REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries)

By Rhett A. Butler



This article presents the state of REDD+ as of 2012. There are regular updates on REDD+ in the news feed below.

REDD — reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries — is a proposed climate change mitigation mechanism that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by paying developing countries to stop cutting down their forests. Tropical deforestation is the source of 12-17 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, a share larger than all the world's cars, trucks, ships, planes, and trains combined.

A properly designed REDD mechanism is widely seen as a cost-effective approach to simultaneously conserve forests, slow climate change, protect biodiversity, foster sustainable development, and maintain important ecological services provided by healthy forest ecosystems. The concept of REDD has won support from a wide range of interests, including conservationists, big business, scientists, governments, development agencies, and some environmental and indigenous rights groups. However concerns still remain over how REDD will be implemented and whether benefits will be fairly shared between stakeholders.


Smallholder deforestation in Borneo

History of REDD

The concept of REDD is not a new idea. Compensating tropical forest conservation was proposed by environmental scientists in the 1980s and 1990s but it wasn't until the later half of the 1990s that the idea gained much currency at the international level, when it was discussed at various United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) events, including COP3 in Kyoto in 1997. Nevertheless technical concerns and opposition from some environmental groups (led by WWF) resulted in forest conservation being excluded from the Kyoto Protocol by 2001.

The concept of 'avoided deforestation' re-emerged on the international stage in 2005 with the formation of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations (CfRN), a group of tropical countries lobbying for the inclusion of forest conservation as a way to mitigate to climate change. Led by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, the Coalition for Rainforest Nations presented a draft proposal "Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action" at COP11 in Montreal in 2005. Two years of negotiations and technical advancements culminated in the Bali Action Plan of December 2007, which called for "policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries [REDD], and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stock in developing countries." Support for REDD has deepened and broadened since Bali: REDD was one of the only areas of progress during climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Since its inception as "avoided deforestation", the forest protection mechanism has expanded to encompass forest degradation (the second "D" in REDD). It later evolved to include sustainable forest management (i.e. reducing impact logging) and reforestation, becoming known as REDD-plus ("REDD+").


Soy and Chaco forest

Key REDD issues

While there is now substantial support for REDD, many issues remain unsettled, including financing to support the mechanism and provide sufficient economic incentives to stop deforestation; criteria for establishing credible deforestation baselines; technical aspects of monitoring and verifying change in forest cover; concerns over poor governance and illegal logging; international leakage, whereby forest conservation in one country drives deforestation in another; scale of implementation, including the debate over "national" versus "sub-national" projects; equity, including land tenure, ownership, and participation of forest-dependent communities; questions on how to address drivers of deforestation including consumption in rich countries; sustainable forest management (i.e. reduced impact logging) versus protection of primary forests as intact ecosystems; protection of biodiversity and environmental services in non-carbon-rich ecosystems; and controversies over carbon offsets and including forest carbon in market-based trading schemes.



REDD timing

Although an agreement on REDD has still not been signed, projects are already underway in a number of countries and industrialized countries have committed billions of dollars to REDD start-up initiatives via the UN-REDD Programme, the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, and other entities. Once an agreement is finalized, 2013 is the earliest REDD would formally commence, following the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol.

REDD Funding

The following overview is from the UN's Reporting REDD.

    Once a system is in place, market-based funding mechanisms such as carbon trading, and private sector involvement, could be introduced. Some proposals back a combination of government and private sector funding.

    Carbon trading is based on the idea that companies and governments may meet targets for reducing their carbon emissions by paying for carbon reductions elsewhere in the global economy instead. REDD could allow credits to be issued which would quantify the amount of carbon saved through 'avoided deforestation' — not cutting trees down. The credits could then be traded on carbon markets.

    An advantage of carbon trading is that it could raise money quickly. A disadvantage is that flooding existing carbon markets with REDD credits could further dilute the already low value of carbon. A low carbon price means there is less incentive for companies to switch to technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

    Developing countries would voluntarily opt in to the REDD mechanism, so for it to work the scheme would have to ensure that there is more money in protecting forests than in logging or agriculture. Because those responsible for commercially driven deforestation often control the forest area in which they operate, they need to be involved in REDD schemes. Typically, this involves paying them to manage the forest sustainably, or at least not to engage in large-scale logging or land conversion. REDD will have to compensate for income lost as a result of stopping forest clearance — known as the 'opportunity cost.' While REDD may be able to match this amount for poor farmers, matching lost income from lucrative agricultural production such as soya and oil palm cultivation or from valuable timber will be very costly. If payments are disrupted, or the amount falls short of the value of the timber in the forest or what could be grown on cleared land, a return to cutting down trees could quickly occur. To avert this problem, REDD would need to ensure a steady flow of funds over long periods. Negotiators concerned that fluctuations in the carbon market would be too erratic advocate a separate REDD fund based on donations from industrialized countries.
Drained, cleared, and burned peat forest in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

REDD Resources

Official documents

Key REDD Programs


Some notable REDD Publications

REDD Glossary

The following overview is from the UN's Reporting REDD.

Additionality
Extra amount of carbon saved or stored because of projects carried out through climate change agreements.

Baseline or Reference level (RL)
Historical reference point (date or year) against which the rate of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation or forest degradation can be compared.

Carbon rights
The right to use carbon credits or offsets to satisfy limits on greenhouse gas emissions or to reduce penalties for exceeding the limit imposed.

Carbon sink
Ecosystem that accumulates and stores carbon.

Carbon sequestration
Removal of carbon from the atmosphere and storage in carbon sinks through natural or human-induced methods.

Carbon trading
The process of buying and selling carbon credits. Large companies or organizations are assigned targets for the amount of carbon they are allowed to emit. A company that exceeds its target will need to buy carbon credits to offset the extra carbon it has emitted. A company that uses less than its quota can sell surplus credits.

Deforestation
The conversion of forest land to non-forested land through human activity.

Degradation
Human-induced long-term loss of forest, characterized by the reduction of tree crown cover, but not yet considered as complete deforestation.

Indigenous peoples
Tribe or community native to a particular region and sharing a collective identity who retain some or all of their own social, cultural and political institutions.

Leakage or emissions displacement
When efforts to reduce emissions in one area lead to an increase in carbon emissions in another area.

Liability
Obligation on the implementing party to guarantee that the emissions reduction credited in the REDD scheme is permanent.

Mitigation
Actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.

Offsetting
Payment to emissions reduction projects to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions.

Opportunity cost
The cost of compensating for financial gains from deforestation practices such as logging or agriculture.


The following definitions are from the International Institute for Environment and Development.

REDD
The acronym stands for ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’. This issue was first placed on the agenda of the 2005 international climate change negotiations. At that point the agenda item was called ‘reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries and approaches to stimulate action’. As a result, this is the name of the decision on REDD agreed at the 2007 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali, Indonesia (decision 2/CP.13). Decision 2/CP.13 acknowledges that forest degradation also leads to emissions and needs to be addressed when reducing emissions from deforestation. The ‘DD’ in REDD now stands for degradation and deforestation.

REDD +
Along with the separate decision on REDD (see above), REDD is included in the Bali Action Plan (decision 1/CP.13) as a component of enhanced action on mitigation (curbing emissions). Parties to the UNFCCC have agreed to consider policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to REDD in developing countries and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries. It is this last clause on the role of conservation and sustainable management that has added the ‘+’ to the REDD discussion.

REDD baseline
An expected, or business-as-usual, emission of carbon dioxide from deforestation and forest degradation in the absence of additional efforts to curb such emissions — used as a benchmark against which emissions reductions can be measured.

REDD conditions
To deliver real reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, REDD must satisfy the following conditions.

  • additionality - Proof that any reduction in emissions from a REDD project is genuinely additional to reductions that would occur if that project were not in place.
  • no leakage - Leakage is a reduction in carbon emissions in one area that results in increased emissions in another. A classic example is where curbing clearfelling in one region of forest drives farmers to clearfell in another.
  • permanence - The long-term viability of reduced emissions from a REDD project. This is heavily dependent on the forested area's vulnerability to deforestation and/or degradation.

     

    THE LATEST REDD+ NEWS FROM MONGABAY

    The fuel that moves people: the Ecuadorian case (20 Dec 2024 20:50:14 +0000)
    - In Ecuador, the main areas of colonization were a north-south corridor along the base of the Andes and the Sucumbíos-Orellana quadrant, the country’s major oil-producing region.
    - Since the 1970s, populations in both areas have grown significantly. The Andean zone went from 160,000 inhabitants to more than 520,000 in 2017; in parallel, the population in the provinces of Sucumbíos and Orellana increased from less than 12,000 to more than 350,000.
    - Colonization also led to the invasion of lands of the indigenous Shuar, which prompted an unusual effort on their part to protect their territory. Today, the area specializes in cattle production and seeks to establish a niche market for high-quality beef for the domestic market.

    Brazil’s illegal gold miners carve out new Amazon hotspots in conservation units (20 Dec 2024 19:39:26 +0000)
    - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration reduced the expansion of illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon, but miners keep finding new sites.
    - In 15 conservation units, illegal gold miners destroyed 330 hectares (815 acres) in only two months.
    - According to experts, gold miners expelled from Indigenous territories may be migrating to conservation units.
    - Alliances with narco mafias and the rise in gold prices are obstacles to fighting illegal mining.

    Amazon’s Boiling River gives scientists a window into the rainforest’s future (20 Dec 2024 17:28:08 +0000)
    - Scientists studying Peru’s Boiling River found 11% fewer tree species for every 1°C (1.8°F) increase in temperature, offering insights into how climate change might affect the Amazon Rainforest.
    - The research team discovered that hotter areas not only had fewer species overall but were dominated by heat-tolerant trees that typically grow in the warmest parts of South America.
    - The study site is protected by Indigenous Asháninka people as sacred land, but the forest still faces threats from nearby deforestation and fires, reflecting broader challenges across the Amazon.
    - The Amazon is experiencing climate pressures, with fire-affected areas in the Brazilian Amazon increasing 18-fold in September 2024, covering a combined area nearly the size of the Netherlands.

    Electrochemical removal of ocean CO2 offers potential — and concerns (20 Dec 2024 15:36:30 +0000)
    - Stripping seawater of carbon dioxide via electrochemical processes — thereby prompting oceans to draw down more greenhouse gas from the atmosphere — is a geoengineering approach under consideration for largescale CO2 removal. Several startups and existing companies are planning projects at various scales.
    - Once removed from seawater, captured carbon dioxide can be stored geologically or used commercially by industry. Another electrochemical method returns alkaline seawater to the oceans, causing increased carbon dioxide absorption over time.
    - In theory, these techniques could aid in carbon emission storage. But experts warn that as some companies rush to commercialize the tech and sell carbon credits, significant knowledge gaps remain, with potential ecological harm needing to be determined.
    - Achieving the scale required to make a dent in climate change would require deploying huge numbers of electrochemical plants globally — a costly and environmentally risky scenario deemed unfeasible by some. One problem: the harm posed by scale-up isn’t easy to assess with modeling and small-scale projects.

    South Korea slashes forest biomass energy subsidies in major policy reform (20 Dec 2024 15:12:22 +0000)
    - In a surprise move, South Korea has announced that it will end subsidies for all new biomass projects and for existing state-owned plants cofiring biomass with coal, effective January 2025, a significant and sudden policy shift.
    - Additionally, government financial support for dedicated biomass plants using imported biomass will be phased down, while support for privately owned cofiring plants will be phased out over the next decade. However, subsidy levels for domestically produced biomass fuel remain unchanged.
    - The biomass reform is being hailed by forest advocates as a step in the right direction, potentially setting a new, environmentally sound precedent for the region.
    - Advocates are now calling on Japan, Asia’s largest forest biomass importer, to follow South Korea’s example.

    Coral destruction for toilet construction: Interview with a Malagasy fisher (20 Dec 2024 14:32:11 +0000)
    - Toamasina, a coastal city in eastern Madagascar, is surrounded by an extensive network of coral reefs that are home to near-threatened species.
    - For decades, these reefs have been under threat from an unusual activity: The use of coral in the construction of septic tanks.
    - Mongabay spoke with Abraham Botovao, a boat skipper and the president of a local fishers’ association, who has been closely monitoring this trade and its impact on the local marine environment.
    - “It frustrates me every time I see them when I’m out fishing, but unfortunately all I can do is watch without being able to do anything,” Botovao said.

    Poachers target South Africa’s ‘miracle’ plant with near impunity (20 Dec 2024 13:03:04 +0000)
    - South Africa has faced a surge in poaching of rare succulents by criminal syndicates since 2019.
    - A recent spike in prices paid for a different kind of plant, a drylands-adapted lily, the miracle clivia (Clivia mirabilis), has drawn the attention of plant-trafficking syndicates to the lone reserve where it grows.
    - Large numbers of clivias have been seized by law enforcement, raising fears that this rare plant is quickly being wiped out from the limited range where it’s known to occur.
    - Reserve staff and law enforcement agencies are underfunded and spread too thinly across the vast landscapes of South Africa’s Northern Cape province targeted by plant poachers.

    As lithium mining bleeds Atacama salt flat dry, Indigenous communities hit back (20 Dec 2024 10:44:28 +0000)
    - The Council of Atacameño Peoples filed a complaint in October 2024 against lithium mining companies operating in Chile’s Atacama salt flat, accusing them of causing the land to sink around their extraction wells.
    - The complaint was based on findings from a study published in July that revealed portions of the salt flat are subsiding by up to 2 centimeters, or nearly an inch, per year.
    - Scientists warn that one of the main consequences could be the loss of the aquifer’s storage capacity.
    - They also point out that since the salt flat lies on a tectonic fault, the subsidence could spread further, including to two protected areas in the region that are home to flamingos and other rare wildlife.

    Indonesia’s Indigenous communities sidelined from conservation (20 Dec 2024 09:45:40 +0000)
    - Research shows that globally, Indigenous peoples are the most effective stewards of their forests and the massive stores of carbon and biodiversity within.
    - Yet in Indonesia, which harbors the majority of Earth’s species, Indigenous communities are increasingly sidelined from nature conservation efforts.
    - Activists say it is urgent for the Indonesian government to pass a long-awaited bill on Indigenous rights to ensure that Indigenous peoples can contribute to biodiversity conservation without fear of being criminalized or evicted.
    - This is especially important, activists say, in light of a new conservation law in Indonesia, which is criticized for not protecting Indigenous land rights; the law also outlines a new form of “preservation area,” where Indigenous activities could be heavily restricted.

    Balochistan’s Gwadar city sits at the crossroads of climate and conflict (20 Dec 2024 03:00:22 +0000)
    - A new study examines the links between conflict and climate in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, where extreme weather can be a threat multiplier.
    - The port city of Gwadar serves as an example, as local residents have long had grievances against the state, which were exacerbated by recent flooding that killed several people and displaced hundreds.
    - Experts highlight the absence of data-driven policies, citing a gap in research that has hindered solutions; they call for investment in data and the inclusion of local people in decision-making and infrastructure planning.

    From Bhutan to Nigeria & Kenya, women endure climate change differently than men (20 Dec 2024 02:00:44 +0000)
    - Research shows that globally, women and girls suffer greater effects of climate change and environmental disasters than men; at the same time, women environmental journalists often face greater obstacles on the job, and women’s voices are often missing from stories about climate change.
    - Three recent Mongabay fellows, all women, report on specific examples from their home countries (Bhutan, Nigeria, Kenya) in which women disproportionately experience the effects of climate change and extreme weather.
    - In all three examples, women exhibit a perseverance that ensures their own and their families’ survival — and sometimes aids their own independence and resourcefulness.

    For ecological restoration, evidence-based standards deliver better outcomes (commentary) (20 Dec 2024 01:10:50 +0000)
    - The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration has triggered a global movement to rally individual action, financial investment, and political backing to prevent, halt and reverse the loss of nature.
    - Evidence-based standards can help meet restoration targets and improve general compliance with laws and regulations while delivering social, environmental and economic net gain for people and nature.
    - “As we near the halfway point of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration [the] global application of effective restoration through the use of standards provides a path forward that can help slow climate change and recover ecosystem processes and biodiversity for the future of life on Earth,” a new op-ed argues.
    - This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

    Unlike: Brazil Facebook groups give poachers safe space to flex their kills (19 Dec 2024 16:08:01 +0000)
    - A new study shows how openly poachers in Brazil are sharing content of dead wildlife, including threatened and protected species, on Facebook.
    - It found 2,000 records of poaching on Brazilian Facebook groups between 2018 and 2020, amounting to 4,658 animals from 157 species from all over the country.
    - Data suggest there were trophy hunts, meant only to show off hunting hauls rather than being done for subsistence or a consequence of human-wildlife conflict.
    - The study highlights the impunity for environmental crimes and the easy dissemination of content related to illegal practices on social media networks in Brazil.

    ‘Killed while poaching’: When wildlife enforcement blurs into violence (19 Dec 2024 15:41:23 +0000)
    - In October 2023, Mongabay traveled to Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park as part of a reporting series on protected areas in East Africa.
    - While there, we heard allegations that Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers have carried out extrajudicial killings of suspected bushmeat poachers inside the park.
    - Two weeks before our visit, a man was shot to death inside the park; his relatives and local officials alleged he was killed by wildlife rangers while attempting to surrender.
    - The allegations follow other recent human rights scandals related to aggressive conservation enforcement practices in the nearby Congo Basin.

    Most large banks failing to consider Indigenous rights (19 Dec 2024 13:12:31 +0000)
    - A new report by finance watchdog BankTrack evaluated the policies and practices of 50 major banks and found that most are failing to fully implement adequate safeguards in line with U.N. human rights principles.
    - The 2024 report included three new criteria centered around the rights of human rights defenders and Indigenous peoples and the right to a healthy environment; the majority of banks did not explicitly acknowledge environmental rights are human rights and all failed in due diligence around Indigenous peoples’ free, prior and informed consent.
    - The report found that small progress has been made in the last two years as banks improve policies and processes for managing human rights.
    - The authors say stronger human rights due diligence laws could be a game changer in driving corporate respect for human rights.

    New frog species show how geology shapes Amazon’s biodiversity (19 Dec 2024 11:34:50 +0000)
    - DNA testing of two new-to-science frog species has shown they share a common ancestor — a species that lived 55 million years ago in the mountains of what is today Brazil’s Amazonas state.
    - The multidisciplinary study drew together biologists and geologists to map how geological changes in the mountain range shaped not just its geography but also the diversity of species in the region.
    - The two endemic species were collected on two separate peaks — Neblina and Imeri — and their discovery has led to further understanding of the origins and evolution of biodiversity in the Amazon.
    - Another expedition to the Tulu-Tuloi Range, located 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Imeri, is scheduled for 2025.

    Even for ‘progressive’ Danone, complying with EUDR is a challenge (19 Dec 2024 11:07:06 +0000)
    - The EU deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) requires companies importing cocoa, cattle, rubber, soy, wood, palm oil and coffee into the EU to demonstrate their products weren’t grown on land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
    - French dairy giant Danone works with soy, cocoa and palm oil — products subject to the EUDR, which goes into effect at the end of 2025.
    - In general, Danone’s sustainability policies have been better than most, outsider observers said. But it still has a lot of work to do to ensure 100% of its supply chain is free of deforestation and land conversion.

    A port is destroying corals to expand. Can an NGO rescue enough to matter? (19 Dec 2024 10:11:04 +0000)
    - The ongoing expansion of the port of Toamasina in eastern Madagascar is set to destroy 25 hectares (62 acres) of coral reefs.
    - Tany Ifandovana, a Malagasy NGO, removed a small portion of these corals before construction began, and transplanted them to a coral island several kilometers away, as a way to ecologically compensate for the losses, at least in part.
    - The NGO faces major challenges, including a lack of resources, little support from the port, and locals destroying corals around the island transplant site.
    - “As an environmentalist, it hurt my heart to know that these corals were just going to be filled in,” Tany Ifandovana’s vice president told Mongabay. “Something had to be done.”

    Nepal created a forest fund to do everything; five years on it’s done nothing (19 Dec 2024 05:46:55 +0000)
    - Nepal’s Forest Development Fund, established in 2019, was designed to support forest conservation, research and other environmental initiatives, but it has not spent any of the allocated funds in five years.
    - The fund is meant to be financed through various sources, including lease fees from developers, compensatory afforestation payments, a percentage of profits from forest land use and revenue from carbon trading.
    - Forest user communities, which have successfully increased forest cover in Nepal, continue to face financial difficulties, with illegal logging and wildfires exacerbating the situation, while the FDF remains frozen.

    Can the Cali Fund provide a rights-based remedy for biopiracy? (commentary) (18 Dec 2024 21:20:29 +0000)
    - One ongoing element of wealth extraction from the Global South that remains largely unaddressed – biopiracy – requires a human rights-based response, a new op-ed argues.
    - Defined as the unauthorized use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge of Indigenous communities and developing nations for profit without their consent, a remedy to biopiracy was recently agreed to at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Colombia.
    - Can the Cali Fund – which obliges corporations that profit from biodiversity to contribute to its conservation – be a step in the right direction, the authors ask?
    - This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.




    Participants in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility as of 2012
      Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Republic of Congo, Suriname, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, Vanuatu, and Vietnam.
    For a more current list, see un-redd.org

    UN-REDD Programme - Countries receiving support as of 2012
      Bolivia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tanzania, Viet Nam, and Zambia.
    For a more current list, see un-redd.org

     

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