More than 200 delegates to Katoomba 18 from as far away as Peru, Switzerland, and Ghana will be spending the next three days in China's troubled Miun Reservoir. Their aim: to trade experiences, share lessons learned, and make recommendations to project developers at Miyun on designing and implementing effective watershed investments.
The 18th Katoomba meeting opens tomorrow in Beijing and with it a big opportunity for developing nations to share their experiences and gain valuable information from each other. Here, we look at the varying investments in watershed services programs in China, Peru and Ghana and how sharing ideas could benefit them all.
Rapid expansion of agriculture has led to the destruction of forested hills critical for regulating water flows. China’s expansion has been bigger and faster than most, and so are its problems. But the notoriously top-down government has responded with a centrally funded yet incredibly decentralized, flexible, and locally-administered solution.
Hundreds of millions of REDD-targeted dollars are floating in limbo – partly because developing countries haven’t been able to accurately measure their deforestation rates or can’t properly monitor REDD projects on the ground. The University of California at San Diego hopes to change that with an intensive certification program that starts in August.
The United Nations and World Bank are spearheading efforts to help developing countries get ready for REDD, but many countries across Latin America are tapping a combination of World Bank donors and independent carbon standards to make sure they’re ready for REDD when it arrives. Costa Rica and Chile are among the most advanced. Here’s a look.
Forest communities stand to benefit tremendously from REDD+, but only if tenure rights are incorporated into the decision-making process and benefits are shared across the community. That’s why Flora and Fauna International is piloting Community Carbon Pools across Asia. Here’s a look at how the program works in Vietnam.
This article was adapted from REDD+ In Vietnam: Integrating National and Subnational Approaches, which was published by Forest Trends and Climate Focus with support from several other organizations.
RELATED LINKS HEADER Brazil, Indonesia, And DRC Cooperate To Slow Deforestation, See REDD As Future Tool
About This Series
This article is the seventh in a continuing series built on the findings of the REDD+ Expenditures Tracking Project which aims to provide transparency to the global efforts to slow climate change by saving forests and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from forest deforestation and degradation.
Part One: Tracking REDD+ Finance: Separating The Payers From The Posersprovides an overview of the project and laysout its objectives.
Part Two: REDD Funding: The Horror Story That Isn’texamines the cumbersome accounting behind international aid in general and REDD finance in particular.
Part Three: Germany Beats Fast Start Finance But Sees Need For More Scale reviews the results of Germany’s Fast Start Finance period and reasons why they failed to meet their REDD+ commitment targets but succeeded in other areas.
Part Four: REDD+ Finance Leaves Pilot Projects In Limbotells the story of a Ghanaian businessman seeking to launch a pilot project but is struggling to find funding from both international donors and private investors.
Part Five: The World Bank And The UN-REDD: Big Names, Narrow Focus provides a detailed overview of the biggest funding efforts of REDD+ as well as their interactions with each other.
Part Six: The Congo Basin Forest Fund Steps Up For REDD+ Piloting in DRC describes how the Congo Basin Forest Fund functions, who are the funders and lessons learned.
Part Seven: Brazil, Indonesia, And DRC Cooperate On Deforestation, See Future In REDD takes a high-level view of the impact of multilateral financing efforts on Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to date, and examines the prospects for REDD moving forward.
Brazil and Indonesia have slashed deforestation rates in the last few years, in part with the help of international donors, led by Norway. Such efforts have succeeded without a formal REDD mechanism, but both countries and the DRC are preparing to implement REDD+ programs for long-term sustainability and protection of their forests.
Deforestation in Brazil has slowed to its slowest rate since measurements began, according to the Brazilian delegation at a press briefing at the UN’s 18th Climate Change Conference in Doha. The discussion focused on Brazil’s long term plans to maintain these low deforestation rates as well as how this accomplishment will impact climate negotiations at the conference.
Billions of dollars flow into conservation every year, but that’s a mere trickle compared to the tsunami of investment flowing into sectors that chew up forests and contaminate rivers. Norway’s Pension Fund says those days will soon be a thing of the past, and this week vowed to incorporate deforestation in its ethical investment policy in order to avoid investments in activities that kill trees.
The many initiatives launched all over the world that compensate farmers for keeping forests standing and for practicing sustainable farming are evidence that the world has responded well to payments for ecosystem services. But for these schemes to be fully merged into mainstream use, more market regulation and guidance will need to come from the government.
Click here to read this article in its original format. It was originally published in the International Institute for Environment and Development.
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