By Peter Holmgren, originally posted at the CIFOR Director General’s blog
As REDD+ has evolved and expanded, numerous opportunities, synergies and challenges have emerged, particularly with respect to tenure and financing. CIFOR’s ongoing Global Comparative Study on REDD+ offers lessons for achieving the transformational change necessary to make the framework succeed. These are issues that transcend the forestry sector and resolving them demands coordination across multiple sectors and policy integration across multiple scales.
Since its inception, REDD+, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, has evolved from a tool for climate change mitigation based on carbon storage into a complex, multifaceted framework operating across multiple governance levels.
Its mission has similarly expanded to encompass a potential overload of objectives. The REDD+ Framework within the UNFCCC draws together human rights (with particular emphasis on the rights of indigenous peoples), biodiversity conservation, stronger governance in developing countries, and, most recently, acceptance of carbon and non-carbon benefits, alternative approaches and linkages with adaptation. Similarly, the finance discussion has moved beyond carbon markets and offsetting to include multiple sources of finance.
As research from CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ shows, this evolution of REDD+ has generated a range of opportunities and synergistic approaches across these multiple objectives. At the same time, challenges for its implementation have emerged: close alliances between large-scale business and state sectors, without tackling the underlying causes of deforestation; the need for more certainty about finance; and significant and complex tenure issues.
As REDD+ continues to evolve and move into the broader landscape, the evidence suggests that success will require reform beyond the forestry sector to include tenure and other aspects of governance. REDD+ practitioners will need to seize the opportunities and confront the challenges that arise as they integrate efforts across multiple scales and increase coordination across sectors and landscapes.
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