Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- United Nations negotiators plan to protect rainforests in a new global-warming treaty without granting land rights to indigenous people, an omission that conservationists say may backfire.

Canadian and U.S. delegates joined other developed nations to insist that tribal rights be left out of a draft agreement to save tropical forests being debated at the UN-led climate-change talks in Poland this week, according to Friends of the Earth, an environmental group monitoring the negotiations.

With the world’s forests shrinking daily by an area the size of Washington D.C., envoys from about 190 nations are being asked to include a protection plan in the new global-warming treaty under negotiation. The draft accord would halt burning tropical trees to make way for farms and logging, because forests absorb carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for climate change.

“For some countries it has separatist implications of creating nations within a nation, which is a territorial question,” Guatemalan Environment Minister Luis Ferrate said in an interview at the talks in Poznan, Poland. Guatemala supports giving land rights to indigenous people, he said.

The decision may wind up undermining the agreement, advocates of forest dwellers say, because it can only be policed properly with the help of the very people who live off the trees, like the tribes in Borneo’s Sungai Utik region who have harvested wood, fruit and medicine for centuries.

“The only way forest protection can be achieved is by strengthening the rights of indigenous peoples who have protected forests for thousands of years,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, who heads the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. “We have to keep trying” to include them in a final accord.

Native Rights

About 75 percent of global forestland is claimed by national governments, which often don’t have the resources to monitor and enforce regulations. Only 7 percent is owned by local communities and indigenous groups, according to Rights and Resources Initiative, a Washington-based forest research group.

Canada’s chief negotiator denied harming indigenous rights with the wording of the draft agreement. “We respect the indigenous peoples,” Michael Martin said in a briefing yesterday. “We recognize the full participation of indigenous peoples.”

U.S. delegation chief Paula Dobriansky said “all voices need to be represented,” in an interview. She declined to comment on the matter of indigenous people’s concerns.

The negotiating group for forests asked its members today to submit more views on “indigenous peoples and local communities” by Feb. 15, leaving the door open for more comment, according to a document given to UN delegates.

‘Outraged’

Conservation advocates and local tribes say people who live off the land need payments for allowing it to be fenced off or they won’t respect protection agreements. Deforestation is responsible for one-fifth of global emissions of CO2, the main gas scientists blame for climate change.

“We are outraged,” Tom Goldtooth, a member of the Dakota tribe in the U.S., said in the hallways near Poznan’s negotiating tables. “We’re asking that governments end discussions” to include the UN-sponsored agreement in a new climate treaty.

The forest plan gaining sponsors in Poland is known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, or Redd.

In Poznan, members of tribes from Asia, Africa and North and South America dressed in traditional clothing yesterday chanted “No rights, no Redd!” in the main building where talks are taking place. They held signs with painted drops of blood dripping from the word “Redd.”

Food, Water, Burial

Redd won’t give indigenous tribes, such as the Iban Dayaks of Indonesia, a cut of the money governments may earn through forest protection. Indonesia stands to earn credits, which can be traded for cash, for each ton of carbon dioxide it can avoid by preserving trees, under a UN formula.

In Borneo’s Sungai Utik area, locals employ traditional land-use techniques, a complex system of 15 different definitions of land for burial, agriculture, water management and safeguarding the trees while benefiting from the resource.

Those people, like indigenous tribes in the Brazilian rainforest risk losing rights to harvest wood and grow fruit or medicine under Redd and rival proposals submitted by various countries to the UN talks.

“It bothers me that a declaration on Redd wouldn’t recognize indigenous rights,” said Ferrate of Guatemala. “That affects my country. In Guatemala we have the best forests, and they’re protected by the indigenous communities.”

Redd is competing with hundreds of other plans to stem global warming at the UN-sponsored talks in Poland, where negotiators plan to lay the groundwork for a new agreement by the end of next year. The Kyoto Protocol, the only existing climate treaty, limits greenhouse-gas emissions through 2012 and doesn’t cover forests.

Failing to adopt a tropical forest plan may accelerate global warming and shrink the potential market for tradable carbon-dioxide credits that can be created when trees are saved.

Financiers who pay for trees to be preserved can earn greenhouse-gas credits that may be sold on carbon markets to industries such as power generation, which may need the credits to comply with the Kyoto treaty.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy van Loon via jvanloon@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 10, 2008 09:33 EST