The Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) continue to express their disagreement with the government’s handling of the carbon credit process with their participation in a thematic hearing on ‘the impact of carbon market expansion on Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Colombia, Guyana, Peru and Brazil’ during the 189th session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington, DC, USA.
A release on Saturday from the APA informed that their presentation at the hearing was delivered by its Communica-tions and Visibility Officer, Lakhram Bhagirat, and focussed on the technical shortcomings in the Guyana carbon scheme process. It explained that Bhagirat chronicled the association’s experience with the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) grievance mechanism. IACHR heard that APA made a complaint to ART in March 2023, but ART did not address the substance of its complaint, which was that ART certified credits to Guyana despite violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the lack of effective consultations with Indigenous peoples as the owners of the lands and forests.