Abstract
One of the proposed strategies for implementation of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus (REDD+) is to incentivize conservation of forests managed by communities under decentralized forest management. Yet, we argue that this is a challenging road to REDD+ because of three general characteristics of forests under existing decentralized management regimes. First, these forests already accumulate biomass and, in some cases, generate leakage, which threatens to undercut REDD+ additionality. Second, these forests are many and small, which will drive up REDD+ transactions costs. Third, beyond the “conservation islands” represented by forests under decentralized management, processes of deforestation and forest degradation continue. Given these challenges, we argue that REDD+ efforts through decentralized forestry should be redirected from incentivizing further conservation of forests under existing decentralized management arrangements toward a push for extending the coverage of forests under decentralized management, making forest rights the hard currency of REDD+.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Conservation Letters |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Pages (from-to) | 278-284 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| ISSN | 1755-263X |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |