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ASB and partners convene REDD workshops in Africa and Asia

Workshops for developing countries working to reduce emissions from deforestation and land use change were held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 1-3 March 2010, and Hue City, Viet Nam, from 8-10 March 2010.

The workshops were hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and Alternatives to Slash and Burn Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins (ASB), and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). The workshops follow previous meetings in 2009 on “REDD at the Copenhagen Climate Talks and Beyond- Bridging the Gap between Negotiations and Actions.”

Asia workshop: Keynote speakers Mr. Le Duc Ngoan, Vice-Rector, Hue University of Agriculture; Mr. John Drexhage, International Institute for Sustainable Development; Mr. Pham Van Tan, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) of Vietnam; Dr. Peter A Minang, ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins

The workshop in Kenya included 70 participants from 15 countries and the workshop in Viet Nam included 55 individuals from seven countries. The workshops analyzed the outcomes of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen with regard to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD) and reducing emissions from other land uses. Participants shared perspectives from across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, as well as experiences from readiness and demonstration projects.

Africa Workshop: ASB Global Coordinator Peter A Minang (back) with keynote speakers at the Nairobi workshop: Morten Nordskag (Royal Norwegian Embassy), Dr. Alice Kaudia (Kenya’s Environment Secretary) and Prof. August Temu (ICRAF Partnerships Directorate)

In charting a course for the coming year, negotiators and stakeholders considered some of the issues that will be at play in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010. One particular message that emerged in both workshops is the importance of demonstration projects in generating lessons that can feed into the negotiations. This kind of  ‘learning by doing’ has not yet been sufficiently developed in Asia and Africa.

The meeting organizers produced a background paper, titled REDD After Copenhagen: The Way Forward, which  analyzes the COP15 outcomes on REDD-plus and agriculture, forests and land use (AFOLU) and assesses key areas for moving ahead with REDD implementation. [Background Paper] [Workshop Website]

REDD-plus & Biodiversity e-Newsletter

In the latest issue of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) “REDD-plus & Biodiversity e-Newsletter” highlights new publications and events relating to biodiversity and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD-plus). Read more…

Legal Frameworks for REDD: Design and Implementation at the National Level

The final version of IUCN Environmental Policy and Law Paper No. 77, “Legal Frameworks for REDD: Design and Implementation at the National Level,” first launched at Copenhagen COP 15/CMP 5 in December 2009, is available for download at the IUCN Environmental Law Centre (ELC) website http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/eplp_77.pdf

An effective mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD) could provide a powerful tool for mitigating global carbon dioxide levels as well as greatly enhancing developing country tropical forest conservation and sustainable development. Given that many tropical forest countries likely to host a majority of REDD projects also demonstrate the weakest forest governance records in recent decades, however, the design and implementation of legal and institutional frameworks relevant for REDD governance will require especially careful evaluation.

Responding to this challenge, the IUCN Environmental Law Centre has completed a comprehensive study on national legal frameworks for REDD in conjunction with partner international and national REDD legal experts. The report includes case studies from Brazil, Cameroon, Guyana and Papua New Guinea, which serve as a basis for further analysis and recommendations for the development of laws and regulations for REDD. The report identifies the following four main themes central to ensuring successful REDD legal regimes and elaborates relevant legal and policy considerations with regard to each:

• Ownership of Land, Forest and Carbon
• Participation, Balancing of Rights and Interests, and Prior Informed Consent
• Benefit Sharing
• Additionality and Permanence

Call for Papers: Governing and Implementing REDD+

Call for papers for a special section of a leading international journal in environmental science and policy on Governing and Implementing REDD+, edited by Esteve Corbera (University of East Anglia), Heike Schroeder (University of Oxford) and Oliver Springate-Baginski (University of East Anglia); supported by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests and the Earth System Governance Project

Issue justification

The recent meeting of the UNFCCC held in Copenhagen (COP-15) has left most people with a sense of disappointment, insofar as an agreement about a global action framework with future emission reduction targets and a clear roadmap has not been reached. However, negotiations on some critical aspects made a considerable leap forward, as is the case for the development of a framework for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). Parties recognised the importance of forest conservation, as well as forest enhancement and sustainable forest management (the so called REDD+) in meeting emission reduction in developing countries. Parties also encouraged developing countries to identify deforestation drivers, estimate emissions and establish national forest monitoring systems, in order to start or continue drafting their REDD strategies (Decision FCCC/ SBSTA/2009/L.19/Add.1). More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that the Copenhagen Accord stressed the importance of increasing funding for REDD+ and suggested to do so through a new Green Climate Fund, which will also support other mitigation and adaptation actions.

This context suggests that REDD+ related activities, both at procedural and implementation levels, will continue to expand and capture the attention of policy-makers, NGOs, civil society and academia in forthcoming years. Scholars have so far focused on exploring the methodological challenges for REDD+ (see e.g. Schlamadinger and Bird, 2007, and correspondent Special Issue in Environmental Science and Policy 2007 10(4)), and analysing governance issues which may promote or deter implementation at national and sub-national scales (Angelsen et al., 2009; Corbera et al., 2009). However, there is still a lack of certainty about the implementability of REDD+ strategies in developing countries, which have been supported through the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and the UN-REDD Programme over the past two years. Many issues relating to governance remain unresolved. For example, it is not clear how funds would be distributed domestically, how to prevent perverse incentives from emerging and how to protect the indigenous and forest communities whose livelihoods depend on forest. Neither have there been assessments about the negotiating process or current and future REDD finance frameworks, which can shed light on the complexities of forest politics at the UNFCCC level, and country selection and policy priorities when it comes to funding REDD through multilateral organisations, as for the case of adaptation (Klein et al., 2009). During these last two years, a number of projects selling REDD+ credits in voluntary carbon markets have been envisaged, but sound analysis of the benefits and risks of trading carbon through forest conservation is also lacking.

Objectives and eligible contributions

The Special Section aims to contribute to existing debates on REDD+ effectiveness and advance the understanding of how such a framework becomes implemented in developing countries and impacts upon their forest managers. It also aims to respond to a call for research on Earth System Governance, particularly questions of architecture, agency, accountability, and allocation and access (see Biermann et al. 2009), and to provide timely information to scholars, policy-makers and NGOs working on forestry and climate change mitigation.

Papers should be academically rigorous and theoretically grounded, and address issues which appear critical for the emerging governance of REDD+, including procedural and implementation issues at different administrative levels. Priority will be given to papers exploring one or more of the following:

• International negotiation processes relating to REDD / REDD+
• The development of financial and incentive-sharing mechanisms, at international and national levels, to support REDD+ and their early opportunities and challenges;
• The implications of REDD+ for global carbon accounting and, in particular, for international and domestic leakage;
• The design and implementation of REDD+ strategies, particularly through the multilateral programmes of the World Bank and UN-REDD, looking specifically at political negotiations within countries, participation, and the likely effectiveness of the policies/actions being designed;
• The interplay between REDD+ strategies and forest tenure issues at national or local levels, to explore how changes in property rights affect people’s access to resources and existing management capacities;
• The implementation of pilot REDD projects in voluntary carbon markets and their outcomes to date, in order to highlight the benefits and risks of trading carbon through biodiversity conservation;
• Institutional design lessons from other international mechanisms.

Timeline and paper selection

This call for papers will be open from 1 February 2010 (12 pm GMT) to 28 February 2010 (12 pm GMT). The Call will be circulated and advertised widely. Interested applicants should send a long abstract of their paper (up to 1,000 words), or their draft paper if available, to all three editors at e.corbera@uea.ac.uk, heike.schroeder@ouce.ox.ac.uk and oliver.springate@uea.ac.uk.

Applicants must be committed to submit a full paper (up to 8,000 words) by the 30th of April 2010. The paper should not have been submitted elsewhere before. 4 – 6 papers will be chosen among all the received contributions according to quality and relevance. A geographical balance of contributors and case studies will also be pursued in the selection process.

Selected papers for the Section will be submitted for peer-review to a leading international journal in environmental science and policy in May 2010.

References

Angelsen, A. (ed.). 2008. Moving Ahead with REDD: Issues, Options and Implications. Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research.

Biermann, F., et al. 2009. Earth System Governance: People, Places, and the Planet. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Earth System Governance Report 1, IHDP Report 20. Bonn, IHDP.

Corbera, E., M. Estrada and K. Brown, 2009. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in developing countries: Revisiting the assumptions. Climatic Change. doi: 10.1007/s10584-009-9773-1.

Klein, R.J.T. and A. Möhner. 2009. Governance limits to effective global financial support for adaptation. In: W.N. Adger, I. Lorenzoni, K. O’Brien (eds.) Adapting to Climate Change. Thresholds, Values, Governance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. p. 465-475.

Schlamadinger, B. and N. Bird. 2007. Editorial. Special Issue on Options for including agriculture and forestry activities in a post-2012 international climate agreement. Environmental Science and Policy, 10(4): 269-270.

Forestry Carbon Markets & REDD – Washington DC, USA: 10-11, June 2010

10 June 2010

to

11 June 2010

Despite recent uncertainty, the forest carbon market has grown nearly fivefold since 2006.
The market was worth million in the first half of 2009, .1 million in 2008, after rising to .5 million a year before and from .6 million in 2006, according to Ecosystem Marketplace.

“At the end of 2009, the market for forest carbon stands in an uncertain position on the verge of potentially enormous growth,” the State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2009 report said.

“Amidst this scene of opportunity and risk, investors are still eyeing forest carbon, though many are waiting on more definite regulatory signals before taking a financial leap.”

GreenPower’s Forestry Carbon Markets & REDD Conference will bring these investors together with the regulators and every other link in the REDD value chain to move the market forward and realize the potential of the forestry carbon markets in the USA and beyond. Two days of debate and discussion amongst industry leaders and experts will put you in a position to make the most of your position in this rapidly growing market

Registration and more information: Forestry Carbon Markets & REDD :: A GreenPower Conferences Event.