 and 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 webinar 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. And 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 COP 28. 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 pose them, not the checkbox, but please do use the checkbox to introduce us where you are from, which organization you belong to. You can 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 Chávez 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, Thin. 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. So we 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. And as Ben 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 these kinds of initiatives to help them meet their own emission reduction targets and their own net-zero commitments. There are a few, as Ben 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 a pretty fundamental issue about the effectiveness of carbon markets. But a 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. And 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 in 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. 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. And 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 too many cases, Indigenous Peoples and local communities are not being treated as equal partners. Of course, 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. Now I'm going to turn to the panmas 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? Levi, 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 very much, Tim. You already introduced me, so I won't do that again. I am a Bribri indigenous person from Costa Rica and since 1997, the indigenous people, we have been working at a national level for a carbon trading system. This allowed us to work on creating a national network strategy that included previous and informed consent and created the prerequisite in our country so that Costa Rica today is able to create more funding for forests through the carbon market, taking into account the necessary prerequisite from national and forest protection so that we can participate in international carbon trading. Of course, this is a complex topic and globally, some of these strategies have failed because the prerequisite haven't been fulfilled. These prerequisites require the free informed consent of the indigenous people and this is something that many countries have not done. So this created a fracture in the market. There's an initiative that is trying to cover what the network hasn't done with the high integrity carbon trading and there's another line that's just even scamming communities without any control in the trading. So we do believe that certification could be an alternative, but even then certifications haven't made it possible to solidify indigenous people's rights in the carbon market. And as a region we are worried with certification and we are really working on it. I do not have the time to present our strategy, but I will try to explain it in the next questions. We are still vulnerable in front of carbon incentives. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Levi. You mentioned the free 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? Good morning. Thank you very much for this space. Thank you then. Well, from Guatemala's perspective, especially when it comes to the participation of local communities and indigenous peoples, there have been some efforts, especially promoted from the articulation of regional and local spaces. These spaces, for example, the Mesoamerican Alliance of People and Forest was one of them, and some other efforts made by community organizations. For example, the Organization Ucce from Guatemala that I represent, which looks to bring communities real and critical information on the progress of climate finance, including carbon markets. The dialogue, construction and proposals directed by communities and indigenous peoples towards global climate finance must be heard. The challenge is really that the voices of these communities and peoples are legitimately heard, but also taken into consideration. And that's where the prior informed consent comes into play. And sometimes they are not promoted by the states. They usually privilege and prioritize personal and sectorial interests. Currently, indigenous communities do not communities in Guatemala do not prioritize information on carbon markets. And this is because they have to meet basic needs, such as access to land, education, health, and conditions for a dignified life that are not yet guaranteed. So I believe that the efforts must be greater concerning the access of land and carbon markets. The carbon markets from the thematic approach still has to face these historical conditions. And they have to take into consideration these matters to meet needs. Communities still need information and they must be taken into consideration and must be, must have direct participation in decision making processes. And not only the dialogues, but they also have to integrate their interests concerning the historical matters of indigenous peoples. Thank you. Gracias, Marco. It sounds like there's this massive power and information in balance 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. Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for this space. Well, to tell you about the Qichwa situation, the Qichwa people's situation here in Santa Martín, region in Peru, there are two protector areas. One, the Cordillera-Zul Park and the other one is called the National Service de Roscalera. Concerning the Cordillera-Zul National Park, carbon markets have been sold since 2014. But the issue here is that first, we didn't have information first. Second, we weren't the decision makers who those are sold to? Nothing. We weren't part of the advisory council either. Nothing at all. We were basically excluded totally when it comes to the decision making. And we had to go to the transparency court here in Peru to have access to the information who they were sold to and what is being generated from that sale. So we found that the main buyers were Shell, Total Energy Company. And the most ironic thing here is out of these millionaries, sales is that we are the ones safeguarding and protecting our territories. And we are the ones doing them, constant monitoring of the area, systems of alert. And out of those, because of doing those efforts, we are being punished, we are being criminalized, we are being persecuted. There is a great level of violence towards indigenous peoples because of making these issues visible only. We don't receive absolutely anything out of these sales of carbon market credits because we don't have titles yet. And the park calls us neighbors. And because of that, we cannot receive any benefits because of those sales. But how, because we are the ancestral stewards of these lands and we don't receive any benefits of it. We do the territorial monitoring and for doing that we need some resources, medicine and so forth. And we do this. We receive this not because of the sales of carbon market credits. So we are so concerned because first we think that the sales of credit, carbon credits, carbon market credit carbons are not enough and are fake because it's true that indigenous peoples have some documents about protected areas, but those documents ignore and make rights of indigenous peoples in that area vulnerable. And we are very concerned because we would like to be part of the group of decision makers and really do a due process on who the carbon credits are being sold to. Thank you so very much. 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 prime informed consent because just listening to all three of you, it's very, very clear that government, state agencies and maybe the private sector as well are actually failing in this bit which everybody says is crucial. You're not benefiting from carbon 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 the free prime 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 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. Thank you so much. Effectively in 2001 the Cordillera Sul National Park was created and then in 2005 the National Conservation Area, Sierra Sul was also created. Both protected areas were created inside the Quechua territory but without any consent, any free prior and informed consent. They did not ask the consent of Quechua's peoples for them to come here. So the thing is that we were taken, they took away our ancestral territory. We didn't we don't have the free transit in that area. We cannot even get closer to one kilometer closer to that area. So for us we are very concerned because what has happened is that for example my brothers when they go to do some hunting people get the meat that they retrieved out of their hands and burn them. They take away our food. We go to the rivers, we go to the forest and we retrieve fish and meat. Everything that we need to work, everything that we need to nurture our family. So the people who have created this preserved area is the Peruvian government. The Peruvian government do not respect international international conventions, international agreements. They are taking away rights out of indigenous peoples and now they're telling us that we cannot have free transit in their areas because the law of protected areas, protected areas and in the constitution they tell us that we cannot come in. But there was not free prior and informed consent. Why this hasn't been done in the beginning? So now we have a historical fight because in the case of Ceres Calera it's been years and in the Cordillera South National Park it's been more than 20 years of fighting. So we need that safety, that legal safety so we can feel that we can make decisions on that matter. But they never had our consent in the first place. Here in San Martín in Peru we are facing this wave, not only Kichwa's peoples but also the Shippewa-Konewa community, the Karawaya community, they never received free prior and free consent either. So we are affected by this because if they have had respected this consent we wouldn't be in this situation because the only thing we need, we want is to retrieve or get back our good living and we want our rights to be recognized, the land rights and territorial rights and for governance as well to be respected and to safeguard the integrity of indigenous peoples. But for that we have to ask, I cannot go into a house just because I want to and just because I represent the state, we have to start respecting we are human beings, indigenous peoples are human beings and we have rights under the international human rights. But at some point they did not apply the free prior and from consent to us. Thank you. Yeah that's very sobering but thank you for that Marisol. Lavie, 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. Our experience here in Costa Rica and our work as the Mesoamerican Alliance, well we do believe that free consent is crucial for several reasons. First because it allows us to conceptualize forests from an indigenous perspective. It is a more spiritual perspective, not a commercial perspective like the carbon market shows us. Also the funding that comes from the carbon market has to be distributed just as we do in our system. Also it needs to create a system for creating consent and free consent. We cannot use a single way for every single people because every for every people consent is different. Territories have a lot to do with protecting sacred spaces and making sure that we are aware. It also allows for us to have a bigger participation from the part of women, the elderly and the youth. This can be achieved through free consent. Something else that's also very important is that we need to take into account deeper topics like our legal safety, like the recognition of our territories. We need to have our traditions recognized. We need to stop being criminalized. We need to start defining the property of the different carbons. This is something we're well on our way with in Costa Rica with our program. But I think it is very much a requirement to have a successful carbon market. From our organization we have been working with the different leadership on a proposal with seven different axes. This is something we are trying to have recognized through certification so that every single point that I've mentioned will be taken into account. I do hope that every single country will be able to successfully implement this kind of project with free and informed consent. But if not, the people in charge of certification should be the ones who should be stepping up and dealing with these issues. Thank you, Levy, for 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 very much, Ten. I would like to use my time reviewing some of the conditions in which some of the situations in which free consent is important. So some factors to take into account are historical factors, current situation as well as historical perception of indigenous communities. Historically, indigenous communities have been left aside from decision-making regarding their own territories. And this has marked indigenous peoples regarding the requesting of consent because most of their successes have been achieved through fighting. And nowadays, the situation hasn't changed quite yet. Some successes have been won, but the challenges are still there. And we are still fighting to be recognized as people with rights. Communities have also created some of their own initiatives and their own proposals. The third element would be perception. Often communities perceive projects such as carbon trading as inherently not trustworthy. And for us, that means that consent is absolutely crucial in order to have a legitimate participation for indigenous communities. For example, in Guatemala with forest incentives, for us, it was very important to guarantee that communities would be assured the legal tendency of the land. And nowadays, it was successful. Nowadays, a reality. So nowadays, in order to achieve this forest incentives, they need to certify they will be recognized as stewards of the forest. And this has been the result of our fight. This is not something, this is not just a space that was created by the space, but it was a fight so that we could have this right. 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? Yeah. Regarding what you're mentioning, this is a quite common situation in different communities. This is caused by the lack of open spaces for indigenous people accessing information in Guatemala. The emission reduction process, a process that has taken a long time to put into work. Currently, we do not have all the facts regarding the implementation and there's limited community from indigenous communities. And that makes it so that the indigenous people in the local communities who at the end of the day are the stewards of the forest is quite limited. Their intervention is quite limited. From our community, we have been trying to implement projects to make sure that everyone has fair access to information. And countries are also responsible of making sure that everyone has access to this information. And in Guatemala, it has a lot to do with the Escaso Pact, for example, to a pact which would make sure that access to information and informed consent would be a right. As from our community, this would be within the TIC system, which would allow us to systematize information and make sure that the information is contextualized and so that it can be given in our own native language in a way that allows communities to have full access to this information. For us, that is absolutely key to make sure participation is full. And this kind of processes will help these kinds of issues that happen when indigenous peoples don't have the capabilities of participating fully. Thank you. Thank you, Marco. Marisol, your thoughts. Hello. Here we are awfully worried because the Barovian state does not have a clear position on carbon trading. So we have here businessmen coming here and offering people and they tell the people that they're going to earn a lot of money from selling this carbon training. But we're not quite sure what carbon credit is, what carbon trading is. The only thing we know is that companies are using our forests to wash their image. We do not believe that nature-based solutions and carbon training are quite real. We're not aware of how much it's going to be paid, how it's going to work. We do not have access to this information. We cannot take perfect decisions because we do not have the right to the territory to take decisions upon. We have been thrown away from the land, and that's why we are not considered part of decision-making spaces. And we have been receiving people asking us for our deeds and individual and collective land deeds. And we were able to tell the ministry and we were able to see that they were just people that were trying to come here and scam us. They were trying to mine for this green gold. They were trying to, they were to the point that they were taken, their deeds were taken from them and they couldn't carry out their daily activities. They couldn't plan their plantings, they couldn't plan their own Yucca because that land was part of the database. This is not something that you are told you are given a document to sign but we are not given the information we're not being told. We're just being put the bag of money in front of our eyes but they were not being explained the details and at the end we are signed things that are great for us. But here we understand that in order to be able to do carbon training, first we need to be stewards of the territory so that we have the administration so that we ourselves can decide what we're selling, how we're selling. Thank you. Thank you Marisol. I realize that we have quite a lot of questions but I also really want Lévi and Catherine to talk about essentially you know making sure that people have ownership of data so can we very quickly go to Lévi? Lévi 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. Lévi on data and ownership of data if you can speak about that. Concerning this topic I have two things to say first the red structure have felt we are encountering an environmental fraud that is torturing indigenous peoples. If the regulatory measures are failing then we have a huge threat not just the environmental climate change but our peoples. That's my first comment. My second comment is concerning why it's difficult to explain these two communities. It is really difficult because to explain ocean layer, the cars, mokes, the markets, the businesses, the integrity, what is integrity, what is the cop it's really really difficult to explain that to the communities so the businesses who go and try to deal with this try to trick people in order to accomplish their goals and this is something really well explained by my colleague here. I believe it's a global environmental fraud that's how I call it so we're looking for alternatives. The free prior of our consent it's really really important not just in Costa Rica we use mediators cultural mediators who can understand this and pass it along to the peoples in their language and make them understand why they're looking for me. This is really important so effectively indeed there are two strengths there are two things happening in the indigenous peoples first in capacity of governments and businesses of not applying free prior informed consent and the second one is the irresponsible interest of some businesses to wash their environmental sins like I call it that way so I wanted to address these two topics to avoid environmental chaos and genocide because they are taking away their livelihoods the ways of sustaining life in different ways thank you so much. Thank you Levy. Catherine would like to actually hear some of your thoughts with regards to data and ownership before we open the floor. Yeah thank you I'll just be really brief I think the other speakers have done a really excellent job of explaining the issues here and providing powerful examples and just from the legal perspective you know the free prior and informed consent you know each of those words has a particular content that's super important and 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 you know 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 and you know 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 time frame that makes sense with respect to certain cultural processes and decision making processes so all 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 which really concerns indigenous people's rights and interests in data and in their control of data which data that concerns them and to which they are linked and so I think this anecdote then that you that you share really raises important issues with respect to data sovereignty and 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 I'm going to throw out three questions and then we're going to go to each of the speakers and ask them to very briefly either answer them answer you know whichever question that they want to answer from this list there's a question that says excellent presentations thank you so to our panelists thank you very much could you talk about whether you are using GIS technologies so I think that's the you know 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 you know 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 empowered I mean I think the the mention of cultural mediators it's 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 well first we do the monitoring process and then monitoring indigenous process we do this by foot you know communities and some local communities and indigenous people do not have electricity they cannot use phones we have to walk we have to walk a lot to be effective that's how we call it the effective protection we have to walk 15 days 30 days in our territories because it's true the people protecting the protected areas they do it through satellites but they do not report it they do not um they keep selling this image to businesses saying this is a green image and there's a lot of exploitation behind it of illegal logging in their own protected areas so for us to make decisions in the carbon markets perspective we have to resolve first the territorial aspect they have to recognize first that we are the real owners and have that legal protection and based on that we can initiate some conversations about carbon markets and administration and regulations in this at this moment we don't have that experience and they don't consider indigenous people's owners so we have to apply there the consent we can involve indigenous peoples in the communities they think that carbon is what they burn the ashes so we have to teach our brothers that they about this they don't come and inform us in our own language and that is a huge gap anybody can come and trick people thank you so it's not just about empowering indigenous people just um 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 the tech any of the questions around the technologies positive examples and the empowerment well concerning technology I'd like to say that it's being used slowly in these matters and because it's because the indigenous peoples are always left behind in that access of technology by the governments so the creation of capacities we can find in our own territories but technology sometimes we can't in Costa Rica from 1987 the indigenous peoples have received environmental payments because of our forests because of our services we ask we are at the same level we are at the level where the government says this is investment of the government but it's not an investment this is something that we create this is incomes that we create so I think an aspect of a positive aspect of carbon markets and and resolving the issue that government sees this as an investment and they don't longer want to support us economically so carbon markets can support us support it in that way so concerning the consent consent is not just for businesses it's for us as well as peoples and if we can make collective effort involving the elderlies women different groups and we can focalize what we want as peoples that will empower us besides money and economically positions that we can find we can move in that matter through that way thank you thank you Levy um Catherine any do you want to take or respond to any of those questions and I'll just oh thank you sure I'll just respond to the question about benefits potential benefits of the carbon markets just quickly um you know if carbon markets and the the intense interest in carbon markets do push governments to clarify legal rights um and do push governments to clarify legal frameworks um and tenure rights then that is a potential benefit obviously um the 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 um I just wanted to mention that that there's a potential benefit there that could um that could have um overflow benefits in other areas um 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 of legal rights and tenure rights and carbon rights thank you thank you Catherine uh Marco um would you like to to touch on any of those answer and and respond to any of those points and questions yes I think I would only add a positive aspect not just about cover markets but the climate finance specifically or indigenous peoples and local communities a good outcome of this finance is the dignification of the work that indigenous peoples are doing currently when it comes to the protection of their forests at the end of the day those are the communities those are the peoples who are protecting the huge diversity in our territories that is this is these ironically these are the communities who are being affected by a system a system that don't provide access to education and information they are like the last people to be considered in politics in public policy so from I think they can decide conditions for the indigenous peoples to decide on their own development we see currently in the country different experiences where indigenous peoples have been able to establish their own hydroelectric systems in their own communities through a sustainable process without environmental impact lacking a response from the government communities have established their own community tourism groups of women groups of youth who are being entrepreneurs and they're in their lands so they boost equality so they have to really consider rights of indigenous peoples one of them is free prior informal consent legitimate participation of indigenous peoples not just seeing indigenous peoples as another image but they it has to be legally binding to include indigenous peoples thank you 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 we 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 f the f pic 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 so I'd like to mention that we want specific results and that if we want to face climate change we need to start by recognizing indigenous rights like any other rights and start recognizing their government and allowing them to be part of decision-taking and only then we'll be able to create real nature-based solutions because we are the ones who know the actual solutions that have been transmitted generation through generation taking care of nature is not just the responsibility for indigenous people but a shared responsibility for humanity because every day we are generating carbon footprint and keeping our plans alive for the next generation is part of our responsibility right Catherine 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 we do have a few countries in which carbon rights are explicitly defined in law and 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 and they are respected so thank you great thanks for those examples Marco perhaps as a closure I would like to give a very specific idea we need real commitment not just from state but also from the civil society commitments regarding how we are going to compensate the work that our communities have been carrying out for not just decade but always using their conception of Mother Earth we know the realities and how to fight climate change and its effects and we want this commitment and this commitment has to be from the basis of considering indigenous people as people with rights we also need absolutely need the recognition of ownership and stewardship of the land by indigenous people we need explicit recognition of indigenous peoples as being the historic owners of this land thank you so much Marco Lavi and if you want to answer any of the questions as well thank you the governance for indigenous people must be strengthened from the communities towards the governments because our governments have very different conditions and the situation is also very different between countries so the strengtheness must come from the communities the carbon market is strengthening some rights but it's mostly making it clearly clear that we need to improve our rights and I would like to close with a specific country with a specific question I was asked are certain axes are have as an objective of improving the standards that haven't been achieved up until now and that we've been speaking about in this webinar 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 you know this conversation will continue but we have to close the webinar now really appreciate all the speakers and the panelists and of course yourself the audience also for staying with us past the time can we give a virtual round of applause to our panelists and the speakers please and of course thank you also to our hosts the Ford Foundation the Landportal Foundation the Tenure Facility and the Thompson Royce Foundation it's been a real pleasure for me to moderate this event have a great day afternoon evening or night goodbye