Cordillera Azul National Park
The government of Peru declared Cordillera Azul a national park in May 2001, after a year of planning with the Chicago Field Museum. The next year, CIMA signed an agreement with the government to manage the park.
Fossil Financing
In 2008, the Park's REDD Project was launched by CIMA along with the Chicago Field Museum, catalyzed by a $1.5 million investment from U.S. fossil fuel giant Exelon.[1]
In the decade since, additional funding has been received from The Nature Conservancy, USAID, Blue Moon Fund, New Venture Fund, and Fondo de Las Americas.
Above all, ~3/4 of new funding was provided by a loan from the Althelia Climate Fund - established by two investment bankers from BNP Paribas, one of the world's largest funders of fossil fuels.[2] The €8.55 million loan is to be repaid through the sale of millions of carbon credits.[3]
Shell Oil is a major financier of this project through the purchase of its carbon credits, which it uses to advertise its fossil fuels as "carbon neutral."[4][5]
Blockchain
Poseidon Foundation
In 2018, the Poseidon Foundation used blockchain technology to facilitate the sale of these credits as offsets for Ben & Jerry's ice cream.[6]
Toucan Protocol ($NCT)
Carbon credits from this project make up about 1% of the original pool underlying Toucan Protocol's Nature Carbon Ton ($NCT)[7]
Colonialism
On July 1, 2021, the Kichwa Indigenous Community of Puerto Franco announced that it was taking CIMA and the Peruvian State to court in defense of its territory which is claimed and encompassed by the park.
As reported by Kichwa Chief Alipno Fasabi Tuanama, the Park was created in 2001 without the consent or consultation of the Kichwa people or other Indigenous Peoples whose territories it overlaps, and its operation has disregarded Indigenous territorial rights which are largely denied today by the Peruvian state.
According to Vice-President Isidro Sangama, the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA) is calling on the State
to return us the territory which they have taken without the Puerto Franco community's consent... The State thinks that this territory is in this condition and remains forested due to the care of the National Park, but they forget that in fact this territory has been cared for by Indigenous communities for years.
CEPKA member Marco Sangama reported that despite caring for and protecting the forest, the Kichwa community has not benefited from the sale of carbon credits under this project:
The community controls and protects their territory, however they don’t see who is administering the PNCAZ. We understand that this park has benefitted from carbon credits. Despite this, the community has not benefitted, even when they are conserving their lands.[8]
Less than a week after this press release, CIMA (the park manager) hosted a public webinar in response to discuss the project with a law firm, its accreditation agency Verra, and massive fossil fuel conglomerate Total SA.
No Indigenous Peoples were invited to speak at the webinar, prompting the federations of the Kichwa people of the San Martín region to issue a joint statement[9] expressing:
our deep unease and indignation at the exclusionary and discriminatory vision of the Cordillera Azul National Park in Peru... our deep discomfort and indignation at the exclusionary and discriminatory vision that persists around conservation in Peru, and is carried out at the expense of the forests that we have occupied, protected and managed ancestrally, and the violation of our fundamental rights.
The joint statement included a "demand that the economic resources received be fairly distributed," and a call "to respect buen vivir and move towards a conservation paradigm that respects our human rights and recognises our millenary contributions to the protection of the Amazon."
The Kichwa federation noted that the deforestation and rights violations have continued apace due to the lack of support for their ancestral rights:
Traditionally, we have not only preserved the forest, but also the buen vivir among our communities. Nowadays, however, there are timber extractors and land traffickers who are dedicated to planting coca leaves. It is no man’s land, and what is the Peruvian state doing to help us mitigate these problems? How can the Peruvian state not strengthen our own community strategies to defend the forests?
While their call to respect Indigenous Sovereignty and Land Management is scientifically backed[10] as essential to effective conservation within and beyond the project area:
from scientific knowledge, it has been proven that, if territorial rights are respected, conservation is more effective and sustainable in social and economic terms. It has been demonstrated that securing communal land and resource rights is crucial for the sustainable management and effective protection of forests, both in the Amazon and globally.
- ↑ https://redd-monitor.org/2018/11/09/can-buying-ben-jerrys-ice-cream-save-the-cordillera-azul-national-park-in-peru-featuring-ecosphere-althelia-the-poseidon-foundation-redd-blockchain-and-the-government-of-malta/
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/27/climate-campaigners-sue-bnp-paribas-over-fossil-fuel-finance
- ↑ http://www.vcsprojectdatabase.org/services/publicViewServices/downloadDocumentById/25701
- ↑ https://redd-monitor.org/2021/07/02/indigenous-kichwa-community-takes-the-peruvian-state-and-cordillera-azul-national-park-to-court/
- ↑ https://www.shell.com/business-customers/trading-and-supply/trading/news-and-media-releases/cpc-corporation-taiwan-receives-second-carbon-neutral-lng-cargo-from-shell.html
- ↑ https://redd-monitor.org/2018/11/09/can-buying-ben-jerrys-ice-cream-save-the-cordillera-azul-national-park-in-peru-featuring-ecosphere-althelia-the-poseidon-foundation-redd-blockchain-and-the-government-of-malta/
- ↑ https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1rlInksw4PDilkOdJmxVqRDwDsbMqx3_Q?usp=sharing#scrollTo=tl1-T4CFCB5Z
- ↑ https://www.forestpeoples.org/en/press-release/kichwa-take-Peru-state-PNAZ-courtM
- ↑ https://redd-monitor.org/2021/08/03/statement-from-kichwa-indigenous-people-opposing-exclusionary-conservation-and-redd-in-the-cordillera-azul-national-park-peru/
- ↑ https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2014/07/29/indigenous-land-management-effective-combating-climate-change