Abstract
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Forest Enhancement (REDD+) has become a central focus of global climate change mitigation efforts. Even though the international demand for forest-based carbon sequestration is the key driver of REDD+, forest protection strategies must be implemented on the ground. This cross-scale nature of REDD+ explains why scholars and policy makers increasingly favor nested governance arrangements over either fully centralized or fully decentralized REDD+ governance. The focus of the literature on nested REDD+ governance has mostly been on monitoring, reporting, and verification of carbon emission reductions across sub-national, national, and international levels. We build on Ostrom’s principle of ‘nested enterprises’ to argue that REDD+ must be designed to systematically and formally link national policy reforms with the organization and execution of sub-national (regional and local) forest conservation efforts led by forest users. We also contribute new insights on the political dimensions of nestedness in REDD+, with important roles for inter-community forestry associations and forest rights movements.
Highlights
The international environmental policy community is debating proposals for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, and Enhancement of Forest Carbon Stocks in Developing Countries (REDD+)
We build on Ostrom’s principle of ‘nested enterprises’ to argue that REDD+ must be designed to systematically and formally link national policy reforms with the organization and execution of sub-national forest conservation efforts led by forest users
We employed the concept of nested enterprises proposed by Elinor Ostrom (1990), and supplemented it with a discussion of the political dimensions of cross-scale linkages, that is, accountability and legitimacy
Summary
The international environmental policy community is debating proposals for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, and Enhancement of Forest Carbon Stocks in Developing Countries (REDD+). The success in controlling deforestation or avoiding forest degradation depends crucially on how REDD+ finances are used and whether the actors involved in resource harvesting and management on the ground are credibly committed to producing positive environmental outcomes Achieving this requires careful institutional design that will help align incentives at both the national and sub-national levels. Responding to the question of “What is the right scale for REDD?”, Angelsen et al (2008, 1) highlight the flexibility of a hybrid (nested) approach that combines features of direct, international support to projects operating at a subnational level with additional direct support to national-level governments. Both the hybrid and MRV-focused approaches to nested REDD+ architecture overlook on-the-ground considerations Both leave open the question of who will be responsible for protecting and conserving forests ex ante. We believe this omission is a consequence of how proponents of hybrid and MRV approaches conceptualize the problem of institutional supply – who supplies domestic institutions and why?
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