One week of Cancun talks have passed by and I just can't stop wondering!

Seems the world gets more wired any time when people meet for negotiations on what should happen to forests.

All of you who may have watched the negotiations regarding REDD+ over the last years have realized an ongoing controversial discussion between people who are propagating "conservation" (the lobby of the so called "environmental NGOs") and people who are representing the rights of indigenous people. This discussion mainly targets on the problem of displacement of people when it comes to put forests under nature conservation and nature protection (you might be interested in reading this article: REDD+: Conservation is not the deal at all).

This was still renewed last week by several articles like Jeremy Hance, Mongabay: Study: REDD could save species from extinction, if well-funded.

That's old hats. The wired one came when going further in reading recent articles regarding REDD.

At first you just might frown when reading another article at Mongabay: Don't ignore biodiversity when conserving carbon stocks. Well, when remembering all those statements which have been published as a result of the last CBD conference some weeks ago, you would just ask "so what?".

But when reading the next headline "Biodiversity could be at risk from conservation plans" I got completely lost. It seems there are people out there in the world who really think that biodiversity could be harmed when forests are put under protection (and woman get pregnant from being kissed). Even if reading further the article, you realize that the article refers to a completely different problem, this really takes the biscuit.

As there is another week in Cancun I am very curious what we can expect next...

Update December 9, 2010:

War is still ongoing: Now it seems a new front is opened - Ideological Foes Assail UN Forest Scheme from Two Sides. What is stated in the headline gets more true as longer as Cancun Talks last... All against all

Update January 6, 2011:

I can see clearly now: Biodiversity is on risk when REDD will be implemented: With REDD, could financial markets become species' extinction risk? ...

Update January 11, 2011:

Conservation organizations see it like a duck takes the water: REDD money is for putting forest conservation forward only...

"REDD+ presents a potentially huge new pool of funds for biodiversity conservation, but the authors caution that it comes with a set of risks"

Update June 26, 2011:

Some remarkable summary on REDD+ key players from Carbon Trade Watch: PDF download (~300 kB)