Avoided Deforestation (REDD) and Indigenous ... - Amazon Fund

Indigenous Lands and the Climate Crisis
Márcio Santilli
It is difficult to accurately establish the multiple interactions between challenges and
opportunities which the climate crisis has in store for indigenous peoples and their territories. In
all continents, indigenous and aboriginal people and tribal communities have historically been
involved in disputes over land and natural resources with other people, colonizers, companies,
and nations, making it difficult to define the precise extension of the land they effectively occupy
in most cases and countries.
However, it is certain that the contribution of indigenous people to the climate crisis was
minimal, yet they are often included in the roster of populations which are assumed to be the
most vulnerable. It is also certain that there is significant presence of these peoples in developing
countries, which have the largest areas of native tropical forests, and that there is an important
overlap between indigenous lands and forest carbon stocks. In their own way, indigenous cultures
also maintain relations, albeit mythical and metaphorical, with the looming global climate crisis.
It is estimated (IPCC, 2007) that activities related to inappropriate land use account for
approximately 18% of current global carbon emissions, although more recent studies show
that this percentage dropped to 12% in 2008 (Le Quere et al., 2009). Deforestation and tropical
forest fires are responsible for a large share of this, given the vast amount of carbon in the
forests. Furthermore, if existing forest stocks were destroyed and corresponding emissions were
released into the atmosphere, the climate crisis would be severely aggravated. Thus, official
acknowledgement and protection of indigenous lands, as well as appreciation of the value of
distinct forms of occupation of forest territories, with low impacts, are fundamental elements to
provide guidance for policies and mechanisms such as REDD, which link forests and climate.
Nevertheless, we should always bear in mind that the relation between forests and
climate is not limited to the issue of carbon stocks. The very existence of tropical forests itself
is associated with rainfall patterns. These forests provide a large part of the available sources
of potable water and house great biodiversity which, in turn, exerts permanent influence on
processes related to carbon stocks in soils. For example, it is the extremely particular dynamics
of Amazon rainfall, which increases during its course through the forest, that supplies the main
1 Coordinator of the Policy and Law Program/ISA.
Av o i d e d d e f o re s t A t i o n (redd) A n d i n d i g e n o u s p e o p l e s: experiences, chAllenges A n d o p p o r t u n i t i e s in t h e A m A zo n c o n t e x t 9