Amerindian Peoples Association files a formal complaint with Winrock International about the Guyana government’s US$750 million carbon credit deal with oil company Hess Corporation

PHOTO Credit: View from the Kaiteur Falls, Guyana. Dallas Reeves.

In December 2022, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali announced that the US-based oil company Hess Corporation would buy US$750 million worth of carbon credits generated from the country’s forests. Hess Corporation is one of the companies (along with ExxonMobil and China’s CNOOC) that is extracting oil off the coast of Guyana.

The carbon credits are listed on the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions’ registry. So far, almost 33.5 million carbon credits have been issued, covering the years 2016 to 2020. Hess Corporation has made a first payment of US$75 million to Guyana.

Formal complaint

On 8 March 2023, following consultation with Indigenous leaders, the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA), a Guyanese Indigenous Peoples’ organisation, made a formal complaint with Winrock International, the Secretariat for Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART).¹

The complaint states that the government did not carry out a process of free, prior and informed consent before the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions issued the carbon credits in December 2022. APA is therefore questioning the legitimacy of the carbon credits and states that the issuance of the credits to be in “gross violation” of Architecture for REDD+ Transactions’ standards.

APA is asking for all issued carbon credits to be suspended and future issuances to be frozen. In a statement following the formal complaint, APA states that the organisation “is not opposed to development but maintains that development should not come at the cost of Indigenous peoples’ full and informed participation.”

“Attempted colonisation”

International lawyer Melinda Janki is extremely critical of oil development in Guyana. She describes the oil extraction operations in Guyana as “attempted colonisation”.

In March 2023, Janki wrote to President Irfaan Ali, arguing that the REDD agreement violates the constitutional rights of Amerindians. Janki wrote that although the government may intend to respect and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Guyana, in its agreement with Hess Corporation it is doing the opposite.

Under the Amerindian Act, Guyana’s Amerindians “are free to do as they like as long as they do not try to give away their land rights”, she wrote. As such Amerindians own the carbon stored in their forests through the ownership of land under legal titles held by the Village Councils.

Winrock failed to respond

Janette Bulkan, Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry, has also criticised the carbon deal for violating the rights of Amerindian people.

In February 2023, in a letter to the Stabroek News, she wrote that,

Winrock has failed to respond to my request for a plain-language explanation of how these carbon credits were estimated and what a buyer can do with them, or what obligations are incurred by the seller.

Bulkan added that the Guyana Forestry Commission included the entire forest area of the country under the carbon deal, including 2.3 million hectares of forest on titled Amerindian Village Lands. “The GFC has no legal power” over this land, Bulkan wrote. “The Government of Guyana appears to have sold carbon credits to which it had and has no legal right.”

In February 2023, the first payment to Indigenous communities took place from the sale of carbon credits to the Hess Corporation. US$22 million was paid out to 241 Indigenous communities.

Bulkan wrote that,

The Government now appears to be making the Amerindian communities represented through the National Toshaos Council to be accomplices in this illegality, by handing out cash from the sale to Hess Corporation through the Amerindian Development Fund controlled and administered through the Office of the President. As Winrock refuses to answer, will the Office of the President now tell the people of Guyana what the titled Amerindian Villages must do or not do in order to demonstrate how they have generated, sequestered and conserved their share (2.299/18.070) of these tonnes of carbon dioxide? Where can I read that the individual Village General Meetings have each and all agreed to participate in this deal by a 2/3 majority vote, as required by the Amerindian Act (cap. 29:01, 2006)?

Bharrat Jagdeo’s response

In response to APA’s complaint, the Office of Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana’s Vice President, stated that APA had violated the principles of free, prior and informed consent by not consulting with or informing Indigenous communities, the National Toshaos Council, or any Indigenous organisations in Guyana before filing its complaint.

The National Toshaos Council is a semi autonomous organisation. It is one of Conservation International’s partners in Guyana. Other Conservation International partners include the Government of Guyana and the ExxonMobil Foundation, which handed over US$10 million to Conservation International when it discovered Guyana’s offshore oil reserves.

Jagdeo’s office argued that all of the reports of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions certification process are publicly available. According to an article in the Guyana Standard, Jagdeo’s office argued that,

“[APA’s] complaint referred to the structure of the verification reports and the sections of the Guyana application documents under ART. These very reports the office said, presented the background and reasons supporting the independent verifier issuing full approval for Guyana’s credits.”

Jagdeo’s office also argued that APA took part in a session organised by the independent verifier in April 2022. The Vice President’s office claimed that over a two year period, APA was invited by the Office of the President “to participate in, and to help lead, consultations across Guyana” about the Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 (LCDS) and the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions certification process under The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES).

APA’s response

Following a press conference organised by the Vice President, APA accused Jagdeo of carrying out a “campaign of disinformation” concerning APA’s criticism of the carbon credits programme.

“The Vice President in his tirade against the APA, failed to address the substance of the association’s complaint to ART which is his government’s failure to respect the right of Indigenous peoples to proper consultations along with the failure to fully comply with TREES Standard, among others. Additionally, he has consistently failed to defend his government’s violation of Indigenous peoples’ right to FPIC.”

APA commented that it was “extremely concerned” that the ART Secretariat and the verification body, Aster Global Environmental Services, had taken the government’s claims about respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights at face value, without a critical analysis of whether a process of free, prior and information consent was carried out.

APA described the government’s meetings as “mere information-sharing sessions” that could not properly be described as “conslutations”. The government’s summary of the meetings failed to record comments specifically made by many Indigenous Peoples at the meetings.

APA notes that no simplified information about the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions and The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard were shared in Indigenous languages.

APA states that,

“The right to effective participation requires, inter alia, that Indigenous peoples are provided with adequate time and understandable information (including translation into a language that they understand), and access to technical support and guidance so that they can effectively participate in the decision-making process.”

The government did not meet these requirements, APA maintains. Several Indigenous communities have complained as a result.

Instead of addressing APA’s concerns, Jagdeo goes on the attack against the organisation. APA has therefore asked for answers to the following questions from Jagdeo and his government:

• How much time were Indigenous communities given to prepare for those “consultations”?

• How long did a “consultation” session last?

• How many sessions were held with the communities?

• Were Indigenous communities presented with simplified/user-friendly versions of documents relating to the LCDS 2030 [Low Carbon Development Strategy], ART TREES Standards and carbon markets?

• Were those documents sent beforehand?

• Were Indigenous peoples afforded the opportunity to present their own proposals on how a carbon crediting scheme can work?

• Was there any meaningful way for Indigenous peoples to present their own proposals for benefit sharing under this carbon deal?

• Does the government believe that its “consultations” were effective in seeking the consent of Indigenous communities prior to the sale of carbon credits?

• Was there any meaningful opportunity for Indigenous peoples to give or deny consent to their lands being included in the proposal?

REDD-Monitor looks forward to posting Jagdeo’s responses to these questions in full and unedited in due course.

---

1. This sentence previously described APA as a “Guyanan Indigenous organisation”. I’ve corrected “Guyanan” to “Guyanese”.