Social Safeguards Research Articles

REDD+ as a Tool of Global Forest Governance

Given the lack of a multilateral convention on forests, global deforestation is being addressed through various initiatives, public and private, local and global. Since 2005, the creation of a mechanism for addressing deforestation (among other things) has been moving forward within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime. Known as REDD+, it is meant to provide incentives to developing countries in return for forest conservation, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. REDD+ could lead to lower levels of deforestation and forest degradation, and to the incorporation of customary governance arrangements in national policy instruments, albeit with some risk of centralisation of forest governance. It could also have a negative social and environmental impact if too much emphasis is put on carbon without adopting the proper social and environmental safeguards.

Community Monitoring of Forest Carbon Stocks and Safeguards Tracking in Kenya: Design and Implementation Considerations

This paper investigates modalities required to design and implement community monitoring of forest carbon stock changes and safeguards implementation in Kenya. General principles and elements were drawn from the UNFCCC REDD+ policy frameworks for developing modalities and procedures for designing community forest monitoring system. The paper utilised policy analysis approach used to derive monitoring goals and objectives by assessing the compatibility of Kenya’s policy and legislative framework with monitoring elements provided in the UNFCCC REDD+ policy mechanism. The elements included monitoring goals, objectives, questions, indicators, and methods and tools. Two goals were identified which included, reduction of forest carbon emissions (ER) and monitoring of multiple social and environmental safeguards (SG). Five ER related objectives were identified to include: forest reference emission levels or forest reference levels, drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, Land use activities, eligible ER actions and estimation of forest emissions. Six objectives guiding SG were identified to include: policy, governance, human rights, socio-economic, biodiversity and environmental concerns. Corresponding questions to the goals and objectives were systematically designed. In turns, indicators, depicting quantitative and qualitative measurements, which best provided answers to questions were identified. The various methods and tools used by communities around the world in providing data and information required to satisfy the indictors were identified through literature review. The review identified four methods and tools that included: Remote Sensing and GIS, GPS survey, smartphone survey and Ground trothing. Smartphone and cloud-based server technology were found to be the recent emergent tools in aiding community monitoring of REDD+ projects. The paper argues that local communities and indigenous peoples have the capability and capacity to monitor and undertake forest carbon monitoring and tracking of implementation of safeguards if supported with relevant training; compensated for the time, labour and knowledge they contribute to the process; provided with feedback and involved decision making process.

Управление затратами на персонал организации (Лекция 4)

The paper continues the compendium of lectures on “Personnel Management Economics” under the Bachelor-degree program. The concept of «personnel costs»
 is defi ned, personnel costs are classifi ed. Examined are factors, determining the size of an organization’s personnel costs. The system of personnel costs management
 is characterized in terms of its essence and constituents, the objective of personnel costs management is clarifi ed, ways to manage it are revealed.
 Also specifi ed is how to manage and control various categories of personnel costs, such as payroll costs, training costs, costs of a company’s social commitments
 and social safeguard.

Mining-induced displacement and resettlement: a critical appraisal

Abstract Physical displacement, relocation and resettlement are widely acknowledged as posing enormous social risk. For over four decades, scholars, campaigners and project-affected people have sought to highlight the effects of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR). Increasingly, the generic set of international standards that are used to manage cases of DIDR are being tested by the unique challenges posed by mining-induced displacement and resettlement (MIDR). In this article the authors provide a critical appraisal of current thinking and practice relating to MIDR. Findings indicate that MIDR is largely characterised by factors that occur in 'brownfield' project scenarios; even when the initial displacement commences in otherwise 'new' mining developments. The article identifies five critical and distinguishing factors associated with MIDR. These factors are explored in light of contemporary policy debates surrounding the mining industry, including 'consent', 'negotiated agreements' and overall effectiveness of existing social safeguards in regulating industry practice.

Multi-Level Policy Dialogues, Processes, and Actions: Challenges and Opportunities for National REDD+ Safeguards Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV)

REDD+ social safeguards have gained increasing attention in numerous forums. This paper reviews the evolution of multi-level policy dialogues, processes, and actions related to REDD+ social safeguards (e.g., Cancun Safeguards 1–5) among policy makers, civil society organizations, and within the media in Brazil, Indonesia and Tanzania, three countries with well advanced REDD+ programs. We find that progress on core aspects of social safeguards is uneven across the three countries. Brazil is by far the most advanced having drafted a REDD+ social safeguards policy. Both Brazil and Indonesia have benefited from progress made by strong sub-national entities in the operationalization of REDD+ safeguards including free prior and informed consent (FPIC), participation, and benefit sharing. Tanzania has weakly articulated how social safeguards will be operationalized and has a more top-down approach. We conclude that in all three countries, measuring, reporting and verifying progress on social safeguards is likely to be a complex issue. Stakeholders with vested interests in REDD+ social safeguards operate in polycentric rather than nested systems, suggesting that aggregation of information from local to national-scale will be a challenge. However, polycentric systems are also likely to support more transparent and comprehensive safeguards systems. Clear direction from the international community and financing for REDD+ safeguard MRV is essential if REDD+ social safeguards are to be meaningfully integrated into forest-based climate mitigation strategies.

Reform or reversal: the impact of REDD+ readiness on forest governance in Indonesia

Indonesia has turned its alleged role as global leader of land-based carbon emissions into a role as a global trailblazer exploring modalities for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). REDD+ readiness is largely about improving forest governance, but this itself is a multilayered concept. This article analyses how the processes and practices of REDD+ readiness are leading to various forest governance reforms in Indonesia. We analysed six dimensions of REDD+ readiness progress over the past six years and the way these interact with land tenure reform and land-use planning. We found evidence that (1) tenure issues are taken more seriously, as evidenced by the development of social safeguard mechanisms and efforts to accelerate the gazettement of forest boundaries, although a constitutional court recognition in 2013 for customary forest management is, however, yet to be operationalized; (2) spatial planning relates forests more clearly to other parts of the landscape in terms of compliance with Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) commitments; and (3) the forest and peatland conversion moratorium initiative led to a revamping of forest management. Despite progress, there are still major obstacles to full REDD+ implementation in Indonesia. The discussion focuses on the weaker part of readiness and possible ways forward.

Creating Social Safeguards for REDD+: Lessons Learned from Benefit Sharing Mechanisms in Vietnam

Currently, many studies on benefit sharing mechanisms (BSM) and the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programme (REDD+) focus on poverty alleviation and livelihood development. However, relatively few studies incorporate an integrated livelihood framework. This study employs the sustainable livelihoods framework to assess the impact of BSM in Vietnam. The lessons learned could be used in creating social safeguards for REDD+. The communities in Central Vietnam involved in BSM were impacted by the programme on various dimensions. These dimensions, expressed in different types of capital, are interconnected and contribute to a person’s well-being. While the communities have restricted access to their natural forests, they benefited in terms of income diversification, knowledge improvement and network expansion. On the other hand, they faced food insecurity, they were more vulnerable to natural hazards, and their human, social and cultural capital faced risk of deterioration.

Potential for Integrating Community-Based Monitoring into REDD+

Countries at the United Nations Framework on the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have decided to engage local communities and indigenous groups into the activities for the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of the program to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and increase carbon removals (REDD+). Previous research and projects have shown that communities can produce reliable data on forest area and carbon estimates through field measurements. The objective of this article is to describe the framework that is being created for REDD+ under the UNFCCC to identify the potential inclusion of local information produced through community-based monitoring (CBM) into monitoring systems for REDD+. National systems could use different sources of information from CBM: first, local information can be produced as part of public programs by increasing sample size of national or regional inventories; second, government can collect information to produce carbon estimates from on-going management practices implemented at local level driven by access to local direct benefits (e.g., forest management plans, watershed conservation); third, national data systems could include information from projects participating in carbon markets and other certification schemes; and finally information will be produced as part of the activities associated to the implementation of social and environmental safeguards. Locally generated data on carbon and areas under different forms of management can be dovetailed into national systems and be used to describe management practices, complement existing information or replace Tier 1/2 values with more detailed local data produced by CBM.

Where now for protected areas? Setting the stage for the 2014 World Parks Congress

AbstractProtected areas are regarded as the most important tool in the conservation toolbox. They cover > 12% of the Earth's terrestrial area, with over half of this designated since 1970, and are thus a unique example of governments and other stakeholders consciously changing management of land and water at a significant scale. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has a global programme to complete ecologically-representative protected area networks, and this is driving the creation of large numbers of new protected areas. But there is also growing criticism of protected areas because of the social costs of protection and doubts about their effectiveness. We acknowledge this criticism but believe that it is over-stated and applied to a protected area model that has already been replaced by newer thinking. As protected areas are becoming more complex in concept and more complicated in management, we review the six most important changes affecting them over the last 2 decades: (1) a new protected area definition with more emphasis on nature conservation; (2) a plurality of management and governance models; (3) acknowledgement of wider protected area benefits beyond nature conservation; (4) greater social safeguards for protected areas; (5) evidence that protected areas are effective conservation tools; and (6) a new emphasis on larger protected areas, transboundary protected areas, connectivity conservation and landscape approaches. We conclude by considering fresh challenges as a result of policy changes and the global criminal wildlife trade, and consider the potential of the forthcoming 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress.

Safeguards and Dangerguards: A Framework for Unpacking the Black Box of Safeguards for REDD +

The idea and practice of safeguards – usually expressed as sets of environmental and social principles – have become integral components of the ongoing global policy efforts aimed at mitigating climate change through the mechanism of Reducing Emissions on Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). Donors, civil societies, business organisations and other different bodies are investing resources on initiatives aimed to propagate different guidelines and principles expected to be adopted, supported and promoted by national governments as safeguards. Yet, there is little research critically examining the different ideas, objectives and understandings embedded in the term and their implications for the purpose for which safeguards are designed for. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on safeguards by presenting REDD+ Safeguard Spectrum, a framework which can be used to unpack the many faces of REDD+ safeguards to guide their application and operationalization at national and local levels. Focusing largely on the social goals espoused under REDD+, the paper characterises social safeguards of REDD+ into four categories—preventive, mitigative promotive and transformative.

The legitimacy of incentive-based conservation and a critical account of social safeguards

Incentive-based conservation has become a significant part of how tropical forests are being governed. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a mechanism to mitigate climate change that many countries have started to implement. REDD+, however, is criticized for its potential negative impacts on local populations and Indigenous people. To prevent and mitigate the negative impacts, safeguards are increasingly being used to prevent and shift the focus toward ‘non-carbon’ elements of forest conservation. We discuss the legitimacy of these types of projects from a stakeholder perspective. Using a normative framework, we assess the Ecuadorian Socio Bosque conservation program, concentrating more specifically on the level of input and output legitimacy. Results show that Socio Bosque in its current form has shortcomings in both input and output legitimacy. We argue that an encompassing conception of legitimacy, including input and output criteria, particularly from a local stakeholder perspective, is essential for the future success of incentive-based conservation and particularly for REDD+ projects.

An assessment of the impacts of the REDD+ pilot project on community forests user groups (CFUGs) and their community forests in Nepal

REDD+ has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, meet climate stabilisation targets and protect biological diversity. Consequently, millions of dollars are being channelled into developing countries rich in forests, for pilot projects that will provide data for the design of REDD+ projects that are based on incentives and performance. This paper evaluates the impacts of REDD+ pilot projects on community forests and associated user groups (CFUGs) in Nepal. A field study targeted eight CFUGs that participated in a REDD+ pilot project funded by the Forest Carbon Trust Fund in Nepal. The pilot project increased the participation of Dalit, Indigenous people, women and the poor, and was able to provide some social safeguards. However, when all the additional costs and foregone benefits of the project are considered, REDD+ is not an attractive market-based option for Nepalese CFUGs. A better approach would be a bilateral or multilateral approach that is not market based, but provides incentives beyond environmental and social safeguards. The results of this study will be useful in designing REDD+ policies and programmes for community forest-based REDD+ stakeholders in developing countries.

Estimating carbon emissions for REDD+. The conditions for involving local people

Version française de l'articleThe participation of local people in climate change mitigation is considered key to ensuring that their priorities are taken into account. This should help to design effective social safeguards and to improve equity in benefit sharing. The participation of local people has been explored in carbon emission Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) for REDD+. The feasibility and sustainability of participatory MRV (PMRV) are not automatic and depend on its relevance to local people (including incentives to participate), their technical capacity and the existence of appropriate structures for MRV.

State social standards and safeguards as the basis of social welfare in Ukraine

State social standards and safeguards as the basis of social welfare in Ukraine

Social Safeguards in REDD+: A Review of Existing Initiatives and Challenges

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, as well as conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks and promoting sustainable management of forests in developing countries (REDD+) has been proposed as an effective mechanism to mitigate the impacts of climate change. However, in view of the significant dependence of the local communities, indigenous peoples, women and other marginalized groups on the forest resources for their livelihoods and other daily needs, a number of apprehensions have been raised, citing the potential risk associated with the faulty design and weak implementation of the REDD+ mechanism. In this context, a number of international initiatives have been proposing different sets of social and environmental safeguards, which can prevent potential social and/or environmental damage or harm to such forest-dependent communities and increase benefits for them in an equitable manner. By presenting brief overviews of various international level social and environmental safeguards, the authors argue that the initiatives taken so far provide a solid basis for formulating them at national level despite several challenges. There is a need to customize and harmonize the safeguard measures proposed so far with the national level initiatives related to forest/land rights, forest governance, benefits sharing, and so on. Ensuring effective and meaningful participation of local communities and civil society has been identified as challenging prerequisite to address genuine concerns of forest managing communities while developing, implementing and monitoring safeguard provisions. Similarly, allowing utmost important factor – flexibility - in the interpretation and implementation of safeguard provisions at the national and local contexts has to be recognized and managed properly. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jfl.v11i2.8619 Journal of Forestry and Livelihood Vol.11(2) 2013 27-36

Book Reviews

Originally published in Russian in 2005. Presents an analytical overview of economic growth in Russia throughout history and considers what the country needs to attain higher economic growth and achieve greater economic welfare in the present day. Discusses modern economic growth; economic determinism and the twentieth-century experience; the general and the particular in modern economic growth; traditional agrarian society; a different path; the phenomenon of antiquity; capitalism and the rise of Europe; particular features of Russia's economic development; the collapse of an empire; the postsocialist crisis and recovery growth; the dynamics of population and international migration; the state burden on the economy; the formation and crisis of systems of social safeguards; the evolution of education and health care systems; the transformation of the system for manning the armed forces; and the stability and flexibility of political systems. The late Gaidar was a Russian economist, politician, and a key architect of economic reforms in Russia's transition to a market economy.

Emerging forest regimes and livelihoods in the Tano Offin Forest Reserve, Ghana: Implications for social safeguards

Greater attention for law enforcement resulting from new forest governance initiatives may make livelihoods of people living in or near protected areas in the tropics more vulnerable due to restricted access and competing claims. This paper aims to provide a deeper insight into the livelihoods of inhabitants of the Tano Offin Globally Significant Biodiversity Area (GSBA) in Ghana's high forest zone and how these are becoming under greater pressure. It assesses the governance implications of the implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) under the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan of the European Union and projects within the framework of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plus (REDD+), with a focus on the need for social safeguards. The study shows that the inhabitants of admitted villages in GSBAs already have few legal livelihood options due to restricted access to the forest, which results in competing claims among resource users and with forest managers. Stronger law enforcement resulting from the FLEGT/VPA to combat illegal logging and the Ghana Forestry Commission's consideration to include GSBAs in its REDD+programme is likely to further restrict inhabitants' access to forest resources, with the result being increasing competition for scarce resources. Social safeguards therefore need serious consideration when implementing new forest governance regimes. The authors argue that the politics of protected areas need to reconsider the position of the inhabitants by creating space to build a livelihood, paying them for taking care of nature or relocating them beyond the protected area. This might involve hard choices. What eventually is needed is a change towards interactive governance and adaptive co-management.

Promising start, bleak outlook: The role of Ghana's modified taungya system as a social safeguard in timber legality processes

The Modified Taungya System (MTS) is a strategy employed by the Ghana Government to restore forest cover, address timber deficits and contribute to rural livelihoods. Under the scheme, farmers combine tree planting and maintenance with the cultivation of food crops until tree canopy closure. This paper aims to generate lessons from the MTS with respect to its role as a social safeguard against the likely adverse impacts of the implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between Ghana and the EU to combat illegal logging, using the six social safeguard dimensions identified by the IoI Project Team (2010). It addresses the question of what the major dimensions of social safeguards are and how the MTS does relate to these characteristics. Based on a survey of 146 MTS farmers and qualitative methods, results revealed that the MTS potentially meets several of the social safeguard mechanisms distinguished by the IoI Project Team (legal security for forest users, soft law enforcement by creating incentives for adaptation, benefit sharing, capacity building, alternative livelihoods/employment and expanding the resource base). The most promising of these is based on the expansion of areas with planted trees that will become available as legal timber in the future. However, the potential safeguards will only materialise if several institutional and management challenges are addressed.

Criminal Mediation as a Restorative Instrument for Victim: In All Cases and for All Victims?

Insofar as the intention is to provide legal protection, to speak of victims and of certain victims in particular, implies recalling the obscure past that enveloped them with regard to their invisibility in the criminal system as a whole. Society assumed the burden of the criminal response, through the expropriation of the victims’ rights by the State in the interests of that social safeguard. We have for centuries accepted that it was what society required –it was the conquest of civilization, ending “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” and the lex talionis. That was the best solution, although the outcome of these responses to that situation, owing to frustration, disenchantment and the inoperability, on occasions, of the model of social response, have prompted progress towards a more active role of victims in the criminal response and in the modulation of that response. In other words, to go beyond the preventive approach, and to incorporate resocialization or the restorative approach. This would open a wider range of possibilities that should not be exclusively considered as previously addressed or with a particular person in mind (prevention, society; resocialization, the accused; reparation, victims). Rather, they should all imply together that society can act and assume the burden in the face of criminally sanctionable conduct. Undeniable steps have been taken at national and international centres that have implied progress towards achieving victim visibility. And that progress has necessarily to include criminal mediation, which has been acquiring, over recent decades, an extended scope.

Opinions on legality principles considered in the FLEGT/VPA policy in Ghana and Indonesia

The Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade programme (FLEGT) of the European Union aims at stimulating both legal timber production and good forest governance. The EU establishes Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with individual tropical timber exporting countries; these VPAs should be developed through a stakeholder-inclusive governance process and define national standards for timber legality. The national policy level serves as an interface between the EU policy and the local realities of forest exploitation. This article assesses whether new assemblages of timber legality standards were developed at this interface. It presents the opinions of people actively engaged in the FLEGT/VPA process in Ghana (n=38) and Indonesia (n=40) about which principles regarding timber legality, law enforcement and social safeguards were considered during the VPA negotiations in each country. Almost half of the respondents (44%) were positive about the integrative focus of VPA discussions focusing on both forestry and livelihood issues, 40% considered it had mostly a limited focus or traditional timber sector focus, and 16% indicated a high degree of attention to social responsibility issues. There were differences in the characteristics of respondents and their opinions between Ghana and Indonesia; these reflect differences in organisation of the FLEGT/VPA process. The findings demonstrate how depending on country-specific policy processes principles from an international forest policy are adapted at national level; this may involve new assemblages of the original policy principles.