Nikki's Politico.com article on Nigerians at COP15

Yesterday, I walked the complex maze of halls and booths at the Bella Center with Odigha Odigha, Tunde Morakinyo, both part of the Nigerian delegation, and John Niles of the Tropical Forest Group. We were trying to track down possible donors to provide preliminary financing for what they describe as a “poster-child REDD project”. REDD, the UN program Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Derogation, is widely acknowledged throughout the COP as one of the least controversial proposals on the table: Trees and forest soil store tremendous amounts of carbon; an estimated 15 - 20% of annual carbon emissions come from deforestation. There are large co-benefits - biodiversity, watershed protection - from saving intact rainforest. Plus it’s a relatively cheap way for nations to meet emissions reductions in the near-term. The REDD program would provide a mechanism for countries with tropical forests to reduce deforestation and to be paid by developed countries to do so.
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Odigha comes from Cross River State one of the last forested parts of Nigeria, at the western border of Cameron. The area is rich in biodiversity, particularly primates, including the most endangered African ape, the Cross River Gorilla. Odigha was a mathematician prior to becoming a grassroots activist in the mid-1990s, stopping a massive deforestation project in his state and later winning the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. In a surprising twist, he now works directly for the government, as the chairman for the Cross Rivers State Forestry Commission. Recruited by Governor Liyel Imoke, whom Odigha describes as an emerging climate leader in Africa, Odigha now straps on a gun and bulletproof vest along with an ex-police task force to guard the local forests from illegal logging.

This work is being done under a 2-year state moratorium on logging and Imoke’s declaration of a shift from logging concessions to carbon concessions. The hitch is that there is not yet a market to support the carbon concessions that Nigeria can tap into. The REDD market will not appear until 2012, when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires. Projects like Cross River will not be likely to get much investment to prevent deforestation if they can’t first create the institutions, capacity, monitoring and other essential requirements to make investors feel secure and qualify for REDD funds. This stage of planning has been dubbed “REDD readiness.”

While a few countries have been able to secure funding and implement programs to prepare for REDD, for example Panama and Gyana, Nigeria has difficulty attaining resources for forest conservation, says Tunde Morakinyo. That is because donor funds tend to go for education, HIV, and governance, not the environment.

At a Conservation International and Nature Conservancy sponsored REDD side event, another Nigerian complained that the stringent requirements to qualify for REDD funds will limit the involvement of poor African nations. CI’s spokesperson responded “if the mechanism excludes countries, it must be flawed”. It’s the hope of the Tropical Forest Group that when the governor arrives at COP15 on Sunday, they will have succeeded in arranging some meetings and Cross River will be able to get the financing they need to prove the governor right -- that preserving carbon can pay.


Nicole Heller
Ecologist, Climate Central