We have just seen the B B C’s video report - Big Brands Green Claims Uncovered - broadcast at 8:00pm BST on May 2nd. We fundamentally refute the suggestions and allegations made in the B B C Panorama programme.
At Wildlife Works, we welcome constructive market oversight to enable continuous improvement within the Voluntary Carbon Market. However, we are shocked that an institution as reputable as the B B C would broadcast a production so lacking in journalistic integrity.
The programme’s research on the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project was conducted in a biased, incomplete and misinformed way despite our considerable efforts to provide them with comprehensive detail and context. They distorted historical facts and took testimony and events out of their full context to manufacture sensationalized “gotcha” moments in service of an anti-carbon market agenda. We have also been made aware that efforts by the local community to have their voices represented in support of the project were ignored.
Additionally, the programme’s attempted exposé concluding that the carbon market needs reform is old news in light of the significant efforts already underway to improve and increase the dramatic positive impacts the market is having for local forest communities in the Global South.
We will share the facts in the coming days, but if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
In the meantime, we will continue - as we have for the last 25 years – to redirect climate finance and decision making power back to the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who are most affected by climate change.
