Risks and opportunities of REDD+ implementation for environmental integrity and socio-economic compatibility

Abstract

REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the enhancement of carbon stocks) emerges as promising incentive mechanism for tropical forest protection. While REDD+ is expected to yield poverty reduction and biodiversity co-benefits, its mechanism design options pose several risks to socio-economic compatibility and environmental integrity. We conduct a REDD+ expert survey to rate the perceived importance and likelihood of these risks to national REDD+ implementation. The dependency of the risk perception on stakeholder characteristics is analyzed using seemingly unrelated regression analysis and ANOVA. Additionally, the survey investigates the perceived effectiveness of different policy options to minimize these risks. The majority of stakeholders viewed governance challenges as the largest risks to REDD+ implementation and preferred mandatory incentive and regulatory policy measures to mitigate them. Understanding these stakeholder perceptions will not only help improving national REDD+ implementation, but also provide insights for the international policy process

Ten Years of REDD+: A Critical Review of the Impact of REDD+ on Forest-Dependent Communities

“…First of all, there could be a risk that, because of unclear forest definitions, forests are changing into monocultures or tree plantations that increase the carbon stocks at the expense of biodiversity and socio-cultural values [7,53,63]. Another risk is that there could be increased land-use pressure on carbon poor ecosystems outside REDD+ areas.…”

“…REDD+ could reduce the availability of potential agricultural land, which could lead to higher land rents and food prices [63]. Suitable land for agriculture will most likely be used for high-valued cash crops for export, resulting in higher land rents and food prices.…”

“…While these eco-systems could have a high biodiversity or socio-cultural significance, there could be a risk that these systems will not be targeted by REDD+ because of the low carbon sequestration. REDD+ may actually threaten biodiversity in low-carbon density ecosystems if one only pays attention to carbon sequestration of forests [7,63].…”

“…Introducing mono tree plantations and high-carbon production forests; more pressure on land outside REDD+ forests; threat to ecosystems with high biodiversity but low carbon sequestration [7,21,53,63,85,86].…”

Salvaguardar la biodiversidad en REDD+: Necesario pero no suficiente si este mecanismo busca desacelerar la pérdida de la biodiversidad global

“…Activities to enhance forest carbon stocks could encourage the expansion of carbon plantations at the expense of high-biodiversity non-forest ecosystems (Griscom and Cortez 2013;Parr et al 2014). Furthermore, improved forest management, even if under principles of sustainable forest management, could compromise old-growth forest and pristine natural forests (Huettner 2012;Lindenmayer et al 2012).…”