The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation program (REDD+) is supposed to provide participating countries, jurisdictions and communities in the Global South with incentives to protect their forests.This analysis draws on more than a decade of comparative research and identifies a broad array of actors involved in REDD+, with large power differences between them. The authors argue that the power imbalances among these groups are obstructing progress toward shifting away from “business-as-usual” deforestation in the tropics.The ambition for sustainable forest “transformation” is at risk of being co-opted by those who stand to benefit from maintaining the status quo, and the authors say it is therefore important for the research community to keep asking what proposed reforms and changes may represent, and whom they serve.This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
For decades, efforts to halt deforestation in the Global South have gained much attention within the policy arena, most recently as a powerful and effective measure to mitigate climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
One well-known initiative is the framework on “Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, plus the sustainable management of forests and the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks,” or REDD+, which was adopted in 2013 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP19) in Warsaw and built on the original REDD program, which launched five years earlier.
REDD+ is supposed to channel a global willingness to pay for forest conservation through public funds or carbon markets, providing participating countries and jurisdictions in the Global South with incentives for forest protection.
REDD+ project in Jambi province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR-ICRAF.
Over time, REDD+ has evolved considerably. It has been translated and assembled in highly diverse ways and at various speeds in national forest and climate policy arenas. Initially, REDD+ was considered a “low-hanging-fruit” approach to mitigate climate change — a quick and inexpensive scheme. However, a large body of research has, unsurprisingly, shown that REDD+ is much costlier and more contested than expected.
Since 2009, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has led the Global Comparative Study on REDD+ with the aim of understanding which conditions can enable and hinder desired change away from policies and politics that favor deforestation. The study also sought to determine how REDD+ implementation would impact equity in the 22 countries studied. As part of this mandate, we joined with colleagues and partners to conduct research over more than a decade. Our work identified a wide range of new policies and measures related to REDD+ design and implementation, alongside more traditional and forest sector-specific instruments. We found a broad array of actors involved in and shaping REDD+ over time — with large power differences among them.
Though there have been some positive outcomes in certain contexts, transformational change away from “business-as-usual” deforestation in the tropics still seems to be out of reach. Politics and power relations persistently hamper efforts for change. Deforestation continues and is often enabled by institutional dependencies, dominant actors’ interests, as well as competing ideas and information relating to forests and forest lands. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), for example, used rural population density as a proxy for deforestation rates for much of the 1980s because of lack of continuous forest surveys. This simplistic correlation has led to the common misassumption that population growth is always the cause of deforestation.
One of the lessons learned in the 15 years of REDD+ is that there are many ways that the program and related projects can fall short. These include lack of transparency; broken promises to serve communities, to keep forests and trees standing, and to cut emissions; land-rights conflicts; and even outright project failures.
Yet, some countries have successfully reduced deforestation at different points in time. For instance, it declined by more than 80% in Brazil from 2004 to 2012. While these efforts did not endure over longer periods and successive political regimes, such examples are a reminder that deforestation can be reduced and even stopped altogether.
Discussion group of villagers involved with a REDD+ project in Jambi province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Image by Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR-ICRAF.
Does REDD+ make a positive contribution to forest governance?
Although REDD+ is considered small compared with total investments in the forest and land sectors that drive deforestation and forest degradation in forest-rich countries, it has led to several important policy reforms in countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
In Indonesia, the engagement with REDD+ since 2007 has led to attempts at reduced deforestation through a moratorium on expansion of plantations in forested areas, supported by the one-map policy; recognition of traditional land rights through national policy; the establishment of a directorate general on climate change; regulations for REDD+ implementation, including improved systems for measurement, reporting and verification (MRV); and enhanced coordination in the multilevel governance systems.
In Vietnam, REDD+ is a key activity for sustainable forest management in the National Forestry Development Strategy 2021-2030. The government has provided a vision to 2050 and submitted its latest Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in 2022. REDD+ has also helped bring sensitive issues relating to Indigenous Peoples, Free and Prior Informed Consent, as well as gender equality into the national debate.
In the DRC, the REDD+ program has led to several policy reforms, notably the country’s first-ever law on land-use planning.
REDD+ also facilitated multistakeholder engagement in Brazil, Nepal and elsewhere, where civil society organizations, governments, the private sector and community actors had the space to voice their concerns and perspectives.
Yet, these reforms have had little visible or lasting effect on keeping forests standing, and recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ concerns have not led to the transfer of rights over forests and lands in the REDD+ countries. In Brazil and Indonesia, for example, there have been periods of reduced deforestation, demonstrating that it is possible to change course. But those changes are difficult to maintain. Identifying mechanisms that foster permanence remains one of the biggest challenges to tackling deforestation through programs such as REDD+.
REDD+ project, Madre de Dios, Peru. Image by Yoly Gutierrez/CIFOR-ICRAF.
Is REDD+ advancing equity?
There were initial expectations that REDD+ could contribute to a more “equitable forest” through the distribution of REDD+ “benefits”; through the changing allocation of rights (forest, land, carbon); and through the management of forests for multiple values. As REDD+ evolves, however, it still affects only a small part of the overall land, forest and resources within a country, and equity concerns tend to get lost within the clamor of competing interests and broader national goals.
Further, there are different notions of equity in various actor groups and also from Global South and Global North perspectives. State actors in Indonesia, Vietnam and the DRC, for example, addressed equity as a shared responsibility — and power — between national and subnational governments and across different sectors. Policies have often made equity overly technical, fixating on “ideal” percentages in the allocation of REDD+ benefits between different levels and sectors of government, rather than addressing the underlying inequitable allocation of rights.
Yet, invisible or hidden powers that are not captured by databases or registries are increasingly influencing the direction and ambition of REDD+. This is exemplified by the new Indonesian law on employment creation that aims to facilitate business activities by lifting environmental requirements while making it more difficult for citizens to act. This will undoubtedly have an impact on forests and the hard-fought REDD+ policy reforms by easing access to forest lands for large-scale land conversion.
The evolution of REDD+ from a results-based incentive to reduce deforestation to a commodity traded on carbon markets is likely leading to lesser scrutiny of safeguards and displaces the negotiated promise of a global governance architecture.
Changing REDD+ and a growing carbon economy
The global drive toward economic “development” and the strengthening of neoliberal economics have led to an embrace of financialization and marketization of nature, undermining the use of forests as a commons, managed and governed by Indigenous and local communities. The central focus previously placed on equity and justice in environmental discourses seems to be shifting to a focus on prosperity and a view that the private sector can resolve issues through for-profit investments. While such investments have value, it is important that forest and climate initiatives do not lose sight of equity and justice. As an Indonesian government stakeholder articulated, “While there can be justice without prosperity, it is often not possible to have both prosperity and justice in this neoliberal world.”
REDD+ reflects these developments: It has become more market-oriented, focusing less on emissions and equity, and more on credits, capital, money and markets. Despite some resistance to a forest market from actors within or outside the state, there is a common belief that markets can and will deliver prosperity for all.
The hard shift toward markets presents some questions that need answers: Who are the main agents of change for a transformation to a more environmentally and socially just future? Do civil society actors really have the power to challenge market infrastructures and hold private and state actors accountable to promises of more socially and environmentally just outcomes? Do bilateral and multilateral donors and philanthropists still have influence, and if so, then for what outcomes?
REDD+ project, Madre de Dios, Peru. Image by Yoly Gutierrez/CIFOR-ICRAF.
To deliver on its promise to halt deforestation, REDD+ was expected to drive transformational change in forest management. The framework urgently required broader policy reform to be effective, efficient and equitable. We have established that, since REDD+ was initiated, there has been a “transformation” toward program designs in which the private sector and finance mechanisms that have historically driven deforestation are now positioned as the leading agents of sustainable change. This, however, is not in line with the initial REDD+ vision for how forest governance systems would rethink “business-as-usual” deforestation and forest management practices. The question has now become: are REDD+ carbon brokers and the for-profit sustainability industry capable of doing business “un”-usually and, if so, can those changes be sustained if they become unprofitable in the short term?
As a research community, we need to keep asking what these changes represent and whom they serve. The ambitions of “transformation” are at risk of being co-opted by actors that stand to benefit from maintaining the status quo. What was once an agenda for transformational change could itself be transformed back to business as usual, with ever-increasing deforestation, forest degradation and emissions.
Future research will need to revisit underlying assumptions about the different factors that drive deforestation and to examine their consequences, if socially and environmentally just transitions remain the ambition of REDD+.
Maria Brockhaus is a professor of international forest policy in the Department of Forest Sciences, and a member of the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and the Inequality Initiative (INEQ) at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her main research themes are the political economy of deforestation, transformational change, and social and environmental justice. Grace Wong is a natural resource economist and associate professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan. Her research focus includes critical policy analysis, social-environmental justice, and the financialization of forest and conservation across the Global South. Moira Moeliono is a senior associate at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR-ICRAF) in Bogor, Indonesia, with long-term interest in community management of forest resources. Her main research areas are adaptive collaborative management of forest resources, decentralization, tenure and climate-change policy issues.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A conversation with Ketan Joshi, a consultant and researcher for nonprofit organizations in the climate sector, who explains how many corporations are not actually decarbonizing their operations, though they may appear to be on paper, listen here:
See related coverage of REDD+ projects:
Study: REDD+ doesn’t work without Indigenous peoples, but fails to engage them
Forest carbon credits and the voluntary market: A solution or a distraction?
Hydropower dams further undermine REDD+ efforts in Cambodia
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