MPF points to ‘illusory’ carbon credit proposals – 07/10/2023 – Environment

The MPF (Federal Public Ministry) and the MP (Public Ministry) of Pará prepared a technical note, made public this Monday (10), in which they affirm that the carbon credit market changes the way of life of traditional communities. In the text, “illusory” proposals are cited, as they define it, for improving life, abusive or illegal clauses and negotiation of credits in supposedly illegal lands.

In the 69-page document, 15 public prosecutors and seven prosecutors make recommendations for the market for generating carbon credits in traditional communities, such as extractive reserves and indigenous lands.

According to the recommendation, contracts involving public forests must have “necessary state intervention”.

In addition, free, prior and informed consultation with the traditional peoples involved must be ensured. This consultation must come from the State, which cannot delegate the attribution to private individuals, according to the technical note.

“Meetings and assemblies cannot be limited to the manifestation of the management of legal entities representing the traditional populations, the right of positions contrary to the execution of contracts must be ensured”, stated the attorneys and prosecutors.

“The projects incident in public areas must be selected by public mechanisms, as well as the right to broad participation in this act must be ensured to traditional peoples and communities”, cites the document.

Contracts involving land grabbing, with the generation of carbon credits on public lands taken by land grabbers, should be vetoed, also emphasize the MPF and the MP of Pará.

The technical note was based on ten procedures opened by the MPF and four initiated by the MP to investigate alleged irregularities in contracts of this type. The cases involve several companies and communities.

A document from Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples) from March of this year, revealed by the Sheet in an article published on the 28th, it pointed out a significant increase in carbon credit trading processes in the voluntary market from 2022 onwards.

“Indigenous communities and leaders from various locations in the country have been sought by companies and law firms interested in presenting projects and, in some cases, even sign contracts”, points out the document.

The opinion was prepared for an analysis of the contract between the company Carbonext and associations of the Kayapó Indigenous Land, in the south of Pará.

The document considered it inappropriate for the company to have exclusivity —”on an irreversible and irrevocable basis”—in the negotiation of carbon credits in the traditional territory. The company later signed a contract with the Kayapó.

According to Carbonext, there was a free consultation, accompanied by Funai and the Public Defender of Pará. Exclusivity, says the company, is a market practice and there has always been “the most absolute respect for native peoples and laws”.

The technical note from the MPF and the MP mentions different projects, such as the first ones carried out in indigenous lands (Alto Rio Guamá, of the Tembés, and Sete de Setembro, of the Paiter Suruís), still in 2009.

Another case involves Ilha do Marajó, in Pará, with incidence of carbon credits in federal conservation units.

Companies seek the development of projects in indigenous lands even though there is still no regulation in the country.

The Lula government (PT) is preparing a regulation of the carbon credit market, a proposal that already exists in projects under discussion in Congress, and wants to create a national measurement system to issue its own carbon certificates, currently in charge of foreign entities.

Carbon credits are generated from activities that prevent deforestation and forest degradation. The instrument that allows this is REDD+, developed under the UN Convention on Climate Change.

One credit equals one ton of CO_two which is no longer emitted into the atmosphere due to the deforestation that was avoided. Companies operate in the so-called voluntary market, in which carbon credits are sold to companies that need to offset their own greenhouse gas emissions.