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How is REDD+ unfolding on the ground?
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This presentation is a compilation of four that were given on 30 November 2011 at an official UNFCCC COP17 side-event organised by CIFOR: 'How is REDD+ unfolding on the ground?'. The event discussed early insights on the capability of REDD+ projects to deliver on their goal of sequestering forest carbon while providing a range of co-benefits. The information presented draws mainly on findings of CIFOR's Global Comparative Study on REDD+, and covers the status and challenges of REDD+ projects on the ground; challenges encountered in establishing REDD+ in Africa; the policy and economic context in which REDD+ projects is unfolding; and the status of monitoring, reporting and verification in setting up REDD+.
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How is REDD+ unfolding on the ground?
- 2. CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+
- 14. GCS research sites Continent Country REDD project site LATIN AMERICA BRAZIL Government of Acre (SEMA). Acre Instituto Centro de Vida. Mato Grosso. IPAM. State of Para. TNC. Sao Felix du Xingu Bolsa Floresta - Not part of BACI PERU BAM. Madre de Dios. CI. San Martin. AFRICA CAMEROON CED. South and East region. GFA. South West province. TANZANIA TaTEDO. Shinyanga. Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG). Kilosa. Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG). Lindi. HIMA. Care International. Zanzibar. JGI. Masito Ugalla Ecosystem. MCDI. Mpingo. ASIA INDONESIA Government of Aceh. Ulu Masen. Community Carbon Pool. FFI. West Kalimantan. KFCP. AusAid. Central Kalimantan. Rimba Raya . Infinite Earth. Central Kalimantan. Katingan Peatland. Starling Resources. Central Kalimantan. TNC Berau. East Kalimantan. VIETNAM SNV. Cat Tien . Lam Dong province.
- 30. Mkanga 1 Village Forest Reserve Only 45% of remaining forest is included in the Village Forest Reserve. This is the least accessible but highest carbon forest.
- 33. For more information, please visit: www. tfcg . org/makingReddWork .html
- 34. How REDD is unfolding: national REDD+ policies and processes Maria Brockhaus, CIFOR
- 36. Different national circumstances: Forest Transition and Policy Responses Forest cover Time Stage 1: Little disturbed forests Stage 2: Forest frontiers Stage 3: Forest-agricultural mosaics DRC PNG Brazil Bolivia Indonesia Cameroon Nepal Avoid leakage & deforestation in BAU Reduce deforestation Continue conservation Promote A/R Stage 4: Forest/plantations/agricultural mosaics Vietnam China
- 37. Analysis of National REDD+ Policies and Processes Country Profiles; Media-based Discourse Analysis; Policy Network Analysis; Policy Content Analysis; Specific Policy Studies Qualitative Comparative Analysis
- 41. How is REDD+ unfolding on the ground? An exploration of the social, political, and biophysical issues REDD - related MRV preparations at the national level Manuel Estrada
- 44. Methodology: Indicators Key requirement Indicator Description of categories Understanding of IPCC guidelines for reporting Completeness of national UNFCCC reporting Low : <50% Advanced : 50-99% Complete : 100% Forest area change monitoring capacity Forest area change time series & RS capabilities Very low : no forest cover map Limited : Forest cover map (external) Some : Multiple forest cover maps (external) Good : Forest cover map in-house OR multiple maps, latest before 2000 Very good : Regular forest area mapping most recent after 2000 Forest inventory for carbon stock assessment Forest inventory capacities (growing stock and/or biomass) Very low : no inventory available Limited : one inventory available (external) Some : Multiple inventories (external) Good : Inventories available (in-country) before 2000 Very good : Multiple inventories (in-country), most recent after 2000
- 45. Regional MRV capacity levels: Overall and by type
- 46. Monitoring and C stock capacities: Global overview with examples 38 13 16 21 11 5 21 3 31 39 67 33 73 26
- 47. Capacity gap: By region and type % of minimum requirements covered
- 48. Capacity gap: Global distribution (considering specific country challenges: fires, C in soil, degradation, cloud cover, availability and access to RS data) Source: GOFC-GOLD
- 51. CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ Contact: [email_address]
Editor's Notes
- We have cataloged REDD+ projects in all developing countries, and thus can use our database to examine trends and patterns in how many of what type of projects are being implemented where. I will show you where you can obtain and provide feedback on this catalogue. Component 2 of CIFOR’s GCS is studying REDD+ projects and their implications for local livelihoods as well as global carbon emissions in 6 countries. The sample includes 24 projects selected primarily based on two factors: well-advanced plans but no activities on the ground when we were beginning research, and proponents interested in generating and sharing lessons - that is, proponents who saw participation in GCS as a way to fulfill function as pilots or demonstrations. My presentation draws on findings from 19 of these projects in 5 countries where we began research at the beginning of 2010 - these are projects that were well advanced in their planning but not yet implementing activities on the ground at that time. We have detailed information on these projects, including their activities and the challenges that they face. Note on why discussing 19 rather than 24: one of the 24 projects (in Brazil) had already begun implementation before 2010, and CIFOR research has not yet begun at 4 of the sites (in Brazil and Peru).
- To start, I will clarify what we mean by REDD+ “projects”. These are sets of activities that seek to reduce emissions and/or increase removals of forest carbon in a quantifiable way in a well-defined sub-national area of a developing (or non-Annex I) country. Most of the first generation of these projects are explicitly aiming to generate and share lessons about alternate strategies; some but not all are planning to sell carbon credits in the voluntary and/or a future compliance market. REDD+ projects seek to generate those credits or net reductions in emissions in areas of existing forest, by reducing deforestation, reducing degradation, or enhancing stocks through improved management or restoration. However, in practice, the line between REDD+ and Afforestation/Reforestation projects is fuzzy. This is partly due to uncertainty regarding how these different types of credits will be treated under international policy and carbon markets; it also seems to be partly due to the appeal of tree planting to both buyers (who like the apparently clear additionality of planting trees where there were none before) and suppliers (who like the side benefits such as employment generation and tenure security). Clarification, if needed: specifically, large-scale planting programs may generate significant employment, and increased tenure security is traditionally conveyed by planting trees in some parts of the world. Notes on exact definition: Operate in geographically defined area, but also include initiatives to incorporate carbon into land-use decisions and planning at sub-national landscape scale. Quantify changes in carbon emissions following IPCC and/or other broadly accepted guidelines. This generally corresponds to the official understanding of ‘subnational demonstration activities’ that are expected to ‘be assessed within the boundary used for the demonstration’ (see Decision 2/CP.13 of SBSTA 30).
- Specifically, we identified the sub-national administrative unit – such as municipality or district – where projects are being implemented. For example, this map shows the location of projects in the countries with the most projects in Latin America, Africa, and Asia: Brazil, Tanzania, and Indonesia. You can see that there are quite a few projects that focus exclusively on afforestation and reforestation, as indicated here by symbol of a pine tree, in Brazil and Tanzania. In fact, many of the REDD projects, indicated with symbol of a broadleaf tree, also include and sometimes are starting with reforestation activities. The perceived additionality of planting trees is high, it generates employment, and in some countries, it is part of traditional local strategies for securing tenure, which is a significant challenge in REDD+ projects, especially if they plan to make conditional direct payments to forest owners. Based on this catalogue of projects, we can also identify the characteristics of places where REDD projects are being implemented. In fact, we have compiled a database with characteristics of all sub-national units in these three countries, including factors that the literature on targeting conservation investments and proponents themselves suggest are important in site selection. Clearly, this includes forest cover or more specifically forest carbon stock, as well as recent deforestation and deforestation threat, but also measures of potential co-benefits such as proximity to protected areas and high poverty rates that could be alleviated by the project, and measures of opportunity cost such as profitability of agriculture. We identified the same set of characteristics for each of these three countries, and then estimated logit models of the probability of an area having a project, and count models of the number of projects.
- In Brazil and Indonesia, which have the greatest number of projects, we also estimated these models for outer islands only and Amazon only. We consistently found that a municipality or district is more likely to have a REDD project, and likely to have more REDD projects, if it has more forest carbon and higher deforestation rate – which makes sense. Also more likely to be implemented in units with greater proportion in protected area, suggesting that proponents are actively seeking biodiversity co-benefits (and perhaps marketing value) by locating in buffer zones of protected areas. In Brazil, we also see that road density is negatively correlated with probability of REDD+ project, suggesting that projects go where there is high historical deforestation (allowing for additionality) but perhaps avoid some of the most threatened and conflictual locations, as indicted by presence of roads.
- This slide lists all of the projects that we are studying in the Global Comparative Study on REDD+, except that two more are being added in Brazil. We are working with a wide range of project proponents, from state government (Acre at the top) to national NGOs (IPAM, CED, TFCG) to international environmental and development organizations (TNC and SNV at the bottom).
- Some projects have adopted carbon funding as a new source of support for traditional conservation strategies, often following in the tradition of integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs), but also command and control policies that require coordination with different levels of government, for example to clarify land tenure and establish/enforce regulations. REDD is more closely associated with the concept of payments for ecosystem services (PES) – after all, REDD is essentially an international PES scheme, and many people expect that these payments will or should be passed down to local decision-makers, and most projects are at least considering how to implement, if not conditional cash payments, at least some benefits conditional on reducing net emissions relative to a business as usual projection. Of course, this is easier to implement where traditional local residents have both a tradition of forest conservation and tenure rights - but many places that are otherwise appealing as REDD+ sites do not have conditions appropriate for PES. In these cases, project proponents often start with what we are calling “traditional” strategies, and arguing that the ICDP or alternative livelihood strategy can both be more equitable and reduce leakages, while collaboration with governments to clarify tenure, regularise land titles, and enforce existing law helps lay the groundwork for PES-style REDD+ with local people. 90% were planning ICDP and PES; slightly fewer planning increased enforcement of restrictions - basically all planning on dual track.
- These numbers are based on update of REDD+ interventions, completed with 18 projects. 50% support for alternative livelihoods 60% enforcement of restrictions Just 15% expect to have PES - in the form of performance-based benefits to local stakeholders - in place
- While nearly all proponents were planning both more traditional conservation interventions and more PES-like interventions in their projects, PES – at least in the form of direct performance-based payments to local agents – is not being implemented as quickly in most projects. To some degree, this reflects belief in the importance of offering alternative sources of livelihood that are conservation compatible, and the sense that without this, the project would only be displacing or postponing forest loss. However, just as important is the lack of clear policy and market signals at the international level. The failure to reach a climate change agreement in Copenhagen disheartened many proponents; the relative success in Cancun including a REDD+ agreement revived proponent interest and morale, though it remains frustrating that the architecture and guidelines (e.g. safeguards) are unclear. Likewise, at the national level as well, there is a great deal of policy uncertainty and contention over policies (such as Forest Code in Brazil and Moratorium in Indonesia). One key element of national policy that remains uncertain in some countries is tenure, both over carbon and over forest land. Many proponents are dedicating much of their initial efforts to clarifying and securing tenure rights of traditional forest users. This works well as part of a “dual-track” planning strategy that most proponents are pursuing, seeking to position themselves for both a future REDD+ system and carbon payments, and for the eventuality that those never materialise. Many of the traditional strategies are either pre-conditions for interventions or effective interventions themselves in case REDD funds do not materialise, so they are a no-regrets option for proponents of the first generation of REDD projects. Data from update: Most likely to have positive impact on livelihoods: 11 livelihood alternatives, 2 PES Most likely to have negative impact on livelihoods: most said enforcement of restrictions, 1 PES Most likely to have positive impact on forest conservation: 7 livelihood alternatives, 4 PES, 2 enforcement, also noted RIL, reforestation, restoration of hydrological system
- At the same time that PES-like interventions are being postponed, education on REDD is being postponed, especially in Brazil and Indonesia where stakes are high. This largely reflects a nearly universal proponent fear about raising expectations. This is in many ways a logical component of dual track planning: don’t know if REDD funds will materialise, so better to lay the groundwork through steps such as mapping and development of alternative livelihoods, but not raise hopes when cannot be certain will be able to deliver - especially with direct payments. Six projects where education on REDD has been delayed are all in the humid forest zone, where carbon content and therefore potential payments for avoided emissions are the highest and thus perhaps risk of raising expectations is the greatest. But there are some latent dangers. In some cases, FPIC activities have already been conducted without doing education on REDD+, meaning that at some point in the future they will have to go back to the villages and conduct this education and reframe the conditions for informed consent. This is an expensive proposition. Some projects are at the end of their available funds and it is difficult to see how they will afford to conduct this education with their available budget. In the worst case, REDD+ would get underway at these sites without fully informed consent… not because of any ill intent of project proponents, but because of massive uncertainty in both international and national policy. This uncertainty creates opportunities for innovation, learning, and creative thinking about the best architecture for REDD - but at a cost, on the ground in these REDD projects.
- Nearly all of the projects in our sample are spending significant time and other resources on tenure issues - they recognize that forest land tenure is important - regardless of whether they end up on the REDD or the alternative track in their projects. The good news is that in most villages in and around REDD+ projects, the communities and the households asserted that they hold these rights.
- While polycentric governance is a very useful framework for thinking about these projects, what does it mean in terms of practical steps?
- With singular exception of Brazil, where there is close articulation, local and national efforts need to be better articulated in many cases, with several projects in Brazil providing a potential working model of how actors at different scales can fill in based on their strengths and comparative advantages. But to resolve some of the most intractable issues, the national government has to act to resolve conflicting claims and implement regulations that officially recognise communities’ traditional rights to their local forest. The incentives to help clarify and secure tenure of these local forest users must flow down from both national policy and international frameworks - for example, from safeguards on REDD. If we think about “REDD+ tenure readiness,” we have to recognise that depending on who ends up with tenure rights, clarifying tenure could protect right to emit as well as protect right to conserve and manage forest. But the greater risk lies in not clarifying tenure, which makes it difficult to implement any of the REDD+ strategies – whether PES, enforcement of restrictions, or support for livelihoods conditional on reduced emissions. And even if we do clarify tenure de jure, there remains the risk of conflict.
- Note that REDD+ projects in general have not shied away from places with unclear and conflicted tenure, with the exception of one project in Tanzania. In fact, all projects in Brazil are working with government to clarify land tenure, and all projects in Indonesia are seeking to fend off tenure claims from large external stakeholders. Reason for this is probably tenure insecurity creates high potential additionality. But of course, it also brings risk of conflict and failure. We should learn from bold attempts of these projects to make headway under these conditions, and learn about how lack of tenure clarity/fairness can trip up REDD+ implementation and/or be exacerbated by REDD+. And recognise that unlikely to be able to design projects and REDD+ itself to avoid all controversy and conflict, so should put in place a mechanism for conflict resolution that is broadly understood and recognised as fair.
- In this presentation I describe a REDD pilot project in Tanzania and will present some of the initial challenges that the project has faced and some of our initial lessons learned.
- A number of different initiatives are investing in REDD readiness in Tanzania. These initiatives aim to build on Tanzania’s progressive forest policy with its focus on participatory forest management. REDD readiness funding includes a grant from Norway that is supporting, amongst other things, 9 NGO pilot projects. The pilot projects aim to demonstrate different approaches to REDD and to contribute to establishing a national REDD scheme. The Tanzania Forest Conservation Group in partnership with the Community Forest Conservation Network of Tanzania is working in two separate sites to model a community-oriented approach to REDD. One project site is in the Eastern Arc Mountains and includes a mosaic of woodland and high biodiversity submontane and montane forest on village land. The other site is in the Eastern African Coastal Forest hotspot and includes areas of woodland and coastal forest also on village land. The project is now in its third year of implementation.
- The project aims to pilot a mechanism whereby REDD finance can bring about additional reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by channelling incentives as directly as possible to communities with forests on their land. In the absence of a compliance market for REDD or a fund-based mechanism, the project aims to assist communities to access funds from the voluntary market. However it is our intention that the model could also be used in other areas to channel different types of REDD finance to communities.
- So far the project has secured the consent of the 36 participating villages. This involved meetings in every sub-village and village. We then worked with women and men from each individual village to identify appropriate strategies to address deforestation and carried out participatory social impact assessments at village and site level. From there we have been working with the communities to implement the plans and to integrate REDD into the traditional land-use planning and participatory forest management approaches. We have also started to work with the communities to change agricultural practices in such a way as to reduce deforestation from shifting agriculture whilst also improving livelihoods. At the same time we have been doing the more technical MRV-oriented activities in order to develop the project design documents for VCS and CCB. The project also has an advocacy component intended to contribute to national REDD policy development.
- Some of the challenges that we have faced in implementing REDD on the ground during the first two years of our project - starting with some of the concerns that were raised by communities at the project outset. During our initial consultation with the communities and as part of the social impact assessment, community members voiced a range of concerns regarding REDD. These included concerns over land tenure and access to natural resources; governance issues; social conflict associated with enforcement of forest access restrictions; increased crop losses from bush pigs other wild animals due to better habitat protection; and scepticism that the project would deliver on its promises. The types of concerns varied from one site to another although issues of land tenure and governance were consistently mentioned. A challenge for the project has been to integrate measures that can mitigate these risks.
- As well as finding ways to ensure that REDD brings benefits to communities, the project has faced a number of other related challenges. The biggest challenge is the uncertainty that persists regarding the amount of REDD revenues that will be available and the rules and procedures that will govern who can access those funds and how. Whilst we have found that information about potential REDD revenues is an incentive to communities to protect areas of forest under threat, we have been frank about the uncertainties that surround those funds. As such, we have found that until communities can be more confident that REDD revenues will really materialise they are reluctant to risk including all of their forests. Another major challenge for REDD in a country such as Tanzania where much of the deforestation involves smallholder farmers is to find scalable interventions that can improve agricultural yields whilst also improving livelihoods and reducing GHG emissions. In Tanzania there is still a disconnect between thinking on REDD and thinking on agriculture. Agricultural and investment policies include strategies that risk increasing deforestation and include little investment in assisting farmers at the frontier of deforestation who often have little or no capital and minimal access to improved agricultural technologies. So far, REDD readiness investment is not doing enough to support smallholder farmers to shift to more ‘climate friendly’ agriculture or to adopt other livelihood strategies. A related challenge is that to date, there are no VCS-approved methods to reward reductions in forest degradation. As shifting agriculture often results in forest degradation rather than total deforestation, there is a gap in the incentive structure for farmers moving from shifting agriculture to more intensive agriculture.
- In terms of financing, at the current price of Voluntary Emission Reductions of between 5 to 10 US dollars per tonne, our initial calculations show that the net income will only just cover the opportunity and transaction costs of avoiding deforestation in our coastal forest site, whereas in the Eastern Arc Mountains where deforestation rates are lower and crops are of a higher value, a higher price may be needed. This assumes that communities can access all of the funds directly. If different layers of government were also to receive some of this revenue the incentive would be further diluted. Our experience has also shown that whilst REDD has similarities with traditional participatory forest management (PFM), it requires a different approach on the ground. Under PFM, communities protect the forests that provide them with particular benefits. These are often not the forests that are at immediate threat of deforestation but are instead forests around water sources or forests with medicinal plants or cultural values In order to generate emission reductions, REDD requires communities to protect forests that are at immediate threat of deforestation. A village may protect 1000 ha of high carbon forest but unless that forest is threatened by deforestation, it will not earn anything from REDD. This requires a different approach to planning. Linked to the issue of excluding threatened forests from village forest reserves is the need to build capacity on integrating sustainable harvesting in village forest reserves within REDD sites. Many village forest reserves in Tanzania are managed primarily for forest protection and allow very little harvesting of forest products. Initially, local government facilitators advised communities in the project areas to exclude any ‘use areas’ from the village forest reserves based on a perception that village forest reserves must be for forest protection only. And based on an understanding that REDD is incompatible with any kind of forest use. This reflects a capacity gap at local government level in terms of integrating sustainable use in REDD-oriented management plans.
- This is an example of a village from our Lindi site. The black line is the village boundary. Green is forest and red shows recent deforestation. The shaded area is the area that the community have placed in a Village Forest Reserve. This includes the highest carbon forest but excludes a significant part of the area at immediate risk of deforestation. Based on a price of US$5 per tonne, their net income would be US$13,000 per annum for the whole community, which is about half of the amount that they would earn had they included all of their forest. Whilst each community is presented with information specific to their area on potential REDD revenues, their ‘risk appetites’ vary. In areas such as Lindi where deforestation rates are quite high, ongoing uncertainty about REDD policy at national and international level means that communities are chosing not to protect some of their forest until there is more certainty about REDD financing.
- Based on the challenges that we have been trying to address and on the strategies that have worked well, some preliminary lessons learned are as follows. After two years, the basic premises of our piloting model still holds true i.e. that REDD finance could reduce emissions and reduce poverty. It is also clear that REDD needs adequate and accessible financing and that further delays in agreeing on the rules and procedures surrounding REDD financing will delay reductions in emissions. We have also seen that safeguards or standards are important in helping to ensure that REDD is implemented in an equitable and participatory way and that much can be learnt from the application of voluntary market standards such as VCS and CCB. In particular, informed participation of communities is critical to ensuring an effective and equitable model.
- We have also seen that more effort needs to be made between REDD initiatives and sectors such as agriculture to ensure that there is a favourable policy environment for addressing deforestation drivers. In terms of measurement, reporting and verification, we have found that MRV needs to be closely linked with implementation of strategies to address deforestation. For example, sharing information on potential REDD revenues is important for communities to make informed decisions on land use. Similarly spatial information on the current and projected distribution of deforestation is important to link with land-use planning. Involving communities in carbon assessment work builds capacity and knowledge at community level about carbon accounting and other basic principles of REDD. We believe that pilot projects such as ours can contribute valuable, real-life lessons about how to reduce emissions from deforestation in developing countries within a REDD framework. But these models involve risks and these risks are perpetuated by uncertainty about national and international policy around REDD. For REDD to become reality, there is an urgent need for greater clarity on the levels of finance that will be available, the form that REDD will take and on how that finance can be accessed by communities at the forefront of deforestation.
- With REDD being brought forward by PNG and other rainforested nations at the COP in Montreal in 2005, and the momentum this idea gained internationally, a lot of challenges for the implementation of such a mechanism (wich is nothing more than an objective) became obvious
- The forest transition. The change in the area of forest in a country may follow the pattern suggested by the forest transition theory (Mather 1992). Initially, a country has a high and relatively stable portion of land under forest cover. Deforestation begins, then accelerates and forest cover reduces. At some point deforestation slows, forest cover stabilises and begins to recover. The forest transition is not a law of nature, and transitions are influenced by national contexts, global economic forces and government policies. Countries may have very little remaining forest before forest cover stabilises, or they might, if policies are appropriate, be able to ‘bridge the forest transition’ – a central aim of REDD+. (Source: Angelsen et al 2009, Realising REDD+, page 4)
- GCS Component 1 case study countries (11+1 Burkina Faso)