REDD role playing scenario at IEN workshop

This is a video of a group from around the world: Congo, Liberia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Uganda, and the U.S. discussing REDD in a role playing scenario. This is in a workshop put on by Indigenous Environmental Network about REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) at the C17 conference at University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. The group is acting out a role playing scenario and I am facilitating the discussion, and began videotaping about 10mins into our discussion because it was getting so interesting. (The scenario is below)

Role Play Scenario:
"You are all a part of a community based in South Africa living near a forested area. You find out that a major international petroleum company wants to evict your community to create a national park with the government and sell REDD credits on a carbon market to make their company look 'green'. "

Roles - Leader in the community, Mother in the community, Project developer, World Bank official, Government representative, Youth in the Community, Conservation NGO representative, and Workers.

What is REDD:
REDD means Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. From my understanding, it is a carbon market based strategy that the United Nations is using to allow corporations in the developed world to offset their carbon emissions by purchasing carbon credits from the developing world. Countries in the developing world are responsible for preserving their forests to create "carbon sinks" to offset the polluting emissions of the developed world. This program has proven disastrous for indigenous communities because in creating these carbon sinks, countries have removed indigenous peoples from the lands they have lived on and cultivated for hundreds of years. REDD is based on the idea, much like conservation of old in the U.S., that these forests must exist going forward with no human intervention. Peoples in Ecuador, Guyana, Uganda and other countries have been persecuted and swindled in the process of removal from their ancestral lands. In addition as Detroit is one of the most polluted areas in the U.S., programs such as this will prove disastrous and are a continuance of America's push for FALSE solutions to climate change at the international, national, state, and local levels. Carbon offsets for major corporations will only go to increase pollution levels in Detroit, and other EJ communities like it, and exacerbate the health and environmental problems we already face from pollution.
http://noredd.makenoise.org/

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• REDD
• COP17
• IEN
• GGJ