Impacts of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Enhancing Carbon Stocks (I-REDD+)

The I-REDD+ project is funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission. The aim is to ensure that the implementation of a future REDD+ mechanism is based on the highest level of knowledge on

• carbon storage in landscapes
• monitoring technology
• potentially negative impacts on local livelihoods
• governance structures for managing payments

What is REDD+?

The basic idea is simple: a developing country can negotiate financial compensation for reducing their green house gas emissions from deforestation and degrading forests and also by increasing their carbon stocks in forests.

But simple as it sounds, there are a number of issues that need to be resolved to increase positive impacts and mitigate potentially negative impacts of REDD+:

Global to national level:

• Problems of leakage, e.g. due to cross-border trade in timber
• Inadequate knowledge of carbon dynamics in different landscape types – what will be the real impact on emissions?

National to local level:

• Is the governance of local and national institutions adequate for ensuring sound handling of payments?
• Compensation of forest users – will REDD+ be competitive with other land uses and will forest users benefit?
• Monitoring must be national but will need inputs from the local level to be sustained
• Will REDD+ conserve habitats for important biodiversity and thus realize one of the expected ‘co-benefits’ of REDD+?

In I-REDD+ we address these issues at national to local level in four countries: Laos, Vietnam, China (Yunnan) and Indonesia and we work in an interdisciplinary team with researchers and professionals from 9 countries.