Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

The Lessons of PESThere are important lessons from this and other PES experiences,as well as from the community-based natural resourcemanagement enterprises described in this report, that couldhelp orient REDD so it can better achieve its goals. By framingREDD initiatives as both pro-poor and pro-environmentprojects, unintended consequences that could undermine theproject in the future have a better chance of being avoided. TheUganda example makes it clear, for instance, that tenure andgovernance issues cannot be ignored. Creating a community“stake” in a project nurtures the self-interest that inspirescommunity involvement and responsibility.Another lesson is that payments to communities under a REDDcompensation scheme must be substantial enough to make adifference in the household incomes of community members,who otherwise are unlikely to participate in the program or followthrough on their commitments. This compensation may come asmonetary payments, but it can also be complemented by capacitytraining or support to develop alternative enterprises.One way to make REDD’s goal of reducing deforestation moreamenable to low-income families is to allow them to pursuecomplementary land uses such as agroforestry, the collection ofnon-timber forest products, and perhaps even limited timberharvesting. This recognizes the fact that poor families areunlikely to be able to live on PES payments alone and mustpursue other activities to round out their livelihoods. The goalshould be to make these activities as compatible with carbonstorage as possible.A third lesson is that entry costs to participate in REDDprograms—such as licensing and certification costs—must below if poor people are to participate. Otherwise, only largelandowners will be able to join. Prohibitively high entry costspose a particular problem in cases of contested tenure. Largelandowners who can afford the certification costs may stakeclaims over contested lands, thereby turning REDD into a toolto solidify land claims where tenure has been unclear.Community-Based Forestry: A REDD PrimerThe international development community has a central role toplay in assuring that REDD is carried out in an effective andpro-poor manner, first by supporting community-based forestry.Providing this support can bring economic and social benefitsto communities while reducing carbon emissions. Communityforestry projects can also help build the capacities andresilience of forest communities, making them more capable ofhandling a REDD project down the line. And such efforts neednot wait for REDD’s complicated technical questions to besorted out.NGOs might also work to establish performance metrics forcarbon mitigation that do not rely entirely on precise calculationsof emissions created by deforestation. Such metrics could helpdeveloping countries to receive international funding outside ofthe global carbon market—whether through bilateral or multilateralsupport, or through a global funding mechanism—byreducing their emissions, but without the stringent technicalrequirements imposed by REDD (Daviet et al. 2007: 5-8).Agroforestry and sustainable harvesting within community forestswould likely fit more easily into such performance metrics.Finally, NGOs and donors can assist in developing social andenvironmental standards for REDD, using established community-basedforestry programs to design social protocols and totest carbon release monitoring techniques. Doing so will meanthat if REDD becomes part of global carbon mitigation, communities,donors, governments, and NGOs will already haveexperience with effectively reducing carbon emissions whileimproving local economies and increasing social resilience.Building enterprises through community management ofnatural resources will certainly not solve all the challenges thatREDD faces as a global PES system. Nor will it quickly resultin the large-scale projects that climate experts claim arerequired to make a significant reduction in carbon emissions.Yet these enterprises can be encouraged right now – and theycan help meet REDD’s major environmental aim while simultaneouslyserving as a training ground to work out some of theprogram’s technical issues. In this way, community managementof natural resources effectively stands at the intersectionof climate adaptation, carbon mitigation, and rural development.A well-designed REDD program may serve as one of anumber of financial incentives to promote these managementefforts in the future.165