Wildlife Alliance rejects allegations of human rights abuses at the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project
Human Rights Watch anticipates that its report on Southern Cardamom will be published “in early 2024”
The Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project faces allegations of human rights abuses in the name of conservation. In June 2023, following a letter from Human Rights Watch, the carbon certification organisation Verra suspended the project until a review of the project is completed.
In December 2023, Wildlife Alliance published an open letter to its stakeholders. The letter is undated, but Quantum Commodity Intelligence and Carbon Pulse reported on the letter on 21 December 2023.
The letter includes video testimonies from local communities and rejects the accusations of human rights abuses in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project. Wildlife Alliance claims to have produced documentation “containing data, evidence, and community testimonials, that have fully addressed all of the issues that have been brought forward”.
“Serious concerns about the Verra quality review”
The letter is critical of Verra’s “lengthy” review process which focusses on free, prior and informed consent, land rights and land disputes, compliance with protected area laws, and grievance mechanisms.
Wildlife Alliance writes that,
From the outset we have had serious concerns about the Verra quality review, which have only deepened as over five months have passed with no clear timeline or process to bring the review to a close.
Wildlife Alliance writes that “the absence of clear processes and timelines for Verra’s quality review is causing the project and its stakeholders harm,” and calls on Verra “to complete the quality review on an expedited basis”.
Wildlife Alliance accuses Human Rights Watch of excluding “critical points of fact and context” and states that Human Rights Watch’s comments “present a fundamentally misleading and distorted picture of the project, especially in regard to the overwhelming support that the community has freely expressed”.
“Factually inaccurate and misleading”
Wildlife Alliance summarises Human Rights Watch’s allegations as follows:
The consultation process with Indigenous peoples impacted by the project was flawed
There is a lack of clarity around the boundaries of community lands (including residential, farmland, and sacred sites) and the protected area, which is detrimental to Indigenous peoples’ land rights
The lack of clarity and inadequate consultation has led to an undermining of customary land rights
The project’s grievance mechanism is inadequate
Wildlife Alliance rejects all of Human Rights Watch’s allegations, describing them as “factually inaccurate and misleading”, “false”, and “false and misleading”.
Wildlife Alliance has made public a series of letters regarding Human Rights Watch’s investigation into human rights abuses in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project:
23 June 2023 - Letter from Wildlife Alliance to Human Rights Watch: “Subject: HRW draft findings on South Cardamom REDD+ Project materially misrepresent the project’s impacts on human rights, and are based on inaccuracies, unverifiable reports and the omission of material facts”
8 August 2023 - Letter from Wildlife Alliance to Human Rights Watch: “Subject: SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: HRW draft claims on the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project materially misrepresent the project’s impacts on human rights, and are based on inaccuracies, unverifiable reports and the omission of material facts.
1. Additional case studies
2. Letters of support from Commune Chiefs
3. Clarification on allegations made in comments to Verra6 November 2023 - Letter from Human Rights Watch to Wildlife Alliance following a meeting with Wildlife Alliance and Everland in New York on 20 September 2023
30 November 2023 - Letter from Wildlife Alliance to Human Rights Watch: “Subject: Response to your letter dated November 6, 2023”
On 20 December 2023, Human Rights Watch posted the following response on its website:
Human Rights Watch statement regarding its ongoing research into the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project implemented by the Royal Government of Cambodia and Wildlife Alliance
20 December 2023
Human Rights Watch has been made aware of a document being published by Wildlife Alliance as a response to research that Human Rights Watch started in 2022. Since September 2022, we have been in regular contact with senior representatives of Wildlife Alliance to seek their comment and to ensure thorough and objective reporting. That process is ongoing.
We welcome the focus that Wildlife Alliance is taking regarding our findings and concerns. However, Wildlife Alliance did not notify us of their publication and we learned about it through third parties.
We anticipate publication of our report in early 2024. In the meantime, Human Rights Watch would like to provide some background while we conclude our research.
Human Rights Watch began investigating allegations of human rights abuses in the context of the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project in April 2022. Since September 2022, we have corresponded with the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, Wildlife Alliance, Wildlife Works Carbon, SCS Global Services, Aster Global, and Verra. We have also met senior staff of Wildlife Alliance, Wildlife Works Carbon, Everland, SCS Global Services, and Verra.
We have received additional information from the different entities involved in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project that is consistent with our findings or concerns about the human rights impact of the project. We have been clear about our perspectives and communicated those to Wildlife Alliance, most recently in a virtual meeting on September 1, 2023, an in-person meeting on September 20, 2023, and in a letter dated November 6, 2023.
We have repeatedly agreed to meet Wildlife Alliance staff in Cambodia in June and again in July 2023. In both cases Wildlife Alliance declined. Since an incident in August 2023, we have not accepted an invitation to visit the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project together with Wildlife Alliance staff due to heightened security concerns for community members.
We welcome the steps that Wildlife Alliance is planning to take in response to our findings to date. We believe that there are additional measures they should take and will continue to raise those with them directly and in our report. These steps include providing compensation to any victims of forced evictions and arbitrary arrests. We also believe that the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project should conclude benefit sharing agreements with local communities as none have been signed with Indigenous peoples and local communities impacted by the project.
Human Rights Watch will continue to engage with Wildlife Alliance and others while we finalize our research and to urge them to act to ensure the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project respects and protects human rights.
I hope this investigative process has a successful outcome, but there seems to be some communication disconnects between the parties. I would suggest that "free, informed consent" must always be conditional. meaning that it can be revoked, since "free and informed" can be compromised by not-fully-truthful "informedness." The management companies are often not completely truthful about what the exact benefits are to the people, and often fail to provide full promised funding or other terms. If consent can't ever be withdrawn, then it isn't truly "free." And withdrawal cannot have large penalties, that would be providing another unacknowledged benefit to the companies, that of a risk-free investment.