Community Participation and Benefits in REDD+: A Review of Initial Outcomes and Lessons
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Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, P.O. Box 3435, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
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The Nature Conservancy, 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203, USA
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Lowering Emissions in Asia's Forests, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Liberty Square, Suite 2002, 287 Silom Road Bang Rak, Bangkok 10500, Thailand
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Forests 2013, 4(2), 296-318; https://doi.org/10.3390/f4020296
Received: 28 February 2013
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Revised: 23 April 2013
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Accepted: 25 April 2013
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Published: 10 May 2013
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.
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Keywords:
REDD+; social impacts; tenure; payments for ecosystem services; deforestation; climate change mitigation
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MDPI and ACS Style
Lawlor, K.; Madeira, E.M.; Blockhus, J.; Ganz, D.J. Community Participation and Benefits in REDD+: A Review of Initial Outcomes and Lessons. Forests 2013, 4, 296-318. https://doi.org/10.3390/f4020296
AMA Style
Lawlor K, Madeira EM, Blockhus J, Ganz DJ. Community Participation and Benefits in REDD+: A Review of Initial Outcomes and Lessons. Forests. 2013; 4(2):296-318. https://doi.org/10.3390/f4020296
Chicago/Turabian StyleLawlor, Kathleen, Erin M. Madeira, Jill Blockhus, and David J. Ganz. 2013. "Community Participation and Benefits in REDD+: A Review of Initial Outcomes and Lessons" Forests 4, no. 2: 296-318. https://doi.org/10.3390/f4020296
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