Carbon Markets, Forests and Rights: An Introductory Series - A set of short explainers for indigenous peoples and communities

Over the past 150-200 years, human activity has upset the fine balance in the complex web of relationships between the sun, the soil, the oceans, the rivers and other waterways, the forests and the countless lifeforms on Earth. [...] This circulation of carbon between the soil, the oceans and the sky is known as a carbon cycle, and when carbon circulates in these ways, it is known as a fast or short-term carbon cycle.11 When plants and animals on land and in the oceans die, some of the carbon they were made of is buried into the ground. [...] 23 Case Study: the Kichwa People of the San Martin Region, Peru In 2001, the Peruvian government established the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ), in an area of the Amazon forest overlapping with the customary territories of the Kichwa and other indigenous peoples.66 The decision to establish the park affected at least 28 Kichwa communities, but the government did not obtain their FPIC before. [...] Trees that are planted to store carbon that was released from fossil fuels do not cancel that out because they will not store the carbon permanently.99 The life of a tree is not long enough to store carbon for the amount of time needed to make up for the release of carbon that would otherwise have been stored for millions of years. [...] It shows carbon (represented by small bubbles) stored under ground; the carbon moving from the ground to the sky (when fossil fuels are burnt); a tree absorbing some of the carbon as it grows; and the carbon returning to sky when the tree dies.