Abstract
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) in developing countries is based on the premise that conserving tropical forests is a cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions and therefore can be fully funded by international actors with obligations or interests in reducing emissions. However, concerns have repeatedly been raised about whether stakeholders in REDD+ host countries will actually end up bearing the costs of REDD+. Most prior analyses of the costs of REDD+ have focused on the opportunity costs of foregone alternative uses of forest land. We draw on a pan-tropical study of 22 subnational REDD+ initiatives in five countries to explore patterns in implementation costs, including which types of organizations are involved and which are sharing the costs of implementing REDD+. We find that many organizations involved in the implementation of REDD+, particularly at the subnational level and in the public sector, are bearing implementation costs not covered by the budgets of the REDD+ initiatives. To sustain this level of cost-sharing, REDD+ must be designed to deliver local as well as global forest benefits.
Highlights
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, Plus (REDD+ conservation, sustainable management, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries) is intended to be a system of positive incentives for the reduction of deforestation and forest degradation, with countries and sectors historically responsible for carbon emissions paying for the costs of avoiding future emissions from forest loss (Karsenty and Ongolo 2012)
There are two broad areas of concern: the first is that the costs of REDD+, and especially the transaction and implementation costs, are much higher than generally recognized, and the second is that stakeholders in REDD+ countries will not be fairly compensated
We consider the start-up phase of 22 initiatives included in Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (CIFOR-GCS) sample1 (Table 1)
Summary
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, Plus (REDD+ conservation, sustainable management, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries) is intended to be a system of positive incentives for the reduction of deforestation and forest degradation, with countries and sectors historically responsible for carbon emissions paying for the costs of avoiding future emissions from forest loss (Karsenty and Ongolo 2012). We characterize the incidence of start-up costs of 22 subnational REDD+ initiatives in five countries (Brazil, Peru, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Cameroon). These initiatives reflect the wide variation in REDD+ initiatives across the tropics (Simonet et al 2014), allowing us to look for empirical regularities and patterns across the range of landscapes and interventions eligible for REDD+.
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