One of Shell’s Amazon carbon offsets projects raises serious human rights concerns

In late October the UK’s Channel 4 broadcast “Joe Lycett vs the Oil Giant”, which included the British comedian impersonating Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden and defecating out of his mouth, and then the very next day journalists from SourceMaterial, Greenpeace’s Unearthed team and Bloomberg published investigations into the “Drive Carbon Neutral” campaign.

We offset your fleet’s unavoidable carbon emissions through the purchase of carbon credits from a portfolio of carefully chosen nature-based projects,” the website states, before listing several countries where those projects are located – the first being Peru.

Credits used for this deal are bought from Shell’s global portfolio of nature-based projects,” its website states, before naming three such projects – one of them in Peru.

Both the park and project were also denounced in Glasgow during the recent United Nations’ climate change conference, dubbed “COP26”, by CEPKA’s vice-president and other indigenous leaders – not just in meetings and protests outside, but inside the conference too.

Around the same time, CEPKA and Puerto Franco held a meeting with the Environment Ministry agency responsible for parks, SERNANP, and the NGO contracted to run Cordillera Azul on the state’s behalf, the Centro de Conservación, Investigación y Manejo de Áreas Naturales , which has developed the carbon project.

“We have our rights and we’re claiming our territory,” Puerto Franco’s secretary, Roberto Carlos Guerra, reportedly said at the meeting.

“They showed us on the noticeboard: “That’s where the park is!”” community elder Alpino Fasabi was reported to say at the meeting, remembering back to around the time the park was established in 2001.

When I raised this issue with Shell, just one of many companies buying credits from the project, and asked if they would commit to reviewing doing so, it wouldn’t supply an on-the-record quote but stated that engaging with local communities is essential to manage the park and that engagement is not done by Shell itself but by the government and CIMA – the latter subsequently didn’t respond to any of my questions.

Obviously, like the Kichwas in Puerto Franco, such people were never consulted about the park or project, as was their right under international law, but nor should they have been, given their apparent decision to live in “isolation”, as also is their right under international law, and the potential catastrophe if contact is made with them.

Official documents for the Cordillera Azul project acknowledge the existence – or the possibility of the existence – of “uncontacted” indigenous people in the park and state that “every attempt” has been made to ensure they won’t be affected, but Shell, at least on its “Nature-Based Solutions” website page, makes no mention of them.

The Uruguay-based NGO World Rainforest Movement is currently circulating a statement rejecting all so-called “nature-based solutions” and offset schemes, partly under the argument that, apart from the fact they’re not designed to address the main causes of the climate crisis, they will “enclose the remaining living spaces of Indigenous Peoples” who will subsequently “face more violence, more restrictions on their use of their lands and more outside control over their territories.” Although WRM doesn’t specifically mention indigenous peoples in “isolation”, like those in Peru’s Cordillera Azul, that argument applies equally to them too.

Eliece Horton: I really like my local Shell Gas Station, they have always been very helpful, so I am sad that we can no longer go there.

If this had been the other way around, this article would have featured prominently in the main news page, rather than under the “Business” section.This is why people question the BBC’s impartiality..

We saw with AstraZenica that the EU will block trade if they believe it gives them an advantage.

USA USA USA: ABOUT TIME! With the continued number of offshore cases, deaths in the office, and impacts on production, it’s a simple business decision.

On the other side of the coin, shutting in production for a few days on a TLP due to lack of healthy control room operators would suggest that we can afford to find people who will take the shot.

The Shell logo image with the white text used on this website, as per the above example, is in the public domain because its copyright has expired and its author is anonymous.

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