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Require a social safeguard standard or a REDD amendment that
stipulates the recognition and enforcement of forest people’s
resource and land tenure, and human rights prior to California’s
International Sector-based Offsets program’s use of REDD offsets
(See additional recommendations are at the end of these comments)

The existing standards mentioned by ARB staff, in combination or
independently, do not contain criteria that are sufficient to
ensure social safeguards. The current REDD agreement & its social
safeguards do not require the recognition and enforcement of
customary and statutory resource and land tenure, and human rights
for forest peoples prior to REDD funding or payment, they should. 
All the social standards cited by California’s International
Sector-based Offsets program are ultimately qualified by non
binding terms such as respect, promote, support, address or
recognize, none require resource and land tenure and human rights
prior to the program’s involvement.   

The world’s unprotected forests and their peoples primarily exist
because the deforestation of these forests were not able to produce
net profits or because in rare instances the inhabitants had
sufficient land tenure (LT) and human rights (HR) to protect their
forests and themselves. REDD is creating economic incentives to now
make these forests and their peoples more profitable to exploit,
but without requiring the enforcement of the rights that will
protect all forest peoples, their forests & create well regulated
markets.  REDD projects without requiring these rights will be more
prone to carbon sequestration reversals, deforestation leakage to
other Jurisdiction, social and political damage and risk, and will
be less transferable.   Nevertheless carbon credit entrepreneurs,
Government entities and NGOs have started promoting REDD without
first requiring the enforcement of these rights in the last remote
forests; some of these promoters lobbied at the California’s
International Sector-based Offset program workshop held on
4/28/2016 by California Air Resources Board (CARB).  

Environmental NGO’s, like Forest Trends, Earth Innovation
Institute, Ecosystem Marketplace and Environmental Defense Fund 
have supported & presented inspiring communities from Acre Brazil
other Jurisdictions.  Several of these communities  had their
representatives hosted by some of these environmental organizations
in order to lobby for their community’s sale of REDD Carbon Credits
at the CARB 4/28/16 workshop. These forest people from Acre,
represent amazingly successful & privileged communities, that will
probable be able to trade their Carbon offsets even without CARB’s
involvement. They are extraordinary model communities, that through
the bloody struggles of people like Chico Mendes & allied Forest
Peoples and the support of environmentalist & land reformers, have
forged better LT and HR than the vast majority of forest people
worldwide.  Acre Brazil is an outlier, they are the 1%, of forest
people, that have LT & HR that while still inadequate, are
desperately needed by 99% of all forest people. At this workshop,
REDD supporters presented a few model communities confident enough
in their land ownership and human rights to participate in and
support REDD activities, but they are a minuscule minority of the
world’s forest people.  

The vast majority of forest people need those rights now and will
need them even more if exposed to REDD schemes.  Given the history
of land tenure and conflict in most Tropical countries with large
remaining forests, it is implausible and inefficient to believe
that rights being “requested” at the country level, per the current
REDD agreement and standards, will ensure social safeguards and
prevent political risk. After remote forests & their peoples are
targeted by REDD without requiring these rights, it will be a
rearguard nightmare to try to stem the suffering, dislocation &
acculturation. 

One of the most cost effective methods of ethically sequestering
carbon, REDD’s main goal, is by recognizing and enforcing the land
& resource tenure of forest people.   A. Agrawal’s study “shows
that the larger the forest area under community ownership the
higher the probability for better biodiversity maintenance,
community livelihoods and carbon sequestration.”  “The growing
evidence that communities and households with secure tenure rights
protect, maintain and conserve forests is an important
consideration for the world’s climate if REDD schemes go forward,
and even if they do not.” according to Agrawal, A. (2008)
‘Livelihoods, carbon and diversity of community forests: trade offs
and win wins?’

World Bank SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT WORKING PAPERS Paper No. 120/December
2009 stated, "…the cost range of recognizing community tenure
rights (average $3.31/ha) is several times lower than the yearly
costs estimates for …. an international REDD scheme ($400/ha/year
to $20,000/ha/year).” "…a relatively insignificant investment in
recognizing tenure rights has the potential to significantly
improve the world’s carbon sequestration and management capacity…,
prioritizing policies and actions aimed at recognizing forest
community tenure rights can be a cost-effective step to improve the
likelihood that REDD programs meet their goals.”  

The promotion of REDD without requiring LT & HR prior to funding or
payments makes the vast majority of forest people & their forests
much more endangered. This is noted by Jorge Furagaro Kuetgaje,
climate coordinator for COICA, the Indigenous People of the Amazon
Basin, “For us to continue to conserve the tropical forests … we
need to have strong rights to those forests. Death should not be
the price we pay for playing our part in preventing the emissions
that fuel climate change.”  

Tropical forested countries also have very poor land tenure rights
enforcement records for forest people. “Living on Earth” radio
reported, that, “governments own about 75 percent of the world’s
forests, less than ten percent legally belong to communities.  In
Indonesia, 65 million people live off forests, most of them have no
official rights to the land they consider theirs.  In the eyes of
the Forest Ministries, they’re squatters occupying a national
resource”.  

The human rights and land tenure enforcement record of tropical
forested countries is alarming.  Global Witness’s Nov. 30, 2015
Press release stated, “At least 640 land and environmental
activists have been killed since the 2009 climate negotiations in
Copenhagen - some shot by police during protests, others gunned
down by hired assassins." Global Witness also stated, “Most murders
occurred in Latin America and Asia with far fewer reported in
Africa, however this may be (due) to a lack of information…justice
is rarely given to murder victims.  Killers are rarely brought to
trial and often acquitted when they are.  In Brazil, fewer than 10
percent of such murders go to trial, and only 1 percent see
convictions.”  In addition to the ethics of this endangerment,
CARB’s utilization of REDD without LT & HR binding prerequisites
presents grave political risks for California, forest people and
REDD schemes.  As the world’s 1/8th largest economy, California’s
response to the REDD program is likely to set a global precedent;
that is why it should not increase negative social impact and
political risk, as well as global warming. California could
continue trendsetting by reducing Global warming, and promoting the
rule of law and biological sustainability in one stroke.

It is more important to get this rule making done right than done
fast, therefore we recommend:

1. CARB lawyers should review all the standards CARB has cited
including those in their footnotes and the REDD agreement
(including UNFCCC principles established in the Cancun Agreement)
and issue a legal opinion as to whether these documents stipulate
the recognition and enforcement of forest people’s customary and
statutory resource and land tenure, and human rights prior to
California’s International Sector-based Offsets program’s use of
REDD offsets (herein LT & HR prerequisites).
	
2. CARB lawyers should stipulate standards that require forest
people’s LT & HR prerequisites that seem to be lacking in REDD and
the various social standard cited? With those rights stipulated,
the 99% of Forest People not represented in their workshop, could
have a better chance of achieving what Acre’s communities are
striving for & have not yet achieved.
  
3. If such standards do not exist then CARB should develop a suite
of standards that require these LT & HR prerequisites.
	
4. CARB should then schedule further LT & HR prerequisite safeguard
workshops that are video-archived and transcribed.
	
5. CARB should provide longer stakeholder comment periods. 
	
6. CARB should either require LT & HR prerequisite safeguards or a
REDD amendment that stipulates these LT & HR prerequisites prior to
its involvement. CARB should not increase economic interest in
those forests by promoting REDD schemes without requiring LT & HR
prerequisites in order to prevent subsequent social, environmental
and political harm.

The preceding comments and recommendations focused narrowly on the
need for binding social standard prerequisites, and not on efficacy
of Carbon Offsets which is also problematic. (see Methodological
and Ideological Options, Comprehensive carbon stock and flow
accounting: A national framework to support climate change
mitigation by I. Ajani et al., 
Ecological Economics 89 (2013) p61–72.  Untangling the confusion
around land carbon science and climate change mitigation policy by
Brendan Mackey et al., NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE | VOL 3 | JUNE 2013 |
www.nature.com/natureclimatechange )