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What’s missing in the Carbon Credits Debate: Titling of Indigenous Lands

Feb 17, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

The South Rupununi District Council (SRDC), calls on the Government of Guyana to demonstrate its climate leadership through expedited action to title those parts of our traditional lands that currently remain untitled, and to collaborate with us to protect our forests. As the legal representative institution of the 21 Indigenous communities of the South Rupununi, we further call on the Government to demonstrate its commitment to respect for the right to FPIC by engaging with our proper legal representative institutions in decision-making.

We have carefully read and followed the debate over the issuance of carbon credits to Guyana by a body called ART-TREES and the sale of those credits to Hess Oil. We are also aware that Guyana just received its first payments from Hess Oil for those credits.

In October, three of our community members represented our communities at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties in Egypt. There, they presented our plan to protect our territory to the world. We previously presented this plan to the government as well. Notably, we presented this plan to the President in August and asked that the government work with us to keep our forests standing and healthy. Our villages have been collectively developing and refining a territorial management plan to ensure that our forests and important water sources are protected for our current and future generations. Having legal recognition over our territory would enable us to effectively implement this plan, without the threat of commercial agri-business, mining, or logging destroying our lands.

We are concerned that the Government has not responded to our plan in any way, while at the same time moving forward with other claimed climate actions such as carbon crediting deals.  We are not opposed to the idea that Indigenous peoples should benefit through monetary payments for our hard work protecting our forests and providing climate services. But our work should be recognized first and foremost through titling and legal recognition of our lands.  We remain concerned that, despite the Amerindian Land Titling Project, little progress has been made on advancing titling of our territory since we first received title to a portion of our lands in 1976 – no extension applications have been approved since then, and only Parikwarinau and Rupunau have received new titles eight years ago.

It would only be proper that once our titles are legally secured, that our people can then decide if and how they want to participate in carbon markets and sell carbon credits. For us, this would mean making a decision as the SRDC collectively about whether we want to sell carbon credits generated from our territory, and if so, how – through what market, to whom, at what price – and how we will use that income to implement our self-determined vision for our development. While we appreciate the government’s decision to allocate 15% of carbon credit revenue received to our villages, this decision was not made by our villages, and while the NTC’s advice is critical guidance to our communities, it does not represent our consent.

We are proud to be Guyanese and to be citizens of a country that is trying to take climate action. However, what has been missing from this debate is the fact that the climate action that would be the most effective is legally recognizing our rights as Indigenous peoples to our lands and supporting us to protect our lands in our own ways. We hope that these recent carbon crediting and sale deals will not become the gold standard for climate action. We call on the Government to live up to its climate ambitions by legally recognizing our traditional lands. We call on the world that is watching to hold all Governments to account and to respect Indigenous peoples’ rights in their climate actions.

Regards,

South Rupununi District Council

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