Permian Global analysis of Greenpeace report

Permian Global analysis of the Greenpeace report: VW’s Carbon Footprint Sham, How Volkswagen is using an ineffective compensation project to shirk potential CO2 savings

Permian Global, which is a partner to PT Rimba Makmur Utama (RMU), which manages the Katingan Mentaya Project, was approached by Benjamin Gehrs, Investigative Campaigner Transport, Greenpeace Germany, in early-September and asked to explain aspects of the Katingan Mentaya Project’s baseline assumptions. The enquiry largely centred around the threat acacia plantations posed to the forest area and which led to the additionality justification for the project. We provided the relevant details as well as additional independent source material.

The subsequent Greenpeace Germany report, which is directed at Volkswagen AG, a company that has purchased verified emissions reductions (carbon credits) from the Katingan Mentaya Project, provides an interpretation of the project, its baseline assumptions, and concludes with a list of demands, including that Volkswagen cease offsetting emissions and instead make payments for forest protection projects (no specific projects were named) without receiving ‘compensation’ or carbon credits.

It is clear that the authors of the report have researched the Katingan Mentaya Project, its project design document (PDD) and studied deforestation activity in Central Kalimantan. However, their assessment contains inaccuracies, misleading interpretations and even contradicts a Greenpeace Southeast Asia report from earlier this year that highlights the threat to peatland of conversion to acacia plantations.

It is our understanding that the Greenpeace Germany report is essentially an attack on the finance mechanism of offsetting and, despite the evidence we provided to the journalist, the Katingan Mentaya Project has been used as collateral in order to criticise offsetting in general. Undermining a project that is demonstrably protecting an important area of tropical forest and peatland, to make an ideological point, is deeply cynical, dangerously irresponsible and we believe runs contrary to the environmental mission underpinning Greenpeace.

Below is Permian Global’s analysis of the Greenpeace report.

Key criticisms

Additionality – Acacia and other forest threats

As explained to Greenpeace, the Katingan Mentaya Project PDD deemed acacia, which is used to produce pulp and paper, the most serious and tangible threat (we did not say acacia conversion is the “only conceivable use of the area”), due to the facts that it was legally tenable and, as the project was being established, there were active applications to convert the land for that purpose.

Prior to establishing the project, the project area was both legally eligible for plantation establishment and was among sites designated as such by the Ministry of Forestry.

This is not to say the threat of conversion by other means was not high. Despite laws prohibiting the practice on peat swamp forest, slash and burn agriculture is still prevalent for smallholder farmers and as Greenpeace’s own reporting has shown multiple times, illegal land conversion for oil palm plantation is widespread across the region. However, it was acacia plantation conversion that was used to form the baseline.

Baseline proxy sites

Peatland forest conversion is not exclusive to Central Kalimantan. The pattern of deforestation and land conversion can be seen in comparable sites across Indonesia, just as plantation companies can operate at a national scale.

To form its baseline, the Katingan Mentaya Project looked at and compared numerous reference sites that were similar geographically, biophysically, socioeconomically and within the immediate area.

Moratorium

It appears that the Greenpeace investigative campaigner is suggesting that due to the 2011 moratorium alone that all Indonesian tropical peatland is now safe and the threats have been alleviated. We would argue that this is either a disingenuous interpretation or else staggeringly naïve.

We also provided the Greenpeace researcher with evidence to show how the moratorium has failed on numerous occasions to prevent deforestation on peat land.

Permanence

 After initially arguing a lack of threat of conversion and deforestation, the report begins to question the permanence of the project due to the threats.

The Katingan Mentaya Project license is initially set for 60 years, with the possibility to extend the license for a further 35 years, so 95 years permanence will be ensured.

Forests and natural environments are increasingly vulnerable to deforestation and forest fires across the tropics. Projects like the Katingan Mentaya Project work strenuously to minimise these risks. We provided the Greenpeace researcher with evidence to show the effectiveness of the project at mitigating threats.

Leakage

Every year we monitor the deforestation in all pulp and paper concessions in Indonesia, using the most up-to-date concession data provided by Global Forest Watch and their own deforestation data, and compare it to what was predicted using the historic trend. To date, the project has never observed any such leakage. This process is explained in the PDD and monitoring reports, and follows module LK-ASP from VM0007 VCS methodology.

Verra, the organisation that administers the VCS, produced the following Case Study to showcase the project’s exemplary work in avoiding leakage: https://verra.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/REDD-Leakage-Case-Study.pdf

Land rights

 There is absolutely no legal ambiguity over the area marked out for protection by the project. Attempted land conflicts may occur, but in such cases it is part of the project’s responsibility to ensure no incursion happens in the project area.

The project team will make no apologies for preventing attempts to illegally cause forest fires, illegally poach wildlife or illegally encroach in any way into the forest area.

However, the project takes community grievances very seriously and works closely with community members to identify and resolve any issues that may arise. The project is also constantly working to expand the reach of its community support. The annual project Monitoring Reports, which can be found on the Verra website, provide details accounts of all the community support initiatives that are taking place: https://registry.verra.org/app/projectDetail/VCS/1477

Reference to the Master’s thesis ‘Learning Lessons from a REDD+ Initiative: Assessing the Implementation Process, Forest and Community Outcomes, and Impacts on Local Households in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia’. (Under the direction of Dr. Erin O. Sills).

Having closely reviewed the thesis (analysis attached), which had not been peer reviewed before Greenpeace used it as evidence, we found serious issues with its robustness and validity. For example, the conclusions are drawn from an examination of 1% of the families in the 34 villages surrounding the Katingan Mentaya Project, from four of those villages, and focus groups, comprising 0.2% of the 45,000 population. We found inaccurate statistical and economic analysis, specifically when handling migration numbers and household income. And we also question the use of goldmining villages as the control groups, as the income from goldmining is far from comparable to that of the average village in the region.

Point-by-point analysis

1. On page 3, the report opens its assessment of the Katingan Mentaya Project (KMP) with aggressive assertions that are unjustified and not supported by evidence:

1. ‘Assumptions about additionality are clearly exaggerated’. The additionality of the project has been demonstrated in a public audited document and has not been challenged by any credible commentator. The fact that 2 million ha of forest has been cleared immediately to the west over the last 20 years, demonstrates the threat to the forest.
2. ‘It is highly probable that the forest would have stored comparable amounts of CO₂ even without the project.’ The whole world has been made aware of the challenges for Indonesian peat swamp forests, through the publicity for the South-east Asian haze, which has caused huge problems for neighbouring countries, as well as Indonesia, with significant mortality alongside enormous respiratory problems, for populations through the region. The destruction of these peat swamps and associated forests is a globally significant calamity.
3. ‘The project has merely shifted deforestation to other places in the region. Destruction of forest cover that may have been prevented in the project area is taking place elsewhere.’ This is called leakage and this is carefully monitored scientifically and publicly reported annually in annual audited monitoring reports, which Greenpeace Germany (GG) could have read. The statement has no justification.
4. ‘Moreover, the permanence of CO₂ storage is not guaranteed. While buyers of the carbon credits continue to release CO₂ into the atmosphere, where it will impact our climate for about 100 years, it is far from certain whether the forest will still be standing in 20 or 50 years.’ This argument is produced on a regular basis by individuals and organisations that are opposed to forest conservation. It is true that no-one can guarantee that a forest will still be in place in 20 or 100 years, just as no-one can guarantee that a tonne of fossil fuel, which has not been burned now, will not be burned in the future. The project does have a legal agreement with the Government of Indonesia that the forest ecosystem will be managed for recovery at least until 2108, which GG could have acknowledged. What is very strange is why GG would make these unjustified attacks on a valid forest conservation project, and why it would align itself with opponents of environmental conservation. KMP stands for protection of natural ecosystems, avoidance of smoke from burning peat and avoidance of the disastrous effects of illegal logging and the illegal wildlife trade. It is unclear why GG is supporting these obviously terrible activities.

2.  On page 4, GG gives it’s ‘Key results’.

1. ‘This paper proves that the Katingan Mentaya compensation project’s purported emissions savings are based on a chain of questionable assumptions.’ This is a factually incorrect assertion and there is no proof in the paper. The assumptions for KMP are highly conservative, based on science and clearly detailed in a publicly available document, which has been independently audited. No credible scientific organisation has challenged these assumptions. Consequently, GG’s attack on the project has no foundation and is a slur not only on the reputation of KMP, but also on Greenpeace itself.  Is it normal for Greenpeace to make statements, which are untrue or else to undermine proved forest conservation in order to make a broader point against a corporation in its crosshairs?
2. ‘For example, the business-as-usual scenario (baseline scenario) used to calculate the additionality of the savings is implausible in many instances, and highly unlikely. The project’s reference regions, which are intended to provide evidence of additional climate protection, are hundreds of kilometres away, rendering them nearly useless for purposes of comparison.’ This indicates, perhaps not surprisingly, a fundamental misunderstanding of the Project Design Document (PDD), which explains the baseline scenario or the most likely alternative use of the land. The threat has been from national plantation companies, which operate across Indonesia, so it is entirely reasonable to look at their activities throughout the country.
3. ‘Furthermore, the danger of deforestation through pulpwood plantations throughout the province where the project is located is not nearly as high as outlined by its operators.’ GG argues that conversion to oil palm would have been more likely, but this ignores the fact that this forest land was zoned for conversion to pulpwood plantations and there were applications from commercial pulpwood producers for a licence to clear the forest and create the plantations. Clearance for oil palm plantations, would have required re-zoning by the central government, and without it would have been illegal. As well as being false, the suggestion that the forest would have been converted to oil palm plantations is irrelevant, because a PDD based on this would have produced a baseline with greater avoided emissions.
4. ‘During the development stage of the business-as-usual scenario, the project stakeholders themselves evidently did not deem the baseline scenario to be very likely and only adopted it once the certification process was initiated.’ Clearance for oil palm was a possibility for this forest and the risk was assessed because illegal forest clearance has been widespread in Indonesia, and across the tropics. However, it was not the most likely baseline scenario and so did not form the basis for the PDD.
5. ‘The project area would have been, at least legally, protected from the conversion of forest area to plantations by a national moratorium as of May 2011 – even without the REDD+ project (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).’ As with so many statements by GG in this report, this is untrue because the Moratorium did not apply to land where a licence application existed.  So, the statement that the land would have been legally protected is totally false.
6. ‘The analysis also shows that there are conflicts with local populations over the legal status of the land and that the villages affected by the REDD+ project take a negative view of the project.’ Once again, this statement by GG is untrue. It is based on a draft paper, which is available online and not published in a peer-reviewed journal. The paper seeks to compare the economic performance of four villages (out of a total of 34 similar villages) that are close to the project area, with four ‘control’ villages that are involved with gold-mining. The paper does not appear to have been reviewed by any competent academics, and is full of simple mistakes, involving the project design as well as basic statistics and economics. The analysis was based on surveys of 0.3% of the 45,000 people who live in the land around, but outside the project area. (Full Permian Global analysis of the thesis is attached).
7. ‘Despite investments in measures to counter deforestation, forested cover in the project area has decreased since the project was initiated. There are indications of the so-called carbon leakage problem: deforestation in the villages adjacent to the project area has increased over the course of the project.’ These statements are untrue. The paper did not refer to land inside the project area, but land around the villages, which are typically 20 Km away from the project boundary.
8. ‘Moreover, villagers are migrating and moving to other areas.’ Here GG cannot even quote properly from the unscientific paper that they found online. Following some dubious analysis of some scanty migration data for the four farming villages and the four gold-mining villages, the report concludes, “it appears possible that REDD+ helped stabilize the population after a few years of implementation”.
9. ‘All in all, the analysis shows that even in the case of a showcase REDD+ project such as Katingan Mentaya, the added benefit to the climate and local communities is highly questionable and cannot by any means be quantified.’ This is a political statement by GG and is not supported by any credible scientific analysis and belongs in the world of ‘alternative facts’.

3.  On page 7, GG gives details of its analysis of REDD+ and KMP.

1. Reference is made to the criticism by the Norwegian Government’s Auditor-General of their Government’s initiative to support tropical forest conservation. KMP has received no support from the Government of Norway and it would have been fair and honest to make that clear.
2. There is criticism of ‘the REDD+–friendly Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)’, without realising that the poorly presented non-peer-reviewed paper and on which they have based much of their argument, was actually designed by CIFOR staff.
3. The quote from CIFOR was ‘Despite a lack of evidence from rigorous impact evaluations, it is clear that REDD+ initiatives have not yet stopped tropical deforestation’. Clearly, tropical deforestation is still severe, but the resources devoted to REDD+ projects on the ground are tiny. We could equally say that after 50 years of campaigning, Greenpeace seems to have had no effect on tropical deforestation. At least, some people are trying to do something about it, rather than making aggressive criticisms that are unjustified by any valid or credible science-based argument.
4. ‘For nobody can say for sure what would have happened to the forest in absence of the REDD+ project: Perhaps it would have been destroyed, but perhaps not – or at least to a significantly lesser extent than predicted by the project developers.’ None of us can be sure about predicting the future, but some of us have been studying detailed scientific models and predicting global environmental destruction and climate calamity for a long time. Being unable to be sure about predictions for the future, is not a reason for inaction, as seems to be advocated by GG.
5. ‘To make matters worse, the draft of the baseline scenario includes false incentives: as only the difference in greenhouse gas emissions between the baseline scenario and the project scenario can be sold as certified CO₂ offsets, the project developers have an incentive to draft a baseline which is as destructive as possible. The less favourable the assumed development of the forest cover in the absence of a project, the greater the number of tradeable CO₂ offsets.’ Here GG is slandering a science-based process, which is independently audited by a qualified auditor, with all documents provided for public assessment and commentary. There would be benefits from cheating, but that is the case with many activities, but not everyone cheats.
6. ‘There are also doubts regarding the “permanence” of REDD+ projects: No one can guarantee that the protected forest will still be standing and storing CO₂ in 10, 20 or 50 years.’ While it is agreed that no-one can accurately predict the future, GG should have acknowledged that KMP has a legal contract with the Government of Indonesia for the forest ecosystem to be protected until at least 2108.
7. ‘A fundamental problem of all REDD+ projects lies in the different time it takes for carbon to move through the carbon cycles of underground fossil reservoirs in comparison to forests. While fossil fuel reservoirs take millions of years to form and the CO₂ released when they are burned affects the atmosphere and the climate – sometimes for more than a hundred years – cycles in forests are significantly shorter.’ It is a challenge to understand what is meant by this. Peat swamps take thousands of years to be developed and huge forest trees, may be 1,000 years of age, or older. Is GG seriously arguing that tropical forests are in some way transitory and should not be protected? The fundamental point which seems to be lost here, with GG, is that forest ecosystems and particularly tropical forests are dynamic, where they have been damaged, they have the ability to recover and represent the biggest opportunity for safe emissions reductions that we have available.
8. The above point seems to be accepted in the next paragraph, but with the following political rider, ‘However, their contribution to climate neutrality should not be quantified or sold in order to justify emissions elsewhere.’ This statement is based on politics, not science. Humanity has caused immense harm to the environment of this planet and for the last century, governments and NGOs have been trying to combat these processes. Projects like KMP bring the private sector into the equation. The environment needs radically different action, because the efforts over the last decades have not worked. It is also not accepted that the objective of offsetting is to ‘justify emissions elsewhere’.The global economy must transition to a more sustainable model but this will inevitably take time and there will always be some unavoidable emissions.
9. On page 8, GG criticises Permian Global, quoting ‘It is also worth noting that conversion to acacia plantations was one of several realistic and credible land use scenarios that our baseline analysis found could have occurred within the project area had it not been for the successful implementation of the project.’ GG continues, ‘However, this statement by Permian Global contradicts its own project design document (PDD), which, after examining legal requirements and other barriers, names acacia plantations as the only conceivable purpose for which land in the project area could be used: “In conclusion, significant barriers prevent the realization of all but a single credible land use scenario: industrial acacia plantation.” This displays GG lack of understanding because there were several credible land use scenarios but only one of them would have been legal. This is acknowledged in the later paragraphs, so GG perhaps did understand that the alternatives were illegal, but chose to write a confusing message.
10. GG continues, ‘The PDD also excluded the options of forest remaining unprotected or being reclassified as protected forest because these scenarios would not have generated enough state revenue.’ Here GG has descended to outright lying because they will have understood by now that the land was zoned for pulp plantations, and a commercial company had applied for a license. The GG report then indulges in a lengthy discussion about acacia plantations in Central Kalimantan and on peat. This is a distraction, because Greenpeace produced a report in July 2020 condemning acacia plantations on peat in Indonesia. It should also be understood that the nearest plantation concession to KMP is a 72,000 ha acacia concession, and it is on peatland. The fact is that without the project, this land would have been converted from forest to plantations and the peat would have been drained, causing enormous emissions as described in the PDD.
11. Page 10 concludes with repetition of the argument that oil palm would have been more likely than acacia, without understanding that there would have been more credits from an oil palm baseline.
12. GG repeats that the reference regions for acacia plantations were in other parts of western Indonesia without understanding that plantation companies in Indonesia tend to be national, or part of a national alliance. These arguments are irrelevant and without merit.
13. On page 12, GG states, ‘The baseline scenario selected by the Katingan project is on shaky ground for another reason too. On 20 May 2011, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of Indonesia at the time, signed a moratorium which prohibited the authorization of plantations in specified peatlands and forest regions. The map on the last page of the moratorium clearly shows that the present project area was protected as of May 2011 (see figures 4 and 5). The moratorium has since been extended several times and is now permanently in force.’ The subsequent paragraphs admit the truth which was that the moratorium did not prevent existing applications. It is not true to say that the project area was, or ever has been publicly protected. There is no reason to suggest that the ‘baseline scenario……….. is on shaky ground’, as there is no basis for this contention.
14. On page 13, section 3.2.1.3 continues to discuss the likelihood of the alternative use of the site being acacia plantation or oil palm. As we have explained, the most likely outcome was acacia because that would have been in line with the legal process. Oil palm was a possible outcome, but it would have been illegal. Discussion of this point is a complete waste of time, because oil palm conversion as a baseline would have produced more credits. It is difficult to understand what point GG is trying to make here other acting purely as a merchant of doubt.
15. Section 3.2.2 addresses permanence. Reference is made to the fires in the two El Nino years of 2015 and 2019, where despite the best efforts of the project team some fires did intrude into the project site. The effects of these fires are reflected in the monitoring reports for those years, which are the result of an annual independently audited process and are available on the Verra website. The damage caused by these fires was significant but not enough to negate the impact of the project in those years and there was no need for recourse to the credit buffer, which mitigates the permanence risk for projects like KMP.
16. Reference is again made to a master’s thesis, providing the following quote: ‘found evidence, with the help satellite images, of loss of forest cover in the project area, showing that the proportion of forest cover in one of the villages within the project area had decreased by about 20 percent from 2014 to 2018’. This land is not in the project area and the master’s thesis is not published in a peer-reviewed journal. It has significant deficiencies, and we would suggest that GG should have checked the veracity of statements in this document.
17. A question is asked, ‘if a large part of the forest in the project area were indeed preserved throughout the 60 years covered by the license, what would happen if it were cleared afterwards? One answer is that that the licence-holder has an option to extend the licence for a further 35 years.
18. On page 14, GG continues to rely on the master’s thesis, which has not been peer-reviewed and provides unreliable data. It is suggested that survey data from 0.2% of the population in the area surrounding the project, and from ‘an increase in forest cover loss during the project period in the villages’ in some way relates to ‘leakage’ from the project.  These villages are about 20 Km away from the project boundary. Mention is made of four ‘control’ villages.  These are villages which have been selected for comparison with the four villages close to the project.  No information is given to explain why these four villages were selected from the 34 villages in the land surrounding the project area.  The four ‘control’ villages were selected for comparison with these four farming villages, but the control villages rely on gold-mining. They are totally unsuitable as a control for this paper. In 2011 there was already a boom in illegal gold-mining in Central Kalimantan, as there was elsewhere in the tropics. This activity results in higher incomes but there are many downsides – widespread drug abuse, alcoholism, prostitution and significant additional health issues.  Illegal gold-mining results in pollution from harmful chemicals, most notably mercury and cyanide, which most conspicuously cause deformities in babies and young children. None of this is mentioned in this thesis and the comparison between these two sets of villages is completely inappropriate.
19. Later on page 14, ‘Furthermore, Selviana [author of the thesis] identified substantial migration away from the project areas in its early stages (see figure 7). She attributes this – at least in part – to restrictions on forest use and the resulting loss of income opportunities.’  The thesis provides data on migration but there is no clear explanation of how the data was gathered or the timescale and the only detail was the histogram published by GG. However GG omitted the concluding sentence on migration, ‘it appears possible that REDD+ helped stabilize the population after a few years of implementation.’  Further it is reasonable to question the statement ‘restrictions on forest use and the resulting loss of income opportunities.’  These restrictions are on illegal logging and illegal wildlife trade. Is GG in favour of these activities? In this region, as in many others, illegal logging is organised by criminals and generally involves terrible working conditions for workers, who suffer considerable abuse. They are often encouraged into debt from which they can never escape. Two of the principal products trafficked from this forest are pangolins and civets, for export to China. They have been implicated in the Covid-19 and SARS epidemics. Does GG have a position on this activity?  Another principal business is the exploitation and killing of primates for food, including Orang-utans. Orang-utans distribute the seeds of 500 tree species, so are very important for the ecosystem. Eating primates has been implicated in the spread of Ebola and HIV/AIDS in Africa. Does GG support this trade?
20. Section 3.2.4 on page 14 continues, ‘Local communities often have to shoulder the negative consequences of REDD+ projects. Local populations are not generally the real drivers of large-scale deforestation, but they are nonetheless being pushed out of the project areas.’ The consequences of REDD+ for the local communities are not negative, they are positive, and this can be seen from the annual monitoring reports, which are independently audited by a professional and credible auditor. This is the type on information GG should be referencing, instead of documents which have not been given credible peer review. The phrase, ‘pushed out of the project areas’ implies that villagers were relocated from KMP project area. This is entirely false. The project area is a swamp and no-one lived there.
21. Reference is made to an organisation for indigenous people, but they are not active in the KMP region.
22. Reference is made to the Dutch journalist, Daphne Dupont-Nivet who has been writing in support of a local politician and some opportunists. The politician had promised that he would enable the reclamation of land for cultivation, but all of the KMP project area is swamp and has never been used for cultivation, in part because of the distinct lack of soil fertility. A statement is given, without support, ‘Indonesian journalists “had come across dozens of agricultural parcels of land in the project area”’. Again, this area is a swamp, there are no agricultural parcels of land. What had happened is that some individuals had placed wooden stakes in the swamp with their names written on them. The claim that the land has been taken from them is untrue. Their claim is diminished by the fact that a similar claim 300Km away used wooden stakes with the same names. Most likely, there is an opportunist local businessman behind this activity and Daphne and GG accepted it.
23. A further quote is given on page 15, ‘A Dayak leader from the village of Babaung is quoted as saying: “Every Monday, we go to the reservation to farm our lands.” If this is intended to refer to KMP project area, it is untrue because the project area is swampland and there is no cultivation in the area.  The reference to Dayaks is interesting because the local people are almost entirely Dayaks, living in the villages and towns. Before the 1996 to 2001 period, there was a significant population of transmigration Madurese people in the region (estimated to be about 20% of the population) but most of them left the region in 2001.  Large numbers had been mutilated, raped and decapitated.
24. Page 15 again refers to the same problematic thesis. GG states that ‘In the course of her work, the author interviewed more than 250 households.’ It does not explain that half of these were in the control villages, which were a considerable distance from KMP.  Actually, the number of villagers interviewed represent 0.3% of the local population with no indication of why they might be representative.  In the thesis the author states the following, about the control villages, ‘The main driving forces of forest cover changes in the control villages were the increase in palm oil plantations, gold mining companies, and small-scale miners, as well as the abandoned Mega Rice Project established by the national government. Specifically, respondents in control villages attributed decreasing forested area to the establishment of agro-industrial firms (including palm oil plantations), small-scale loggers (including from neighbouring regions), small-scale miners, and the villagers themselves. The government was also implementing a transmigration project that involved building infrastructure and re-settling households. In addition, forest fires occurred due to both natural and human causes.’  This statement explains why these villages were not a good control for the agricultural villages close to the project. These would ideally be similar agricultural villages, which could have been a good comparator. The errors of analysis in the thesis are numerous and easily identified.  For instance, an attempt was made to analyse incomes in both agricultural and mining villages in 2011, 2014 and 2018.  These were converted to US Dollars, but at the rate in 2019. They should have been converted at the rate relevant to the timing of the data collection. The project design was fundamentally flawed by the selection of inappropriate control villages.   An attempt was made to use sophisticated statistical tests but the sample sizes were too small.  It is clear that the selection of inappropriate control villages could have been motivated by a desire to produce an outcome, which would damage the reputation of the project.  It would not have been difficult to predict in 2011 that incomes in mining villages would out-pace incomes in agricultural villages. So, we must assume that the bias was deliberate and therefore the rest of the analysis will be biased as well.  The following quote is not surprising, ‘Furthermore, approximately after 5 years implementation for the REDD+ project, the household total income in the control villages was also higher than the total income of household in the REDD+ villages’, because the price of gold has remained high.  Another paragraph is completely untrue, ‘In addition, the Katingan project has apparently prevented local communities from receiving government development funding, Selviana wrote: “The experience of Katingan Mentaya Project suggests that REDD+ project ‘crowds out’ other funding. The government only implemented programs outside the REDD+ project zone after the project began in late 2013. On the other hand, key informants in each village stated that the villages did not gain any additional development support because of the REDD+ project. Thus, REDD+ could cause villages to miss out on other development support.’  The opposite of this is true, but in this report, Greenpeace does not seem to care about the truth.

 

Notes

 Permian Global

Recognising the vital role forests can play as a means of tackling climate change, Permian Global is a business that is working to drive large-scale recovery and protection of natural tropical forests.

Headquartered in the UK, the international team works with governments and local communities across Asia, Latin America and Africa. And along with its partners, Permian Global is not only making a significant contribution in efforts to address climate change, but also enabling the restoration of vital biodiverse ecosystems; supporting local economic growth; while also making substantial and demonstrable contributions to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Permian Global is a partner organisation supporting the management of the Katingan Mentaya Project.

Katigan Mentaya Project

The Katingan Mentaya Project protects approximately 150,000 hectares of tropical peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan on the Indonesian island of Borneo.

For more details: https://katinganproject.com/

For more information, please contact: David Stone, Head of Communications, Permian Global, david.stone@permianglobal.com