topic: Redd And Biodiversity

topic: Redd And Biodiversity

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Sierra Leone cacao project boosts livelihoods and buffers biodiversity
- The Gola rainforest in West Africa, a biodiversity hotspot, is home to more than 400 species of wildlife, including endemic and threatened species, and more than 100 forest-dependent communities living just outside the protected Gola Rainforest National Park and dependent on the forest for their livelihoods.
- In the last few decades, logging, mining, poaching and expanding agriculture have driven up deforestation rates and habitat loss for rainforest-dependent species, prompting a voluntary REDD+ carbon credit program in 2015 to incentivize conservation and provide alternative livelihoods.
- One activity under the REDD+ project is shade-grown cacao plantations, which provide a wildlife refuge while generating income for cacao farmers in the region.
- Independent evaluations have found that the REDD+ program has slowed deforestation, increased household incomes, and avoided 340,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually — all while enjoying support from local communities.

UN probes controversial forest carbon agreement in Malaysian Borneo
- The government of Sabah state in Malaysian Borneo will continue to move forward with an opaque nature conservation agreement despite concerns raised by the United Nations.
- In a letter, the U.N. calls in question the transparency of the agreement and the state’s approach to the human rights law principle of free, prior and informed consent.
- The agreement was signed by state officials and a representative of a Singaporean company in 2021. Shortly after news of the deal became public, some Indigenous groups in the state said they hadn’t been consulted or informed about the deal covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of the state’s forests.
- The U.N. letter was written by a group of “special procedures experts” with mandates established by the U.N. Human Rights Council, including the special rapporteurs on the rights of Indigenous peoples, on human rights and the environment, and on the right to development.

Markets and forests: 7 takeaways from our series on the forest carbon trade

This is the wrap-up article for our five-part series on forest carbon credits and the voluntary market. Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five. Mongabay recently published a five-part series on the carbon trade and its use as a tool to address climate change. The exchange of carbon credits, typically […]
The future of forest carbon credits and voluntary markets
- Observers predicted that 2023 would be a “make-or-break” year for voluntary carbon markets and “an inflection point” for their role in addressing climate change and global deforestation.
- Amid criticisms around carbon accounting, carbon neutrality claims, and issues with forest communities, governance bodies say they’ve worked to increase consistency and “integrity” for the voluntary carbon market and specifically the forest conservation strategy known as REDD+.
- Concerns remain from a variety of observers, including those who say the focus of credit-buying companies should be on eliminating their carbon emissions from across their entire suite of operations.
- But proponents of markets say that while decarbonizing is absolutely necessary to minimize the rise in global temperatures, the carbon trade allows for the mitigation of pesky residual emissions that it’s either impossible or too expensive to get rid of at this point.

Leveraging the hypothetical: The uncertain world of carbon credit calculations
- Criticisms of the voluntary carbon trade and forest conservation strategies like REDD+ have centered largely on the carbon accounting methods used to calculate credits.
- Each credit traded on voluntary markets is supposed to represent the reduction, avoidance or removal of 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- But recent science has raised questions about how REDD+ and other types of project figure out the number of tons of emissions saved.
- The process relies on establishing a baseline rate of deforestation against which a project’s emissions-reducing or -removing success is measured. But critics say the process can be faulty and that the conflicts of interest of the parties involved in setting the baseline have not been addressed until recently.

‘Cowboys’ and intermediaries thrive in Wild West of the carbon market
- A host of different players have crowded into the voluntary carbon trade as its value has grown.
- Motivated by the potential for profit, a concern for climate change or some combination of the two, these companies and organizations link the credits generated by projects, such as those that fit in the forest conservation scheme known as REDD+, with buyers, often companies and individuals in the Global North looking to compensate for their climate impacts.
- Some groups say they help shoulder the burden of tasks like marketing so that the communities and project staff on the ground can focus on the “change-making work.”
- But others, sometimes called “carbon cowboys,” seem interested in the money to be made from trading carbon. Some have faced allegations that they don’t bring the necessary expertise to their work, or that they don’t adequately inform local communities about the intended projects and the potential pitfalls.

Do carbon credits really help communities that keep forests standing?
- Communities play a critical role in REDD+, a forest conservation strategy that aims to reduce emissions that can be sold as credits to raise money for forest protection.
- REDD+ projects often include components for the benefit of the communities, such as a focus on alternative livelihoods and provision of health care and education.
- But reports that REDD+ communities have faced abuses and rights violations have emerged recently in connection with high-profile REDD+ projects.
- Several Indigenous-led organizations have voiced their support for REDD+ because, they say, it provides an avenue to fund their climate-related conservation work, while other groups say it’s not the answer.

Forest carbon credits and the voluntary market: A solution or a distraction?
- Voluntary carbon markets and forest carbon credits have faced widespread criticism that reached a zenith in 2023.
- Media reports detailed concerns about their dubious climate benefits, respect for communities and land rights, and their use by Global North companies to avoid the difficult task of decarbonizing their operations.
- Supporters of forest conservation strategies like REDD+ say that they can and should play a role, as healthy forests can absorb a significant amount of atmospheric carbon. They also say REDD+ brings much-needed funding to protect and restore forests, not only for their carbon, but because of the biodiversity and communities they support.
- As 2023 draws to a close, and with it the U.N. climate conference in Dubai (COP28), proponents of the voluntary carbon trade are working to increase the “integrity” of markets in ways they hope make them a viable tool to deal with climate change.

New dams in Cambodia pit ‘green’ hydropower against REDD+ project
- The recent approval of two hydropower dams in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains could undermine a REDD+ carbon project in the area.
- The Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project relies on keeping the forests in this region standing — a goal researchers say is “completely incompatible” with the forest clearing and flooding necessitated by the new dams.
- The lack of transparency inherent in both the carbon market and the Cambodian government means that the fate of the Cardamoms remains unclear for now.

Indigenous land rights are key to conservation in Cambodia (commentary)
- Indigenous peoples are effective custodians of biodiversity, lands, and seas, while sustaining distinct cultural, social and economic values of their communities.
- Upholding the legal land rights of these communities is therefore increasingly at the center of international climate and biodiversity commitments and agreements.
- “Strengthening Indigenous custodianship by expanding, reinforcing, and fully implementing these legal recognitions is essential for the protection of Cambodia’s forests, and would create further confidence among donors and carbon markets that customary rights are being upheld, enabling greater access to finance,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Carbon counting without the guesswork: Q&A with FCL proponent Jerry Toth
- REDD+ projects aim to incentivize efforts that maintain standing forests, rather than cutting them down, by providing payments based on the carbon emissions kept out of the atmosphere.
- But REDD+, which is short for “reducing deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries,” has been widely criticized lately, in part because skeptics say that the accounting methods are open to manipulation by developers aiming to sell more credits — credits that many not represent a verifiable climate benefit.
- One alternative is the forest carbon ledger (FCL). FCL seeks to value the total amount of carbon in a forest and would provide payments based on how well that storage is maintained over time.
- Mongabay spoke with Jerry Toth, co-founder of a conservation group working to protect and restore the last remaining remnants of the Pacific Forest of Ecuador called the Third Millennium Alliance (TMA). Toth said FCL may provide a more robust alternative to REDD+ carbon accounting.

REDD+ projects falling far short of claimed carbon cuts, study finds
- New research reveals that forest carbon credits are not offsetting the vast majority of emissions that providers claim.
- A team of scientists looked at 26 REDD+ deforestation-prevention project sites on three continents, leading to questions about how the developers calculate the impact of their projects.
- The researchers found that about 94% of the credits from these projects don’t represent real reductions in carbon emissions.
- Verra, the world’s largest carbon credit certifier, said the methods the team used to arrive at that conclusion were flawed, but also added it was in the process of overhauling its own REDD+ standards.

Do tiger-dense habitats also help save carbon stock? It’s complicated
- A new study centered on Nepal’s Chitwan National Park attempts to identify whether there’s a relationship between successful tiger conservation and habitats with high levels of carbon locked away in the vegetation.
- It found that within protected areas, high-density mixed forests had the most carbon stock sequestered in vegetation; however, tiger density was highest in riverine forests.
- This represents a trade-off that conservation planners need to tackle between tiger and carbon conservation.
- Researchers have cautioned against generalizing the findings, saying that more studies and data are needed to better understand the issue.

Forest carbon offsets are a tool, not a silver bullet (commentary)
- The Guardian recently published an article questioning the effectiveness of forest carbon offsets, immediately followed by another in Die Zeit about ‘phantom offsets.’
- These criticisms are not without precedent: carbon offsetting is often presented either as a panacea or as corporate greenwashing that distracts from the difficult task of reducing actual greenhouse gas emissions.
- But as two leaders from CIFOR-ICRAF argue in a new commentary, “It is neither one nor the other. It is a tool. No particular policy instrument stands out as a ‘silver bullet,’ but improving the coherence and complementarity of the policy mix across government levels can enhance the effectiveness of policies.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Australian oil and gas firm Invictus awarded carbon offset project in Zimbabwe
- The REDD+ project covers three national forest reserves near Hwange National Park and comes as Invictus has begun to drill for oil and gas in the north of the country
- Invictus says based on estimates still to be verified, the offset project could sequester 1 million metric tons of carbon per year, making its oil and gas drilling carbon neutral.
- Conservationists question the logic behind leveraging state forest reserves for REDD+ projects, saying they favor instead a “wildlife economy approach” to restoring landscapes.

‘That’s a scam’: Indian firm’s REDD+ carbon deal in the DRC raises concern
- Environmental and human rights advocacy organizations say an Indian company has misled communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, convincing them to sign away the rights to sell carbon credits from the restoration, reforestation or avoided deforestation of locally managed forests.
- These forests, managed under a structure known by the French acronym CFCL, provide communities with control over how land is managed while giving them access to the resources the forests provide, proponents of the initiative say.
- But the contracts, the implications of which were not fairly or adequately explained to community members, may restrict their access to the forests for generations to come, the advocacy groups say.
- These organizations and the communities are now calling on the Congolese government to cancel the contracts.

How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- There is a long history of failure in joint conservation and development projects, prompting growing efforts to explicitly acknowledge the value of failure as a means to learn and further success.
- The authors of a new paper find that the framing of failures is problematic in two main ways – it can reduce accountability for negative project impacts on people and nature, and it can also reinforce dominant conservation paradigms and approaches that are insufficient to address the biodiversity crisis.
- It is important to openly and critically examine failure in conservation, they argue in this opinion piece, but to do so in ways that genuinely question existing approaches and open up opportunities for transformation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Bridge the North-South divide for a UN Biodiversity Framework that is more just (commentary)
- The upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference (COP-15) features proposals like the 30×30 biodiversity conservation plan that we’ve all been hearing so much about lately.
- This proposal may work well for the North, including the U.S. with its “America the Beautiful” plan, but not well for the poorer nations of the global South: any effort to build a Global Biodiversity Framework must begin with sincere listening to all parties, and learning from that listening.
- “Scientists and the conservation leaders of the global North do not know how to talk to the grassroots conservationists of the global South when it comes to biodiversity conservation,” Subhankar Banerjee argues, and urges environmental justice campaigners and Indigenous rights advocates to look very closely at the current COP-15 30×30 proposal.
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

As COP26 looms and tropical deforestation soars, REDD+ debate roars on
- The United Nations REDD+ program (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) has been operating for more than 13 years as a multipurpose initiative, intended to curb deforestation in tropical nations, sequester forest carbon, combat climate change, protect biodiversity, and aid poor rural communities.
- The REDD+ mechanism is largely paid for by wealthy industrialized countries contributing funds to less developed tropical nations, including those in the Amazon, Congo Basin and Indonesia.
- Some 600 REDD+ projects have been initiated to date (with some 400 still active), mostly implemented by socioenvironmental NGOs or for-profit project developers, and financed by more than $10 billion in donor funds in more than 65 countries. But evidence of avoided deforestation and reduced carbon emissions is controversial.
- With the COP26 Glasgow climate summit looming in November, Mongabay invited experts to weigh in on the global initiative’s successes and failings, with some supporting expansion of REDD+ via revised program rules and funding, while others support major reforms, or even the initiative’s replacement.

Government inaction prompts voluntary REDD+ carbon credit boom in Brazil
- With the Bolsonaro government largely indifferent to participating in a carbon credit market, and amid intensifying pressure from clients and investors, a voluntary carbon credit market is booming in Brazil. The country, however, still doesn’t have any regulation about how and by whom credits can be issued.
- REDD+ projects that issue carbon credits for reforesting or avoiding deforestation have caught the attention of financial market players. Amid the new carbon credit trading firms, such as financial technology company Moss, and other initiatives, Brazilian projects offer both examples of success and failure in forest preservation.
- REDD+ supporters argue Brazil’s voluntary carbon credit market is allowing small-scale farmers and Indigenous and traditional people to get in the game, benefiting them financially, and helping conserve forests and protect the Earth’s climate.
- But critics say it’s difficult to ensure that forest conservation promises made today can be kept in the future, especially in a nation notorious for illegal deforestation and record forest fires. Also, protecting one area can simply drive the deforestation to another area.

REDD+ carbon and deforestation cuts in Amazon overestimated: Study
- A new study analyzed 12 REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) voluntary projects conducted in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Researchers found that the projects’ claimed reductions in forest loss and carbon emissions were seriously overstated due to poorly set deforestation rate baselines that didn’t properly account for other successful forest loss reductions that were achieved separately by the Brazilian government.
- To correct this problem in future, the researchers expressed the “need to better align project- and national-level carbon accounting,” while at the same time striking a balance between “controlling conservation investment risk and ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon emission offsets.”
- Suggestions for achieving more reliable carbon accounting include: only taking into account the most recent years of deforestation, relying on more complex models that look at the price of agricultural commodities, and comparing deforestation to similar areas not involved in REDD+ projects.

In the battle to save forests, a make-or-break moment for REDD+
- In Part Two of this series delving into REDD+, Mongabay looks at whether it can still accomplish the stated mission, what it would take to make that happen, and why, despite more than a decade of disappointment and controversy, REDD+ true believers still hold out hope.
- REDD+ advocates have now hung their hopes on a private sector suddenly hungry to buy carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Private sector demand for carbon credits, they hope, will increase the volume and push up the price of REDD+ carbon credits, both of which are necessary to drive much-needed financing into forest conservation.
- In early 2020, this hope appeared closer than ever to becoming a reality — then the coronavirus pandemic hit, causing private sector demand for carbon credits to plummet. Some of this decrease could turn out to be short term, but demand from at least one key sector, the airline industry, could take years to rebound.
- Another challenge facing REDD+ is a disagreement over whether individual project developers should be allowed to sell carbon credits directly to buyers, or if that should be left to the countries or states where the projects are located.

The U.N.’s grand plan to save forests hasn’t worked, but some still believe it can
- Part one explores REDD+’s evolution up to the present: how a lofty plan meant to generate large-scale financing for global forest conservation and climate mitigation became a patchwork of individual projects and programs that have failed to achieve the central goal of curbing deforestation.
- Recent developments could represent something of a turning point for REDD+, including the first large-scale, “results-based” funding — the conditional financial incentives seen as key to REDD+’s success — from the U.N.-REDD Programme and the World Bank, and a surge in private-sector dollars for forest conservation and reforestation projects that could mark the beginning of a significant new source of cash.
- However, challenges remain to delivering REDD+ at its intended scale, not least of which is the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, which could potentially trip up progress just as REDD+ looked poised to gain some real ground.

Carbon emissions from loss of intact tropical forest a ‘ticking time bomb’
- When undisturbed tropical forests are lost the long-term impact on carbon emissions is dramatically higher than earlier estimates suggest, according to a new study.
- Between 2000 and 2013, about 7 percent of the world’s intact tropical forests were destroyed, leading not just to direct carbon emissions but also “hidden” emissions from logging, fragmentation and wildlife loss.
- Another key difference between the old and new estimates is that the latter take into account the diminished carbon sequestration potential of these forests.
- The authors write that the indigenous communities who live in and protect about 35 percent of these forests will have a bigger role to play in the fight against climate change.

Gabon could earn up to $150 million for forest conservation
- Home to 12 percent of the Congo Basin’s forests, the African nation has an established conservation and sustainable management practices track record.
- Since the early 2000s, Gabon has worked to create 13 national parks, while improving performance on timber resource management outside of the parks.
- Gabon’s rainforest has been largely preserved by these and other measures, a key reason why the Central African Rainforest Initiative is brokering a 10-year, $150 million agreement for results-based payments.

REDD+ more competitive than critics believe, study finds
- Critics have argued that the strategy known as REDD+, or reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, hasn’t adequately slowed emissions from forest loss in developing countries in the way it was intended.
- Introduced in 2007, REDD+ is meant to help individual countries earn money for development when they lower the amount of released carbon from clearing and degrading forests.
- In a recent paper focused on the South American country of Guyana, a team of researchers argues that the problems with REDD+ stem from its implementation at the project level.
- REDD+ implementation across the jurisdiction of an entire country would address nearly all of the problems with individual REDD+ projects, and societies would benefit more financially than they currently do from commercial forest uses such as gold mining and logging, the researchers say.

Can REDD+ bring more women into forest conservation?
- Women are historically disadvantaged in forest conservation around the world, with patriarchal traditions being a key factor.
- Research is only just beginning to form a detailed picture of their existing roles within forests.
- As such, the benefits – and potential risks – of empowering women in forest conservation remain little understood.

’Unprecedented’ loss of biodiversity threatens humanity, report finds
- The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released a summary of far-reaching research on the threats to biodiversity on May 6.
- The findings are dire, indicating that around 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.
- The full 1,500-page report, to be released later this year, raises concerns about the impacts of collapsing biodiversity on human well-being.

Questions remain as Vietnam reaches major REDD+ milestone
- Technically this means results-based payments for forest-related carbon reductions can be rolled out.
- Some forestry experts remain skeptical of REDD+ and its approach to forest management.

Indonesia to get first payment from Norway under $1b REDD+ scheme
- Indonesia and Norway have agreed on a first payment from a $1 billion deal under which Indonesia preserves its rainforests to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
- The agreement comes nearly a decade since the deal was signed in 2010, with the delay attributed largely to the need for legislation and policy frameworks to be put in place, as well as a change in the Indonesian government since then.
- The amount of the first payment still needs to be negotiated by both sides, with Indonesia pushing for a higher valuation than the $5 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent that Norway paid Brazil under a similar deal.
- Indonesia still has work to do to ensure a consistent pace of progress and tackle the forest fires that account for much of the loss of its forests.

Forest communities pay the price for conservation in Madagascar
- In a two-year investigation of a REDD+ pilot project, a team of researchers spoke with more than 450 households affected by the establishment of a large protected area called the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor, a 3,820-square-kilometer (1,475-square-mile) tract of rainforest in eastern Madagascar.
- The REDD+ project, supported by Conservation International and the World Bank, was aimed at supporting communities by providing support for alternative livelihoods to those communities near the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor protected area.
- They found that the REDD+ project’s preliminary studies identified less than half of those negatively affected by the Corridor’s designation.
- The team also discovered that the value of the one-off compensation, in the form of support to pursue other livelihoods, fell far short of the opportunity costs that the communities are likely to face as a result of losing access to the forest in the coming decades.

Report finds projects in DRC ‘REDD+ laboratory’ fall short of development, conservation goals
- The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) released a new report that found that 20 REDD+ projects in a province in DRC aren’t set to address forest conservation and economic development — the primary goals of the strategy.
- The Paris Agreement explicitly mentions the role of REDD+ projects, which channel funds from wealthy countries to heavily forested ones, in keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius this century.
- RRI is asking REDD+ donors to pause funding of projects in DRC until coordinators develop a more participatory approach that includes communities and indigenous groups.

Oil palm, rubber could trigger ‘storm’ of deforestation in the Congo Basin
- Earthsight documented approximately 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) of deforestation to clear the way for new rubber and oil palm plantations in Central Africa’s rainforest countries in the past five years.
- The team also found that companies in five Central African countries hold licenses for industrial agriculture on another 8,400 square kilometers (3,243 square miles) of land.
- The investigators warn that thousands of hectares of forest could fall to industrial agriculture in the COngo Basin, the world’s second-largest rainforest, if governance of the forest doesn’t improve.

Maps tease apart complex relationship between agriculture and deforestation in DRC
- A team from the University of Maryland’s GLAD laboratory has analyzed satellite images of the Democratic Republic of Congo to identify different elements of the “rural complex” — where many of the DRC’s subsistence farmers live.
- Their new maps and visualizations allow scientists and land-use planners to pinpoint areas where the cycle of shifting cultivation is contained, and where it is causing new deforestation.
- The team and many experts believe that enhanced understanding of the rural complex could help establish baselines that further inform multi-pronged approaches to forest conservation and development, such as REDD+.

New study: Gorillas fare better in logged forests than chimps
- A study in the northern Republic of Congo found that gorillas and chimpanzees both became scarcer at the onset of logging.
- However, gorillas move backed into logged areas more readily, while chimpanzees were more likely to stay away.
- The researchers believe that gorillas are better able to cope with logging because they’re not as territorial as chimps and they seem to be more flexible in their eating habits.

Carbon dreams: Can REDD+ save a Yosemite-size forest in Madagascar?
- When Makira Natural Park launched in 2005, it seemed to present a solution to one of the most intractable problems in conservation: finding a source of funding that could be counted on year after year.
- The sale of carbon offset credits would fund the park itself as well as development projects aimed at helping nearby communities improve their standard of living and curtail deforestation.
- But more than a decade later, carbon buyers are scarce and much of the funding for community development has been held up. And although deforestation has slowed considerably in and around Makira, it is falling well short of deforestation targets set at the outset of the project.
- This is the seventh story in Mongabay’s multi-part series “Conservation in Madagascar.”

More big mammals found in high-carbon forests, says new study
- The researchers used satellite data to measure forest carbon values and camera trap photographs to tally the mammal species present in forests and oil palm plantations.
- Finer-scale data did reveal that high-carbon areas do support more species of medium and large mammals that are threatened with extinction.
- Experts say that this research validates the high carbon stock approach for identifying priority areas for conservation.
- Still, further research is required to better understand the role of connectivity between high-carbon forests in supporting biodiversity.

Indonesia tries to learn from Brazil’s success in REDD+
- Indonesia and Brazil both have billion-dollar REDD+ agreements with Norway to reduce deforestation and cut carbon emissions in exchange for funding.
- While Brazil has succeeded, Indonesia has not, and has even seen deforestation rates climb, surpassing those in Brazil.
- Fundamental differences in the way the two countries deal with forest issues, particularly in law enforcement and land reform, help explain their different outcomes.
- The Indonesian government hopes to breathe new life into its flagging REDD+ program by emulating the Brazilian model, and speed up the disbursal of funds from Norway by next year.

Rainforest conservation may be aimed at the wrong places, study finds
- Climate-based conservation policies often focus on forests with large carbon stores – but what this means for biodiversity protection has been unclear.
- Previous research found a link between tree diversity and carbon storage on the small-scale, with tropical forests that have more tree species possessing larger stores of carbon. But this correlation had not been tested for larger areas.
- Researchers examined thousands of trees at hundreds of sites in the tropical forests of South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Their results indicate that on the one-hectare scale, tree diversity is low and carbon storage is quite high in Africa, while the opposite is the case in South America. In Southeast Asia, both carbon stocks and tree diversity appear to be high.
- The researchers say their results indicate carbon-focused conservation policies may be missing highly biodiverse ecosystems, and recommend a more fine-tuned approach for prioritizing areas for conservation.

The Republic of Congo: on the cusp of forest conservation
- The Republic of Congo’s high forest cover and low annual deforestation rates of just over 0.05 percent have led to the country being named as a priority country by the UN’s REDD+ program.
- The country has numerous protected areas and has signed agreements to certify the sustainability and legality of its timber industry.
- Skeptics caution that more needs to be done to address corruption and protect the country’s forests, a third of which are still relatively untouched.

Peru’s REDD+ conservation efforts paying off
- REDD+ conservation efforts generated almost $34 million for Peru between 2013 to 2015.
- Around one-eighth of Peru’s protected forests are involved in REDD+ programs
- In 2014, Peru signed a $225 million deal with Norway to bring net deforestation to zero by 2021

In Indonesia, making REDD+ about carbon won’t help biodiversity: study

A baby orangutan in North Sumatra. The species is critically endangered. Photo: Rhett A. Butler In Indonesia, preferential targeting of REDD+ projects in high-carbon areas won’t do much for biodiversity. That’s because areas important for carbon correlate poorly with areas important for biodiversity in the country, a new study shows. The researchers urged future REDD+ […]
Conservation and carbon storage goals collide in Brazil’s Cerrado

Blue and yellow macaws (Ara ararauna) are a common sight in the Cerrado. Photo credit: Brendan Borrell At the Los Angeles auto show in November 2008, Hyundai made a groundbreaking announcement. It would offset carbon dioxide emitted by all 2009 Genesis sedans during their first year on the road through “the permanent conservation and reforestation […]
Biodiversity protection is key to REDD+ success, study shows

Protecting biodiversity may be crucial for successfully storing carbon in forests, scientists say. A recent publication on Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation suggests that biodiversity loss –especially through hunting – will hinder the success of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects. As an initiative to combat climate change by storing […]
Is REDD+ bad for wildlife? New study says lowland forest protection bias unfair, urges change

Deforestation often shunted to highlands Carbon-centric conservation programs, such as REDD+ (Reduce CO2 Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), seek to lower greenhouse gas emissions by preventing forest loss through protection of certain areas of forest that have high carbon content. This is determined by estimating the aboveground woody biomass, which is, basically, how thick the […]
REDD+ should pave way for more research into genetic studies of tropical species

Rainforest beetle in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), the UN program to conserve tropical forests by paying developing nations to keep them standing, should go hand-in-hand with increased genetic studies of imperiled tropical biodiversity, according to a new opinion article in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical […]
5 years in, debates over REDD+ continue
- An initiative that aims to slow global warming by paying developing countries to protect and better manage their forests is expected to be an important storyline during climate talks in Doha this week and next.
- REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), as the mechanism is known, has grown in complexity since it gained momentum during the 2005 climate talks in Montreal, but is arguably moving forward faster than other areas of climate negotiations.
- Still, many elements of REDD+ continue to be as hotly debated today as they were five years ago when it got the conceptual OK from the U.N.

REDD+ must consider biodiversity, forest livelihoods to have any chance of success

Treefrog in Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Safeguarding biodiversity is a critical component in any plan to mitigate climate change through forest protection, argues a comprehensive new assessment published by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), the world’s largest network of forest scientists. The report, which will be released December 2 at […]
Experts: sustainable logging in rainforests impossible

Logging in Gabon, Central Africa. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Industrial logging in primary tropical forests that is both sustainable and profitable is impossible, argues a new study in Bioscience, which finds that the ecology of tropical hardwoods makes logging with truly sustainable practices not only impractical, but completely unprofitable. Given this, the researchers recommend […]
Can loggers be conservationists?

Sawmill in Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year researchers took the first ever publicly-released video of an African golden cat (Profelis aurata) in a Gabon rainforest. This beautiful, but elusive, feline was filmed sitting docilely for the camera and chasing a bat. The least-known of Africa’s wild cat species, the African golden cat […]
How best to monitor biodiversity in REDD+ projects?

Butterflies feeding on minerals in Uganda. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. If done well, REDD+ projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) may not only save carbon rich forests, but also protect embattled biodiversity. But what’s the best way to ensure both and carbon and species are preserved under REDD+, a program that proposes […]

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