Nicaragua: UN Climate Fund cancels funding for reforestation project
It's a first.
The Green Climate Fund, under the auspices of the United Nations, has canceled its funding for a project in Nicaragua which aimed to protect forests.
The cause is an escalation of human rights violations in the region and a direct threat to the indigenous peoples who live there.
A decision that could set a precedent.
This aerial photo from September 16, 2015 shows part of the land cleared by “settlers” in Murubila, Nicaragua.
AP - Esteban Felix
By: RFI Follow
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Sixty-four million dollars for a Nicaraguan
government program
to protect two UNESCO-listed forest reserves in the extreme north and south of the country... On paper, this is a relevant project for the Green Climate
Fund
, whose aim is precisely to financially support this type of initiative.
In fact, very quickly, local opposition was heard.
Most of the program in fact focused on already deforested areas, taken over by settlers who sometimes attack very violently, to the point of murder, the indigenous communities already present.
“ Unethical
”
practices
As the money and the running of the program were managed by the Nicaraguan authorities, previously reluctant to
enforce indigenous rights
, there was fear that this project would further worsen the situation.
A fear relayed to the Green Fund which, three years after the alert, chose to no longer provide its support and its millions of dollars to the project.
This, estimated at $115.7 million, aimed to reduce 47.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Also read: Nicaragua expels human rights observers
In response, Nicaragua complained this Friday, March 8, about the cancellation of funding.
“
The Government of Nicaragua repudiates and rejects the decision of the Green Climate Fund Secretariat which, through non-transparent and unethical processes and procedures, canceled the financing of the BIOCLIMA project
” in Bosawas, Caribbean region in the North, and in the Indio Maíz reserve, in the Río San Juan region, in the south of the country, indicates a press release published in official media.
“
We ask, we demand, that the Green Climate Fund guarantees the mobilization of resources committed by the International Community, and which have been withdrawn from the indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of our Nicaragua
,” added the government of President
Daniel Ortega
.
This is the first time that such a decision has been taken since its creation in 2010. It could thus set a precedent to better reconcile environmental projects and respect for the rights of communities, too often forgotten, paradoxically, in nature restoration programs. .
Read alsoCOP26: Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean demand compliance with commitments
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