Community Participation and Benefits in REDD+: A Review of Initial Outcomes and Lessons

Forests

Kathleen Lawlor¹  Erin Myers Madeira²  Jill Blockhus² 

[1] Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, P.O. Box 3435, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA;The Nature Conservancy, 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203, USA; E-Mails:

关键词: REDD+;    social impacts;    tenure;    payments for ecosystem services;    deforestation;    climate change mitigation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/f4020296

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The advent of initiatives to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation and enhance forest carbon stocks (REDD+) in developing countries has raised much concern regarding impacts on local communities. To inform this debate, we analyze the initial outcomes of those REDD+ projects that systematically report on their socio-economic dimensions. To categorize and compare projects, we develop a participation and benefits framework that considers REDD+’s effects on local populations’ opportunities (jobs, income), security (of tenure and ecosystem services), and empowerment (participation in land use and development decisions). We find material benefits, in terms of jobs and income, to be, thus far, modest. On the other hand, we find that many projects are helping populations gain tenure rights. A majority of projects are obtaining local populations’ free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). However, for those projects interacting with multiple populations, extent of participation and effects on forest access are often uneven. Our participation and benefits framework can be a useful tool for identifying the multi-faceted socio-economic impacts of REDD+, which are realized under different timescales. The framework and initial trends reported here can be used to build hypotheses for future REDD+ impact evaluations and contribute to evolving theories of incentive-based environmental policy.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.