Sinks refers to the use of trees, soils and oceans to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. While the science of sinks is still uncertain, there is a broad consensus that any potential storage of carbon is temporary as trees naturally live out their life cycles or are felled and the resultant carbon is ultimately
returned to the atmosphere. Many environmentalists and indigenous communities around the world fear that use of sinks will have a negligible impact on reducing global warming while having an enormous impact on people worldwide as poor countries, desperate to earn money to pay back debts, look to selling their lands and forests for the carbon markets.

Projects in countries such as Uganda and Ecuador have already led to thousands of local communities dependant on forest areas being forced off their land as private Northern corporations backed by their governments, engage in a worldwide land-grab at wholesale prices. The logic of these carbon‘offsets’ ensure that Northern countries can continue to emit disproportionate amounts of greenhouse gases. This corporate offset culture magnifies inequalities between the haves and have-nots as the South becomes the carbon dump for the over-consuming North. The threat to indigenous peoples and peasant communities is especially severe, as destruction and/or loss of access to forests for many peoples would destroy their livelihood. The First International Forum Of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change stated “sinks in the CDM would constitute a worldwide strategy for expropriating our lands."

SinksWatch

World Rainforest Movement

Where the Trees are a Desert: monoculture eucalyptus plantations in Brazil

Plantations are not Forests: book by WRM