Carbon credits are purchased by companies to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. (File)
Bogotá:
Colombia’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday annulled a controversial Amazon rainforest carbon credit agreement that six local tribes said was signed without their consent.
Indigenous communities living in the remote area of Pira-Paraná accused US-based Ruby Canyon Environmental and the Colombian company Masbosques, which acted as an intermediary, of illegally imposing the agreement on them.
Carbon credits are purchased by companies – or countries under certain conditions – from forest conservation or other projects to offset or “offset” their greenhouse gas emissions.
This money should go to local communities who protect their home regions from deforestation.
In Pira-Paraná, the credits – also known as green bonds – were sold for around US$3.8 million to a Colombian data processing company called Latin Checkout.
According to EcoRegistry, which monitors the trade in carbon credits, Latin Checkout then sold the credits to US airline Delta, which is facing an internal lawsuit for alleged “greenwashing” by claiming to be carbon neutral while purchasing offsets. questionable carbon emissions.
The agreement, signed in March 2021, called for indigenous communities to preserve an area of 7,100 square kilometers (2,741 miles) – close to the size of Puerto Rico.
But the tribes said the agreement was signed with false representatives of their communities.
They went to court alleging violations of their rights to territorial autonomy and self-government.
On Monday, the court ordered the tribes’ legitimate representatives to meet and decide within six months whether to authorize a new agreement.
Otherwise, the authorities must “guarantee” that the carbon credit project “is no longer carried out in the territory”, the judges decided.
The concept behind carbon credits has taken a major hit recently, as scientific research has repeatedly shown that emissions reduction claims are vastly overstated – or even non-existent.
At the end of 2023, the AFP walked, rode a motorboat and flew over part of the Pira-Paraná territory, an area so remote that it is only accessible by private flights or by a boat trip of at least six days from the city closest to Mitu.
There, local leaders said they wished they had never heard of the deal.
Although it brought an economic “bonanza”, it also led to conflicts in communities not used to dealing with large sums of money and the loss of indigenous autonomy, they said.
The project “contaminates spiritually, physically, destroys everything… in this territory, for money,” indigenous leader Fabio Valencia said at the time.
Some experts claimed there was no real threat of deforestation in the area and therefore no emissions “savings” to be made.
The Constitutional Court case was the first of its kind in Colombia.
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