ORF documentary investigates the Katingan REDD project in Indonesia: “We are no longer allowed to use the forest. We are no longer allowed to grow anything”

The REDD project prevents villagers from growing crops on their land.

Recently Austrian TV programme ORF travelled to Indonesia to investigate two REDD projects: the Rimba Raya REDD project and the Katingan REDD project, both in Central Kalimantan. The journalists also travelled to Kenya to the Northern Rangelands Trust project and a cookstove project in Nairobi.

In a previous post, REDD-Monitor summarised the documentary team’s findings about the Rimba Raya REDD project:

This post is based on ORF’s reporting on the Katingan REDD project in Central Kalimantan.

ORF’s journalist, Vanessa Böttcher, notes that Shell, one of the world’s most polluting oil corporations, buys carbon credits from the Katingan REDD project. Shell has bought a total of almost 9 million carbon credits from Katingan.

Other Big Polluters that have bought carbon credits from Katingan include Delta Air Lines, Volkswagen, Tokyo Gas, PetroChina International Company, and Boeing.

In Berlin, ORF interviews Jutta Kill of the World Rainforest Movement. She explains one of the fundamental problems with generating carbon credits from forest projects:

“Once fossil carbon has been released, it affects the climate for hundreds and thousands of years. However, this contrasts with a forest project where the operator cannot guarantee at all that the carbon will be stored over such a long period of time. This temporal discrepancy means that no forest protection project can fulfil the promise of offsetting emissions.”

“We still wanted to use our land”

Together with Indonesian environmentalist Habibi Mohammed, ORF’s journalist Vanessa Böttcher visits a village right next to the Katingan REDD project. They meet Lilli, the former village headwoman who tells them that,

“The company simply said that the forest here would become a nature reserve. We then submitted an application to the district administration stating that we still wanted to use our land, that we farm on.”

Lilli’s husband, Karman, shows ORF the documents. He says,

“I have everything here, this is the letter from the regional administration. The government has given us the land use rights so that we can farm there, everyone has signed and now? Now the project operators are forbidding us to go there and grow anything.

“We are no longer allowed to use the forest. We are no longer allowed to grow anything and we are no longer allowed to get wood to build our houses. That is strictly forbidden. If we cut down a tree, they arrest us.”

They travel with Lilli inside the REDD project to where she and her husband had their farmland. On a few hectares they had planted oil palms to sell the fruit in local markets. Lilli says that,

“We don’t have any jobs, the only way we can earn money is by selling our fruit and vegetables, that's why we need the land. I really hope that we can find a solution together with the project operators.”

Additionality?

In Jakarta, Böttcher meets Arie Rompas of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. He has worked for many years on forest protection projects in Indonesia. He explains that carbon credits can only be sold when there were previously concrete plans to clear the forest.

In 2020, Greenpeace produced a critical report on the Katingan REDD project which includes an analysis of the baseline and questions the additionality of the project:

Rompas tells ORF that,

“We noticed inconsistencies during the development phase of this project. It was said that a company in the region wanted to clear the forest for a plantation. We then found out that this company had its headquarters in the same building as the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry here in Jakarta.”

Böttcher points out that the same Ministry decided to approve a REDD project in that area. Rompas still doubts that there were really any plans to establish a plantation there. He says that,

“The business is only about companies making profits, not about protecting forests. They could be protected without certificates, for example if the government passed the relevant laws.”

Shell’s response

ORF wanted to speak to someone from Shell about the carbon credits the company has bought from the Katingan REDD project. But Shell did not want to give an interview. Instead, in a statement, Shell wrote that,

“The projects follow the most widely used international standard for REDD projects, the Verified Carbon Standard, which is managed by Verra, a global standards body. . . . To be able to award credible carbon credits, the project must comply with the rules and requirements . . . and undergo thorough, regular reviews by experts independent of the project developer.”

What Shell doesn’t say is that the “independent” experts that audit the project are paid directly by the project developer. The auditors have a clear financial interest in not raising too many problems about the project, otherwise the project developer would turn to one of their competitors for future audits.

ORF also contacted Verra to ask them some questions about the Katingan REDD project. Verra did not reply.