The architects of the REDD global forest conservation plan need to wake up fast, according to the investigative work of the Forest Southeast Asia team and we will be making the exposure of Carbon Cowboys and the campaign to properly police the system our key platform in 2022 until this situation is addressed.
Read : Blame The Media! - Sabah State Government Launches Cover-Up Over Carbon Cowboy Deal
The theory has been to put a value on conserving forests and their carbon capture role by making emitters pay to prevent timber extraction. However, by creating this new market the global backers of REDD have also created a new multi-billion dollar resource for corrupt actors to plunder in countries of poor governance and likewise a magnet for the world’s conmen to cheat more hundreds of millions out of a variety of scams.
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This is already happening all over the remaining forest regions according to Sarawak Report’s investigations in Southeast Asia and having set this dynamic going those responsible for REDD must intervene urgently to enforce proper governance and monitoring of the system. No legitimate organisation representing tax payers and donors from countries signed up to REDD values must be allowed to engage with schemes that have not been entirely vetted and given a full stamp of approval. Furthermore, such schemes can only be approved at government level, with no private partnership representations being allowed to intervene as middlemen managers poised to scoop the profits and distribute backhanders.
Read : Was The Scam In The Cancellation Clause Of Sabah's Secret Give-away Carbon Contract?
Sarawak Report has identified a number of scandals in the region where corrupt public officials have teamed up with corrupt businessmen to conduct an effortless larceny once more upon the people and the environment of their countries almost unnoticed. At least timber extraction involves some effort and some investment, whereas carbon credit scams simply steal prospective virtual resources created by REDD. Once stolen it is the public who invariably have to repay the damage and the worst but most likely scenario is that trees will need to be felled to raise the cash.
Watch our reports and our campaigns, which begin in 2022 with our exclusive publication of the scandalous Sabah ‘Nature Conservation Agreement’ which (after it was exposed by our website Sarawak Report) was described by Sabah’s own Attorney General as “Incomplete”, “illegal”, “inequitable”, “absurd”, “unfair” despite being termed as a binding agreement which includes a potential $24 billion penalty clause should the anonymously owned private partner in the deal be denied its agreed 30% of the profits from the state’s future carbon credits.
This problem needs recognising, exposing and addressing before REDD achieves the exact opposite of its intended goal and becomes the next biggest driving factor behind the destruction of the planet’s plant life. Follow our campaign.
Efforts to bring awareness to the value of Southeast Asia’s dwindling forests and to enact major conservation are being undermined by those who have identified carbon credits as another resource they can plunder. As a result, the effort to put a value on trees in order to save them is in fact accelerating the problem thanks to corruption and poor governance.
Read: Combatting Climate Change Is About Responsibility Not Profit