 Hi everyone, welcome to the webinar. We are just going to wait one or two minutes as we're bringing more and more people into the webinar. So if you would be patient for another one or two minutes, we will start the webinar. Thank you very much for joining us. Hello everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you're logging in from. And welcome to the Land Dialogue webinar series, organized in partnership with the Ford Foundation, the Land Portal Foundation, the Tenure Facility and the Thompson Reuters Foundation. Thank you for joining us. My name is Thin and I'm a journalist specializing in food systems and climate change. And I'm delighted to be moderating today's session, which is on carbon markets and indigenous lands, the importance of free, prior and informed consent. Now, the idea behind these webinars series is to raise awareness on the land rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, because we believe that these rights are a prerequisite to achieve national and international goals on key issues like forest governance, food security, climate mitigation, economic development, and of course, human rights. This is our third Land Dialogue for this year, and we have focused on different topics. We're going to have one more in December before COP28. Now, before we start the webinar proper, let me just go through some housekeeping rules. The webinar today is mainly in English and Spanish, but we have simultaneous translations also in French and Portuguese. Now, to access the translation, all you need to do is just go to the globe icon at the bottom of your Zoom window. You click on it, and then you can select the language that you want. This webinar will last 60 minutes. We have set aside about 15 minutes for Q&A, so if you have any questions, please use the Q&A box to post them, not the checkbox. But please do use the checkbox to introduce us where you are from, which organization you belong to. You could also tweet using the hashtag LEN Dialogues in one word, and you can also follow the live tweeting from the LEN portal and tenure facility Twitter accounts, or maybe I should say X accounts. And finally, we're also recording today's session, and we will be sharing the links later. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's turn to the topic at hand, which is on carbon markets. Now, this is a fascinating but also a controversial topic, and it's very, very timely, given that there is the climate week in New York coming up next week. And I think that's also why we have such high interest in this webinar. We already have more than 300 people joining us, you know, right now. Now, some see carbon markets as a key fight against climate change. That's going to be also providing much needed financing to save our forests, which are carbon sinks. Now, others think that there are two of a greenwashing, or worse, they're going to dispossess indigenous and local communities. The thing is, a lot of us don't fully understand how carbon markets work and see them as complex financial instruments, or at least I do. So we want to demystify them a little bit. And that's why we have a slightly different format today. So we're first going to have an overview of carbon markets from an academic expert. And then we're going to have a panel discussion with three indigenous leaders about the experiences on the ground when it comes to carbon markets. And now let me introduce you to our speakers in alphabetical order. We have Levy Sucre Romero, who is the coordinator of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests. Now, this alliance represents indigenous peoples and local communities in the territories between Panama and Mexico. Levy is an indigenous Buribri Costa Rican, and also the co-chair of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities. Next, we have Marco Chavez-Coyjoy, who is the coordinator of the legal department of the Community Forestry Association of Guatemala-Udsche. Now, Marco is a member of the Mayakiche community, of the Tupac Amaru indigenous community. And last, but definitely not the least, we have Catherine Lofts, senior research associate with the Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Health and the Environment at McGill University. Now, Catherine is a lawyer by training and has worked on the intersection of climate change, human rights and environmental governments for over a decade. And she's going to set the scene for this discussion today by bringing us up to speed on what's happening with carbon markets. Catherine, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, then. It's really a pleasure to be a part of today's dialogue and to participate alongside these remarkable indigenous leaders who will be sharing their own experiences and their expertise. This is a very big topic, so I'm going to dive right in, beginning with the question of what exactly carbon markets are. So, simply defined, a carbon market is a trading system in which carbon credits are sold and bought. And these carbon credits are generated through entities such as communities or states. And they're generated when these entities remove or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So, for example, through renewable energy projects, through red plus projects and so forth. So companies or individuals or other entities can then purchase these carbon credits through the carbon market and can use them to compensate for or offset their own greenhouse gas emissions. There are two main types of carbon markets. The first is the compliance markets and these are created and regulated by mandatory carbon reduction schemes in certain jurisdictions. And then there are the voluntary carbon markets. These enable companies and individuals to purchase credits on a voluntary basis. So that is an extremely short definition of sort of what carbon markets are really in a nutshell. You can see that many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are now poised to implement their own red plus programs and projects and other land based initiatives that are aiming to remove, reduce and avoid carbon emissions, thus generating credits and generating offsets for the carbon market. As then mentioned, there has been tremendous interest and a tremendous amount of investment in these so called nature based solutions. So countries and corporations around the world are really looking to these kinds of programs and needs kinds of initiatives to help them meet their own emission reduction targets and their own net zero commitments. There are a few, as been mentioned, major issues with this and I'm just going to be able to briefly outline these here. The first issue is that many of the credits that are being generated and that are being traded on the carbon market are simply not doing what they claim to do. So we've seen recently, for example, research that's come out showing that there's evidence that vast numbers of these carbon credits are actually not doing anything to mitigate climate change. Many of them are actually bogus essentially so this is pretty much this is a pretty fundamental issue about the effectiveness of carbon markets, but the second issue, which is the one that I want to focus more on here is in relation to the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. So to date, most of these interventions, most of these land based mitigation initiatives have taken place in areas that are customarily held by indigenous peoples, local communities, and Afro descendant peoples. So the majority of these lands where these projects and initiatives are taking place are indigenous and community lands. We know that indigenous peoples and local communities around the world have long been the stewards of forests, and of other ecosystems, yet around the world, only about half of the areas that are held by indigenous peoples and local communities have actually been legally recognized by governments. So we have all this action now this interest and investment these projects that are taking place on land that is customarily held by and stewarded by indigenous peoples and local communities, but that is not actually legally recognized as such. And even in cases where land rights are acknowledged, the rights to the carbon that is stored on those lands and stored in those forests, and the rights to the tradable emissions reductions that come from that carbon are very seldom explicitly defined in law. So the legal frameworks are simply not in place to manage and address this trade in carbon. And ultimately this failure to adequately recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and the role that they play in global climate mitigation poses major, major risks, not only for the indigenous peoples and the local communities themselves, but also for investors for governments, and for the very success of these schemes, and despite the large number of indigenous rights that we see that are clearly set out and established under international law. We aren't seeing that those rights are being robustly upheld in the context of the carbon market. This includes the right to self determination, land and resource rights rights to participation and consultation, and of course the right to free prior and informed consent. In, in too many cases, indigenous peoples and local communities are not being treated as equal partners. We are seeing a tremendous amount of mobilization around these issues on the part of indigenous peoples and local communities themselves and at many levels from the local to the transnational, including across Asia, Africa and Latin America. And this is something that I'm sure the other panelists will be in a much better position to speak to. So I'm going to stop here. I'm really looking forward to hearing the discussion from the other speakers and their views on what's happening in their communities and of course I'm available for questions at the question period. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Catherine for this concise but info packed introduction I know we gave you an impossible task giving you like five minutes to try and sum up carbon markets but really appreciate you doing that and also for mentioning, of course, Asia and Africa because you know we have a lot of indigenous leaders present today but this mainly from South America but this is a global issue that affects other parts of the world as well. Now that we know what carbon markets are and what are some of the big problems. We're going to hear from indigenous communities who are seeing how this work and you know how this work firsthand in their communities. We're going to try and fit in three rounds of questions in the next half an hour. So we would really appreciate if our speakers could keep their answers precise and not more than three minutes for each answer. And we would also like to ask them to speak slow so that our interpreters can actually understand and be able to translate them as accurately as possible. Again, if you have any questions, please use the Q&A box. I'm going to turn to the panelists and for this round, I would like to hear from you, your experience so far to date with carbon markets, have they worked, have they not worked? How has it been? Levy, can I start with you first because if I'm not wrong, you have been working on carbon markets for decades in Costa Rica, right? Thank you, Tim. Effectively, as I have three minutes, you already introduced me. I am an indigenous from Costa Rica and since 1997, we have participated in indigenous communities in a program of carbon markets with a national system. This gave us the opportunity to be able to work in building a complete national network that applied to the consultation, under the prior consent, free and informed of all the ability conditions in the country so that today Costa Rica can increase and increase investment in forests through the market of carbon, in an accorded way and with territorial safeguards, national safeguards, so that resources are executed in the global carbon market. Effectively, the carbon market is very complex and I believe that at a global level, the construction of the national network strategy basically failed in many countries and it failed precisely because it had to generate the ability conditions for a carbon market and these conditions imply the prior consent, free and informed of indigenous peoples and many countries decided to better not advance through this route. When this happened, the market began to divide in two. The company and private initiatives were divided in two. There is an initiative that tries to cover what Redknoe did with the great issue of certification of carbon credits of high integrity and there is another line that simply goes to buy the carbon without order, without control and even going to the communities. So we consider that certification can be an alternative, but even so, the standards of measurement of those certifications cannot reach, visibilizar y consolidar los derechos de los pueblos indígenas y comunidades locales en el mercado de carbono. Y desde ahí nosotros en la región estamos preocupados también por esta certificación y estamos trabajando fuerte sobre ellos y pues tenemos un planteamiento que ya no me da chance en esta ronda de presentar, pero en las siguientes la voy a tratar de presentar porque efectivamente seguimos vulnerables los pueblos indígenas ante unas iniciativas de carbono que se están dando mucho a la libre hasta ahora. Gracias. Muchas gracias, Levi. And you mentioned the free prior informed consent being crucial and how that is still not available. That's going to be the next question where we will dive deep into this issue. Marco, I want to actually come to you next to hear your thoughts and your experiences on carbon markets. Marco. Muy buenos días. Muchas gracias por el espacio. Gracias Tim. Pues bueno, desde Guatemala, sobre todo en la participación de comunidades y pueblos indígenas del país se han generado algunos esfuerzos, sobre todo desde algunas articulaciones de espacios a nivel regional en locales. Estos esfuerzos, por ejemplo, desde la Alianza Mesoamericana de pueblos y bosques ha sido uno de ellos. Y algunas esfuerzos también que se generan desde organizaciones de carácter comunitario como la asociación de forestería comunitaria de Guatemala, UTSC, la cual representan que buscan acercar a las comunidades información real, pero también crítica acerca de los avances del financiamiento climático, incluyendo los mercados de carbono. El diálogo y la construcción de las propuestas dirigidas por comunidades y pueblos indígenas hacia los financiamientos climáticos globales deben de ser escuchados. El reto justamente se encuentra en que las voces de estas comunidades y los pueblos que de manera legítima pueden ser escuchadas, pero también tomadas en cuenta. Y es ahí donde entra justamente el tema de la consulta previa, libre e informada. Y no necesariamente estos espacios de información son impulsados por el propio estado. Generalmente se privilegen principalmente intereses personales o sectoriales. Hoy día las comunidades y pueblos indígenas en Guatemala no están priorizando la información sobre mercados de carbono. Esto es porque deben de suplir necesidades básicas como el acceso a la tierra, a la educación, a la salud y condiciones para una vida digna. Y aún estas condiciones básicas no son garantizadas. Por eso es importante que los esfuerzos sean mucho más grandes sobre el acceso a información sobre mercados de carbono, desde un abordaje temático en donde las condiciones históricas de las comunidades y pueblos indígenas puedan ser también tomadas en cuenta para aún solventar estas primeras necesidades. A pesar de ello comunidades y pueblos indígenas requieren de mayor información, pero además requieren de una participación directa en la toma de decisiones. Y no solamente formar parte de diálogos y la búsqueda de consensos que son hasta veces superficiales, sino que se integre realidad sus intereses y teniendo un panorama desde la concepción histórica de las comunidades y pueblos indígenas. Gracias. Gracias Marco. It sounds like there's this massive power and information imbalance is one of the big challenges that's there at the moment when it comes to carbon markets. I've also just been told that we also have interpretation in Bahasa Indonesia. So if you need to listen to this webinar in Bahasa Indonesia, just go to the little globe icon below and click on that. Now, Marisol, I'd like to hear your thoughts on carbon markets. Muchas gracias. Muy buenos días con todos y todas. Gracias por el espacio. Bueno, para contar en la situación del pueblo quichua, acá en la región San Martín en Perú. En nuestro territorio ancestral se crearon dos áreas protegidas uno que se llama el parque nacional cordillera azul y el otro que se llama área de conservación regional cerro escalera. En caso del parque nacional cordillera azul se viene vendiendo bonos de carbono desde el 2014. Pero el detalle está que nosotros primeramente que no tenemos no teníamos información segundo que nosotros no somos tomadores de decisiones a quien se le vende y a quien no no formamos parte del comité de gestión y de la administración. Nada. Nosotros hemos sido excluidos en su totalidad en tema de toma de decisiones. Y nosotros hemos tenido que acudir al tribunal de transparencia acá en Perú para poder acceder a la información a quién se le vendía y cuántos está generando por la venta de bonos de carbono. Entonces, ahí nosotros descubrimos que uno de los principales compradores de bonos de carbono es Shell, la empresa Total Energy, y entre otros. Y lo más irónico de estas ventas millonarias del bonos de carbono es que nosotros somos los que cuidamos, salvaguardamos, defendemos nuestro territorio. Y somos los que realizamos patrullajes constantes, realizamos el sistema de alerta temprana, hacemos las denuncias. Y por hacer todas esas acciones nosotros recibimos amenazas de muerte, nos quieren pegar, nos criminalizan. Un cierto factor de alto índice de violencia que se hace hacia los pueblos indígenas justamente por visibilizar estas cosas. Lo más irónico es que nosotros no recibimos absolutamente nada de esta venta de bonos de carbono, porque nosotros no somos titulados. Y el parque nos llama vecinos y por ende nosotros no podemos ser beneficiarios de esas ventas. ¿Cómo es que nosotros somos posicionarios ancestrales de esos territorios y no podemos acceder a ni siquiera un financiamiento? Porque el tema de hacer patrullaje territorial necesitamos implementos como botas, machetes, medicinas, y entre otras cosas, pero no es de las ventas de bonos de carbono. Entonces acá nosotros estamos muy preocupados porque primero que consideramos que la venta de bonos de carbono son falsas soluciones climáticas que sólo ayudan a las empresas transnacionales a lavar su imagen con el trabajo de los pueblos indígenas. Porque los señores, y bien es cierto, tienen documentos sobre el área protegida y se agarran de eso, pero ignoran y vulneran los derechos de los pueblos, del pueblo quicho, al menos acá en San Martín, se ha excluido en su totalidad. Y estamos preocupados porque nosotros quisiéramos ser parte de los tomadores de decisiones y fiscalizar a quién se le vende y bajo qué compromiso, bajo qué cláusula para empezar a hablar de verdaderas soluciones climáticas. Muchas gracias. Gracias Marisol. Now that I have you here, I would actually like you to begin the second round of questions. And this specifically looks into the free prior informed consent because, you know, just listening to all three of you, it's very, very clear that, you know, government state agencies and maybe the private sector as well are actually failing in this bit which everybody says is crucial. You're not, you know, benefiting from cover markets as they are at the moment, part of the reason of course has to do with titling and rights, but also just the lack of information. Can you tell us why, you know, the free prior informed consent is important. And do you have any examples or instances whether its presence or absent has had a significant difference in outcomes for projects. And actually I just also saw that there is a question in the Q&A which I think is linked to that so I think how, you know, if you have any examples of any successes of getting governments and state agencies or private sector to understand how important this is. Please share any experience, any anecdotes that you might have. Marisol. Effectively, in the year 2001, the National Park was created in Cordillera Azul and in 2005, the area of regional conservation was created. Both protected areas were created in the territories of the Quichua people, but both were created without prior consultation, free and informed, and much less have had the consent of the Quichua people so that they come to position themselves here. And then the detail is that we have been deprived of our ancestral territory. We don't have the free transit. We can't get close to a kilometer of the area of conservation that they call it. For us, our neighbors are community, community. I'm worried because it has happened that when my brothers get married, they take the meat and burn it. When we, when we mention it, we don't go to a supermarket to supply our food. We go to the forest, to the rivers, and we collect the meat, the fish, and everything that can be obtained to feed our family. But how do we see ourselves in this situation of territorial poverty? Because the ones who have created these protected areas are the same state. The Peruvian state does not respect international treaties, much less the convenience. Where are the rights of indigenous peoples? And now they mention that we can't have free transit in these protected areas because the law of protected areas protects them and therefore says our constitution and nobody can enter. But when the previous consultation was not made, which is also said in our constitution, it is said in international treaties, why was it not made? Now that they have generated a historical struggle for us, because we continue, in the case of Cerro Escalera, they are 18 years old. In the case of the park, they are 20 years old. We continue to fight so that our territory is returned under a title, under a session in use. We need that legal security so that we really feel that we can make decisions in those areas. But here the previous consultation was never made, our consent was never made. Here in San Martín, in Peru, we are facing this wave because it is not only the Kichu people, there are also the Shippee brothers, there are also the Kakataibo brothers, who have the same problem that the consultation was not made to create these spaces. And here we regret that because the simple fact that they would have respected and made the free consultation informed, we would not be in this situation because the only thing we are looking for is to recover our good living. And it is that we are recognized by the rights of the land and the territory and that they recognize our governance and that it is saved from life and the integrity of the indigenous peoples together. But for that, you have to ask, because I can not enter a home like that just because it gives me, because I am representing the state. Here it has to start respecting, the indigenous peoples are also human beings and it also backs us and protects us from the human rights of any being on this planet. But we do not apply free consultation and informed, and that is very unfortunate. Thank you. Yeah, that's very sobering, but thank you for that, Marisol. Levy, we've heard about a lot of the problems. Do you have any positive examples and experiences that you could share on the AFPEG? Thank you. Look at us, in the Costa Rica experience and a work that we have done as the Mesoamerican alliance of peoples and forests on the issue in the region, we consider that it is important that the previous consent is informed for several reasons. One is because it defines the conceptualization of forests from indigenous cosmovision, which is more spiritual than commercial, like the current carbon market. Two is that the financial resources that come from the carbon market must have a distribution mechanism of equitable benefits, what we call a distribution plan of benefits. Three, this exercise allows a dialogue and establishes a precedent of how the process of free consultation should be done previously in the countries and in the territories. There is no previous and informed consent for all indigenous peoples, the peoples have their characteristics of how a previous and informed consent is done. Four, establishes environmental and national safeguards. The territorial ones are how they are protected in sacred places, how they are given accounts, etc., etc. I don't have time, I won't go deep into them. Five, it makes more inclusive the participation of women, especially in the basis of knowledge. Young people, the elderly, all of this makes it more inclusive, a good exercise of consultation or previous and informed consent. Another issue that is very important is that it must address background issues and reach agreements with respect. What are background issues? Like the legal security of the land, and the companion told us, we need legal security of the land. We need the recognition of the traditional uses of the peoples in the protected areas. We need to stop criminalization of the peoples, of the leaders in the forests. We need to define the property of the carbon. All of this experience, for example, we were able to develop in Costa Rica in a high percentage, and I think it's a good exercise to be able to carry the carbon market. In that sense, we as the American Mesoamerican peoples and forests, we have worked with the leaders of the region a proposal of seven axes to develop, and we are proposing it to the certification standards that are able to consolidate these rights of high carbon credits, taking into account all these points that I tried to summarize. We are going to continue in the struggle. I hope that all the countries can successfully finish the national network strategy, totally inclusive with the previous and informed consent. But if it's not like that, the certifiers have to advance, to generate standards that can identify and consolidate these rights. That's why we have been proposing these seven axes of work to further this issue, that Maribel can probably share in the chat. Thank you very much. Thank you, Levy, and for actually sharing some of the positive outcomes and aspects of the Costa Rican example. Marco, what about in Guatemala? What are some of the experiences around the free, private and informed consent? Thank you, Steen. I would like to take advantage of the three minutes making a brief review of some conditions where the previous and informed consent is decisive. The first are the historical conditions of the country, the current conditions and the perception of the communities. In the historical conditions, we can say that our communities and indigenous peoples have been systematically excluded and separated in the decision-making of their territories. This has generated some conditions where the communities to demand the right to the previous, free and informed consent have to carry out struggle and resistance processes in the community and in the territories. The current reality where the historical conditions have not changed at all, is a system of exclusion, with certain advancements of participation, but the challenges are still the same, considering people as subjects and legal subjects. Still, some proposals have been created, the communities, the process of articulation of efforts have been used to promote some proposals. The community perception, which is the third element where the communities often consider the processes developed from carbon markets and any climatic financing with a doubtful perception of non-belief. This responds to these historical conditions. Part of some actions that are important to us and that show that the previous, free and informed consent is decisive for legitimate participation of the communities and indigenous peoples is, for example, in the case of Guatemala with forestal incentives. For us, it was very important that the communities could guarantee that, within these financing programs, they could consider the accreditation of historical and ancestral heritage of the land. It was a process of struggle and a lot of sacrifice by the communities and that today is a reality that the communities can demonstrate that for access to forestal incentives they can believe in historical and ancestral heritage is an important advance of the last 20 years within the legislation of the country. This has also joined the process of struggle because it was not simply generated by the state or this space but had to be promoted to some defense strategies to materialize this exercise of rights. Thanks, Marco. Good to hear that there are some successes and response to the push as well. Now we have a final round of question before we open the floor to Q&A and I'd actually like Catherine to come in as well to answer this but Marco, I'd like to ask you to start this final round of question and this is actually based on an example that I learned recently while talking to a researcher and they've interviewed farmers in South America who were involved who are still currently involved in a carbon offset project. Now the farmers were not told of what the project was about or how much the offsets are being sold and to whom they were asked to sign a single sheet of paper and they had very little idea of how the data about their farms, their practices and the offsets that their practices have generated are being used. So I'm really keen to hear your feedback on such an example or any other examples that you may have encountered where how do we make sure that Indigenous peoples and local communities can own the data, their own data or at least know what is being used for when it comes to these projects. Marco, can I ask you to start first? Thank you. Well, according to what you said this situation is repeated in many communities and towns. This is generally the cause of the lack of participation and spaces of dialogue where communities and Indigenous peoples access information. In Guatemala, a process has begun with the reduction program of emissions. A process that I have been taking for a long time but that is not yet clear of the implementation of this type of program. And the participation of communities and Indigenous peoples has been very limited. So this lack of participation and communities and Indigenous peoples has led the decision making without the community intervention is that at the end of the day these are the ones that maintain and safeguard the forests. Precisely because of these conditions we as UCHE have been implementing some processes of access to public information. And that is where it is also important that countries can generate the conditions for the access to public information to be an obligation. And there is also the interest to be able to ratify in Guatemala the agreement of SCASU also. So that conditions of rights such as the previous consultation and public information are guaranteed. These initiatives that we have had as communities and as UCHE are implemented in a mechanism that we call type which is the transparency mechanism and access to public and environmental information. This will allow us to be able to systematize information but at the same time this information has a context from the cultural belonging of our communities in a maternal way in methodologies that are practical so that communities can realize their own social auditory. That is very important for us to generate these participation conditions and that they will surely mitigate all these events that happen when communities do not have certain information and above all that communities can also have a direct participation in decision making. Marisol, your thoughts. And the detail is that in the communities we do not have what is carbon bonds that are carbon credits the only thing we have is that we know that companies use our forests to wash their image because we do not consider that carbon bonds the solutions based on nature they call it that they are false and here nobody comes to inform that where does it come from how much is going to be paid we do not know that information and less we can make decisions because we do not have territory where to make decisions here we do not even have to mark our territory we have been dispatched and that is why they consider that we cannot be in the space because many people as they do not have a clear line they come and ask us for the copy of the individual property and also the copy of the collective title and we managed to make an alert to the Ministry of the Environment and it was identified that they were people who wanted to take advantage of what they call carbon bonds and here in Peru they are called the carbon pirates because they use Artimañas to come and cheat offering money and there have been cases that in other communities they managed to articulate the titles of the individual property and sell them and they did not let them cheat and kill a tree so that you always have your money because it was already in the database of these people who as a mapeo, an approximate of how many trees of how many primary forests there were and they do not tell you that they do not tell you to sign closed eyes and those clauses that we know of the consultation is not free it is not informed nobody socializes who does not want money but they do not tell you the small letters do not mention you and you end up signing things against you but at least here we we have of course to talk about carbon sales or retributions and all those things we have to start healing our territory achieving that it is returned ancestral to be able to talk also about a good management of a good administration and decide who we sell and under what conditions sells them thank you very much thank you Marisol I realize that we have quite a lot of questions but I also really want Levi and Catherine to talk about essentially making sure that people have ownership of data and then quickly go to Levi I'm so sorry to rush you but if you can keep your answer concise and then we'll go to Catherine and then we'll take the questions because we have quite a lot of questions coming in Levi on data and ownership of data if you can speak about that thank you I have two two comments one is that for me the network strategies already failed although some still want to revive if the certifications that they are looking for fail we are facing a potential pandemic of global environmental staff that includes the genocide of the people it seems to me that if regulatory instruments are failing we are facing an imminent danger in the environment and climate change that is my first comment my second comment is in relation to why is it difficult to explain this to the communities it costs a lot to explain to a community that my forest, my tree is part of a scientific system that the global warming that the ozone layer and that the gases of the cars and that the companies and that integrity and that the cops that is very, very difficult to explain to the communities so the companies that are irresponsibly trying to do this prefer to cheat with such to look for their objectives that I think the company already said it very clearly they are trying and that is what you are doing what I fear as a big global environmental so we have been looking for alternatives that is why it is so important the previous consent because it is necessary to use cultural mediators in Costa Rica we use a series of cultural mediators that could understand this and understand this and pass it in the language to the people to know what I have why they are looking for me why it is important what I am doing for the world this is very, very important because indeed here are two forces that are passing the territories one, the inability of the dialogue of the governments and of the companies with indigenous peoples for not applying the preliminary consent and the other that is happening is the irresponsible interest of many companies to want to wash their sins as I said their environmental sins with our voice so I think it is very important to talk about these two issues so that we do not reach a environmental chaos and that I even dare to qualify as genocide by removing the means of life people have already told the partner they are removing our way of living our traditional use in a deceitful and painful way thank you Levy Catherine would like to actually hear some of your thoughts with regards to data and ownership before we open the floor so I will just be really brief I think the other speakers have done a really excellent job of explaining the issues here and providing powerful examples just from the legal perspective the free, prior and informed consent each of those words has a particular content that is super important so when we looked at the informed aspect of this it really has to be a fulsome and robust and comprehensive provision of information so the communities that are dealing with this have to be informed of all of the aspects of the project the context, all of the details the nitty gritty this has to be provided in an accessible way as the other speakers mentioned it has to be information that makes sense to the communities and this example of cultural mediators is a really good one in language that they can in their language obviously and in a timeframe that makes sense with respect to certain cultural processes and decision making processes so all of these aspects are really really important if you actually want to have genuine free, prior and informed consent and then just very quickly with respect to the data point it brings to mind this important concept of and developing concept of indigenous data governance and data sovereignty concerns indigenous people's rights and interests in data and in their control of data which data that concerns them to which they are linked and so I think this anecdote then that you share really raises important issues with respect to data sovereignty and the carbon market Thank you Catherine now we have quite a few questions so we're going to move on to Q&A and what I'm going to do is we have about three questions and then we're going to go to each of the speakers and ask them to very briefly either answer them answer whichever question that they want to answer from this list there's a question that says excellent presentations thank you so to our panellists thank you very much could you talk about whether you are using GIS technologies so I think that's the satellite images I'm assuming to help you document and legalize land rights and to monitor threats so that's one question another question is have carbon markets brought any positive social impacts on the indigenous people and local communities with whom you've been working with and if so could you mention a couple of them so we've been talking a lot about the problems are there any positives I think Levy mentioned one and I think Marco also talked about how they've been able to push back but if there are any other examples that would be great and third how could indigenous people be genuinely empowered to participate effectively in carbon markets so that's three questions one is on whether you're using GIS to document and legalize land rights any positive examples and to empower them what's the to be genuinely I mean I think the the mention of cultural mediators is great but are there any other ways I wanted to Marisol can I come to you first if you want to answer any of these questions or all but if you could keep your answers brief so that we can at least have another round of at least three more questions hey we're doing the territorial patrolling walking we don't have in the community some don't have any electricity or internet we have to walk to be effective because that's how we call it the effective protection that you have to walk 15 days a month in our territories and report Si bien es cierto, los que cuidan las áreas protegidas lo hacen por medio de satélite, pero no reportan, no denuncias, y siguen vendiendo esta imagen hacia las empresas diciendo, ah, no, mira, no actualizan su imagen verde y no muestran que siguen deforestando, que siguen habiendo mucha explotación de tala y demás en sus áreas protegidas, no? Y bueno, nosotros para tomar decisiones en la venta de bonos de carbono primero tendríamos que solucionar el problema territorial, no? Tendrían que primero reconocer que nosotros somos los verdaderos dueños bajo una seguridad jurídica y en base a eso poder hablar de ventas, de tomar decisiones, de administrar, de gestión y de recibir las retribuciones. En nuestro caso no tenemos esa experiencia y sobre todo no se implementan los pueblos indígenas con lo que ellos ven, no? ¿Por qué? Porque consideran que nosotros no somos dueños. Entonces yo creo que eso, y ahí se tiene que aplicar obviamente la consulta, que tanto nosotros se puede involucrar a los pueblos porque acá como mencionaba en las comunidades piensan que el carbono es lo que se quema la leña, no? Entonces no, no entienden, justamente como mencionaba el hermano que no vienen a informar en nuestra lengua materna y eso es una de las brechas que no hay este buen entendimiento y cualquiera puede venir a engañar según su conveniencia, no? Gracias. So it's not just about empowering indigenous people, just blessing the governments, yeah, ensuring that governments do their job and informing indigenous people as well, not in addition to empowering. Levy, any thoughts on any of the questions around the technologies, positive examples and the empowerment? Si, bueno, sobre la tecnología quisiera decir que muy, muy incipientemente se empieza a utilizar entonces los temas que se hacía en la pregunta y esto responde a que los pueblos indígenas somos los últimos de las políticas y las inversiones públicas. Entonces siempre estamos resagados a ese acceso tecnológico y eso quizás es la respuesta porque capacidad es si creo que podemos encontrar en nuestros pueblos. Después sobre el impacto positivo en el en Costa Rica, los pueblos indígenas desde 1997 venimos recibiendo pago por servicios ambientales de nuestros bosques, de nuestros servicios que nos ha permitido tener gobernanzas, escuela, becas, salud, caminos, etc. Y hoy estamos al nivel de que ya el gobierno quiere decir que esto es inversión del gobierno, no, eso no es inversión del gobierno, es un producto que nosotros producimos y nosotros generamos, entonces yo creo que sí hay mucho positivo de un buen mercado de carbono que incluso pueden meternos en otros problemas de que los gobiernos ya no quieran invertir con nosotros porque creen que ya tenemos inversión por parte de ellos. Entonces sí hay cosas positivas y con el tema de empoderar, creo que el empoderamiento pasa por, vuelvo a través al principio de la consulta. La consulta es para nosotros también, no es solo para las empresas, para el gobierno, es para nosotros como pueblo. Y si nosotros logramos hacer decisiones colectivas, incorporando a la mujer, a los jóvenes, los mayores, si tomamos decisiones juntos y focalizamos donde queremos ir como pueblo, eso nos empodera. Y yo creo que más allá de pensar que el dinero nos puede empoderar que lo que más importante es la cohesión que podamos lograr como pueblos en esos temas tan complicados. Gracias. Thank you, Levy. Catherine, any do you want to take or respond to any of those questions? Thank you, I'll just respond to the question about benefits, potential benefits of the carbon markets just quickly. You know, if the intense interest in carbon markets do push governments to clarify legal rights and do push governments to clarify legal frameworks and tenure rights, then that is a potential benefit, obviously. There's also a risk there at the exact same time, however, because as there's more and more attention paid to these kinds of nature based solutions, then there's obviously can be a large disincentive to governments to even further dispossess indigenous peoples and local communities from their lands and from their rights, because suddenly there is a value greater value attached to this. And so I just wanted to mention that, that there's a potential benefit there that could that could have overflow benefits in other areas with respect to indigenous rights, but there's a risk and so really need to keep the pressure on governments and keep the attention on these aspects of legal rights and tenure rights and carbon rights. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Marco, would you like to touch on any of those answers and respond to any of those points and questions? Si, yo creo que solo agregar un tema de la parte positiva, no solamente del mercado carbono, sino de los financiamientos climáticos en general, y es una concepción que para las comunidades y pueblos indígenas desde la visión positiva de estos financiamientos es la dignificación de la labor que las comunidades y pueblos indígenas están realizando en la protección y la permanencia de sus bosques, pues al final de cuentas son estas las comunidades y los pueblos los que mantienen la enorme diversidad que existen en nuestros territorios. Un tema importante y contrastante es que son estas comunidades que están afectadas y excluidas por un sistema en donde el acceso a la educación, a la salud es justamente lo que decía Levi, los últimos, ¿verdad? En las políticas públicas, entonces creo que de manera positiva las inversiones que pudieran surgir a partir de la protección, cuidado de los bosques pueden decidir condiciones para que las comunidades puedan ser las que dirijan su propio desarrollo. Hoy vemos en el país, por ejemplo, algunas experiencias en donde comunidades han podido establecer sus propias hidroeléctricas comunitarias de una manera sostenible, sin un impacto ambiental, ¿verdad? A falta de la respuesta que el Estado les genera en donde comunidades han establecido iniciativas económicas como el turismo comunitario, como grupos de mujeres y jóvenes que emprenden y eso genera condiciones para que emití en migración, para que también estén en condiciones de equidad y justicia, entonces creo que las oportunidades pueden ser muchas siempre cuando se garanticen los derechos primordiales de las comunidades, la consulta previa libre informada, una participación legítima de las comunidades, sino desde la lógica solo de folclorizar la participación de las comunidades y pueblos indígenas, sino que sea vinculante la toma de decisión de las comunidades. Gracias. Great, thank you so much. I realize that we are actually running out of time. We have, in fact, run out of time, but we have, considering that we still have over 400 people in the webinar and many more questions. If you don't mind, I would just take just the next few minutes to take three more questions. And what I would like to ask the speakers is to actually only answer one, only answer one as your last point and please keep it concise. And those three questions are whether there are any examples to ensure that governments or state agencies recognize the Indigenous peoples and local communities right in carbon trading. So have you been able to get governments to recognize this? So that if so, can you give an example? That's one question. Another is beside the FPIC and the formal recognition of land tenure. What other aspects are there are crucial to guarantee a more equitable implementation of these kind of projects? And third is carbon credit presents the question around bundle of rights. And it's not just Indigenous people and local communities who have those rights. So others shares that as well. So how will this be managed? So I would like to ask speakers to answer only one out of these three questions as their final comments before we close. And I'm going to do ladies first. So Marisol, would you mind starting, please, very concisely? And then we'll move on to Catherine, Marco and Levy for final thoughts. Hello. Para comentar de que realmente queremos ver resultados concretos ante esta crisis climática tenemos que empezar reconociendo los derechos de los pueblos indígenas en el mismo nivel de cualquier ser humano y empezar a reconocer su gobernanza y a ser incluidos en el toma de decisiones. Solo así hablaremos de verdaderas soluciones basados en la naturaleza y debemos empezar escuchando las propuestas, las alternativas de solución, porque somos nosotros quienes conocemos las verdaderas soluciones basadas en la naturaleza que nos han ido transmitiendo de generación en generación. El cuidado del medio ambiente no es solo responsabilidad de los pueblos indígenas, sino de todos los seres humanos, porque todos los días estamos generando nuestras huellas de carbono y es nuestra responsabilidad dejar un planeta vivo a nuestra nueva generación. Muchas gracias. Great, Catherine. Hi, yes, just very briefly, I'll answer the first question with respect to carbon rights being recognized and just sort of globally. There are there are countries in which carbon rights have been explicitly recognized and defined in law. The vast majority of countries know that isn't the case, but there are a few select countries and then it's really a question of who is recognized as being the legal owners of those rights. And I we do have a few countries in which carbon rights are explicitly defined in the law and that that that those rights to carbon can be tied to community land and forest ownership. And those countries specifically are Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru. So those rights exist. That then the question, of course, is whether or not they are in forest and whether or not they are respected. So thank you. Great, thanks for those examples, Marco. Si quizás cerrar con una una idea bastante concreta en relación a esto. Y es el asumir compromisos reales no solamente por parte de los estados, sino de también de la colectividad de la sociedad civil en relación a cómo poder retribuir el trabajo que nuestras comunidades están realizando desde no hace diez años, 20 años, sino por cientos de años. En nuestras comunidades lo están realizando desde una concepción de la madre tierra, la madre naturaleza y de cómo, como decía, la compañera que me antecedía. Nosotros conocemos las realidades y nosotros sabemos cómo mitigar hoy día todos los impactos que ha tenido los efectos del cambio del cambio climático. Y esas condiciones serias por parte de los estados y de la sociedad civil tiene que estar apegada a que las comunidades son sujetas y sujetos de de derechos. Otro tema importante es para cerrar el reconocimiento de la tenencia histórica ancestral de la tierra y hace tienen avances importantes, al menos en Guatemala, desde los incentivos forestales. Esto tiene que ir en avance y ningún retroceso. Todo lo contrario, el reconocimiento expreso, la tenencia histórica y ancestral de la tierra debe de eso una condición para los mercados de carbono también. Thank you so much, Marco, Levi, final thoughts. And if you want to answer any of the questions as well, thank you. La gobernanza de los pueblos indígenas debe fortalecerse desde las comunidades, desde los territorios hacia sus gobiernos, porque nuestros gobiernos son muy diferentes, unos y otros. Y los contextos geográficos, políticos, ambientales son muy diferentes. La mejor solución debe venir de las las mismas comunidades. El mercado de carbono en algunos casos sí está impulsando derechos, pero lo más importante que está haciendo es evidenciando la necesidad de derechos en el tema ambiental. Y lo último que quería cerrar es que hubo una pregunta que me hicieron directa sobre el tema de ar y de verra. Nosotros, los siete ejes que estamos proponiendo ante las certificadoras es precisamente para mejorar sus estándares que consideramos no están logrando ni siquiera alcanzar un porcentaje alto de lo que hemos hablado hoy en este web. Gracias, muchas gracias, Levi. Unfortunately, we have gone quite over time and thank you so much for your patience and staying with us. And I do apologize that we were not able to get to all of the questions, but it's great to see all the discussions going on and the interest in this and I hope this conversation will continue. But we have to close the webinar now, really appreciate all the speakers and the panellas and of course, yourself, the audience also for staying with us past the time. Can we give a virtual round of applause to our panellas and speakers, please? And of course, thank you also to our hosts, the Ford Foundation, the Land Portal Foundation, the Tenure Facility and the Thompson-Royches Foundation. It's been a real pleasure for me to moderate this event. Have a great day, afternoon, evening or night. Goodbye.