Making Benefit Sharing Agreements Work for Forest-Dependent Communities
Publisher: Program on Forests (PROFOR)
Author(s): Diji Chandrasekharan Behr
Date: 2012
Topics: Governance, Programming, Renewable Resources
Efforts to mitigate climate change through forests have concentrated on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, fostering conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+). REDD+ featured more prominently in the work programs of donors and forest institutions in 2007 as an outcome of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Conferences of the Parties (COP) in Bali. In the Bali Road Map and the associated Bali Action Plan, participating nations pledged to develop policy approaches and positive incentives to achieve REDD+. Over the past five years this task has been the focus of numerous organizations and individuals working on forest issues.
The principle of REDD+ is to pay tropical countries to reduce their emissions from deforestation and degradation and to enhance their carbon stocks. Payments, or rewards based on the valuation of carbon saved, are to be the financial incentives that engender changes in behavior and policy frameworks. These incentives also are to foster development of appropriate institutional arrangements and needed technologies. They also are to motivate both national and international coordination to achieve REDD+ objectives. Donors have pledged more than USD 8 billion (PwC 2011) to this end. The challenge at hand is to use these financial resources effectively to motivate the institutional, technical, and social changes and the policy measures needed to achieve REDD+ objectives.