Real World Radio interviewed Coecoceiba’s activist, Isaac Rojas, in the context of the Peoples Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Rojas talked about the role finance markets are playing in terms of biodiversity.

“They are presented as solutions to the crisis, but actually they cause more crises and result in more businesses for companies”, he warned.
Rojas made reference to the case of Indonesia, where REDD mechanisms were presented as the "salvation" against deforestation, forest conservation and a supposed source of economic resources for communities.

“We realized it was a lie: communities were never consulted and ancestral territories were privatized. There are a lot of empty promises”, said the representative of Coecoceiba-Friends of the Earth Costa Rica.

He also talked about similar cases registered in Brazil and Uganda, were recipes that “do not work, deepen the crisis and reward polluters” are implemented.

In the case of Costa Rica, he mentioned the negative impacts of the programs of payment for environmental services, among them the division of indigenous communities. “None of these mechanisms attacks the causes of deforestation, climate change, or biodiversity degradation and destruction”, he concluded.

Photo: http://servindi.org/