The challenge of establishing REDD+ on the ground: Insights from 23 subnational initiatives in six countries

Abstract

Since 2007, there have been high hopes that REDD+ would deliver on the 3E+ criteria (effectiveness, efficiency, equity, social and environmental co‑benefits) for strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The original concept was to offer performance‑based conditional incentives for forest conservation, thereby reducing deforestation and forest degradation. The expectation was that those incentives would eventually be funded largely through a robust international market in forest carbon offsets generated through verified emissions reductions. Since 2007, hundreds of subnational REDD+ initiatives have been initiated, mainly in tropical developing countries. These initiatives include subnational jurisdictional approaches (i.e. led by states/provinces or municipalities/districts), as well as site‑specific REDD+ projects. Despite significant advances, the early enthusiasm for REDD+ has dissipated among some stakeholders, largely because of the failure to attain an international climate change agreement. Prior to the 2013 COP in Warsaw, proponents of many subnational REDD+ initiatives were expressing concern about whether their years of effort to get REDD+ off the ground had been worth it. The ‘Warsaw Agreement on REDD+,’ produced by the COP, provides procedural guidance for countries to align REDD+ strategies with drivers of deforestation and degradation, establish national reference levels, and implement MRV (measuring, reporting, verification) and safeguard information systems, but the concerns about uncertain funding remain. It was in this context that CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (GCS) conducted a survey of 23 subnational REDD+ initiatives in six countries from December 2012 to June 2013 to examine their strategies and approaches, the nature of the challenges they faced, and how they intended to overcome them. The study found that the 23 initiatives were persisting in their efforts to reduce local deforestation and forest degradation, as well as deliver on a wide range of goals. However, there are questions about whether and how the REDD+ concept will persist and evolve, based on the following evidence: • Eighteen of 23 proponents already have or will implement conditional incentives (originally viewed as key to REDD+), but only nine viewed these as the single most important intervention for reducing forest carbon emissions at their site. This could be a function of timing, with multiple factors leading to a delay in the effective implementation of conditional incentives. Proponents have focused on other interventions while waiting for the political, economic and technological Landscape view at SNV site, Cat Tien, Lam Dong Province, Vietnam.