Green Daily

When you offset your carbon emissions, what's really happening behind the scenes? How do you know the money is actually being used to plant and maintain trees?

BBC World Service visited a South India carbon offsetting organization called The International Small Group Tree Planting Program, or TIST. Farmers in the region join the group, and are paid to plant and look after groves of trees that exist to offset carbon. The group also claims that, in addition to benefiting the environment, the lives of these poor farmers are also improving.

But the farmers say otherwise. In Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state where the BBC reporter visited, farmers are only paid less than one U.S. cent for each tree each year. TIST says that in ten years' time, the farmers will earn more money when the trees grow bigger and therefore hold more carbon (that way, more credits can be sold). But many of the farmers say they were lured into the program with a promise of earning more money than they would, say, selling rice, and have a better way of life.

Unfortunately, for many farmers, the experience hasn't been as positive as they expected.
Many of the 6,000 total farmers' trees were suffering from disease, a pink cancerous growth creeping up the stems and and the leaves curling and turning brown. Several called TIST, but they won't get back to them about what to do.

Other farmers complained of lack of communication from TIST. One man said that TIST officials told him to plant his trees, but when he did, they claimed they weren't spaced far enough apart, and would only pay him for a handful of them.

This lack of money, advice, and assistance was a common complaint among the farmers. But, not surprisingly, TIST officials weren't overly sympathetic. One TIST higher-up blamed the fact that many of the men don't come to the monthly meetings, where questions are answered and concerns are addressed. The meetings, he said, cover information about best practices, and if the men don't attend, they don't get the information - simple as that.

In the meantime, the British government, concerned about what it's hearing, is trying to come up with a formula to regulate these carbon offsets. But what will happen to these farmers in the meantime?