April 25 2006
Trees That Grow in Mexico
Scolel
Te means “trees that grow” in two indigenous languages
in Chiapas, Mexico. Scolel Te is also an exceptional community-based
conservation project in Mexico with 200,000 trees sucking up carbon
dioxide. Farmers get paid for planting and maintaining the trees
while rock stars and race car drivers offset climate change emissions
from their guitar amps and tailpipes.
Scolel Te started out as the brainchild of Dr. Richard
Tipper, a Scot who now is at the Edinburgh Center for Carbon
Management (ECCM). As
a graduate student working in Chiapas, Tipper planted the seeds for a project
that today dots the once-troubled landscape with hundreds of plots of locally
grown and managed trees. Scolel Te is now run and administered locally by Ambio,
a non-profit group from a modest office in San Cristobal, Chiapas. The project
has helped hundreds of small holder farmers in 43 communities make a modest income
by conserving a key global ecosystem service.
The Scolel Te project is an example of how sustainable forestry practices
can be a win-win-win situation.
The first winners are local farmers. They’re the backbone of Scolel
Te, each one responsible for the hard work of replanting and growing trees. And
if the trees grow, the get paid for the carbon that is stored and sequestered.
In the rural areas where most planting occurs, the poverty rate can exceed 50%
of the population. The several hundred dollars some farmers receive from “trees
that grow” is an important supplement to their incomes and livelihoods.
The second winners are the carbon offset purchasers. Formula 1, the race
car association, has purchased Scolel Te credits since 1997 to offset emissions
from car races. Formula 1’s contribution to Scolel Te is a model
of philanthropy; the investment has been substantial, steady (around $100,000
per year) and without tons of fanfare. Rock ‘n roll bands Cold Play and
Pink Floyd have also purchased credits. These investors may have felt guilt about
their successes. But at least they’re doing something about it. And if
they met some of the Lacandon Indians and other or rural carbon producers, they
would feel even better.
The third winners are all of us. Whether you live in Iceland, Tasmania,
or on Pennsylvania Avenue, global climate change is happening. Reducing
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by planting trees is a good deed. It fights
climate change, empowers local tree growers, and helps conserve the biological
diversity of Mexico.
Scolel Te and other sequestration projects are not without controversy.
A variety of small but vocal groups like FERN, SinksWatch,
and the Corner
House oppose all types of forest sequestration projects. They
are a largely unreasonable lot, even though they claim to support
indigenous people’s
struggles. TFG hasn’t seen any folks from these groups help people grow
trees anywhere . . . It’s hard work. Imagine swinging a machete for the
whole day in Mexico.
Larger environmental groups that had been opposed to carbon-funded
forest projects may be changing their minds. WWF,
which stated in 2000, “WWF does not believe the anticipated trade-offs
between climate and forest protection are ethically, socially or environmentally
acceptable,” is rumored to be working on a new policy that is more
favorable to forest conservation projects. But it still opposes carbon funds
from the Kyoto Protocol to restore forests. Greenpeace,
which for years has claimed that the addition of saving and planting
trees to the Kyoto Protocol would be a major “loophole,” is also taking a
fresh look. The powerful international Climate
Action Network (CAN) continues to oppose forestry credits in
Europe’s
carbon markets. CAN recently
reiterated their disapproval of international forestry projects for Europe’s
carbon trading system, despite an impassioned plea by 2005
Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai to
open Europe’s carbon markets up to forestry projects in developing countries.
(A future TFG article will examine the critics and critiques of sequestration
projects in more detail).
Most of these critics often imply that sequestration projects trammel
local concerns, generate no real greenhouse gas benefits, are difficult
to monitor, impermanent, and displace rather than eliminate emissions.
The same groups often point to the worst sequestration projects to
support their claims. One particularly controversial project is known
as ‘Plantar,’ a
Eucalyptus plantation in Brazil. These groups rarely distinguish
between projects that make positive differences (such as Scolel Te)
and the few egregious examples of how not to plant trees.
Will tree planting stop climate change? No way. Fossil fuel emissions
are the pink elephants seated at the dining table. Critics of forest-based
climate change mitigation are right. Carbon credits spent on forestry
mean fewer investments in renewable energy. But the Kyoto Protocol
was never intended to deal just with industrial emissions. The Kyoto
Protocol is premised on the ability to trade carbon credits and the
importance of conserving and restoring all important terrestrial
carbon stores.
TFG is giving 20% of the donations it receives in April 2006 to
Scolel Te so that they might expand into new communities and expand
their great work. |
