Courtesy of the Environmental Defense Fund
Indigenous peoples of the Amazon measuring carbon stored in trees.
In many cultures — ours included — shared food symbolizes shared trust. I kept this in mind as I chowed down, family style, on lo mein and spicy prawns alongside indigenous leaders from Suriname, Guyana and Ecuador. It was a particularly sultry June night in Georgetown, Guyana, and the 98 percent humidity index was a tangible reminder of 40 million acres of tropical forest just a short distance away.
As an anthropologist-in-training, I resist the urge to assign a deeper interpersonal meaning to that shared meal with my South American colleagues. Yet trust remains an important theme in my work as the Amazon Basin Project intern at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in Washington, D.C. As one of the 10 Rice students participating in the Baker Institute Jesse Jones Leadership Center Summer in D.C. Policy Research Internship Program, I had the opportunity this summer to work with EDF’s Chris Meyer on the issue of indigenous peoples and the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) initiative — a topic I first researched as a member of the Rice delegation to the U.N. Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen last December.
As part of my internship, I traveled to Guyana to assist with an informal stakeholder meeting between indigenous representatives and members of The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility to discuss issues of forest conservation and climate change. REDD is a global policy that creates economic incentives for forest conservation by placing monetary value on standing forests and their ecosystems, recognizing the important role forests play in carbon storage. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report found that deforestation accounts for 20 percent of global carbon emissions. Given that figure, paying countries to preserve forests presents a cost-effective, low-tech opportunity to mitigate dangerous greenhouse gases.
But trees are worth far more than their weight in carbon for the millions of indigenous peoples that rely on forests for their livelihoods. As stewards of their lands, they are uniquely positioned to contribute to and benefit from REDD. Yet due to the legacy of their mistreatment and exclusion, some of them remain skeptical about projected benefits of REDD. My work in Washington focused on questions about how EDF can leverage its resources and expertise to build the inter-institutional trust necessary for smart policy that will benefit both people and forests.
Beyond the thematic knowledge I gained in climate policy and indigenous peoples, I return to Rice with a host of practical professional skills necessary to survive in the D.C. work environment. Unfortunately, the university currently offers few opportunities for student policy research with faculty focused on natural resource management, forestry and REDD. That is why the Jesse Jones Summer D.C. program is so invaluable: It grants students the opportunity to pursue policy issues that are not yet a specific focus of the university. But above all, the opportunity to work alongside passionate, like-minded, successful individuals gave clarity to my professional goals and illuminated avenues available for me to reach them.
I know it will require more than communal kung-pao chicken to engage all the stakeholders needed to create effective REDD policy. But through my experiences this summer, I feel more confident in my ability to analyze complex policy questions and equipped to contribute to positive change, be it in the halls of Washington or in the towns of Guyana.
Rachael Petersen is a junior at Rice University double majoring in anthropology and policy studies (environmental) with a minor in poverty, social justice and human capabilities. She will return to South America in the spring to study.