This time last year, the forestry space was abuzz with news of the big Blue Carbon deals. The deals set a staggering amount of land in Sub-Saharan Africa - 20% of the land in Zimbabwe, 10% of Liberia and Zambia, 8% of Tanzania, and an undisclosed amount of land in Kenya - to be managed by a firm in the United Arab Emirates.
Without involvement of communities impacted by the projects, countries across Africa were strapped into memorandums of agreement with 30 years of commitments. Reports suggested that Blue Carbon was retaining upwards of 70% of the project revenues while impacting the livelihoods of millions. The audacious scale of the project shocked the conscience.
Carbon projects have run afoul of community land rights throughout the Global South, from Brazil to Laos to Malaysia. In many places, communities have not received revenue - or, worse, have been removed from their land - after keeping the landscapes intact for generations
One year later, among the jumble of headlines coming out of the recent UN climate change talks in Baku was the adoption of new rules intended to jumpstart the carbon credit markets.
These financial initiatives were included in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to provide incentives for efforts that reduce carbon emissions. The new UN rules, however, have already been criticized for not providing sufficient guardrails to avoid transactions like the Blue Carbon deals from happening elsewhere.
With the new rules, it won't be clear whether communities who have lived on and worked their territories for generations should be consulted as part of a project. If things go well, it won't be clear that they are entitled to benefits and if things go poorly, it won't be clear that they should be able to claim remedies.
Carbon projects have run afoul of community land rights throughout the Global South, from Brazil to Laos to Malaysia. In many places, communities have not received revenue - or, worse, have been removed from their land - after keeping the landscapes intact for generations.
The repeated headlines have impacted market confidence - volume and value have decreased for two consecutive years. Unfortunately, policy makers have yet to make changes that would reduce the risks.
Governments and companies have repeatedly asserted the important link between community land rights and better outcomes for the planet.
At the start of November, at the UN talks on biodiversity, the governments emphasized the critical importance of tenure security to protect biodiversity.
Ten days later, leaders from 12 countries joined with Indigenous leaders to stress the importance of land tenure to protect forests as part of the Forest Climate Leaders Partnership.
Governments are saying this because study after study shows that when Indigenous Peoples and local communities have clear tenure over their forest, the forest is better protected.
National legislation is murky, however. Most countries do not recognize the rights of people living on the land impacted by carbon projects.
We collaborated with experts at McGill University to study the legal frameworks of 33 countries and found only three countries recognized community-based carbon rights.
The lack of national legal guidelines for the carbon markets is alarming. More than half of the countries we studied do not have regulations for carbon trading.
Almost two-thirds have no evidence of a registry of carbon projects and, of those that do, only six have this information publicly available. Only seven have designed or implemented benefit-sharing policies that apply to carbon market projects and only four of the seven have established a minimum allocation requirement for affected communities.
Policy makers at the global level had the opportunity to fix this problem. But now, all eyes turn to national governments. Before they rush to create new carbon policies after Baku, they can make their countries a place where carbon projects are more secure by making community land rights front and center.
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This is still a story that has yet to end. Just a few months ago, the Liberian National Climate Change Steering Committee (NCCSC) put a moratorium on all carbon credit projects until they have proper carbon regulations in place.
Liberia had two things going for it: strong land laws and strong organizing. Now it needs regulations to handle carbon trading.
The international carbon markets need recognition of community rights to be integrated in the national and international supporting regulations and guidance. The markets are like any other financial market - transparency, guardrails, and enforcement measures are needed to bring about confidence, and at this point, they're needed very quickly.
Alain Frechette, PhD, is Rights, Climate & Conservation Director at Rights and Resources Initiative. Rebecca Iwerks is Director of Global Land and Environmental Justice Initiative at Namati.
