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LAND TENURE AND REDD+: RISKS TO PROPERTY RIGHTS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH
August, 2011. Matt Sommerville. USAID ISSUE BRIEF. PROPERTY RIGHTS AND RESOURCE GOVERNANCE BRIEFING PAPER #11. 14 pages
Summary
Efforts to combat climate change through reducing emissions and increasing sequestration by forests (REDD+) will require that governments address land tenure and property rights concerns as a principal component of REDD+ readiness. Donors and civil society must provide oversight to ensure that REDD+ does not lead to a form of centralized forest governance that excludes stakeholders‘ traditional rights.
A number of processes at the international level (including the UNFCCC, the UN-REDD Programme, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility [FCPF], the Forest Investment Program [FIP], and the REDD+ Interim Partnership) and efforts from the private sector (under the Voluntary Carbon Standard [VCS] and other standards) are beginning to shape the institutional landscape of rules and governance structures for implementing REDD+.
Many of the potential approaches to REDD+ will be based on national-level emissions accounting, whereby monitoring efforts would ensure that isolated projects do not result in ―leakage‖ by simply displacing deforestation pressures to neighboring forests. The Cancun Agreement calls for REDD+ activities to ―be implemented in the context of sustainable development and reducing poverty‖ and for guidance on social and environmental safeguards to be developed during 2011 to assure the ―full and effective participation of stakeholders‖ (UNFCCC 2010). These participation and monitoring requirements will place the onus on governments to engage in a REDD+ readiness phase to develop rules and institutions for monitoring compliance and managing or providing some oversight on stakeholder engagement and benefit distribution. Every international REDD+ process acknowledges the importance of clarifying land tenure as a foundation for effective REDD+ institutions and implementation on the ground. However, even in cases where rights are clear, REDD+ activities will create new pressures on land tenure and resource governance with uncertain impacts on poor and vulnerable groups who own and use these assets.
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Keywords: c. National Policy & Legislation, n. Social Aspects, Other Publications, FCPF, FIP, land, REDD, rights, tenure, UN REDD