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ABSTRACT. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is primarily a market-based mechanism for achieving the effective reduction of carbon emissions from forests. Increasingly, however, concerns are being raised about the implications of REDD+ for equity, including the importance of equity for achieving effective carbon emission reductions from forests. Equity is a multifaceted concept that is understood differently by different actors and at different scales, and public discourse helps determine which equity concerns reach the national policy agenda. Results from a comparative media analysis of REDD+ public discourse in four countries show that policy makers focus more on international than national equity concerns, and that they neglect both the need for increased participation in decision making and recognition of local and indigenous rights. To move from addressing the symptoms to addressing the causes of inequality in REDD+, policy actors need to address issues related to contextual equity, that is, the social and political root causes of inequality.

ABSTRACT. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is a priority issue for forest and climate policy in Indonesia, and REDD+ policy-making activity has been characterized by considerable public consultation. Despite this engagement, discussions on REDD+ in Indonesia are reported to have remained top-down, a disconcerting pattern when adaptive governance and transformational change require cross-scale and cross-sectoral communication. Explicitly modeling the patterns of information exchange related to REDD+ can clarify these claims and help identify potential barriers to the transformational change needed to implement REDD+. We used data obtained through semistructured and structured interviews held in 2011 with representatives from a broad range of organizations (N = 64), formally or informally involved in the national REDD+ policy processes in Indonesia, to study REDD-related information exchange. Adopting a social network analysis approach, we found that (1) organizations perceived as most influential in REDD+ policy formulation, often, but not exclusively, those with institutional authority over particular aspects of REDD+, tend not to seek information from other actors and (2) organizations exchange information primarily within three clusters of similar organizations, with weak connections between clusters. This evidence suggests weak information exchange between the national government, national civil society, and transnational actors. We contend that the emergence of brokers able to connect these different clusters will be crucial for effective and inclusive REDD+ governance in Indonesia.

This paper investigates public discourses on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) across seven countries to assess whether they support policy reforms. The paper argues that transformational discourses have at least one of the following characteristics: they advocate specific policy reforms that address drivers of deforestation and forest degradation; they take into account potential risks of a REDD+ mechanism; they go beyond technocratic solutions to reduce emissions; they explicitly challenge existing power relations that support drivers of deforestation. The evidence indicates the predominance of win-win storylines, a lack of engagement by state actors with debates on potential negative socioeconomic outcomes of REDD+ and little attention to the drivers of deforestation. The paper concludes that in order to achieve a shift towards transformational discourse, reformist policy actors and the media need to engage dominant policy actors in debates about how to reduce pressure on forest.

Social conflicts with local people have caused some unsuccessful timber plantation developments in Indonesia. Company and community partnerships have provided opportunities for companies to accommodate local communities' involvement and attempt to overcome these difficulties. Constraints in establishing mutually beneficial partnerships were studied, mainly to improve their long-term viability. The main components of a successful mutually beneficial partnership were defined as: commercial feasibility, equitable contractual agreements, the full understanding of both parties of the potential benefits and costs, and risks of joining the partnership, and a shared understanding of co-management and participatory approaches. The implementation of all three case studies suffered from: a lack of mechanisms to build trust; challenges to commercial viability due to inadequate management planning and consequently poor implementation; inadequate assessment of community needs and resulting waste of companies' funds when developing income generating packages; no clear long-term reinvestment strategy; and poorly developed negotiation and renegotiation mechanisms.