Can the FCPF be reformed to not only reduce carbon emissions but also become platforms to enable local indigenous peoples, especially their female members, to benefit from the financial windfall?
In 2021, the World Bank announced a groundbreaking new financial commitment to help Nepal promote afforestation practices and the overall protection of forests across the country. Based on the agreement, the government was set to receive $45 million under the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).
The FCPF is a financial vehicle to implement the so-called REDD+ framework, a global mechanism of "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries" while, in addition, ensuring the sustainable management and conservation of forests. In lay terms, a recipient nation in a developing nation, if it proves to protect its forest, becomes eligible to get "results-based payments".
The truth, however, is that carbon credits in general are extremely complex mechanisms with plenty of technicalities and with hard-to-understand details. We are talking of what is called "avoidance carbon credits" that in practice reward local communities for not destroying their forests and, therefore, help to avoid the emission of carbon dioxide.
In 2023, a study published in Science and widely disseminated by Mongabay and the Guardian, among others, questioned the efficacy of REDD+ carbon credits."Action needed to make carbon offsets from forest conservation work for climate change mitigation" was the revealing title of the article accompanying the research.
"Researchers found that about 94% of the credits from the projects they looked at don't represent real reductions in carbon emissions" explained a story on Mongabay about the research.
Moreover, beyond the legitimate doubts and concerns about the impact of REDD + carbon credits, it is also paramount to ask two other paramount questions. Even if some real benefits would be accrued from these schemes, are indigenous peoples, guardians of many national ecosystems, in a position to benefit from them?
The web page describing the potential impact of FCPF in Nepal explains that "the program's interventions include improving the management practices on existing community forests building on traditional and customary practices; localizing forest governance through the transfer of national forests to community and collaborative forest user groups; scaling up pro-poor leasehold forestry; improving integrated land use planning to reduce forest conversion associated with advancing infrastructure development; and strengthening the management of protected areas", among others.
But are indigenous people fully involved and engaged in the implementation of these projects?
The experience of one of the most vulnerable indigenous nationalities of the country, the Bankariya, is proving that, on the matter of Indigenous Peoples-led conservation and roll out of forests-related carbon credits, there is still an extremely long way to go.
As one of the most endangered indigenous peoples, the Bankariya massively suffered the consequences of the creation of the Parsa National Park, which caused their forced eviction from their ancestral land. With 180 members, the whole survival of the Bankariya might soon be in jeopardy.
Till now, the Bankariya live on leased land on the buffer zone alongside the park.The whole area is part of the Tarai Arc Landscape (TAL), a transboundary zone that should, at least in theory, benefit from the REDD+ funding channeled through FCPF.
Their situation is a model template of marginalisation and exclusion linked to the implementation of carbon credit mechanisms experienced by indigenous peoples not only in Nepal but also in many other nations in the Global South.
In a context like Nepal, there is an urgent need for REDD+-related schemes, including financial disbursement mechanisms like FCPF, to become much more inclusive and be truly used to empower indigenous nationalities like the Bankariya.
We should not forget that on April 27, 2015, the Supreme Court, acting on a public interest litigation filed by CEMSOJ, a not-for-profit defending the rights of indigenous peoples in Nepal, had ordered the government to ensure that any action to conserve the environment, to sell, trade or consume forest products, including carbon, should also be consistent with and comply with the international legal commitments, including the Paris Agreement, taken by the country.
In a recent public event held in Kathmandu, a member of the community, Ram Bankariya, expressed his dismay about how his community had been deceived by state policies that, while designed to protect parks, have proved to severely impact the whole Bankariya community.
"We live in the forest or nearby forest, however, the policies that the government makes are never consulted with us. Due to the current policies, we cannot take anything from the forest, we are sent to jail and criminalised," he shared. "Even though the government protects wild animals, humans near the forest don't even get the basic human rights ensured."
Bankariya concluded his intervention with a strong statement, "Our forests aren't for carbon trade; they are our life resources." This is the sober reality about a tool that is supposed to protect forests and benefit their ancestral guardians.
The survival of the whole Bankariya community is now even more at risk because the lease on the land they are currently inhabiting, that has been in place for 20 years, will soon expire in Baisakh 2082, or April 14.
Can mechanisms like FCPF be reformed not only to be more impactful to reduce carbon emissions but truly become platforms to enable local indigenous peoples, especially their female members, to benefit from the financial windfall?
Yet, the only way to start finding an answer to it is to ensure that the whole governance framework of FCPF is reformed, making it more decentralised and truly designed to genuinely engage and involve indigenous peoples like the Bankariya.
Shreesh is the Chairperson of the Indigenous Women Legal Awareness Group; Galimberti is the pro bono co-founder of The Good Leadership
