Could REDD+ Revolutionize Policy to Conserve Forest?

By: Charles Palmer*

Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+), if implemented and financed on a broad scale in numerous countries across the world, promises to revolutionise forest and conservation policy. Yet, there remains much uncertainty regarding long-term finance and the mechanisms by which it might be delivered. Uncertainty also plagues the precise form of any future REDD+ regime(s). Project-scale activities to manage, protect, and increase terrestrial carbon stocks are, however, likely to be co-ordinated and managed via national-level policy frameworks. Such frameworks have begun to emerge, for example, in Guyana. Thus, future REDD+ regimes may not lean towards the standalone, project-based approach of many NGOs operating in tropical countries nor follow that of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Up until now, policies and activities aiming to conserve tropical forest, whether in Bolivia, Brazil or Indonesia, have often been implemented in a relatively ad hoc and uncoordinated manner. For example, protected areas – the most widely-implemented policy instrument for forest protection – are often established by national governments, perhaps with technical assistance or funding from international agencies and NGOs. At the same time, within many countries there are often a myriad of other forest conservation activities, funded and implemented by local and international NGOs and agencies, or even private sector interests (e.g. setting up eco-tourism operations), that operate at the project-scale. In addition to policies with explicit forest conservation goals, other policy interventions at that scale may have an indirect impact on land-use behaviour in forest frontier areas, whether by accident or design. For example, policies to increase agricultural productivity such as technological transfers and training or capacity building could impact on deforestation rates. On one hand, intensification could lead to less deforestation but, under certain conditions, may instead exacerbate the problem.

In sum, different activities and policies are implemented by different actors at different scales, which may directly or indirectly influence land-use behaviour in forest frontier areas. National-level policy frameworks, if well-designed and allowing for sufficient autonomy over decision-making on the ground, could assist in the effective coordination and accounting of project-scale activities. Such frameworks could also be used to account for the impacts of non-REDD+ policies, allowing for flexibility in terms of the policies implemented for reaching REDD+ goals. Such a framework, implemented with a clear and consistent vision, tailored to country-specific conditions and needs, could potentially provide external financing on a scale never seen before for activities aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, alongside other aims such as reducing rural poverty.

*Dr. Charles Palmer is Lecturer in Environment and Development at the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics. He can be reached by e-mail at: c.palmer1@lse.ac.uk.

This article was first published in the development communications magazine “Sociedad que Inspira” No. 17, August 2012.