International climate and biodiversity conventions agree that to be effective in the long term, strategies to reduce emissions from deforestation, forest degradation, conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks, and sustainable forest management (REDD+), must not undermine biodiversity. But how do countries achieve ‘high-biodiversity REDD+’ in practice? This briefing presents a range of national and international policy options that can be pursued to promote high-biodiversity REDD+ and reinforce the Cancun safeguards.

ABSTRACT: In order for REDD+ carbon emission mitigation targets to be reached, the primary driver of forest clearing globally, agriculture, must be fundamentally addressed by governments implementing REDD+ Programmes. This paper evaluates the extent to which countries participating in the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) readiness activities are actively linking REDD+ and agriculture policies, programmes, and institutional and governance arrangements. Based on 20 current country readiness proposals (R-PPs) submitted to the FCPF, the analysis reveals that overall, REDD+ strategies and actions generally fail to address agricultural drivers. The paper poses a general roadmap for how countries can more adequately address agricultural drivers in their REDD+ strategies, including: identifying clear strategies to address demand-side and market pressures, and how government action can influence those; sorting out tenure and land access rights; strengthening cross-sectoral policies; linking mitigation to adaption; boosting efficiency and production of agricultural systems; and incorporating agricultural carbon measurement in national MRV systems. Brazil and Acre State, Brazil, are highlighted as a case study, as both jurisdictions have overcome, at the national and sub-regional scale, many of the hurdles faced by other governments analysed in this paper.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat has launched a new guide on REDD-plus and Biodiversity: volume no. 59 in the CBD Technical Series aims to inform CBD National Focal Points and other biodiversity experts how to support REDD-plus design and implementation efforts.

This training manual shares hands-on experiences from field programs and presents the essential practical and theoretical steps, methods and tools to estimate the opportunity costs of REDD+ at the national level.

The importance of biodiversity and livelihood aspects within the design of REDD-plus has been recognized at many levels. Achieving these multiple benefits will require new levels of collaboration among different actors at national and international levels.

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Mitigation and adaptation: linked benefits provided by forests
3. Reducing forest degradation, and forest restoration: flip sides of the same coin
4. Synergies between mitigation and adaptation
5. Indigenous and local communities: key partners and beneficiaries of REDD-plus efforts
6. Forests and climate change: avoiding dangerous feedback loops
7. Permanence: a key concern for REDD-plus
8. Market interest in multiple benefits
9. Looking forward
10. Glossary
11. References

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This new report provides greater insights into the motives and activities of the Norwegian owned company Green Resources Ltd (GRL), in the Mufindi district of Iringa province in southern Tanzania.

It tackles questions concerning the sustainability and economic viability of alien invasive tree plantations, as carbon emission offset projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol (KP).

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The author argues that while governments will face trade-offs in deciding how to respond to climate change, they should not lose sight of the opportunities to capture synergies between approaches that meet both short-term and long-term objectives. Improved forest management is presented as a win-win solution that provides many such synergies, as well as opportunities for jointly advancing countries’ adaptation and mitigation objectives.  The author also emphasizes that governments must inform citizens of the adaptation and mitigation choices ahead, and put in place democratic processes to enable meaningful public participation.

This 19 page publication by BGCI reviews the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programme. There are a number of pilot projects in Bolivia, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia.

The manual notes the gaps in capacity for implementation, and the opportunities for botanic gardens. These might include assisting in planning, monitoring and evaluation of projects. The examples given in the manual show the involvement of botanic gardens based in Austraiia, Brazil, United Kindom, China and the USA.

Developing forest carbon projects is complex and often daunting for project proponents, whether they are from the private sector, civil society organizations or government agencies. Successful project development requires complying with rigorous requirements for analyzing and documenting carbon benefits as well as an array of legal, business, community relations issues – in addition to the challenging work of carrying out reforestation, forest and land management activities that go beyond business as usual – in order to create carbon benefits. This document aims to provide streamlined guidance to project proponents and developers to help navigate these challenges. It focuses on outlining key steps and components of developing a forest carbon project that can produce marketable emissions reductions under what are currently the most widely utilized carbon standards: the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and, as co-certification, the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS).