Reply from Norway’s Climate and Forest Initiative

PHOTO Credit: Hans Brattskar in Papua New Guinea.

Last week, REDD-Monitor received a reply from Hans Brattskar, the Director of Norway’s Climate and Forest Initiative, to the post “Indigenous Peoples excluded from French-Norwegian partnership on forests”.

The reply is posted below in full, as requested. Brattskar seems keen to distance Norway from the Paris meeting.

“It is important to highlight that the Climate and Forest Conference in Oslo is the facilitative venue of a global process and must not be looked upon as a ‘French-Norwegian’ initiative,” Brattskar writes. He makes no attempt to defend the exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from the meeting in Paris.

But Brattskar’s reference to the Rights and Resources Dialogue on Forests, Governance and Climate Change that will take place in London on 6 April 2010 is somewhat disingenuous. The meeting is organised by the Rights and Resources Initiative and will discuss the latest developments in international REDD discussions. It is the fourth in an on-going series of meeting. “Concerns are growing,” notes RRI, “over the transparency of the process outside the UNFCCC, as well as over the fate of safeguards, standards and consultations.” The RRI meeting in London is not in any way part of the “interim REDD+ partnership”.

Reply from Hans Brattskar, Director of Norway’s Climate and Forest Initiative, to REDD-Monitor’s article “Indigenous Peoples excluded from French-Norwegian partnership on forests”

26 March 2010

The Norwegian Government underlines that full and effective participation of all relevant stakeholders, including indigenous peoples, in the interim REDD+ partnership and the process leading up to it, is a prerequisite for the legitimacy of the partnership. Only a transparent and inclusive multilateral process, leading up to the Climate and Forest Conference in Oslo on 27 May 2010 and beyond can grant such legitimacy. It is therefore a priority for the Norwegian Government to ensure such an open, inclusive and transparent process.

Important elements of this process with respect to the involvement of civil society are:

• Regular telephone conferences with civil society representatives, including indigenous peoples’ organizations, taking part in the Forest Investment Programme (FIP), the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the UN-REDD Program to disseminate information and receive comments.

• High‐level representation and active participation at the Fourth Rights and Resources (RRI) Dialogue on Forests, Governance and Climate Change in London, April 6th 2010. This RRI Dialogue is especially timed to provide an opportunity for Indigenous Peoples, community organizations, NGOs, and the private sector to review and share opinions on the Climate and Forest Conference, May 27th 2010 in Oslo. The Dialogue has outreach to a large network of indigenous peoples’ and civil society organizations worldwide. For those that cannot travel to London, real‐time coverage of the event will be provided.

• Norway is the designated facilitator of a core group of countries, which is dedicated to moving the process forward. In this role, Norway strongly supports a transparent and inclusive process in which representatives of Indigenous Peoples groups and civil society networks will be consulted and will have the opportunity to submit written proposals and comments on the partnership process.

• A partnership document will be drafted in a multilateral process over the course of the next few weeks. Norway will facilitate this process and, in this function, convene consultations on the draft text with network representatives of Indigenous Peoples groups and civil society organizations.

• The Oslo Climate and Forest Conference on May 27th will be open to all countries that wish to support the partnership. In addition, representatives of Indigenous Peoples and civil society networks as well as multilateral organizations will be invited to participate at the conference.

It is important to highlight that the Climate and Forest Conference in Oslo is the facilitative venue of a global process and must not be looked upon as a “French-Norwegian” initiative. It is a multilateral initiative, which includes tropical forest countries and donors as well as Indigenous Peoples organizations, civil society, UN and other multilateral organizations.

In this context, it is important to highlight, that the partnership is intended to represent a quick start to implement REDD+ actions and to secure the necessary financial support for that. The REDD-plus Partnership will support the implementation of what is already agreed under the UNFCCC on REDD-plus, while being flexible enough to expand its scope as that agreement expands. It will therefore not create a negotiation track separate from the formal UNFCCC negotiations on REDD+. When a UNFCCC REDD+ mechanism is set up, it would replace or subsume the interim partnership.

The Norwegian Government is dedicated to a legitimate and successful partnership on climate and forests and welcomes all comments and questions in this regard.