The process to establish REDD+, a proposed climate change mitigation mechanism that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by funding conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests (REDD+), is lacking in transparency and failing to include civil society organizations and indigenous peoples, say activists across forty NGOs.

On Tuesday, organizations led by the Rainforest Foundation UK, Friends of the Earth (USA & France), Global Witness and The Wilderness Society issued a statement criticizing the Paris-Oslo Process — which aims to establish a forests deal outside of a broader climate agreement — for "lack of genuine consultation in the drafting of the agreement" and "failing to take into account underlying issues that need to be tackled in the fight against deforestation." The groups fear that lack of transparency in the decision-making process and allocation of the $6 billion in "fast-start" financing so far pledged to REDD+ could undermine the effectiveness of the forest conservation initiative as well as the overall progress on addressing climate change.

"Ambitious steps must be taken now to reduce deforestation, but we also highlight the danger of donor countries rushing to disburse funds allocated for REDD on unsuitable projects that do not address underlying problems," said the statement. "Rushing to channel money to REDD where the necessary governance and legislative 'readiness' is not yet secured would result in negative social and environmental outcomes overall. Difficult but much-needed policy and governance reforms are required in many countries to tackle the underlying drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in order to develop a more sustainable forest sector on a broad scale."

"Unless underlying problems are addressed, so-called fast-start financing would be a false start for REDD."

The statement comes on the heels of three days of climate talks in Bonn, Germany. The activist groups say they were excluded from participating in the discussions.

"To be successful, the Interim REDD Partnership Agreement must be a partnership not only of developed and developing states but also of civil society and indigenous peoples. Peoples living in and near forests will be most directly affected by REDD activities," said the statement. "They must, therefore, have a seat at the table and adequate time to understand and comment on the proposed Interim REDD Partnership Agreement."

"A bad REDD system is worse than no system at all for the world’s climate, its forests and its people. If the Interim REDD Partnership focuses narrowly on emissions reductions and fails to take into consideration the need to establish mechanisms for implementing and monitoring the safeguards, ignoring the potential effects of REDD on human rights, biodiversity, and poverty, it sets itself up for failure and could easily do more harm than good.”

REDD+ — reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries — is a proposed climate change mitigation mechanism that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by paying developing countries to stop cutting down their forests. Tropical deforestation is the source of 12-17 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, a share larger than all the world's cars, trucks, ships, planes, and trains combined.

A properly designed REDD mechanism is seen by many as a potentially cost-effective approach to simultaneously conserve forests, slow climate change, protect biodiversity, foster sustainable development, and maintain important ecological services provided by healthy forest ecosystems. But as highlighted in the latest statement, many concerns still remain, including financing to support the mechanism and provide sufficient economic incentives to stop deforestation; criteria for establishing credible deforestation baselines; technical aspects of monitoring and verifying change in forest cover; concerns over poor governance and illegal logging; international leakage, whereby forest conservation in one country drives deforestation in another; scale of implementation, including the debate over "national" versus "sub-national" projects; equity, including land tenure, ownership, and participation of forest-dependent communities; questions on how to address drivers of deforestation including consumption in rich countries; sustainable forest management (i.e. reduced impact logging) versus protection of primary forests as intact ecosystems; protection of biodiversity and environmental services in non-carbon-rich ecosystems; and controversies over carbon offsets and including forest carbon in market-based trading schemes.

Although an agreement on REDD+ has still not been signed, projects are already underway in a number of countries and industrialized countries have committed billions of dollars to REDD start-up initiatives via the UN-REDD Programme, the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, and other entities. Once an agreement is finalized, 2013 is the earliest REDD would formally commence, following the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol.

$6B forest conservation plan lacking in transparency, indigenous participation, say activists