REDD: End of the hinterland

Rights and Resources Initiative

April 15, 2010

The status of forests in climate politics changed radically in 2009, bringing opportunity and peril in equal measure, says the Rights and Resources Initiative.

“The combination of new money and limited controls dramatically raises the risks and pressures on forests and forest peoples.”

Forests have long been a hinterland: remote, “backward” areas largely controlled by external, often urban, actors and seen to be of little use to national development or the world except as a supply of low-valued natural resources. The year 2009 marked the beginning of the end of this era. Forest lands are booming in value for the production of food, fuel, fibre and now carbon. More than ever, forests are bargaining chips in global climate negotiations and markets.

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