94. Many developing countries—Brazil, Costa Rica, and Kenya, for example—are pursuing to national REDD+ strategies. REDD+ is an international framework whose name stands for ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conservation of existing forest carbon stocks, sustainable forest management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks'. In essence, the program is intended to preserve and strengthen the role of tropical forests in mitigating climate change, facilitating adaptation, and promoting human development. From 2006 to 2014 the EU and its member states provided over 3 billion Euros in financing to developing countries to support REDD+ activities. It is essential that human rights safeguards be implemented to ensure that forest protection supports, rather than harms, the rights and interests of Indigenous
peoples and local communities that depend on forests for livelihoods and culture. This involves obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples as set forth in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

95. Guyana and Norway created a partnership in 2009 whose goal is to promote development in Guyana without an increase in deforestation. Guyana’s tropical forests cover 87 percent of its territory, and its main success has been keeping its deforestation rate very low. The performance-based payments of up to $250 million over five years are used for programs that involve recognizing the land rights of Amerindian communities in the interior of the country and awarding them official land title, as well as for low-carbon development projects.

100. There is a positive correlation between secure indigenous land tenure and improved conservation outcomes, including reduced deforestation, which contributes to lower global carbon dioxide emissions (A/71/229). For example, areas in the Brazilian Amazon where the forest rights of indigenous peoples are recognized enjoy a deforestation rate that is eleven times lower than areas where these rights lack recognition.

143. In 2011, the Basarwa indigenous people living in a game reserve in Botswana won a lawsuit in which they argued that the Government violated their human rights by denying them access to a borehole they used for decades as a source of water. The Government had attempted to force them to move out of the game reserve. The court referred to General Assembly resolution 64/292 on the rights to water and sanitation and found that denying the Basarwa permission to use the borehole on the land where they resided violated their human rights.

187. In 1997, Costa Rica started a program to improve the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples, small-scale farmers, agroforestry producers, and landowners by paying them to conserve, restore, and sustainably use forests. The program focused on low-income and Indigenous communities and has resulted in the conservation and protection of more than 1.2 million hectares of forest and the payment of over $500 million between 1997 and 2018. Almost 3,000 women landowners have signed contracts to receive funds under this program. Funding comes from Costa Rica’s carbon tax, and has grown consistently, enabling contracts for an average of 270,000 hectares per year from 2014 to 2018. Additional benefits include reduced greenhouse gas emissions, carbon storage, protection of water, protection of biodiversity for conservation and sustainable use, and protection of nature’s beauty, which benefits the people and the tourism industry.