stop funding the organization, as they’ve been funding an operation which is now ruled to have been illegal…

The lawsuit accused NRT of establishing and running conservancies on unregistered community land, “without participation or involvement of the community,” including not obtaining free prior and informed consent before delineating and annexing community lands for private wildlife conservation.

The complaint reads, in part, “(NRT), with the help of the Rangers and the local administration, continue to use intimidation and coercion as well as threats upon the community leaders where the community leaders attempt to oppose any of their plans.” The case was brought by communities from two conservancies, Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy (which is in the NRT’s carbon project area and where 20% of the project’s carbon credits were generated) and Cherab Conservancy, which isn’t.

These two conservancies, the court has ruled, were illegally established. Permanent injunctions have been issued banning NRT and others from entering the area or operating their rangers or other agents there. The government has to get on with registering the community lands under the Community Land Act, and has to cancel the licences for NRT to operate in the respective areas. The NRT’s carbon offset project is reportedly the largest soil carbon capture project in the world.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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France: CSOs criticise French government’s call for “massive regulatory pause” on EU legislation, incl. CSRD and CSDDD

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“Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive : France advocates for indefinite postponement, to the detriment of social and environemental justice,” 24 January 2025

According to a document made public by Politico and Mediapart, the French government, via the Minister of Economy Eric Lombard, intends to bring to Brussels an agenda of all-out deregulation which, in addition to suspending the application of the text “sine die”, would call into question entire sections of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. This irresponsible position risks precipitating the unravelling of a text necessary in the face of the climate and social crisis, a text that France nevertheless declares to have supported.

[…] The instrumentalization of the simplification of the law to weaken a directive is dangerous and unacceptable for European democracy.

According to the document published this morning in the press, France would request an indefinite postponement of the application of this directive, a significant increase in the application thresholds, or even the removal of the clause that would allow in the future to specifically regulate the activities of financial actors. These numerous modifications would lead to an exclusion of nearly 70% of the companies concerned, even though only 3,400 of the 32 million European companies (i.e. less than 0.1%) were covered under the previous thresholds according to the NGO SOMO.

In reality, as during the negotiation of the text, France is merely echoing the demands made by several employers’ organisations hostile to the duty of vigilance, including AFEP and Business Europe. In doing so, France is actively contributing to undoing the progress achieved by citizens in recent years.

For our organisations, human rights and environmental associations and trade unions, the position expressed by France is irresponsible and incomprehensible. Last week, more than 160 European associations and trade unions repeated their opposition to a questioning of European Sustainable Finance legislations.

We call on the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and the Bayrou Government to reconsider this position as soon as possible and to reiterate France’s support for the European duty of vigilance, for the other texts of the Green Deal which are vital for people, the climate and biodiversity, and for respecting their implementation timelines.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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New billion-dollar loans to fossil fuel companies from SEB, Nordea and Danske Bank.

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After thousands of protests, Swedbank has stopped lending to oil companies, as Handelsbanken has done before. But SEB, Danske Bank and Nordea continue to pump billions into the fossil fuel industry, despite the banks’ climate promises. This is shown by our and the Swedish Society for Nature’s New Review.

– The banks must stop financing the hunt for more fossil fuels, it completely undermines the climate transition. I don’t think Swedish bank customers appreciate their money were used in this way, says Jakob König, who heads the Fair Finance Guide.

60 new billions to fossil fuel companies

The New Report Banking on Thin Ice 3 shows that SEB, Nordea and Danske Bank, despite promises of climate responsibility, have given over SEK 60 billion in new loans to fossil fuel companies in the last two years. This is almost four times the Swedish government’s total climate and environmental budget for 2025. Almost SEK 22 billion has gone to companies drilling for new oil and gas discoveries. Expanding the extraction of fossil energy is contrary to the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.

“The banks have long responded to criticism by saying that they are helping the oil companies to adjust. But the companies are in the completely wrong direction by increasing their extraction instead of phasing it out. Now the banks must stop the loans just as Handelsbanken and Swedbank have done, says Karin Lexén, Secretary of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Funding oil exploration in the Arctic and Africa

The Swedish-financed oil hunt is ongoing in several parts of the world. Eight billion SEK has gone to companies looking for more oil discoveries in the Norwegian Arctic, where nature is particularly sensitive and species such as seals, dolphins and whales are threatened by extraction. Last year, Norway quadrupled the number of extraction licenses sold in the Arctic compared to the year before. A of majority the licensees were by purchased Norway’s Aker BP, which is also the oil company that has been the largest loan from Swedish banks, a total of seven billion SEK from SEB and Nordea.

The banks have also lent SEK 5.7 billion to companies drilling for oil in African countries. Extraction there is becoming all risky as companies seek ever greater depths to find new deposits. In Namibia, oil drilling at depths of up to 3,000 meters. Other countries where the Swedish-financed companies are active are Congo, Ghana, Nigeria and Aquatorial Guinea.

Swedbank stops oil loans

The report, however, shows that Swedbank has stopped lending to oil companies, just as Handelsbanken did two years ago. This is likely a result of the thousands of customer protests that our previous reviews have given rise to, as well as the motions that have been put forward at the banks’ general meetings. Swedbank and Handelsbanken are now among a small group of banks in the world that have stopped lending to oil companies.

– It is gratifying that another major Swedish bank has become an international role model when it comes to sustainable financing. Now more must follow suit and take responsibility, because there are still large fossil fuel companies that receive loans to continue operations that exacerbate the climate crisis, says Karin Lexén.

Original: fairfinanceguide-se

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