"Major funding to finance forest conservation projects is set to be announced at the UN climate summit next week. But some environmentalists contend the LEAF program could exclude the Indigenous people who have long protected the forests that the initiative aims to save."
"After a decade of disappointing failures, UN-backed schemes to fight climate change by capturing carbon in the world’s forests are set for a comeback. Big new funding will be announced at next week’s climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland that would deliver billions of dollars in private finance for conservation projects in tropical forests, with governments and companies being able to use the carbon offsets from those projects to achieve their net-zero emissions pledges.
But concerns are growing that these new mega-offset projects will happen at the expense of forest communities.
The most ambitious new project is called LEAF, which stands for Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance. It has support from the U.S. and UK governments and finance from blue-chip private-sector giants such as Amazon and Unilever. It aims to turn nations into forest carbon “sinks.”"
Fred Pearce reports for Yale Environment 360 October 28, 2021.
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