Abstract:
The paper reviews a number of challenges associated with reducing degradation and its related emissions through
national approaches to REDD+ under UNFCCC policy. It proposes that in many countries, it may in the short run
be easier to deal with the kinds of degradation that result from locally driven community over-exploitation of
forest for livelihoods, than from selective logging or fire control. Such degradation is low-level, but chronic, and is
experienced over very large forest areas. Community forest management programmes tend to result not only in
reduced degradation, but also in forest enhancement; moreover they are often popular, and do not require major
political shifts. In principle these approaches therefore offer a quick start option for REDD+. Developing reference
emissions levels for low-level locally driven degradation is difficult however given that stock losses and gains are
too small to be identified and measured using remote sensing, and that in most countries there is little or no
forest inventory data available. We therefore propose that forest management initiatives at the local level, such as
those promoted by community forest management programmes, should monitor, and be credited for, only the
net increase in carbon stock over the implementation period, as assessed by ground level surveys at the start and
end of the period. This would also resolve the problem of nesting (ensuring that all credits are accounted for
against the national reference emission level), since communities and others at the local level would be rewarded
only for increased sequestration, while the national reference emission level would deal only with reductions in
emissions from deforestation and degradation.
