A/70/287 Emission reduction strategies 66. Climate change mitigation strategies that aim to reduce emissions from land use may also have a negative impact on food production methods. The clean development mechanism was established to encourage industrialized States to fund carbon reduction projects in developing countries. It has generated many projects and in 2012 it was estimated to have generated approximately $215 billion for developing countries. Yet the mechanism has been criticized for failing to ensure human rights protections and to prevent the approval of projects that have negative human rights impacts, including on food security, owing to a lack of a rigorous impact assessment procedure for prospective projects. 62 Activities have been proposed that would change land use patterns to reduce carbon emissions or promote carbon capture and storage; it is claimed that such projects have led to the displacement of small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples and that farmers may not be directly compensated for the carbon credits derived from their activities. 63 67. The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation encourages developed countries and their companies to make investments in forest preservation in developing cou ntries and provides incentives for developing countries to sustainably manage their forests and enhance forest carbon stocks. However, concerns have been raised about the validity of this process, as communities that live in and are dependent on forests fo r their livelihoods and subsistence have been negatively affected by some of the projects, especially those initiated without the consent of the population concerned. 64 68. Recent evidence from the REDD-plus mechanism shows that smallholder coffee farmers and forest communities can make a significant contribution to the mitigation of climate change. However, existing mechanisms have failed to offer effective avenues for benefiting these actors and in some cases even threaten to undermine their livelihoods. 65 The principal method for compensating these actors would be a system of carbon credits; however, such a system is unlikely to be suitable to support the mitigation potential of traditional agriculture given the high transaction costs and low returns. In some cases, participating in the REDD-plus process has backfired terribly. For example, according to reports received, the indigenous Dayak community, which participated in the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership through the REDD-plus process, lost access to the forest and its resources and questions have been raised as to whether the project adhered to the requirement of prior informed consent. 66 Similarly, a massive palm oil farm in Cameroon has inflamed tensions between locals, investors and the Stat e as a result __________________ 62 63 64 65 66 18/25 International Bar Association, Climate Change Justice and Human Rights Tas k Force, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption (London, International Bar Association, July 2014). Ibid. Ibid. Andrew Davis and V. Ernesto Méndez, “Prioritizing food security and livelihoods in climate change mitigation mechanisms: experiences and opportunities for smallholder coffee agroforestry, forest communities and REDD+”, PRISMA, Salvadoran Research Program on Development and Environment, Policy Brief, 2011. “In the REDD: Australia’s carbon offset project in Central Kalimantan”, Friends of the Earth, December 2011. 15-10041