Real Solutions And Resistance To NbS

Time: approximately a 30 minute to one 1 hour read (excluding the activities)

Introduction

When it comes to nature-based solutions, and to climate change in general, false solutions have focused on trying to come up with new ideas–ones that build from the ground up in order to maintain the status quo while claiming to minimize environmental harms.

What if a better future lies not only in new ideas and new paradigms, but in supporting knowledge systems that have already been in place for millenia? What if we already have many of the answers we seek?

Let it be clear–the purpose of this module is not to prescribe a way forward but rather to provide information about ways of living and thinking that often get excluded from mainstream/western climate solution conversations. These include real solutions that are guided by  Traditional Indigenous Knowledge, place-based experience, and public-interest science, especially those in Indigenous communities and the Global South. The narrow frame of mind and western logics used in mainstream climate solution conversations brings about a mentality in which nature-based solutions seem like a rational way ahead when they are in fact damaging to people and to the planet.

Pull quote/bolded:

‘Real solutions’ can look different in different contexts. There is no one-size-fits-all fix, no silver bullet, or single ‘right’ way to move forward. Therefore, a future that embodies climate justice is, as the Zapatista saying goes, “un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos”, “a world where many worlds fit.”

The real solutions we dig into in this section are political visions, lifeways, and processes that are practiced and built towards on the daily. They help us address NbS from its roots. By learning from case studies of communities practicing these political visions, we see how diversely these visions are adapted to local contexts and how their practices contribute to these ever-evolving frameworks and theories. We want to acknowledge that while some of the case studies presented are not necessarily directly related to NbS, they offer a point of reflection and a window into our imagination of what an alternative to NbS could look like.

Layout/Visual: 

A flower composed of overlapping circles/ovals in which each petal is a different real solution. participants can click on different petals to learn about the respective real solution.

Flower Prototype:

Link to flower prototype                                                                                                                      

When participants first click on a petal, a pop-up appears. It reads:

Before reading further about each real solution, it’s important to keep in mind that they don’t exist in isolation from one another. Most, if not all of them, are interconnected, interdependent, and have significant overlaps. Other times, they may have some incompatibilities or points of contention. Also, different communities and institutions might use the same term to mean different things. The information here about each real solution isn’t exhaustive but instead offers a starting point from which to do your own analysis and your own exploration.

*pop-up window can be closed and participants see the large flower diagram again*

Visual flow of this section:

Link to above diagram

Note: For each real solution, the information and activities are structured in the same way. There are three questions answered:

1. What is it?
2. How does it intersect with NbS?
3. How does it intersect with the other concepts in the real solutions section?

There are two activities:

1. An imagining exercise
2. ‘From NbS To (the real solution )’ Graphic/Activity

There are examples of what it looks like on the ground (case studies).

Abolition

What is Abolition?

If you’ve heard the term abolition before, it most likely brings up images of policing, or recent calls to defund police, police brutality etc. However, abolition is a much wider and richer concept. It’s not only about removing harmful practices, but about building fair and nourishing ones. According to Ruth Wilson Gilmore, the goal of abolition is “to change how we interact with each other and the planet by putting people before profit, welfare before warfare and life over death.”(Gilmore 2022)

How does Abolition apply to NbS?

How does Abolition apply to NbS? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“PIC abolition is a positive project that focuses, in part, on building a society where it is possible to address harm without relying on structural forms of oppression or the violent systems that increase it” (Kabe 2021).

When we view NbS through this powerful definition by Mariame Kabe, the harm to be addressed is the climate crisis. NbS relies on the same structural forms of oppression that drive the climate crisis to address it, increasing harms through land grabbing, repression of land defenders, allowing continued extraction, commodification of Indigenous knowledges, etc. Alternatively an abolitionist framework here moves us to truly address the harms of climate change in ways that reduce harm and nurture care. Abolition is grounded in abundance, “a vision of restructured society where we have everything we need” (Kabe 2021).

Similar to how policing, prisons, and other “security” institutions are performances of safety that actually make us collectively less safe, NbS are performances of climate action that don’t actually address but exacerbate climate change. Both are intended to provide a false sense of security while only really protecting, or “securing,” the systems, institutions and people benefiting from continued oppression.

Applying an abolitionist framework to NbS helps us target systems and institutions of harm (the actors identified in the who’s behind the wheel section) to reduce and ultimately (defund) remove all investments into these institutions. For example, $154 billion USD were invested into NbS in 2022, a large portion of which is public investments and the UNEP is calling for a doubling of this investment by 2025 (UN Environmental Programme, 2022). The European Commission has allocated around €95.5 billion to “research and innovation” that includes NbS projects starting in 2020 (European Commission). Philanthropy, too, pledged $5 billion USD into NbS in 2021 (ATMOS; Greenfield 2021).

Abolition pushes us to imagine what it would look like for these billions to be moved from NbS and reinvested into actual community and care-based solutions. Money would be reinvested into the resources and infrastructure under-resourced communities need and demand (such as schools, housing, healthcare, public transit, libraries, parks, etc). It would also call for an end to fossil fuels.

Abolition provides us a useful criteria to determine whether the ways we’re resisting and practicing alternatives to NbS and fighting for climate justice will make a “real difference.” In the words of Asha Ransby-Sporn, Chicago-based community organizer and co-director of organizing at Dissenters, it guides us to ask ourselves, “Will it take power, resources or legitimacy away” from systems of oppression? This ensures that our demands in resistance to NbS do not end up being solely reformist in nature and “move us closer to abolition” (Asha Ransby-Sporn, Rising Majority).

Activity

From NbS to Abolition

Note: some of these will be left blank so people can fill them in. There will also be more blank cells/spaces at the bottom for people to come up with further contrasts between NbS and abolition.

How does Abolition intersect with these other real solutions?

How does Abolition  intersect with other real solutions? (Degrowth, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-indigenization, Landback, Agroecology, Community Forest Management)?

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Abolition and decolonization are mutually dependent, imagining a world without the military and prison industrial complex goes hand in hand with imagining a world without colonial systems. These quotes  illustrate this deep relationship:

“Abolition and decolonization are a necessary ongoing kinship to uplift all bodies harmed by colonialism, as mechanisms of erasure, disappearance, and confinement work to uphold the prison industrial complex and uphold the same actors that benefit from the first colonial settlements centuries ago. Making the connections between struggles in detention centers, prisons, and indigenous struggles for liberation can inform us of the radical kinships possible when we realize illegality and criminality are productive regimes that are continuously being reproduced to highlight socially constructed differences to further bury us and our coming together.”  (The Abolitionist Editorial Collective 2020)

“Abolition and decolonization are strong and necessary frameworks in thinking about a world without borders or cages, while being cognizant of the critiques about their co-optation in ways that no longer root them in the specificity of Black and Indigenous struggles.” (Harsha Walia, The Abolitionist Editorial Collective)

Activity

Radical Imagining

Bolded:

“If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. But longing isn’t good enough. We must live into the vision by creating it and defending it. We must ‘Build the New’ as a way to ‘Stop the Bad’ —we must be both visionary and oppositional.” -Movement Generation

The precursor to building a just future is imagining it. In this activity you will learn to build your imagination skills, which we don’t practice enough and on a societal level are at risk of atrophying.

Imagine you live in a world in which abolition has already been ‘achieved’ and is actively practiced. Go through the following questions and allow yourself to talk, write, think, draw etc. through your answers without reservation or judgment. This is an opportunity to lean into optimism and into possibility. The sky’s the limit.

1- What does this world feel like? What feelings does it evoke in you?

2- What does it look like? What does it sound like? Taste? Smell?

3- What is present and what is not present? Can you do something you might not be able to do right now?

4- How do we go about solving problems?

5- What types of relationships do people have with one another? What about with institutions?

6- What is your role in this new world?

Abolition in Practice:

While we have not found examples of groups advancing a divest-invest framework targeting NbS specifically, there are many campaigns advancing divest-invest demands in relation to climate and environmental justice broadly. These includes United Frontline Table’s People’s Orientation to a Regenerative Economy, Muslim Abolitionist Futures’ Abolishing the War on Terror, Building Communities of Care Grassroots Policy Agenda, The Movement for Black Lives’ Breathe Act, among various other local “people’s” budget proposals across cities. All of these campaigns call for very specific divestment of public funding from systems and institutions of harm and regulations to curb ecological and social exploitation, and a reinvestment into community-led climate justice and community safety priorities. While they do not explicitly name NbS or carbon offsetting, divest-invest demands around NbS can indeed fit into their climate justice demands and can also serve as models to develop NbS-specific divest-invest campaigns. You can check out their demands linked above for more details.

Activity

A table with two sides: one side for where participants think resources/institutions should be divested from within NbS, and the other side for where they want to see resources moved to (can be visually drawn or written)

Degrowth

What is degrowth?

Degrowth means many different things to different people, but broadly it can be defined as a framework that challenges both the structure of the colonial-capitalist system and its widely internalized view of endless extractive growth as necessary for “development”. Instead, Degrowth is most known for calling for a scaling down of production and consumption, particularly by wealthy corporations and governments guilty of overproduction and consumption. But more foundationally than that, decolonial Degrowth centers alternatives visions of growth as regenerative, care-based, abundant, localized, equitably distributed, and truly prioritizing social and ecological wellbeing. Its call for downscaling is towards a larger vision for the abolition of capitalism and colonialism through care, autonomy, and self sufficiency (Parrique 2020). (Demaria, Kallis & Bakker 2019; Hickel 2021; Tyberg 2020; Chertkovskaya & Paulsson 2020; Degrowth.info; Degrowth.org)

However, not everyone understands and practices degrowth with this decolonial approach. There are many, especially in the global North who see the downscaling of production and consumption as the end goal of degrowth, and call for this broad downscaling across all peoples and countries without any nuanced historical analysis. Particularly because of this, the term Degrowth is sometimes (rightfully) met with hesitation in some revolutionary spaces, as a global North concept lacking systemic decolonial analysis and vision (Hickel 2021).

Alternatively, Degrowth as “an intellectual and political agitation tool towards decolonization” (Tyberg 2020) of “imaginaries and institutions” (Demaria, Kallis & Bakker 2019) as the end goal, is not only extremely useful but actually already present in and practiced by communities and movements of the global South across the world well before the term came to be (Tyberg 2020; Chertkovskaya & Paulsson 2020).

“The concept of degrowth may make sense from a Southern perspective, not as an umbrella term that will encompass the variety of alternatives practiced there, but as an attempt to deconstruct and undo in the West a Western imaginary that has been at the heart of colonialism and that domestic elites use in the Global South to justify inequalities and eradicate more egalitarian alternatives.” (Demaria, Kallis & Bakker 2019)

“Essential for degrowth is:

• Striving for a self-determined life in dignity for all. This includes deceleration, time welfare and conviviality.
• An economy and a society that sustains the natural basis of life. It values rather than exploits reproductive labor.
• A reduction of production and consumption in the global North and liberation from the one-sided Western paradigm of development. This could allow for a self-determined path of social organization in the global South.
• An extension of democratic decision-making to allow for real political participation.
• Social changes and an orientation towards sufficiency instead of purely technological changes and improvements in efficiency in order to solve ecological problems.
• The creation of open, connected and localized economies.” (Degrowth.info)

How does Degrowth apply to NbS?

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In applying Degrowth to NbS, we find this definition of Degrowth by Jason Hickel quite useful:

“Degrowth, then, is not just a critique of excess throughput in the global North; it is a critique of the mechanisms of colonial appropriation, enclosure and cheapening that underpin capitalist growth itself. If growthism seeks to organize the economy around the interests of capital (exchange-value) through accumulation, enclosure, and commodification, degrowth calls for the economy to be organized instead around provisioning for human needs (use-value) through de-accumulation, de-enclosure and decommodification.” (Hickel 2021)

NbS come out of the perpetual growth “logics” of the capitalist system. NbS allow corporations and governments to continue increasing their endless production, consumption and pollution, while making claims that those emissions are being “offset” by their NbS projects. Rather than slowing this extractive economic growth, NbS actually support the acceleration of it. On top of that, NbS open up more ecosystems and Indigenous and peasant knowledges for corporations to commodify and lands to enclose for new revenue streams. Degrowth directly challenges this and guides us to approach NbS with the goals of “de-accumulating” wealth, “de-enclosing” lands, and “de-commodifying” ecosystems and Indigenous and peasant knowledges.

Degrowth challenges the colonial underpinnings of NbS that place harmful NbS projects in Global South communities to supposedly “offset” Global North emissions. Degrowth returns responsibility onto Global North corporations and governments to take accountability for, reduce and repair the harms they’ve caused.

By challenging growth-based development, degrowth provides a framework to refute the marketing of NbS projects to global South countries and communities as offering economic development benefits. Communities in the global South have resisted NbS projects presented as development projects by pushing to degrow the scale of these capitalist projects and centering alternative practices of growth such as commoning, cooperatives and mutual aid.

Activity

From NbS to Degrowth

How does Degrowth intersect with these other real solutions?

How does Degrowth intersect with other real solutions? ( Decolonization/Re-Indigenization, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-indigenization, Landback, Agroecology, Community Forest Management)?

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Degrowth in its decolonial form can intersect with anti-imperialism, abolition, landback, buen vivir, feminism, agroecology, and other liberatory frameworks.  Degrowth draws upon alternative visions of growth from these frameworks and knowledge systems and those of other Indigenous, peasant, global South, grassroots communities.

Degrowth’s call for “de-enclosure” is a call for LandBack.

Its call for downscaling connects to abolitionist calls for divestment and reinvestment – the closing of NbS projects, a shrinking of the institutions driving NbS, a removal of public and private funding being poured into NbS, and a reinvestment of those funds into under resourced communities and into the resources and infrastructure communities need for regenerative growth (or “regrowth”). Divest-invest demands are a form of degrowth in action.

Activity

Radical Imagining

Bolded:

“If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. But longing isn’t good enough. We must live into the vision by creating it and defending it. We must ‘Build the New’ as a way to ‘Stop the Bad’ —we must be both visionary and oppositional.” -Movement Generation

The precursor to building a just future is imagining it. In this activity you will learn to build your imagination skills, which on a societal level are at risk of atrophying.

Imagine you live in a world in which degrowth has already been ‘achieved’ and is actively practiced. Go through the following questions and allow yourself to talk, write, think, draw etc. through your answers without reservation or judgment. This is an opportunity to lean into optimism and into possibility. The sky’s the limit.

1- What does this world feel like? What feelings does it evoke in you?

2- What does it look like? What does it sound like? Taste? Smell?

3- What is present and what is not present? Can you do something you might not be able to do right now?

4- How do we go about solving problems?

5- What types of relationships do people have with one another? What about with institutions?

6- What is your role in this new world?

Degrowth in Practice: The People’s Agreement of Cochabamba

The People’s Agreement of Cochabamba, drafted at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia in 2010 by grassroots organizations from across the world, is an example of a decolonial version of degrowth in practice. While not explicitly named as degrowth, it embodies the core elements of degrowth. It begins by challenging the capitalist system and its logic of endless growth: “This regime of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature, transforming everything into commodities.” The Agreement calls for “a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings,” through the “the recovery, revalorization, and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom, and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples” which provide alternative visions and practices of growth.

The Agreement returns responsibility onto wealthy nations “as the main cause of climate change” and demands that they:

• “Restore to developing countries the atmospheric space that is occupied by their greenhouse gas emissions. This implies the decolonization of the atmosphere through the reduction and absorption of their emissions;
• Assume the costs and technology transfer needs of developing countries arising from the loss of development opportunities due to living in a restricted atmospheric space;
• Assume responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people that will be forced to migrate due to the climate change caused by these countries, and eliminate their restrictive immigration policies, offering migrants a decent life with full human rights guarantees in their countries;
• Assume adaptation debt related to the impacts of climate change on developing countries by providing the means to prevent, minimize, and deal with damages arising from their excessive emissions;
• Honor these debts as part of a broader debt to Mother Earth by adopting and implementing the United Nations Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.”

This includes a reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions, which comes with an overall downscaling of production and consumption to levels that fulfill the fundamental needs of their populations, and no more than that. Even more foundationally it calls for a shift to a “sustainable model of production used by Indigenous and rural farming people.”

The Agreement explicitly condemns offsetting mechanisms such as REDD +/++ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) as “violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.”

It calls for financial compensation from polluting countries for the “restoration and maintenance of forests in favor of the peoples and indigenous ancestral organic structures” and calls on governments to “create a global program to restore native forests and jungles, managed and administered by the peoples, implementing forest seeds, fruit trees, and native flora.” This is not to serve as offsets but as a way to repair the harms they’ve caused to peoples and ecosystems in ways that recognize their sovereignty. (People’s Agreement of Cochabamba 2010)

Pull Quote (at the start or end of case studies):

“Degrowth is a process of conflict with the prevalent model of growth-based development – not a blueprint to be discovered but rather a process that emerges as a model of growth encounters its limits and people challenge the consequences” (Demaria, Kallis & Bakker 2019)

Decolonization & Re-Indigenization

What is decolonization and re-indigenization?

The word decolonization is growing in popularity and used in a lot of different contexts, often as a metaphor. But decolonization is not a metaphor; it’s the action of removing colonialism from all aspects of life. (Tuck and Yang 2012) It means dismantling settler states. It means achieving Indigenous liberation and sovereignty, it means re-Indigenization; it means reclaiming Indigenous lands, knowledge, cultures, cosmovisions, languages, rights and self-determination (Tuck and Yang 2012; Figueroa Helland et al. 2021). It means returning stolen land, restoring Indigenous and BIPOC sovereignty, and dismantling all institutions of settler colonialism, settler states, neocolonial and postcolonial state formations and property regimes. Decolonization goes hand in hand with moving away from capitalist and patriarchal systems and embracing regenerative systems based on mutuality and reciprocity. Importantly, decolonization and re-indigenization don’t look the same everywhere–it is not as simple as copying and pasting the same practices everywhere. Because each Indigenous community is different, their process and needs around re-Indigenization will be different as well.

How do decolonization and re-Indigenization apply to NbS?

How do decolonization and re-Indigenization apply to NbS?

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“What we saw referred to as ‘nature-based solutions’ was a co-optation of Indigenous worldviews but also a new strategy meant to facilitate the erasure of Indigenous-led movements, solutions, and demands necessary for us to continue to do what we’re already doing well.” – Janene Yazzie, NDN Collective (ATMOS)

Decolonization and re-Indigenization allow us to understand the harm nature-based solutions do to nature (including humans) as a re-enactment of colonialism. Under a colonial relationship to nature, the physical world is seen as having no agency of its own, a source of wealth to be extracted and exploited. Decolonization also gives a framework to understand how Indigenous lands are harmed in pursuit of NbS.

“Decolonization is rooted in re-Indigenization. Decolonization must take place in conjunction with the transition away from the deadly systems of racial capitalism and patriarchy and toward a regenerative, place-based economy and way of relating to one another and the land (Cooperative Climate Futures 2021).”

Decolonization and re-Indigenization involves “Returning lands to their original Indigenous caretakers, enabling the resurgence of Indigenous identities, cultures and lifeways, restoring Indigenous communal land governance, management and commons tenure, defending and expanding Indigenous self-determination, rights and sovereignty, and reclaiming and revitalizing Indigenous knowledges, cosmovisions, languages and relational conviviality worldwide” (Figueroa Helland et al. 2021)

Activity

From NbS to Decolonization and Re-Indigenization

How do decolonization and re-Indigenization intersect with other frameworks?

How do decolonization and re-indigenization intersect with other frameworks? (Degrowth, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-indigenization, Landback, Agroecology, Community Forest Management)?

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We said earlier that abolition and decolonization are mutually dependent. The same goes for all the other frameworks. Decolonization and re-indigenization is an important framework for all the other ones that should actively support them in their actions. Because colonialism permeates all aspects of life, any political vision, whether it’s a call to return land to its original caretakers, scaling down of production and consumption or adopting agroecological practices, necessitates a systemic and decolonial approach.

Activity

Radical Imagining

Bolded:

“If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. But longing isn’t good enough. We must live into the vision by creating it and defending it. We must ‘Build the New’ as a way to ‘Stop the Bad’ —we must be both visionary and oppositional.” -Movement Generation

The precursor to building a just future is imagining it. In this activity you will learn to build your imagination skills, which on a societal level are at risk of atrophying.

Imagine you live in a world in which decolonization and re-indigenization have already been ‘achieved’ and are actively practiced. Go through the following questions and allow yourself to talk, write, think, draw etc. through your answers without reservation or judgment. This is an opportunity to lean into optimism and into possibility. The sky’s the limit.

1- What does this world feel like? What feelings does it evoke in you?

2- What does it look like? What does it sound like? Taste? Smell?

3- What is present and what is not present? Can you do something you might not be able to do right now?

4- How do we go about solving problems?

5- What types of relationships do people have with one another? What about with institutions?

6- What is your role in this new world?

Decolonization and re-Indigenization in practice: Kichwa communities win landmark Free, Prior and Informed Consent case for the rights of Indigenous peoples in Peru.

Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ), covering 1.35 million hectares of forest with a 2.3-million-hectare buffer zone, was established as a protected reserve to prevent timber exploitation in the year 2000. In 2002, the NGO Centro de Conservación, Investigación y Manejo de Áreas Naturales (CIMA) was established to manage the National Park and was financed by several foreign donors (USAID, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Packard Foundation) before beginning the REDD project in 2008 selling carbon credits. The project was intended to sell carbon offsets at least until 2028, which was the duration of the contract for CIMA’s management of the park. During the implementation of the project, farmers, Indigenous groups or traditional communities International ejos and local ejos, landless peasants, Kakataibo People, Kichwa People, fisher people mobilized to protect the project. The Kichwa community had been dispossessed for the most part by the Cordillera Azul National Park and forestry concessions. In June 2022, the the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA), the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of Chazuta (FEPIKECHA) and the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of the Lower Huallaga of the San Martin Region (FEPIKBHSAM), the bases of the Coordinating Committee for the Defence and Development of the Indigenous Peoples of the San Martin Region (CODEPISAM) of Peru, issued the statement, “The Kichwa people reject the Cordillera Azul National Park’s exclusionary conservation and opaque carbon trading.” The Kichwa community clearly stated:

“We reject that MINAM and SERNANP continue to deny our right to prior consultation and participation in the distribution of the benefits of the REDD+ Project, saying that there are no communities within the PNCAZ. There are at least 29 Kichwa communities with territories which coincide with the area under management. Where are our purmas (forest fallows), collpas (watering holes), purinas (hunting trails), ancient paths and water springs? The Park’s forests DID NOT appear out of nowhere; their conservation is the product of our relationship with them, the care, protection, management, control and vigilance that we have been carrying out for centuries based on our traditional knowledge” (Statement by Kichwa People)

You can read the full statement of the Kichwa people rejecting the Cordillera Azul National Park’s exclusionary conservation and opaque carbon trading here and learn more about it here and on the EjAtlas. In September 2022, The Kichwa demanded a new model for conservation, a new social contract. On 3 September 2022 in Chazuta, San Martin, a high-level meeting was held where Indigenous organizations of the Kichwa people presented their demands to the Ministry of Culture (MINCUL) and the National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP), regarding more than 20 years of the exclusion of Indigenous peoples from the conservation model of the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ). Read the list of the demands here.

After this, CEPKA filed a lawsuit against the Government and the Cordillera Azul National Park for being dispossessed of its territory by the Park and forestry concession. In April 2023, the Kichwa people achieved Free, Prior and Informed Consent ordering for the titling of their ancestral territory to begin.

Decolonization and Re-indigenization in Practice: Baka People, Congo Basin

The Indigenous community of the Baka People in Congo have been stripped of their lands in the Messok Dja rainforest for the implementation of a new national park. The Baka people depend on the forest to eat, heal themselves and carry out their rituals. “The Baka have always protected the forest. We don’t destroy the trees: We only take the sap, the bark and the leaves. We don’t kill animals, except those we eat,” says Michel Zamoutom, the patriarch of Kika-PK14, a small hamlet in southeastern Cameroon on

the border with Congo-Brazzaville. (Pulitzer Center) For over a decade, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has been working with the Congolese government to set up the Messok Dja National Park with the help of funding bodies like the European Commission (EC), the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In the name of “fortress” nature conservation, Baka people are criminalized. WWF is in fact deploying “eco-guards” and private security that wage violence against Baka people. There are reports of some Baka men who were taken to prison to be tortured and raped (The Guardian). WWF says the eco guards were employed by the Congolese government, but admits contributing to their training and wages. Many Baka communities have written signed letters of complaint which they asked Survival International to forward to the funders of the proposed park. The Baka people are fully aware of their legal rights, they know the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of local communities must be obtained for projects happening on their land. Without their consent, Messok Dja National Park is illegal. This is how they are resisting corporate and NGO powers . (Pulitzer Center; Deep Green Resistance News Service)

Pull Quotes from here or include one letter:

“We, the Baka and Bakwele together, refuse this new park that WWF wants to create. That is our forest, where we find wild mangos, koko, fish and meat to feed our children with. In our forest we also find all the medicines we use to heal ourselves. We cross the forest and go as far as Souanke. For us the forest has no boundaries. If they cut the forest, how will our children and grandchildren live?”

“If they want to work in our forest they must come here and seek our consent.”

Buen Vivir

What is Buen Vivir?

The concept of buen vivir comes from a translation of ‘suma qamaña’ in Aymara and ‘sumaq kawsay’ in Kichwa which can be roughly understood as “good living”, “harmonious life”, “inclusive life”, “know how to live” and/or “plentiful life” in English. We also want to acknowledge there are different names and terms associated with the concept in different Indigenous communities and that they often cannot be accurately translated in Western languages. Sumaq qamaña and Sumaq kawsay date centuries back and continue to exist in Andean communities. Buen Vivir can mean different things, it’s ‘the whole’ (pacha); it’s multipolarity; it’s equilibrium; it’s complementarity; it’s decolonization. It is a concept that “prioritizes harmony, co-operation and humility over possessive individualism” (Adelman 2015). At its core, it is about the relationships of interdependence and humility. (Systemic Alternatives) Buen vivir is not simply ‘harmony with nature,’ as a romanticized vision of Indigenous peoples, it is a real political project that takes many different forms.

The concept of ‘buen vivir’ has become a buzzword and has often been co-opted, watered down, and/or alienated from the context it was meant to be used in. For example, the governments of Bolivia and Ecuador included the concept of buen vivir in their constitutions as principles of the States between 2007 and 2008. (Systemic Alternatives) However, the inclusion of ‘buen vivir’ does not mean the countries have taken a decolonial path nor have encompassed the full complexity of the term as their governments still rely on neo-extractivist policies. When buen vivir and other knowledge systems are brought to the state level, they are made to cohere with what the goals of the state, resulting in contradictions that do not reflect communities’ visions of buen vivir.

How does Buen Vivir apply to NbS?

How does Buen Vivir apply to NbS?

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Buen vivir undermines the need for NbS because it acknowledges the complexity and uniqueness of each ecosystem, each community and each context whereas NbS equates one tonne of carbon anywhere with any other tonne of carbon elsewhere. Nature is seen as something active and in constant flux that we are in a deep relationship of reciprocity with and mutuality while NbS requires a view of nature as passive and inert that we need to have complete control and power over.

Activity

From NbS to Buen Vivir

How does Buen Vivir intersect with other real solutions?

How does Buen Vivir intersect with other real solutions: (Degrowth, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-indigenization, Landback, Agroecology, Community Forest Management)?

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Buen vivir has a mutually dependent and reinforcing relationship with decolonization. Unsurprisingly, it  mutually reinforces other concepts such as the commons, degrowth, decolonization, abolition, depatriarchalization and anti-imperialism and so on. Buen vivir is also deeply tied to the concept of the autonomy of the land where the relationship with land is central, something we will explore later with the concept of land back.

Activity

Radical Imagining

Bolded:

“If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. But longing isn’t good enough. We must live into the vision by creating it and defending it. We must ‘Build the New’ as a way to ‘Stop the Bad’ —we must be both visionary and oppositional.” -Movement Generation

The precursor to building a just future is imagining it. In this activity you will learn to build your imagination skills, which on a societal level are at risk of atrophying.

Imagine you live in a world in which Buen Vivir has already been ‘achieved’ and is actively practiced. Go through the following questions and allow yourself to talk, write, think, draw etc. through your answers without reservation or judgment. This is an opportunity to lean into optimism and into possibility. The sky’s the limit.

1- What does this world feel like? What feelings does it evoke in you?

2- What does it look like? What does it sound like? Taste? Smell?

3- What is present and what is not present? Can you do something you might not be able to do right now?

4- How do we go about solving problems?

5- What types of relationships do people have with one another? What about with institutions?

6- What is your role in this new world?

Buen Vivir In Practice: Indigenous movement in Ecuador

The biggest organization of the movement, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador, or CONAIE), founded in 1986, has established itself as a legitimate political movement in the national discourse. According to scholar Altman,  “Good life allows for local decolonization, a concrete and local fight against the structures of “the coloniality of power” framed within a discursive panorama that includes concepts of plurality and autonomy. ” (Altman, 2017) Altman states, “The buzz phrases good life, buen vivir, and sumak kawsay as they are developed and proposed by the Indigenous movement in Ecuador involve a profoundly decolonial concept that calls into question coloniality of power as a matrix of racist exclusion, capitalist exploitation, and Eurocentric epistemicide.” (Altman, 2017)

Brainstorming for another case study:

• Rights of Mother Earth? Use in challenging NbS projects?
• Check ej atlas and see if a community uses it as a resistance tool to contest NbS

            (EJ Atlas has this as a descriptor in cases)

LandBack

What is LandBack?

At the heart of the Land Back movement lies the goal of returning land and its stewardship to Indigenous peoples. Key here is the term ‘returning’—these lands were never surrendered and remain illegitimately occupied. In Indigenous cosmologies and epistemologies everything emanates from the land; matters of land therefore also implicate hunting and fishing, Indigenous cultures, languages, livelihoods, and sovereignty amongst other things. In light of this, the Land Back movement is about much more than just land. The movement also includes Indigenous self-determination, cultural and language preservation, food sovereignty, and the material wellbeing to Indigenous communities. LandBack is required and prioritized for decolonization and re-Indigenization.

How does LandBack apply to NbS?

How does LandBack apply to NbS?

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NbS are in direct opposition and stand in the way of landback. NbS require the occupation of more and more land, as we have seen earlier, for example with the case of Shell relying on the use of NbS to compensate for its emissions through reforestation projects covering an area the size of Brazil. Landback directly addresses NbS: it seeks for all lands used for NbS projects to be returned to the Indigenous communities belonging to those lands (however they decide that should be done).

NbS actually relies on the colonial and imperial occupation of land. The White House NbS RoadMap states that “Federal agencies manage approximately 650 million acres of public land, from national parks to beaches and working forests. Intentionally managing these natural resources to embed nature-based solutions can increase the return on taxpayer dollars” (White House). Instead these Indigenous lands should be returned to their rightful caretakers to best care for them through their ancestral practices that would more successfully achieve the goals that NbS claim to (e.g. enhancing water storage, moderating drought risk, and reducing flood risks from storms and sea level rise). “Co-stewardship and co-management” with Indigenous communities, as suggested “where appropriate” by the White House is not sufficient (White House).

“When people have their own say over their own communities, that’s when their communities

thrive. If a community can have a say over their community, that community is going to be healthier and stronger. They will protect and defend their community, their rivers, their streams, their mountains, their forests.” -Thomas Joseph, Indigenous Environmental Network (ATMOS)

“While Indigenous communities globally have been calling for more protections of nature, they’ve called for this alongside other demands, such as the recognition of their land and cultural rights. The reality is that many governments ignore their rights, which is already resulting in displacement as nature-based solutions proponents pursue this avenue.”- Yessenia Funes (ATMOS)

Activity

From NbS to LandBack

How does LandBack intersect with other real solutions?

How does LandBack intersect with other real solutions? (Degrowth, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-Indigenization, Agroecology, Community Forest Management)?

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LandBack is a central demand of decolonization and re-Indigenization. It is called for under decolonial versions of degrowth that center “de-enclosure” of lands. Although not always explicitly tied or included by all abolitionists, abolition in its goals to dismantle all oppressive systems and structures includes the abolition of borders and private property.

Despite these possible and present intersections, there is still also a widespread non-commitment to LandBack among many groups practicing versions of these real solutions.

Activity

Radical Imagining

Bolded:

“If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. But longing isn’t good enough. We must live into the vision by creating it and defending it. We must ‘Build the New’ as a way to ‘Stop the Bad’ —we must be both visionary and oppositional.” -Movement Generation

The precursor to building a just future is imagining it. In this activity you will learn to build your imagination skills, which on a societal level are at risk of atrophying.

Imagine you live in a world in which LandBack has already been ‘achieved’. Go through the following questions and allow yourself to talk, write, think, draw etc. through your answers without reservation or judgment. This is an opportunity to lean into optimism and into possibility. The sky’s the limit.

1- What does this world feel like? What feelings does it evoke in you?

2- What does it look like? What does it sound like? Taste? Smell?

3- What is present and what is not present? Can you do something you might not be able to do right now?

4- How do we go about solving problems?

5- What types of relationships do people have with one another? What about with institutions?

6- What is your role in this new world?

Landback in Practice: Tanzania Indigenous Peoples

In the name of mitigation policies to address climate change, including NbS, many Indigenous Peoples are evicted from their ancestral lands in the Global South. Armed forces are deployed in forcefully evicting Indigenous peoples in Tanzania in the name of conservation projects. The climate crisis has seen an increase in rates of evictions of Indigenous Peoples in Tanzania from land based investments to enlargements of protected areas. (Tanzania Indigenous Peoples Policy Brief)

PINGOs Forum (The Pastoralists Indigenous Non-Governmental Organizations’ Forum) is an advocacy coalition of indigenous peoples’ organizations who are currently 53, working in Tanzania for the rights of the marginalized indigenous pastoralists and Hunter-gatherers communities since 1994. As a human rights and development network PINGOs Forum seeks to advocate and support development of competencies on sustainable livelihoods of Pastoralists and hunter-gatherers communities in Tanzania. It endeavors to amplify the voices and foster the interests of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers by advocating for change on good governance and human rights. Furthermore, PINGO’s Forum addresses issues of Gender, HIV/AIDS, Environment, and Climate Change. Learn more at www.pingosforum.or.tz.

IWGIA is an international human rights organization staffed by specialists and advisers on indigenous affairs. IWGIA supports indigenous peoples’ struggle for human rights, self-determination, right to territory, control of land and resources, cultural integrity, and the right to development. IWGIA was founded in 1968 with the aim of establishing a network of concerned researchers and human right activists to document the situation of indigenous peoples and advocate for an improvement of their rights. Today indigenous peoples from all over the world are involved in IWGIA’s global network Learn more at www.iwgia.org.

TIPTCC was formed in 2013 by a committee consisting of seven key indigenous organizations with the goal of creating a mechanism to raise awareness on climate change and its effects on indigenous peoples’ livelihoods in Tanzania and to promote the integration of indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and rights in climate change policies and initiatives. TIPTCC has since its formation provided a forum for discussing Indigenous peoples’ positions on different climate change and REDD+ related policies and initiatives, including the draft REDD+ policy, REDD+ safeguards, and REDD+ Information and communication system and World Bank Environmental and Social Framework.

Landback in Practice: Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Movement Generation

There are efforts across Turtle Island (North America) to return land to its original caretakers. In June 2023, two organizations, Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women-led land trust, and Movement Generation, a nonprofit collective that inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture and focusing on Just Transition, announced long-term partnership to care for land as part of a broad Indigenous land back movement. They have partnered to return 43 acres of land to Indigenous care, in the unceded Bay Miwok territory of the San Francisco East Bay Area. “Returning land to Indigenous care is healing for us and healing for the land,” says Corrina Gould, co-founder of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and tribal chairperson of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan. “Working together with Movement Generation to create visions and commitments into the next generations allows us to reimagine relationships to this land and multiply the possibilities of our work.” (Movement Generation 2023). This is just one example of many to illustrate there are alternatives to NbS.

“Movement Generation envisions the land to become a Bay Area movement hub for deep political strategy, reconnecting with earth and ancestry, and practicing rematriation, with the support of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Here, MG will host intergenerational programs for organizers, healers, cultural workers and earth workers to engage in grassroots ecology, building their capacity to guide their own communities towards a Just Transition and an ecologically regenerative future.” Movement Generation 2023

Other Possible Case Study:

• ***Add nuance to this with cases of communities using California’s carbon offsetting program to buy back their land: sources with this nuance and different perspectives- Yurok Tribe: Source 1 , Source 2, Source 3, other source
  • https://foe.org/news/coalition-urges-ca-reduce-emissions/
  • https://news.mongabay.com/2018/11/californias-misguided-plan-to-save-tropical-forests-commentary/ 
• Examples of Nbs resistances have been trying to return land to Indigenous communities
  • 1492 Land Back Lane?
• Community/Indigenous land tenure rights?

Agroecology and Food Sovereignty

Artwork: from HITH publication

What is Agroecology?

Agroecology and food sovereignty are the (Western) name given to deep and complex knowledge systems of ecological processes that have been developed over hundreds of thousands of years by peasants, fisher people, land-based communities, and Indigenous peoples. The knowledge of Peasant and Indigenous farmers is key in centering  agroecological farming practices. This knowledge is place-based, locally-adapted, and culturally-relevant.

“Peasant agroecology and food sovereignty are social, political, and ecological visions that unite multiple sectors within a single movement to challenge business-as-usual and create systems of shared control over the requirements of life.”(La Via Campesina 2018)

These knowledge systems are threatened by agribusiness and transnational corporations. However, often agroecology is co-opted by big corporations and even NGOs strategically trying to push their distorted vision of agroecology for their own benefits under names of ‘climate smart agriculture’, ‘sustainable’ or ‘ecological intensification’, industrial monocultural production of ‘organic’ food, etc. To learn more about co-optation of agroecology read “‘Junk Agroecology’: The Corporate Capture of Agroecology for a Partial Ecological Transition Without Social Justice” by Friends of the Earth International, Transnational Institute and Crocevia.

How does agroecology apply to NbS?

How does agroecology apply to NbS?

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There are four decades of grassroots and academic evidence showing that agroecology technologies, innovations and practices–that were not even recognized in official circles until 2010–are the most effective agricultural response to the climate crisis and are real alternatives to nature-based solutions (FOEI 2018). While the world already produces enough food to feed the global population now and in four decades’ time, 815 million people suffer from hunger in the world. If supported, agroecology can double agricultural productivity in entire regions within 10 years (de Schutter, 2010). Agroecology and food sovereignty offer potential for reducing emissions and achieving social justice. At least 75% of the peasants, family farmers and Indigenous Peoples and other small-scale food producers, mostly women, on 500 million small farms, which account for about 80% of the world’s food production have contributed to humanity 2.1 million varieties of 7,000 domesticated plant species. (FOEI 2018a and HITH 2021) Instead of operating in a way where nature is seen as external to humans, passive, inert, and that humans are therefore justified in the complete control and ownership over land, we need to redshift our relationship with nature to one of mutuality and reciprocity. La Via Campesina,  an international movement bringing together millions of peasants, landless workers, indigenous people, pastoralists, fishers, migrant farmworkers, small and medium-size farmers, rural women and peasant youth from around the world, centers food sovereignty peasant agroecology and food sovereignty in its work as a way to challenge business-as-usual and achieve climate justice. In its report La Via Campesina in Action for Climate Justice, it shows how peasants in France, Indonesia, South and East Africa and Puerto Rico are resisting false solutions and developing pathways to the new system.

While NbS’ failed attempts to sequester carbon are based on a faulty understanding of ecosystems as substitutable for each other, agroecology has a deeper understanding of ecosystems, their interdependence, lifecycles and diversity. With agroecology, carbon sequestration in healthy soils together with carbon sequestration in vegetation and the less dependency on fossil fuel actually lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and improve adaptation to climate change and resilience of agricultural production. (FOEI 2018a) Agroecological practices nurture our lands and waters, rather than occupying and extracting from them through land and marine-based NbS, for example.

Activity

From NbS to Agroecology

Source: FOEI: Double Jeopardy report: how nature based solutions threaten food sovereignty and agroecology

How does agroecology and food sovereignty intersect with other real solutions?

How does agroecology intersect and food sovereignty with other real solutions? (Degrowth, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-indigenization, Landback, Agroecology, Community Forest Management)?

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Agroecology and food sovereignty intersect with frameworks such as decolonization and re-indigenization and degrowth as they put mutuality and reciprocity with nature first, away from the commodification, extractivism, and exploitation of natural resources and people of the capitalist and neocolonial system.

Activity

Radical Imagining

Bolded:

“If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. But longing isn’t good enough. We must live into the vision by creating it and defending it. We must ‘Build the New’ as a way to ‘Stop the Bad’ —we must be both visionary and oppositional.” -Movement Generation

The precursor to building a just future is imagining it. In this activity you will learn to build your imagination skills, which on a societal level are at risk of atrophying.

Imagine you live in a world in which agroecology and food sovereignty have already been ‘achieved’ and are actively practiced. Go through the following questions and allow yourself to talk, write, think, draw etc. through your answers without reservation or judgment. This is an opportunity to lean into optimism and into possibility. The sky’s the limit.

1- What does this world feel like? What feelings does it evoke in you?

2- What does it look like? What does it sound like? Taste? Smell?

3- What is present and what is not present? Can you do something you might not be able to do right now?

4- How do we go about solving problems?

5- What types of relationships do people have with one another? What about with institutions?

6- What is your role in this new world?

Agroecology and Food Sovereignty in Practice: The Declaration of Nyéléni

A group composed of Friends of the Earth International, La Via Campesina, the World March of Women, ROPPA, WFF and WFFP came together to organize Nyéléni 2007, the World Forum for Food

Sovereignty:

According to the group, agroecology is complementary and inseparable from food sovereignty. “Through Nyéléni processes, the food sovereignty movement created the basis for future positions in many global negotiations, including the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests; the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication; agroecology; and the implementation of Farmers’ Rights in the context of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.”

According to the Declaration of Nyéléni(2007):

“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty prioritizes local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability.”

(Declaration of Nyéléni, 2007)

The Nyéléni process has been working alongside  strategies of resistance advanced by Indigenous communities fighting for decolonization. The 2007 Nyéléni Forum was central in moving African states to support the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).  Many organizations and movements engaged in the Nyéléni process have called for the recognition and application of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). (IPES FOOD 2023)

According to the 2015 Declaration of Nyéléni:

“Agroecology is the answer to how to transform and repair our material reality in a food system and rural world that has been devastated by industrial food production and its so-called Green and Blue Revolutions. We see agroecology as a key form of resistance to an economic system that puts profit before life […]We cannot allow agroecology to be a tool of the industrial food production model: we see it as the essential alternative to that model, and as the means of transforming how we produce and consume food into something better for humanity and our Mother Earth. Agroecology is a way of life and the language of Nature, that we learn as her children. It is not a mere set of technologies or production practices. It cannot be implemented the same way in all territories. Rather it is based on principles that, while they may be similar across the diversity of our territories, can and are practiced in many different ways, with each sector contributing their own colors of their local reality and culture, while always respecting Mother Earth and our common, shared values.”

(Declaration of Nyéléni, 2015)

During the 2015 Forum, one of the nine strategies agreed upon was to ‘denounce and fight corporate and institutional capture of agroecology’ threatening real transformative agroecology. (Nyéléni 2015, 7)

Agroecology is possible, everywhere around the world, whether it’s turning strawberry monocultures into sustainable food and farming systems through a 30-year farmer-researcher partnership in California, or breaking away from industrial commodity production in Central American coffee-growing communities. Learn more at IPES FOOD (2018) “Breaking away from industrial food

and farming systems: Seven case studies of agroecological transition.”

Fighting NbS in practice: LVC Agroecology Schools – Socially produced knowledge

For over 25 years, political and technical training has been a strategic priority of La Via Campesina (LVC). La Via Campesina has more than 70 schools and training processes based on popular education, which is a method and an approach that puts forward the scaling up of agroecology at the territorial level and the strengthening of peoples’ food sovereignty. “For La Via Campesina (LVC), agroecology cannot exist without popular education; without the participation of women and young people, because agroecology must permeate the productive chain, as an organizational-political practice that makes solidarity, autonomy, popular agrarian reform, work, income and thus food sovereignty possible.“In this context, political-agroecological training represents for LVC a continuous, broad and systematic process that reflects on practices and integrates socially produced knowledge. A process in which new knowledge based on people’s experience on the ground is created and shared; a process that also acknowledges the multiplicity of knowledge and social and human diversity.” (La Via Campesina)

What does La Via Campesina do with its agroecological training strategy?

1. It denounces the capitalist agribusiness model—through direct struggles, land occupations, assemblies, street closings, fairs, events, etc.
2. It promotes peasant agriculture and builds knowledge—through formal and informal courses (for leaders, activists and grassroots), exchanges of agroecological experiences in all regions and biomes, “farmer-to-farmer” processes, and alliances with various organizations that promote agroecology.

Where?

• In everyday life: peasant-to-peasant
• In country schools
• In bachelor’s/master’s degrees in rural education
• In the Latin American Institutes of Agroecology (IALAs) and other agroecology training centers

Learn more here

Activity

Imagine your own popular education school

• How do you envision your school?
• What would you like to see in the school?
• What type of teaching and learning style would it have?
• What would you teach from what you have learnt here so far?
• Where would it be located?
• Who would have access to the school?

Community Forest Management (CFM)

What is Community Forest Management (CFM)?

Community forest management (CFM) is another alternative to nature-based solutions where nature is not commodified. CFM is a cultural and spiritual practice. “Community forest management systems view the land as the commons.” (CCF).  CFM is not limited to forests, it can be practiced in different ecosystems. It strengthens the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, it prevents deforestation and forest degradation, contributes to climate stability, fosters community organization, and protects the commons, contributing to social, economic and gender justice (FOEI 2018b) The concept of CFM refers to the political control by communities over their territories and resources through horizontal decision making processes that include transparency and accountability towards the rest of the community (FOEI 2018b). CFM “is a type of collective, community- based management, traditionally identified with protection against the industrial and commercial use given to natural resources, including forests. CFM is not a new concept but is traditional knowledge that is opposed to “Western science”, “which is based on simplified models that often include assumptions that have facilitated in many cases the devastation of resources and conditions of serious social injustice.” (FOEI 2018b)

CFM is political, cultural, spiritual and technical thought and practice. It is political because it implies the need to be organised in order to think and manage territories and what they contain; cultural because it is based on traditional knowledge, and by each people’s needs and own ways of meeting them; spiritual because it involves ancestral links, values and worldviews, which in turn generate assessments that are more complex than that of academics or economy; and technical because it appeals to the need for appropriate technology, which can be provided by communities themselves or through interaction with other cultures. (FOEI 2018b)

How does CFM apply to NbS?

How does CFM apply to NbS?

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It is known that forests are the most effective in safeguarding against climate change than NbS as they regulate water cycles allowing basins and aquifers to maintain water in a better way. They also help prevent disasters caused by floods, tsunamis and landslides. Both academia and local communities have been saying for decades that decentralization in the management of some resources is necessary in environmental policies yet at, global level, it is estimated that local communities manage around 8% of all forests in the world. This needs to increase if we want to protect our biodiversity.

Communities that have community forest management systems have been found to have higher levels of biodiversity than those managed by the government or by conservation programs or non-profits or corporations. A study that compared forty protected areas and 33 CFM experiences in several localities in Mexico, South America, Africa and Asia concluded that the areas under CFM presented a lower annual deforestation rate which was less variable than areas under absolute protection regimes. (Porter-Bolland L. et al, 2012) In Latin America, local communities have obtained property or use rights recognized by governments for at least 150 million hectares, 11 which represent approximately 20% of the total forest land in Latin America. Mexico is probably the country in the region with proportionally more forests in the hands of “ejidos” and indigenous and peasant communities. (FOEI 2018b)

Activity

From NbS to Community Forest Management

How does CFM intersect with other real solutions?

How does CFM intersect with other real solutions? (Buen Vivir, Degrowth, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-indigenization, Landback, Agroecology)?

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The concept of buen vivir is tied within CFM. Forests are closely related to all the natural commons that are necessary for good living: water, seeds, biodiversity, climate, soils, honey, fruits, medicines, they are all elements that depend on forests.  In many communities around the world, forests are closely connected with the spiritual world. (FOEI 2018b) CFM is also deeply tied to agroecology and food sovereignty as hundreds of food products that are derived from forests. To learn more about the deep relation between CFM and agroecology, read Community Forest Management & Agroecology by FOEI.

There has been an increase of decentralization of forests, especially in the Global South, but forest policies and laws have still not opened enough spaces for communities to control their forests and participate in decision making processes of resources. Different movements are rising to speak up, demanding their rights, especially Indigenous communities demanding access to their ancestral lands. It is necessary to promote territorial consolidation processes under Indigenous Peoples control. There are many territories that have not been legally demarcated and so peoples and communities cannot exercise their rights over them. (FOEI 2018b)

Activity

Radical Imagining

Bolded:

“If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. But longing isn’t good enough. We must live into the vision by creating it and defending it. We must ‘Build the New’ as a way to ‘Stop the Bad’ —we must be both visionary and oppositional.” -Movement Generation

The precursor to building a just future is imagining it. In this activity you will learn to build your imagination skills, which on a societal level are at risk of atrophying.

Imagine you live in a world in which Community Forest Management has already been ‘achieved’ and is actively practiced. Go through the following questions and allow yourself to talk, write, think, draw etc. through your answers without reservation or judgment. This is an opportunity to lean into optimism and into possibility. The sky’s the limit.

1- What does this world feel like? What feelings does it evoke in you?

2- What does it look like? What does it sound like? Taste? Smell?

3- What is present and what is not present? Can you do something you might not be able to do right now?

4- How do we go about solving problems?

5- What types of relationships do people have with one another? What about with institutions?

6- What is your role in this new world?

Community Forest Management in Practice: Nepal’s Community Forests

Nepal is one of the few countries in the Global South to have a community forestry management program which was designated by the government in the late 1970s. In the early 1990s the Forest Act 1993 was established which allowed more decentralization and gave local and Indigenous communities access to the lands they belonged to and relied on. Today, community forests occupy nearly 2.3 million hectares—about a third of Nepal’s forest cover—and are managed by over 22,000 community forest groups. (NASA 2023)

According to the Forest Act 1993 and Regulation 1995 the national forest can be managed in five different ways: community forest, leasehold forest, religious forest, government-managed forest and protected forest. Local communities manage the forest through legally recognised Community Forest User Groups. But often the Nepalese government is reluctant to hand over the national forests as community forests. For example, the government was initially opposed to giving the national forests to the local communities in the areas of the Barandabhar corridor, the Basanta corridor and the Panchase landscape in Nepal because they are a source of revenue for the government, such as timber products.   After various campaigns in these areas, the government’s District Forest Offices gave the majority of the national forest to Community Forest User Groups as community forests. The use groups have contributed to reduce deforestation and increase forest regeneration and biodiversity. In the Panchase the communities have contributed to the reduction of landscape soil erosion, landslides

and floods Phewa Lake of Pokhara valley.  The communities and user groups and their federation, FECOFUN, continue to fight against the threat of the government through advocacy campaigns to protect community rights over the forests.  (Case Study from Global Forest Coalition 2018. Learn more about the important work Global Forest Coalition is doing. GFC is an international coalition of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations defending social justice and the rights of forest peoples in forest policies )

Activities for all Real Solutions

These activities appear below/after the flower diagram

Activity

Activity 1 at end of Real Solutions Section (Name TBD)

What knowledge systems/ideologies/political visions do you and your community hold/practice? How would you apply it to critique and offer alternative solutions to NbS? How do those knowledge systems intersect with those we’ve explored here (Buen Vivir, Degrowth, Abolition, Decolonization & Re-indigenization, Landback, Agroecology, Community Forest Management)?

Activity

Activity 2 at end of Real Solutions Section: Putting the Nature Back into Nature-Based Solutions

Now that you have read about other frameworks and tools in creating a just and liveable future as well as real examples of how they’re put into action, what would actual nature-based solutions look like to you?

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