Indonesian farmers the victims of carbon trading with their forests

The following story did not happen in Burkina Faso, nor even in Africa, but in Indonesia. But for Africa there is a heavy risk that it will in turn become the victim of a similar scenario. We publish  this account to let our readers learn about the effects of “carbon trading” on the lives on men and women farmers.

Sarwadi Sukiman is a farmer from Sumatra, Indonesia. He is in Poznan at present (December 11,  2008) to speak of his experience, in the UN debate on Climate Change, as a member of the delegation of Via Campesina.

Sarwadi comes from the village of Tanjung Lebar in the district of Muava Jambi. In this region the development of industrial logging (to supply paper, wood ..) in the 8O’ies led to the expropriation of  forests  for the indigenous population. Private companies cut down everything  to the last tree. When the lease from the government came to an end   the logging companies departed and left the region devastated.

When the lease for the forests in Sarwadis village expired, the land had been laid bare. The farmers and the indigenous people took back the land and started to grow food crops, such as rice, beans and fruit. 1500 families organised themselves to form the Indonesian Farmers’ Trade Union and occupied 101 365 hectares of land, where they tilled the soil, built homes and restarted their community.

Unfortunately some local and international NGOs set up a consortium, PT Reki, and asked the government for a lease to  use  this area  for the restoration of the eco-system. The consortium consists of  Kayasang Burung Indonesia, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Bird Life International. They have obtained a lease-hold of 100 years.

When the consortium took over the region, farmers and indigenous inhabitants were expropriated. They were intimidated, arrested and interrogated. They were forced to sign a document in which they agreed to leave the area and never come back again. One farmer was kept in detention for 6 months, for having defended the land of his community. Others were jailed and later released.

In November 2002 the Prince of Wales was invited to Sumatra  to see the reforestation efforts by the Indonesian Government. PT Reki was one of the areas visited by the prince in his campaign to save forests in the Equator. Using the important media coverage that surrounded the visit, Mr Dieter Hoffmann, in charge of the international agenda of Bird Life International, announced that the organisation intended to explore the possibilities of obtaining money from the REDD, that had been set up at the conference on climate change in Bali in  December 2007. He explained that if developed, this particular  forest in  Jambi would be capable of absorbing as much carbon as emitted by a large industrial city, such as Manchester in Northern England.

Sarwadi and the other members of the Via Campesina delegation at the Poznan conference denounced  mechanisms such as REDD, which allow firms to deprive farmers of the use of the land, to produce food needed  for their communities and for their country.

The Via Campesina delegation in Poznan was shocked to hear that carbon trading attracts such wide attention in the negotiations on climate change. It implies that the discussion is now moving away from the responsibility of the industrialised countries to reduce their carbon emissions, to focus on the obligation of developing countries to absorb carbon. Thus the major polluters just send money abroad (money used to chase farmers away from their land, Ed.note) and continue as before.

By Tejo Pramano and Sarwadi Sukiman