POSTNOTE
Num. December 2016
REDD+: advantages and disadvantages in its
implementation
Stand for Trees' April Salumei Rainforest Conservation Project.
Image: Stand for Trees
Carbon emissions are increasing year by year,
triggering a global warming which affect all
ecosystems on earth, and will have invaluable
repercussions. This POSTnote inquires on
REDDs+ aims, bringing to light advantages and
disadvantages this program has involved during
its implementation, both, for local communities
and biodiversity conservation.
REDD+: origins
Tropical deforestation and forest degradation is
considered a major source of global greenhouse
gases emissions such as carbon dioxide,
contributing for as much as one third of all
anthropogenic emanations1. As part of the guidelines
and objectives to maintain carbon emissions and
temperature in a level that still would prevent
dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system in the Earth, in the Fifteenth session
of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), hold in Copenhagen (7-
18/12/2009), was agreed that the increase in global
temperature should be below 2C, and thus, actions
should be taken to meet this objective2.
It was one year before when REDD+ (Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation + enhancing forest carbon stocks) saw
its beginning (COP-14 Poznan 2008)3, in COP-15
Overview
Loos of forest is an alarming issue all over
the world, causing (among other factors)
global warming, which, if not controlled,
could lead the Earth to a no return point.
Countries came with the option of REDD+
as an option to counteract this problem.
Some developing countries have started to
implement REDD+, obtaining resources
from developed countries.
In some countries REDD+ has propitiated
reduction on fires, alternative energy
systems and new jobs within local
communities.
REDD+ has resulted more complicated
than expected, some countries face serious
problems (e.g. Corruption).
Indigenous alliances appose to REDD+
arguing, the less this program is doing is
helping to conserve biodiversity.
REALU comes as a proposal instead of
REDD+, with a wider perspective.
Copenhagen 2009 was agreed the need to
incentivise activities through the establishment of a
REDD+ mechanism that would aim in mobilizing
financial from developed countries (USD 30 billion for
adaptation and mitigation for 2010-2012)2 and finally
in COP-16 Cancun 2010 the parties agreed to
collectively aim to slow, halt and reverse cover forest
and carbon loss through the implementation of
REDD+4. REDD+ therefore, is a mechanism which
encourages developing countries to contribute to
greenhouse gas mitigation, by reducing emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation; creating a
financial value for the carbon stored in forest by
offering incentives to reduce emissions from forested
lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable
development5. Since REDD+ was fully integrated into
the global climate agenda it has come to be regarded
as potentially one of the most effective and efficient
mitigation strategies available today6, for the year
2016, 44 countries all around the world have
developed their REDD+ strategy, and some have
started with pilot projects7.

REDD+ and biodiversity
The Convention of Biological Diversity, established
20 targets for conservation of biodiversity, from
which, four are extremely related with REDD+ (Box
1).
Box 1. Targets related with REDD+ from the
Strategic Plan for Biodiversity for 2011-2020
adopted by the Conference of the parties to
the Convention of Biological Diversity at its
tenth meeting (Japan 2010)8:
By 2020, the rate of loss of all natural
habitats, including forests, is at least halved
and where feasible brought close to zero,
and degradation and fragmentation is
significantly reduced.
By 2020 areas under forestry are managed
sustainably, ensuring conservation of
biodiversity.
By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial
areas, especially areas of particular
importance for biodiversity and ecosystem
services, are conserved.
By 2020, ecosystem resilience and the
contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks
has been enhanced, through conservation
and restoration, including restoration of at
least 15 per cent of degraded ecosystems,
thereby contributing to climate change
mitigation and adaptation and to combating
desertification.
Biodiversity is the source of all biological wealth,
supplying all of our food, much of our raw materials,
and a wide range of goods and services, plus genetic
materials for agriculture, medicine and industry9. It is
well known that humans could not live without
biodiversity, important fact that REDD+ covers, due
its activities are on track to incentivize the protection
and conservation of natural forest and their
ecosystem services as well as include the promotion
and support of respect for the knowledge and rights
of indigenous peoples and members of local
communities4.
Current projects
India: The Khasi Hills REDD+ project was launched
in 2011, where Community Forest International has
been supporting the indigenous government of
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Num. December 2016
Mawphlang Hima involving indigenous peoples
participation; resulting in improved fuel wood
harvesting rules based on rotation, the adoption of
fuel-efficient stoves and fire controls. Also, the
surface mining of coal and limestone are controlled
helping to reduce the impacts of this drivers on
deforestation and forest degradation10.
Nepal: in 2009 Nepal, started their first REDD+
project focused on payment system, which has
achieved, among others: established a Forest
Carbon Trust Fund that monitors carbon data,
installed alternative energy systems to reduce
community dependence on forests; others four
projects are still running, concentrated on awareness
raising, capacity building and the development of
methodologies11.
Brazil: between 2007 and 2009, six REDD+ projects
have been implemented, resulting in the
establishment of the new policy: Amazons climate
change law, presidential decree establishing specific
procedures to intensify efforts in combating
deforestation, as well as a Policy for valuing forest
environmental assets12.
Issues REDD+ is facing
As an international initiative, REDD+ faces issues at
the time of implementing it in a certain community,
every country is governed differently and has
difficulties others do not have. In order to implement
REDD+ effectively, policies that change land and
forest use decisions are required, as well as a
prosperous methodology.
Case study challenges
Indonesia: poorly defined boundaries of areas under
state forest, does not ascertain that the area is free
from any existing rights; the reconciliation of timber
production and tax reports does not ensure that
forest concessions pay their dues; corruption and
fraud also affect the distribution of revenues at
different levels of government6.
Vietnam: conflict of interests and various land
classifications used; data are scattered and
fragmented across different departments and units
and are neither shared nor available to the public;
there are problems in arranging additional and
independent bodies because of high transaction
costs, conflicts with existing government policy and
disagreement between central and local authorities6.

Box 2 shows what Barr (2012) describes as the
critical issues the implementation REDD+ is facing in
countries in Asia-Pacific.
Box 2. Critical issues countries in Asia-
Pacific face for REDD+ implementation (Barr
et. al 2012)13:
The control consolidated of state agencies
and corporate actors over degraded forest
landscapes, often resulting in the
marginalization or displacement of rural
communities.
Exacerbated economic disparities in the
forestry sector by channelling large capital
subsidies and resource rents to companies
with close ties to state elites.
Facilitated corruption and financial fraud, in
some cases on a grand scale.
Accelerated biodiversity loss by creating
perverse incentives for the conversion of
degraded secondary forests.
Generated mixed results for rural small-
holders, at times undermining livelihood
security by locking them in inequitable
agreements with plantation companies, and
in other cases, offering enhanced tenure.
security over replanted areas.
Is REDD+ helping biodiversity
conservation?
To design effective, efficient and equitable policies
for the REDD+ initiatives, it is required that drivers of
deforestation and forest degradation are correctly
identified, and that the ecological context of those
drivers is correctly understood14; interventions
designed to maximize biodiversity co-benefits may
yield less carbon benefits than interventions that
prioritize maximum carbon outcomes15. Mapping
carbonbiodiversity overlaps reveals that synergies
are not evenly distributed, and that some high
biodiversity countries and forests could be
overlooked by investments that maximize carbon
benefits16. Conservation priorities also vary, whether
based on indices of endemism, species diversity,
threat of extinction, or gap analysis17. However, while
the need for biodiversity safeguards is widely
recognized, the need for biodiversity co-benefits
(benefits beyond a safeguarded baseline) is
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Num. December 2016
considerably more ambiguous, as well as
considerably more contentious18. According to
Harvey et al 2010, REDD+ remains one of the most
important opportunities for global biodiversity
conservation15, but the question of how to best
achieve biodiversity co-benefits under REDD+
remains an important one18.
Disjoin biodiversity from carbon
While different carbon trading schemes trade carbon
credits under various names (e.g., certified emission
reductions), carbon and carbon credits are
substitutable and transferable. There is one common
carbon currency, and carbon losses in one area can
be acceptably compensated for with carbon gains in
another area19. Under a standard approach, national
planners would likely first to identify hotspots for
carbon conservation and then try to identify areas of
biodiversity conservation concern among those
carbon hotspots18, thus, a good idea would be to
focus REDD+ projects only in biodiversity
conservation, disjoining it from carbon credits.
Local communities
On a global scale, communities today exercise the
use and management of rights over a large forested
area, at least 10%, or 400 million hectares (White
and Martin 2002)20. Of this, according to Sunderlin
2008, more than half of the worlds forests has come
under their control during the past 25 years21. Then,
who can manage forests better than people living
within or beside them? Community forestry
management (CFM) combines two things: a type of
resource (forests) and a class of owner/manager
(communities) (Agrawal and Chhatre 2008)22.
Thereby, if local communities are taken in
consideration, many advantages could result; with a
minimum of one day of training, local monitors are
capable of producing habitat loss and forest
disturbance data that is comparable to that collected
professionally (Holck 2008)23, besides, their
payments are given out at a flat rate for providing the
information (instead of linking them to carbon stocks
as conflict may arise due to natural variance in forest
carbon, and so payments (Skutsch 2009)24. Locally
based monitoring has the potential to shape the
future of conservation management, as REDD+
comes online, in order to make the programme
function in the long-term, locally based monitoring
should be seen as one of the critical elements of the
operational MRV system: monitoring, reporting and
verification25.

Carbon credits, more important than local
communities?
REDD+ means that forest carbon now has a value.
Whereas carbon stored in forests had virtually no
market value until recently, it is now traded in
voluntary markets, and might soon be traded in
international carbon compliance markets26. But,
according to the Indigenous Environmental Network,
this might lead into a capitalization of nature27; this
alliance of indigenous people has made their
explanations about what they consider a green
economy (Box 3).
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Num. December 2016
carbon sequestration and the generation of co
benefits, in contrast to a whole landscape approach
known as Reducing Emissions from All Land Uses
(REALU)30. The limitation to forests, and the arbitrary
definition of forests within the UNFCCC, is however
a major constraint to REDDs effectiveness31. A
whole landscape approach to REDD+ (REALU) can
overcome this arbitrariness of operational definitions
of forests, can address drivers of deforestation and
re-treeing outside of officially gazetted forests, and
provides opportunities to involve and financially
compensate smallholders for carbon sequestration36.

Box 3. Paths beyond Paris: Movements,

actions and solidarity towards climate justice
(Indigenous Environmental Network)

World leaders, at the United Nations Conference

on Sustainable Development Rio+20 (2012),
came together to review progress towards saving
the planet by achieving sustainable forms of
development, but that is just a green economy,
nothing more than an extreme attempt by
corporations, extractive industries and
governments of mainly the northern
industrialized countries towards developing
mechanisms for cashing in on creation. REDD+
does not address the real causes of
deforestation, nor does try to stop it. REDD+
creates an illusion that forests are but mere
carbon reservoirs, priced in the market, publicly
traded, emptied of people and controlled by
companies27.

By monetizing forest carbon, REDD+ will

substantially increase the market value of forests
incentivizing central governments to increase
control. Under a performance-based payment
mechanism, governments will be pressured to avoid
the risk of non-payment resulting from local-level
failures. This could involve imposition of excessive
requirements or even evictions of local users 28. Thus,
communities should have control over local REDD+
design and implementation, they should be given
authority, information and support to determine
whether the engage with REDD+29.

Options
A major constraint to current REDD+ initiatives is the
arbitrariness of the operational definition of forest.
The UN-REDD+ framework ignores the high Edgar Torres Garca
potential of other (tree containing) land uses for 100187431
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Num. December 2016
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