ORF documentary investigates Rimba Raya REDD project in Indonesia: “All empty promises”

Villagers have lost their livelihoods and parts of the forest are burning.

A recent documentary by the Austrian TV programme ORF looks at greenwashing and carbon trading. The journalists travel to Indonesia where they investigate the Rimba Raya REDD project and the Katingan REDD project, both on the island of Borneo. They also travel to Kenya to the Northern Rangelands Trust project and a cookstove project in Nairobi.

This post is based on ORF’s reporting of the Rimba Raya REDD project in Central Kalimantan. A slightly shorter version of the documentary is available on ORF’s website (in German).

ORF Journalist Vanessa Böttcher travels to the project area, where she meets up with Habibi Mohammed, an environmentalist from Borneo.

They drive to the Rimba Raya REDD project area. Habibi explains that the project isn’t about planting trees, but about keeping the existing trees standing. “The idea behind it all,” he says, “is to prevent the deforestation in the region from increasing in the long term.”

They travel through massive areas of oil palm plantations on the way to the project area. Palm oil is the main agricultural export of Indonesia. The country is the largest exporter of palm oil in the world.

They arrive in the village of Babaung, close to the Rimba Raya project. They meet Hasan Efendi, the village chief.

The weekly meeting of farmers and fishers is taking place in the community hall. ORF films the meeting.

Although the project has been running for more than 10 years, it still causes problems for the villagers. The village chief says in the meeting that,

“When the project developers came, they promised us a lot. They said we would share in the projects from the sale of the carbon credits, that jobs would be created, and that a medical centre and a school would be built. But these were all empty promises.”

Böttcher asks him whether they are not at least relieved that the rainforest around them is now better protected than before.

He replies that,

“Nothing has changed for the forest. Fires are still being set in the forest here. Clearing is still going on, just like before the project. There are fires in the project region almost every year.

“But they have forbidden us from using the forest there, we are actually not even allowed to enter it anymore.”

Burned forest

A couple of fishers take the ORF team to the project area, despite the ban on entering it. Böttcher wants to see an area of forest that recently burned.

After half-an-hour travelling by boat, they arrive at a large area of burned forest. Böttcher asks Habibi whether there is any evidence that the fire was set deliberately.

“You can see here that this area has already been damaged. Trees were illegally felled before the fire. This damaged the ecosystem and made it easier for fires to spread. The happens again and again in forest conservation areas, especially where there are adjacent plantations. Here, for example, there is a lot of palm oil industry all around.”

ORF’s team visits Aswandi, a fisher who lives not far from the burned area of forest. Böttcher asks him whether he noticed the fire.

He replies by explaining that keeping local communities out of the forest is counter-productive:

“Since we are forbidden to enter the forest, we can no longer look after it. We used to know exactly what was going on in the forest, whether someone had illegally planted trees or started a fire. We were always in the forest ourselves and could therefore prevent a fire from spreading, but we can no longer do that.”

A few months before ORF’s journalists visited the area, a large are of forest had burned. The area is now flooded, following the monsoon season, but drone footage shows the destruction.

Habibi Mohammed tells ORF that,

“All of this shows us that these forest protection projects are not really effective. They only give the impression that something is being done to protect the climate, but if you take a closer look, you will see that this is not the case at all.”

Volkswagen’s extensive due diligence?

One of the companies that buys carbon credits from the Rimba Raya REDD project is the German car manufacturer, Volkswagen.

Volkswagen aims to achieve “net carbon neutrality” by 2050. The company is making emissions reductions in its production process. However, between 2022 and 2023, Volkswagen’s carbon footprint increased by 17 million tonnes, as the company sold more cars.

And in 2023, Volkswagen bought 9 million carbon credits.

ORF’s journalist Patrick Hafner travels to Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, northern Germany.

He speaks to Celine Künzel at Volkswagen. Her job title is “Business Development and Key Account Management Carbon credits” and she’s responsible for buying Volkswagen’s carbon credits.

It’s an interesting conversation that illustrates how corporations like Volkswagen are not really interested in preventing deforestation or supporting the livelihoods of local communities.

Hafner starts by asking her how Volkswagen can be sure the CO₂ is actually stored in these projects?

Künzel acknowledges that, “There has been a lot of criticism of forest protection projects.” She adds that,

“We check the forest protection projects we invest in very carefully. We have an extensive due diligence process that calculates the baseline conservatively. Certain risks are therefore already factored in.”

Hafner tells her that part of the forest burned last year, which releases the CO₂.

Künzel talks about the “high standards” and the “external auditors” who check the project:

“These risks are in the project design already factored in. If, for example, deforestation has taken place, then the CO₂ certificates will not be issued in most cases. We check that, as well. There are also external auditors who check the project. We also rely on high standards that check very carefully whether CO₂ certificates can be issued or not.”

In other words, Volkswagen is hiding behind the Verra certification system. Obviously, she doesn’t mention that the Verra system is riddled with conflicts of interest, that the auditing system is “not fit for purpose”, or that a 2023 study found that 94% of the carbon credits from REDD projects certified by Verra were worthless.

Later in the documentary, Hafner interviews Jutta Kill of the World Rainforest Movement. She explains that,

“Ultimately, a system has emerged in which everyone involved has an interest in not looking too closely: the project operator wants to sell as many credits as possible. The certifier wants to certify as many projects as possible and not be known as a certifier who inspects the projects too carefully. And the companies at the end of the day have an interest in buying the cheapest credits possible. It is an incredibly lucrative business, and unregulated at that. This means that responsibility for wrong decisions is shifted from one party to another. Ultimately, when it comes to audits of the credibility of emission reductions, no one is responsible for the wrong decision.

Volkswagen’s Künzel tells ORF that,

“We don’t simply buy cheap CO₂ certificates to somehow whitewash our identity. We also have a big social impact in the Global South. That means the project also has many advantages for the local community that we are trying to support. We try, for example, to avoid intermediaries in our projects as much as possible. That means we try to work as directly as possible with the local project partners on site so that as much money as possible goes into the project and that, of course, ends up, among others, with the community.”

“Before the project, I was able to live well as a fisherman here”

Aswandi, the fisher from the village Babaung is part of this local community. He has lost his livelihood because of the REDD project. He didn’t receive any compensation and has not been offered a job by the project.

Böttcher asks Aswandi what has changed for him since the project started.

Aswandi replies that,

“Before the project, I was able to live well as a fisherman here. We could use all the rivers, there were no boundaries. But since the Rimba Raya project came here, we are forbidden to cross the river into the forest and fish there. I live right on the edge of the project, I can hardly fish at all anymore.”

As Böttcher points out, Aswandi is far from the only one affected. Everyone in the village of Babaung has to cope with the impacts of the REDD project.

Aswandi says,

“I don't think that a large company that isn't from here can protect the forest better than we people who live here. We know the forest like the backs of our hands, we have always lived in harmony with nature because we depend on the forest, it is our livelihood. We would never think of clearing the forest.”

ORF contacted Verra about their research. ORF asked about the consequences if an area of one of their REDD projects in Indonesia burned, or if the local community lost their livelihoods.

Verra did not reply.