Future Challenges Local Solutions

Briefing n°1

The implementation of economic Structural Adjustment policies in the 1980s and the creation of the World Trade Organization in the 1990s were of great significance to the global eco-nomy. These institutions enabled the emergence of export-oriented and extractive industries in developing countries on the condition that their governments cut back on the provi-sion of services and focused instead on creating market-based growth. On the one hand, these policies have created economic growth through the development of industries as varied as palm oil production and gold mining. On the other, transferring the responsibility for social and economic security to private actors has produ-ced mixed results. The overall legacy of Structural Adjustment and the WTO remains a point of some controversy, especially in developing country contexts. Increased growth has come at the price of increased inequality and negative impacts on environmen-tal and social issues.

The second major change that has taken place is an increased aware-ness of the environmental impacts of economic growth. Since many developing countries remain amongst the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, they have also tried to balance efforts to increase their share of global trade with the new aware-ness of the environmental impacts of growth. Again, responsibility for this has increasingly been placed in the

The COBRA project is an initia-tive that was created to better understand the impacts of

new global policies at the local level in a region of the world known as the Guiana Shield. What is uni-que about this project is that it will attempt to understand the impact of these policies from the perspec-tive of the many communities and individuals who call this region their home. It will empower them to make recommendations, based on their own understandings and observations, which will be used to create future global policies in the area of Ecosystem Services.

The Context: A Changing World

Since the 1990s two major changes have taken place in the way policy makers think about global issues. New ‘incentive based’ development models have begun to challenge the older ideas of direct aid to support basic government services. These new initiatives take the responsibility to create positive social change from government institutions and put them in the hands of private actors (such as corporations) within an economic market. Areas of responsibility include everything from health, education, economic growth and the environ-ment. While supporters of these initiatives claim that they have created better efficiencies, critics argue that they more often decrease access and security for people at large.

What is COBRA?

At a Glance• Analysing policies affecting the Guiana Shield Region from the perspective of it’s inhabitants• Understanding the social, ecological and cultural impacts of «payments for ecosystem services (PES)»• Community training in video and photo-graphic techniques to foster their unique understanding of the environment

www.projectcobra.org | What is COBRA?

Subscribe to COBRA News and join the Community: http://projectcobra.org/newsletter/The COBRA Project is supported by a three year grant from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme

hands of private actors through incentive-based schemes. Initiatives such as the Payment for Ecosys-tem Services (PES), including the Reducing Emis-sions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), hold significant promise but more work needs to be done in order to fully understand their social impacts. Given the mixed legacy of previous market based schemes, it is important to develop a full picture of the effects of this new approach. This is the purpose of the COBRA project which will study the social, ecological and cultural impacts of funding for incentive-based environmental services programs in the Guiana Shield.

The Region: Guiana Shield

The ‘Guiana Shield’ region of South America covers an area of 2.5 million square kilometres, five times the size of Spain, extending from Colombia in the west to Brazil in the east. It includes the watersheds of the great Orinoco and Amazon rivers. The region is part of the world’s largest contiguous block of tropical forest, with the highest percent of forest co-ver and lowest rate of deforestation on the planet. It is home to an extremely rich diversity of plants and animals many of which are native to this area. Most importantly, the region is inhabited by hun-dreds of thriving indigenous communities, whose knowledge and skills are indispensable for effective conservation of the region and are therefore a great asset to the world.

The Problem: Scrutinizing Ecosystem Services

The sustainable management of ecosystem ser-vices within the Guiana Shield region is of great

importance in the global battle against climate change. The region captures and stores vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. This is es-pecially significant for the carbon emissions produ-ced as a result of the new economic activity within developing countries. The region also contains 10-15 percent of the world’s fresh water reserves and is under increased pressure to harness this valuable resource for both power generation and extractive industries. Incentive based Ecosystem Service initiatives seem to provide a natural way to fit environmental concerns into market driven eco-nomic growth. However there are still great uncer-tainties about its overall impacts. For example, there are concerns that Ecosystem Service initiatives may actually diminish the power of local commu-nities to manage their own natural resources. Little is also known about the social impacts of these new funding initiatives within such communities. For example, to what extent will they recognize different value systems or equally distribute the benefits of growth? The COBRA project was created to address these significant gaps in knowledge. The project will investigate how far the priorities of global environmental services funding initiatives match the aspirations of indigenous communities to thrive in their traditional homelands in a fast changing global policy climate.

The Solution: An Empowering Method

A key method of the COBRA project will be ena-bling the communities and individuals that live within the Guiana Shield region to track and document the actual impacts of these global policy changes are making within their own communities and lives. Community members will be trained in the use of user-friendly techniques such as video and photographic methods to gather their valuable observations and unique understandings of these changes. These data will then be gathered and analysed in partnership with COBRA institutions in Europe. This will enable the creation of best prac-tice models and policy input at the national and international levels. The results of these efforts will be a better understanding among international institutions and policy makers of the impacts of funding initiatives at the local level.

www.projectcobra.org | What is COBRA?

Subscribe to COBRA News and join the Community: http://projectcobra.org/newsletter/The COBRA Project is supported by a three year grant from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme

Photo © Laurens Gomes