Study in the Colombian Amazon reveals that REDD projects exacerbate conflict in Indigenous communities

Elite capture, weakened governance, and lack of transparency trigger conflicts.

PHOTO Credit: Tatiana de Nevó.

REDD projects are often carried out in the territories of Indigenous peoples and local communities. These projects often contribute to social conflict within and between participating communities. Yet little is reported about how these conflicts develop. A new study, published in the journal Environment and Security “aims to shed more light on the mechanisms that shape these conflicts through the lens of local institutional dynamics, namely community governance, elite capture, and transparency”.

The study is titled, “New scenarios of non-violent conflict in indigenous communities: The case of REDD+ in the Colombian Amazon”. It is written by Dominique Schmid of the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain and Carolina Castro Osorio of the Universidad de los Andes, Faculty of Economy Colombia.

The study is based on interviews conducted in 10 Indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. The authors found that,

projects are closely associated with elite capture, with local community and community association leaders dominating the decision-making processes. This fragments trust in leaders and undermines project legitimacy. Also, the prospect of carbon payments disrupts communities and triggers conflicts over their distribution. These effects are moderated by decision-making mechanisms and are exacerbated by transparency issues.

The authors write that when a REDD project is planned, there are likely to be different opinions in the community. Some support the project while other oppose participation in the project. “When some views are marginalised,” Schmid and Osorio write, “it is highly likely that conflicts will arise.”

This can result in further marginalisation of already disadvantaged groups.

Conflict frequently occurs when the project does not bring the benefits expected or when the benefits are shared unequally. Other negative effects of REDD projects include conflict and violence over land and resource access, forced evictions, or loss of food security because of new land-use policies.

The authors conclude that,

This study provides evidence that even when there is clarity about land tenure rights, and when there are systems of self-governance or community governance in place, internal conflicts persist.

No livelihood benefits

The authors conducted interviews in communities affected by four REDD projects: Makaro Ap+ro; Baka Rokarire; Indigenous Peoples of Vaupés YUTUCU; and Proyecto de Mitigación Forestal Resguardo Indígena TICOYA. These REDD projects involve 120 communities and cover a total area of more than 1.7 million hectares.

The authors note that, when the interviews took place, in August 2022, “none of the sampled projects had made a significant positive contribution to the communities’ livelihoods”. Two of the projects started in 2018, one in 2016, and one in 2010.

Schmid and Osorio write that,

Poverty was an issue in all the communities we visited, and even though many interviewees were against the project — because these projects went against Indigenous beliefs, or because they were not in agreement with potential land-use changes the projects might cause — many saw these projects as an opportunity to improve their livelihood, even if it was only for very basic needs such as school supplies, soap, or salt.

“Community governance is weakened”

The authors found that as a result of the REDD projects, “community governance is weakened through different mechanisms relating to trust in leadership, governance rights (who makes decisions about the project), and decision-making mechanisms (who was involved in the decision-making)”.

In three of the four REDD projects a small number of elites controlled the decision-making process over the REDD projects and “established collective decision-making mechanisms were not adhered to”.

In the Baka Rokarire project, the contract’s legality was challenged because the contract was signed by a leader from the community association who no longer had the legitimacy to do so. In June 2024, Colombia’s constitutional court ruled that the companies that established the REDD project “failed to act with due diligence to respect the rights of the indigenous population”.

The YUTUCU project’s legality was contested because community members argued that their constitutional right to prior consultation was not upheld. In October 2022, the Indigenous organisations involved in the YUTUCU REDD project withdrew the project from Verra’s registry because “the issuance of carbon credits has taken a long time compared to the planning and expectations we had when we started the certification process”.

In the TICOYA project, unilateral decision-making by a leader contributed to his removal as Associations of Indigenous Traditional Authorities president. The leader had signed the contract without consulting the heads of communities or the communities themselves.

“Everyone wants money”

Schmid and Osorio explain that intermediaries are required to implement a REDD project. The involvement of intermediaries inevitably results in important changes in the community’s resource-governance system:

Developing a REDD+ project and marketing the resulting carbon credits requires technical knowledge of carbon standards and the carbon market. It also requires financial capital to cover the project development and monitoring costs; costs which local Indigenous or peasant communities normally do not possess. Because of this, communities have no choice but to work with an external intermediary that completes these tasks, markets the credits, and brings in the funding in return for a share of the profits from the sale of the carbon credits. As a result, the previous collective resource-governance system switches to become a collaborative system, because an external actor becomes involved in the decision-making and governance of the forest and other natural resources in the Indigenous territory.

Schmid and Osorio found that “the very prospect of incoming funds divided the communities, causing mistrust within and between communities but also between communities and the project intermediary”. Some community members felt that the leadership was allied with the intermediaries and did not represent the community’s interests.

One community member told the authors that,

when they talk about money, everyone wants money. They create needs. . . . All the communities want to have their [boat] engine, their things, they have many illusions, which build up. The fights start . . .

Transparency

The authors write that lack of information was mentioned in “almost every community” as a source of conflict, “either between families of the community or between communities themselves”.

One issue is a lack of transparency about how much the carbon credits are sold for. In all four REDD projects, Schmid and Osorio report that at least one person said that they were unhappy with the intermediary, “either because they were frustrated with little or no money coming in, or that there were irregularities that the intermediary did not explain”.

One community member told them that,

The fact that we take care [of the forest] and people or companies give us money, that’s good. But the execution process has been bad. There are many intermediaries, and projects are not directly between the Indigenous People and the companies [buyers]. There are always some foundations, some corporations that interfere in the process, and in the end, they are the ones who benefit more than we ourselves as Indigenous Peoples. That intermediation, I don’t agree with that.

Accessing information is difficult for communities. Schmid and Osorio found that community members often knew nothing more than the name of the REDD project.

“At the moment, within the community there is only the name of the project,” one community member told them. “People don't know what it means, the only thing they know is that air is bought, but beyond that, people don't know anything.”

Schmid and Osorio write that a “socialization event” took place in the TICOYA project to explain the contract conditions. But this meeting only took place in one community. It was difficult for community members and some leaders to attend because of the time and money required to travel to another community.

Similarly in the Makaro project a community member said that they were invited to meetings, but they did not attend meetings in other communities because travel costs were “seldom refunded”.

Even when they did take part in these meetings, “community members either still had trouble understanding the projects, or they said that the project was not explained well to them”, Schmid and Osorio write.

Contracts were not openly shared with all community leaders, not even community heads. But there is a deeper problem. Schmid and Osorio note the contrast between the world of business, contracts, payment schedules, and contract conditions, and Indigenous Peoples’ profound relationship with forest and territory.

During one of Schmid and Osorio’s interviews, an Indigenous leader emphasised this contrast:

Since I was a child, I was taught not to cut down too many trees, to respect the river because it is also a human being that does us a favor. We were taught that trees give us food, they give us to make houses, they give us to exist, they give us medicine, they give us water. But in the world of money, it is not worth what we are talking about. It is money, it is dollars, it is currency, every day everyone wants to become richer to live better. But in the Indigenous world, it’s not that.