ISEAL Alliance

More than 15,000 delegates gathered last month in Cancún, Mexico to negotiate a new global agreement on climate change. Amongst them: Julianne Baroody, Coordinator of the Rainforest Alliance’s Climate Change Programme. We spoke to her about the role of standards systems in the combat against global warming and the implications of the Cancún agreement on her work.

What does the Rainforest Alliance do on climate change?

The goal of the Rainforest Alliance Climate Program is to enhance the climate-related aspects of the Rainforest Alliance’s work across the board. We facilitate projects that are climate-related within our agriculture, forestry and tourism activities – both in certification and technical assistance. We build up the climate-related aspects and help these divisions to integrate activities that advance climate change mitigation and adaptation into their standard activities. Our technical experts ensure that scientific rigour is maintained in these activities.

What was the Rainforest Alliance doing in Cancún?

There are two types of meetings happening at a climate change summit: The official negotiations and associated side events, and the separate events hosted by non-governmental organisations or private sector companies. We have participated in the last four climate change summits to promote the role that sustainable land managers play in both climate change mitigation and adaptation. We also provide countries who are negotiating climate agreements with some perspective and background information on why sustainable land management is important and how it could potentially be affected by the decisions that they make at the conference.

In Cancún, we had a booth with many of our partners from the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and organised side events on sustainable agriculture’s role in REDD+, especially highlighting the SAN’s new climate module. One of our partners in Mexico is facilitating a carbon reforestation project that will build on the Rainforest Alliance certification management system, so a representative of that organisation (ProNatura Sur) talked about that work. Some of our partners follow the negotiations quite closely, so we get updates from them about the status of the debate on policy. Together with these partners, we work with REDD+ negotiators, providing them with the information they need in order to make informed choices and comprises that achieve the most positive outcome possible in the United Nations decision-making process.

How can sustainable land management help to mitigate or adapt to climate change?

There are number of aspects of the farm management that meets the criteria of the Sustainable Agriculture Standard that contribute to climate change mitigation. For example, farms that meet the standard were not allowed to destroy natural ecosystems for the purposes of farm management after 2005 – this leads to avoided emissions of greenhouse gasses. On the other hand, certified farms are required to maintain at least 12 native species of trees per hectare and a canopy cover of 40 per cent. In order to get certified, many farms plant more trees and therefore sequester carbon. Farmers are also doing things like reducing the amount of agrochemicals they use and preventing erosion.

We know that in general farms certified to the Sustainable Agriculture Standard contribute less to climate change than conventional farms. We also know that when they plant more trees or think ahead about climate impacts and incorporate them into a strong farm management plan, they make themselves more resilient to climate change. Similar issues can be identified in Forest Stewardship Council certified forests or other certification schemes.

Can you tell me a bit more about the Sustainable Agriculture Network’s climate change module?

The SAN’s international standards committee has just approved a new module that was developed as a voluntary add-on to the Sustainable Agriculture Standard. It is a set of criteria that challenge farmers to go above and beyond basic sustainable management practices and do more related to climate adaptation and mitigation. In order to meet the criteria, a farmer would need to understand is where his or her farm’s greenhouse gas emissions come from and which carbon sinks could be enhanced. Likewise, a farm must be aware of what climate changes may happen in its region, how those changes would impact the farm and how the changes could be planned fort. Some farmers may be doing activities that meet the criteria already. We hope to allow those farms to demonstrate what they’ve achieved and push other farms a little farther by providing verification of the activities identified in this module. A farm that meets the module may be able to earn additional support from companies and consumers that want to know that their coffee comes from a place that is contributing to the mitigation of global climate change.

Did standards and certification play any role in the official negotiations in Cancún?

At this point, the negotiations are not at the level of detail where official decisions identify the role that specific standards will play. Negotiators have identified the activities that make up REDD+, the new framework to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhance carbon sequestration in forests, but the specifics of those activities have not been elaborated completely. The language that was agreed in Cancún does suggest that countries should not only address the drivers of deforestation in the forest but also outside the forest, for example, reviewing agricultural policies to ensure that they do not conflict with conservation-oriented forest management policies. Part of the Cancún decision was a mandate for the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) to set out some more specific guidelines for the implementation of REDD+. We expect to see more references to standards as the discussion advances.

It’s hard to know at this point exactly what the outcome will be for standards and how they will be integrated, but it has been suggested that there could be a special fund set up under REDD that would provide incentives of certification of sustainable land management.

On the other hand, standards and certification were already a hot topic in side events where people discuss upcoming issues not yet addressed by the convention. Many called forest and farmland certification “one of the useful market mechanisms for reducing deforestation”.

If standards will play a more important role in this debate, what would standards systems need to do to engage more effectively?

Well, there are basically two different kinds of standards involved in this process: the sustainable land management standards, such as those of the Sustainable Agriculture Network or the Forest Stewardship Council, and specific climate change standards, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard (for project-level activities) and the REDD+ Social and Environmental Standard (for government-led programmes of policies and measures).

I think ISEAL members can contribute best to the debate by looking at how the actual impacts of implementation of their standards relate to climate change and quantifying that impact as carefully as possible. Understanding that information will allow countries’ decision makers can say “look, this is the success that this certification system had in this country. If we promote it further, here’s what we could achieve in terms of reducing emissions.”

Are there already any linkages with other ISEAL members on these issues?

So far, we’ve mainly been working with the Sustainable Agriculture Network and the Forest Stewardship Council, but we’ve recently seen other certification schemes starting to look at how their work relates to climate change. We have been collaborating quite closely with the 4C Association on their climate-related activities; they are currently working on their own climate module which we are working to ensure will be complimentary to the Sustainable Agriculture Network’s climate module.

As an organisation originally focused on forest conservation, what was your general assessment of the results in Cancún?

We’re pleased that there was a result for REDD+. Everybody went into this conference with such low expectations but after the first week we heard the Mexican President Calderon speak so passionately about REDD+ that we began to believe that it was an issue where he would really push for agreement at the meeting hosted by his country. Indeed he did, and the countries of the world approved the agreement. There is now a good direction for the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). Projects that are already underway and the voluntary carbon market can see this agreement as a sign that, yes, there is potential for avoided deforestation, reforestation and sustainable agriculture to contribute to climate change mitigation at a large scale.

We’re pleased that some of the issues we care about most were included – such as safeguards for social and environmental issues and markets as a potential funding source for REDD activities – and that countries have made strong commitments to the process.

What was included in the agreement in the end?

There’s a list of activities allowed under REDD+ – reducing emissions from deforestation, from forest degradation, the conservation of forest stocks, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest stocks. The activities have pretty broad definition at this point, and they potentially include many activities that the Rainforest Alliance and other ISEAL members certify. The safeguards identified in the decision of the conference of parties are quite important: They include the consideration of national legislation and sovereignty, respect for indigenous peoples and local communities, full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders and that the actions are consistent with the conservation of natural forest and biodiversity.

Given the outcome of the Cancún meetings, what will the Rainforest Alliance do moving forward?

We will continue to advance the pilot REDD+ projects that we are facilitating in Guatemala and Ghana, as well as the readiness efforts we are promoting in Honduras, Mexico and Cameroon. We’ll also continue to work on forest carbon project validations and verifications and on advancing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in agriculture. These activities all generate lessons learned that are crucial as the architecture of the United Nations REDD+ mechanism is created.