SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
US government stops funding to WWF, WCS and other conservation organisations because of human rights abuses
By Chris Lang
In autumn 2019, the US government suspended US$12.3 million of funding to the Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE). This followed a bipartisan congressional oversight investigation to examine whether US conservation funds were supporting eco-guards who committed human rights abuses.
CARPE is funded by money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) transferred to the US Fish and Widlife Service (FWS).
The review of US conservation funding followed the year long investigation by BuzzFeed News into human rights abuses and WWF. The investigation was published in March 2019 and revealed that WWF had funded eco-guards who tortured and killed people.
Conservation organisations responses: “Not uniformly thorough or responsible”
In November 2019, the FWS sent an information request to some of the organisations that had received CARPE funding. A memo dated 18 September 2020 from Katherin MacGregor, the US Deputy Secretary of the Interior, states that,
While all grantees replied, the responses were not uniformly thorough or responsible, thereby raising further questions about the desire and capability of grantees and the ability of the FWS to adequately monitor allegations and prevent such abuses in the future. One organization, Virunga Foundation, replied with a statement that it would be closing down its operations in 2019, and would not be sending any further documentation.
Wildlife Conservation Society replied “stating that the Service’s request was overly burdensome and that they would only be able to produce a limited amount of information based on their internal document retention policy,” MacGregor writes. Meanwhile African Parks told the FWS that “three investigations into allegations of human rights violations were conducted in 2019 managed by the organization and closed without documented consultation or notice provided to the Service prior to this data call.”
Last week, Survival International put out a summary of the highlights of the Department of Interior’s memo, under the headline: “Atrocities prompt US authorities to halt funding to WWF, WCS in major blow to conservation industry”.
The following are REDD-Monitor’s notes of some of the key points of the memo.
US Government Accountability Office investigation
In late 2019, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) also started an investigation into the same issue. In August 2020, the Department of the Interior received a draft of GAO’s report.
In her memo MacGregor writes that the draft report “contained no recommendations and instead indicated that GAO could not properly perform an inquiry into the in-country monitoring component of the CARPE program – arguably one of the areas of greatest concern and vulnerability when reviewing real-time oversight controls – due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.”
Nevertheless, GAO’s report included “some interesting findings”, MacGregor writes:
For instance, interviews with U.S. government officials at multiple relevant agencies (State, USAID, and FWS) indicated widespread surprise by the allegations and concer that they were not notified previously through standard channels.
The State Department has relied on partner organisations, including WWF, to carry out its own internal investigation to determine whether US government-funded organisations were involved in human rights abuses. MacGregor writes,
The notion of an agency relying on an awardee to investigate itself to determine wrongdoing was highlighted during a Department briefing to House Natural Resources Committee staff conducted in July 2019. Staff from both the majority and minority expressed concern with this practice.
MacGregor notes that the review found that “information remains quite dispersed, buried in emails of former employees, spread across different Federal agencies, and in many instances, in the possession of awardees who have provided information in rolling productions that have not always been completed in a timely manner.” She adds in a footnote that,
WWF stated they were told by other federal parties not to provide internal reports that document findings of wrongdoing by auditors they hired to investigate long-standing allegations. Fortunately, these documents were ultimately made available to the Department and contributed to our analysis.
The reprehensible nature of the abuse
MacGregor writes that,
[I]t is important to make clear the reprehensible nature of the abuse that has been documented and must be guarded against in the future:
- Four women were beaten with a baton, lashed on their backs and legs, and raped by the eco-guards – two of the women were pregnant, and were still raped, even though a woman “begged them to spare her.”
- Three men were held by eco-guards for three days, during which the eco-guards beat them, “tied their penises with fishing thread, and hung them at the branch of a tree.”
- Eco-guards were falsely informed that a farmer’s family was in possession of a weapon, so in the middle of the night the eco-guards burst into the farmer’s home, beat all the members of the household, raped his wife in the bushes, and imprisoned the farmer and his father.
- A woman was detained by guards, forced to cook for and serve the guards, and was tortured for four days after guards were falsely informed that her husband was in possession of a weapon of war. She was only released when her husband found her and took her place. He was imprisoned without a trial.
These abuses of human rights are from reports commissioned by conservation organisations themselves. The first, second, and fourth in the list are from a report commissioned by WWF to investigate human rights abuses in the Salonga National Park. REDD-Monitor wrote about these abuses and WWF’s failure to make the report public, here:
UNDP’s draft investigative report
MacGregor also refers to UNDP’s 2020 draft investigative report that confirms that WWF-funded eco-guards beat up indigenous peoples in the Republic of Congo. MacGregor writes:
- Reports of abuse of indigenous populations were ignored for several years by WWF and initially UNDP staff, until being investigated following a formal complaint submitted by Survival International in July 2018.
- “These beatings occur when the Baka are in their camps along the road as well as when they are in the forest. They affect men, women, and children. … There are reports of Baka men having been taken to prison and of torture and rape inside prison. The widow of one Baka man spoke about her husband being so ill-treated in prison that he died shortly after his release. He had been transported to prison in a WWF-marked vehicle.“
- WWF staff in Congo “acknowledged the evidence of abuse against the Baku” by the eco-guards … but appeared to view them as isolated incidents.
REDD-Monitor wrote about the draft UNDP report in February 2020:
WWF used funds to pay for firearms and ammunition
A 2019 internal WWF report about the proposed Messok Dja Protected Area in the Republic of Congo, written by the Forest Peoples Programme, states that by continuing to work with or supporting governments that fail to protect human rights, WWF was “contributing to human rights violations, in contravention of its own policies and of international law.”
WWF submitted materials to the Department of Interior that “even appear to imply that the organization used funds to support potentially prohibited activity, including paying for firearms and ammunition,” MacGregor writes. She adds that, “The same document contained statements that implied future FWS funds would continue to be leveraged for the effort’s biggest perceived need – firearms and ammunition.”
The reports investigating human rights abuses that have been commissioned by the conservation organisations are internal – they are not made available publicly, or even to the US government. MacGregor writes that,
As evidenced in this programmatic review, allegations of human rights abuse have been consistently handled internally by awardees, even when those allegations implicate the organization’s employees and taxpayer funding. Subsequent investigations resulted in findings of misconduct, but were then relayed to the organization in confidential reports and not made available to the U.S. Government either at all or in a timely manner.
Proposals on future conservation funding
MacGregor’s memo includes proposals to avoid funding “where the FWS cannot ensure future human rights violations will not occur.”
These include the following:
- Free, informed, and prior consent by the indigenous population must be obtained before a program is established or expanded, with approriate criteria developed to document the engagement and corresponding consent.
- To the extent consistent with all legal obligations or to mitigate risks associated with particular programs and/or recipients, the FWS will no longer provide funding for subgrantees.
- The FWS will not award grants to conduct high-risk activities such as eco-guards, law enforcement activities and supplies, community patrols, and other similar or related activities. This includes activities related to relocating communities, voluntarily or involuntarily, either through direct engagement or support to local government entities seeking to do the same.
- Grant awardees will certify that no activities will be conducted in violation of U.S. law, rules or regulations and that they are taking steps to protect human rights during the implementation of the grant.
- Consistent with applicable laws, impost minimum bonding and/or insurance requirements for the purposes of addressing harm or liability resulting from actual or potential human rights violations and other risks related to activities or operations in which such violations are possible. (FWS shall work with SOL to advise on maximum bond and insurance amounts authorized under the law).
- Grantees will provide for a whistleblower capability to both alert the FWS of potential human rights abuses and ensure thorough investigation of such allegations.
- Awardees will satisfy appropriate reporting requirements, including mandating immediate notification of any internal investigations conducted on human rights abuses in which federal dollars may have been involved.
Original Post: Redd Monitor
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
How Carbon Markets are Exploiting Marginalised Communities in the Global South Instead of Uplifting them
The billion-dollar fiction of carbon offsets
Carbon markets are turning indigenous farming practices into corporate profit, leaving communities empty-handed.
For Janni Mithula, 42, a resident of the Thotavalasa village in Andhra Pradesh, cultivating the rich, red soil of the valley was her livelihood. On her small patch of land grow with coffee and mango trees, planted over decades with tireless care and ancestral knowledge. Yet, once a source of pride and sustainability, the meaning of these trees has been quietly redefined in ways she never agreed to.
Over a decade ago, more than 333 villages in the valley began receiving free saplings from the Naandi Foundation as part of a large-scale afforestation initiative funded by a French entity, Livelihoods Funds. Unbeknownst to Janni and her neighbours, these trees had transfigured into commodities in a global carbon market, their branches reaching far beyond the valley to corporate boardrooms, their roots tethered not to the soil of sustenance but to the ledger of profit and carbon offsets.
The project claims that it would offset nearly 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over two decades. On paper, it is a triumph for global climate efforts. In reality, the residents’ lives have seen little improvement. While the sale of carbon credits has reportedly fetched millions of dollars for developers, Janni’s rewards have been minimal: a few saplings, occasional training sessions, and the obligation to care for trees that she no longer fully owns. These invisible transactions pose a grave risk to marginalised communities, who practice sustainable agriculture out of necessity rather than trend.
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The very systems that could uplift them—carbon markets intended to fund sustainability—end up exploiting their resources without addressing their needs.
Earlier this year, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down To Earth (DTE) released a joint investigative report on the functioning of the voluntary carbon market in India. The report critically analysed the impacts of the new-age climate solution, its efficacy in reducing carbon emissions, and how it affected the communities involved in the schemes.
The findings highlighted systemic opacity, with key details about the projects, prices, and beneficiaries concealed under confidentiality clauses. Developers also tended to overestimate their emission reductions while failing to provide local communities with meaningful compensation. The report stated that the main beneficiaries of these projects were the project developers, auditors and companies that make a profit out of the carbon trading system.
Carbon markets: The evolution
On December 11, 1997, the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) convened and adopted the Kyoto Protocol with the exigence of the climate crisis bearing down on the world. The Kyoto Protocol, revered for its epochal impact on global climate policy, focused on controlling the emissions of prime anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs). One of the key mechanisms introduced was the “Clean Development Mechanism”, which would allow developed countries to invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries. In exchange, the developed countries would receive certified emission reduction (CER) credits, or carbon credits as they are commonly known.
One carbon credit represents the reduction or removal of one tonne of CO2. Governments create and enforce rules for carbon markets by setting emission caps and monitoring compliance with the help of third-party organisations. For example, the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) sets an overall cap on emissions and allocates allowances to industries. A financial penalty system was also put in place to prevent verifiers and consultants from falsifying emissions data. The impact of these renewable projects is usually verified through methods such as satellite imagery or on-site audits.
Companies such as Verra and Gold Standard have seized this opportunity, leading the designing and monitoring of carbon removal projects. Governments and corporations invest in these projects to meet their own net-zero pledges. The companies then issue carbon credits to the investing entity. Verra has stated that they have issued over 1 billion carbon credits, translating into the reduction of 1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. However, countless case studies and reports have indicated that only a small fraction of these funds reach the local communities practising sustainability.
Article 6 under the Paris Agreement further concretised and regulated the crediting mechanism to enable countries interested in setting up carbon trading schemes. However, the parties failed to reach a consensus regarding the specifics of Article 6 at COP 27 and COP 28. So, climate finance experts and policymakers were very interested in the developments taking place at the COP 29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. Unlike its predecessors, the COP 29 summit has seen a diminished attendee list, with major Western political leaders including Joe Biden, Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, and Emmanuel Macron failing to make it to the summit due to the increasingly turbulent climate within their own constituencies.
From a post-colonial perspective, carbon markets have been viewed as perpetuating existing global hierarchies; wealthier countries and corporations fail to reduce their emissions and instead shift the burden of mitigation onto developing nations. | Photo Credit: Illustration by Irfan Khan
Sceptics questioned whether this iteration of the summit would lead to any substantial decisions being passed. However, on day-two of the summit, parties reached a landmark consensus on the standards for Article 6.4 and a dynamic mechanism to update them. Mukhtar Babayev, the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan and the COP 29 President, said: “By matching buyers and sellers efficiently, such markets could reduce the cost of implementing Nationally Determined Contributions by 250 billion dollars a year.” He added that cross-border cooperation and compromise would be vital in fighting climate change.
India has positioned itself as an advocate for the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) group, with Naresh Pal Gangwar, India’s lead negotiator at COP 29, saying, “We are at a crucial juncture in our fight against climate change. What we decide here will enable all of us, particularly those in the Global South, to not only take ambitious mitigation action but also adapt to climate change.”
The COP 29 decision comes in light of the Indian government’s adoption of the amended Energy Conservation Act of 2022, which enabled India to set up its own carbon market. In July 2024, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), an agency under the Ministry of Power, released a detailed report containing the rules and regulations of the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS), India’s ambitious plan for a compliance-based carbon market. The BEE has aimed to launch India’s carbon market in 2026.
CSE’s report highlighted the challenges and possible strategies that the Indian carbon market could adopt from other carbon markets around the world. Referring to this report, Parth Kumar, a programme manager at CSE, pointed out how low carbon prices and low market liquidity would be prominent challenges that the nascent Indian market would have to tackle.
The Global South should be concerned
Following the landmark Article 6.4 decision, climate activists called out the supervisory board for the lack of discussion in the decision-making process. “Kicking off COP29 with a backdoor deal on Article 6.4 sets a poor precedent for transparency and proper governance,” said Isa Mulder, a climate finance expert at Carbon Market Watch. The hastily passed decision reflects the pressure that host countries seem to face; a monumental decision must be passed for a COP summit to be touted as a success.
The science behind carbon markets is rooted in the ability of forests, soil, and oceans to act as carbon sinks by capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide. This process is known as carbon sequestration, and it is central to afforestation and soil health restoration projects. However, the long-term efficacy and scalability of these projects have been repeatedly questioned. The normative understanding of carbon markets as a tool to mitigate climate change has also come under scrutiny recently, with many activists calling the market-driven approach disingenuous to the goals of the climate movement.
From a post-colonial perspective, carbon markets have been viewed as perpetuating existing global hierarchies; wealthier countries and corporations fail to reduce their emissions and instead shift the burden of mitigation onto developing nations. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, said, “Climate colonialism is the deepening or expansion of foreign domination through climate initiatives that exploit poorer nations’ resources or otherwise compromises their sovereignty.” Moreover, the effects of climate change disproportionately fall on the shoulders of marginalised communities in the Global South, even though industrialised nations historically produce the bulk of emissions.
There have also been doubts surrounding the claiming process of carbon credits and whether the buyer country or the country where the project is set can count the project towards its own Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Provisions under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement state that countries cannot use any emission reductions sold to another company or country towards their own emissions targets. However, this has become a widespread issue plaguing carbon markets. The EU has recently been criticised for counting carbon credits sold to corporations under the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) towards the EU’s own NDC targets. This has led to concerns over the overestimation of the impact of mission reduction projects.
Also Read | India needs climate justice, not just targets
Carbon offset projects, additionally, alienate local communities from their land as the idea of ownership and stewardship becomes muddled with corporate plans on optimally utilising the land for these projects. For example, in 2014, Green Resources, a Norwegian company, leased more than 10,000 hectares of land in Uganda, with additional land being leased in Mozambique and Tanzania. This land was used as a part of afforestation projects to practise sustainability and alleviate poverty in the area. However, interviews conducted with local Ugandan villagers revealed that the project forcibly evicted the local population without delivering its promises to improve access to health and education for the community. These concerns highlighted how the burden of adopting sustainable practices is placed on marginalised communities.
While carbon markets are rightfully criticised, they remain a key piece of the global climate adaptation puzzle. Addressing the issues surrounding transparency and equitable benefit-sharing with local communities could lead to carbon markets having a positive impact on climate change. The system must ensure that larger corporations and countries do not merely export their emissions, but instead implement measures to reduce their own emissions over time. It is also imperative to explore other innovative strategies such as circular economy approaches and nature-based solutions that are more localised, offering hope for a just and sustainable future.
Adithya Santhosh Kumar is currently pursuing a Master’s in Engineering and Policy Analysis at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Source: frontline.thehindu.com
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- a majority stake in Unifrutti, with 15,000 ha of fruit farms in Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Philippines, Spain, Italy and South Africa; and
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Sovereign wealth funds invested in farmland/food/agriculture (2023)
|
|||
|
Country
|
Fund
|
Est.
|
AUM (US$bn)
|
|
China
|
CIC
|
2007
|
1351
|
|
Norway
|
NBIM
|
1997
|
1145
|
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADIA
|
1967
|
993
|
|
Kuwait
|
KIA
|
1953
|
769
|
|
Saudi Arabia
|
PIF
|
1971
|
620
|
|
China
|
NSSF
|
2000
|
474
|
|
Qatar
|
QIA
|
2005
|
450
|
|
UAE – Dubai
|
ICD
|
2006
|
300
|
|
Singapore
|
Temasek
|
1974
|
298
|
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
Mubadala
|
2002
|
284
|
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADQ
|
2018
|
157
|
|
Australia
|
Future Fund
|
2006
|
157
|
|
Iran
|
NDFI
|
2011
|
139
|
|
UAE
|
EIA
|
2007
|
91
|
|
USA – AK
|
Alaska PFC
|
1976
|
73
|
|
Australia – QLD
|
QIC
|
1991
|
67
|
|
USA – TX
|
UTIMCO
|
1876
|
64
|
|
USA – TX
|
Texas PSF
|
1854
|
56
|
|
Brunei
|
BIA
|
1983
|
55
|
|
France
|
Bpifrance
|
2008
|
50
|
|
UAE – Dubai
|
Dubai World
|
2005
|
42
|
|
Oman
|
OIA
|
2020
|
42
|
|
USA – NM
|
New Mexico SIC
|
1958
|
37
|
|
Malaysia
|
Khazanah
|
1993
|
31
|
|
Russia
|
RDIF
|
2011
|
28
|
|
Turkey
|
TVF
|
2017
|
22
|
|
Bahrain
|
Mumtalakat
|
2006
|
19
|
|
Ireland
|
ISIF
|
2014
|
16
|
|
Canada – SK
|
SK CIC
|
1947
|
16
|
|
Italy
|
CDP Equity
|
2011
|
13
|
|
China
|
CADF
|
2007
|
10
|
|
Indonesia
|
INA
|
2020
|
6
|
|
India
|
NIIF
|
2015
|
4
|
|
Spain
|
COFIDES
|
1988
|
4
|
|
Nigeria
|
NSIA
|
2011
|
3
|
|
Angola
|
FSDEA
|
2012
|
3
|
|
Egypt
|
TSFE
|
2018
|
2
|
|
Vietnam
|
SCIC
|
2006
|
2
|
|
Gabon
|
FGIS
|
2012
|
2
|
|
Morocco
|
Ithmar Capital
|
2011
|
2
|
|
Palestine
|
PIF
|
2003
|
1
|
|
Bolivia
|
FINPRO
|
2015
|
0,4
|
|
AUM (assets under management) figures from Global SWF, January 2023
|
|||
|
Engagement in food/farmland/agriculture assessed by GRAIN
|
|||
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