PRODUCERS' BLOG

Barcelona was very much a success in relation to getting a full perspective on the important issues involved in the ideas we were looking at. For me it was also a strange experience; my late father once worked for IUCN and it was very weird to be meeting some of the people who once worked with him before I was born. He wrote a book called “A World Without Trees” at the beginning of the 80s which used the destruction of European forests to Dutch Elm Disease as a metaphor for the wider industrialisation of forestry and destruction of global woodlands. It has been a bizarre process reading his words back whilst researching the new REDD initiatives.

It is a very important time to be looking more deeply at REDD – something that has both the possibility to make a real difference to the global environment but also holds the prospect of accelerating its destruction. Paying communities to halt deforestation and manage their forests sustainably, whilst integrating the offsets generated by this into the global carbon trading market, could really help forests pay for themselves and safeguard their future. But if REDD ends up simply further institutionalising Western economism and the commoditisation of nature, marginalising local communities and businesses, then it will not only have negative effects on the environment but also further degrade cultural diversity and deepen poverty around the world.

Glenn Prickett, executive director of Conservation International, kindly stopped off for a brief interview with us about REDD. He had said earlier in the day that it felt like he had been in preparation for the growth of this issue for the last 20 years and it was like the starter’s gun had just gone off. It has indeed been surprising how quickly and fully people have come to back the initiative. What is important now is how the international community moulds this growing market in a way that avoids the pitfalls of the old capitalist system whilst ushering in a new model for valuing natural assets.

We are sifting through possible places to film and how to fund these programmes as I write this very blog. Watch this space for more insights into our work on the REDD issue and please feel free to send us any links or any of your ideas about how we can put the episode together.