Opportunities, constraints and perceptions of rural communities regarding their potential to contribute to forest landscape transitions under REDD+: case studies from Mexico

Abstract

In Mexico, REDD+ is being presented as a win-win policy enabling forest communities to benefit financially and diversify their income sources while preserving and increasing their forest carbon stocks through more sustainable management. Under the national programme, it is expected that forest communities will have opportunities to tailor their own approaches. However, to date there is little understanding about what opportunities and constraints exist in reality for forest communities to contribute to REDD+, and even less about how their members perceive these opportunities. We assess potential and constraints at community level and investigate perceptions about opportunities in REDD+ and strategies that communities are currently envisaging for participation, in seven communities in the Ayuquila River Basin and around the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve in Jalisco, and in the area surrounding the Monarch Butterfly Reserve in Michoacan. We find that there is more opportunity for reduced degradation and forest enhancement than for reduced deforestation, in all the communities; that it may be difficult to establish additionality for REDD+ activities in some communities; that the amount of forest resource per community may greatly affect the potential to participate; that the presence of people with no land rights may complicate the distribution of benefits; that communities expect REDD+ in general to follow the Payment for Environmental Services model, and that lack of information about what activities may count as REDD+ activities and what level of financial rewards may be expected mean that communities cannot at present adequately appraise whether REDD+ will be worth their while or not.

Multilevel Governance for Forests and Climate Change: Learning from Southern Mexico

“…By doing so, organizations working with communities intend to avoid false expectations and misconceptions about REDD+ as just another project, but may end up cultivating those in the absence of information to the contrary. The situation is not limited to the case of Quintana Roo but has been found in other Early Action Areas in Mexico, in Jalisco, for example [49]. While REDD+ requires a national approach to the carbon accounting, implementing REDD+ top-down through centrally designed actions, as in the current REDD+ Early Action efforts, compromises both mechanisms through which procedurally legitimate MLG might improve REDD+ effectiveness: ownership through inclusive participation in the planning and decision making, as well as social learning for improved institutional fit and locally appropriate actions.…”

Ecological variability and rule-making processes for forest management institutions: a social-ecological case study in the Jalisco coast, Mexico

“…The PES program was created with opportunity cost; in Pabelo, and in many other cases, this opportunity cost is not really present and some areas have de facto protection because of the lack of other options of use. This additional principle has been pointed out in other cases related to PES (Skutsch et al 2015). However, the program seems to improve collective action and reinforce social capital by allocating some of the money to fund activities of prevention and maintenance carried out by the ejidatarios.…”

“…From the early 20th century, large areas of forest were assigned to local communities under different levels of control (Bray and Merino 2004). Although a precise percentage is still unknown, 60% of the country's forested area is the lowest figure recognized of lands belonging to indigenous or ejido communities (Skutsch et al 2013(Skutsch et al , 2015. These both types of agrarian organizations emerged from the Mexican Revolution (1910)(1911)(1912)(1913)(1914)(1915)(1916)(1917) and they perform a key role in the condition of Mexican forest ecosystems.…”

Trade-offs between ecosystem services and alternative pathways toward sustainability in a tropical dry forest region

“…Preventing or reverting forest degradation is thus key to reaching the efficiency frontier. The role of forest degradation is increasingly being addressed by REDD+, and its financial incentives are perceived by the peasants as suitable for preventing and reverting forest degradation (Skutsch et al 2015).…”