The Challenge of Low-Carbon Development - World Bank Internet ...

monitoring system. The cattle-tracking system has beenmodified to track “lots” of animals rather than individuals.Throughout, the quasi-independent public prosecutor hasbeen an important catalyst of action.Deforestation has fallen steadily from 25,000 squarekilo meters in 2003 to 7,000 square kilometers in 2009;deforestation from September 2009 to February 2010 fellmore than 50 percent relative to the same months in theprevious year. It is too early to tell the degree to which thisis due to enhanced enforcement versus a decline in beef andsoy prices.ConclusionsIf the REDD agenda succeeds, countries, donors, and investorswill put up massive funds in hopes of conservingforests and fostering sustainable land management in a sociallyacceptable way. Guidance is needed for these large,novel, and complex ventures, which will take many yearsto implement. Unfortunately, the Bank’s long experience inrelevant areas is not well documented. However, some lessonsemerge from this review.Protected area creation has been effective, on average, inreducing deforestation. Creation of large protected areasin remote areas where deforestation is currently low hasbeen a farsighted strategy that could reduce future deforestationas roads and markets expand. Evidence suggeststhat sustainable-use protected areas are compatible withreduced deforestation and that indigenous areas (at least inLatin America) are extremely effective in preventing deforestation.Together with recent findings that protected areasmay reduce local poverty, this points to the compatibility ofREDD with sustainable development and suggests greaterattention on the maintenance and expansion of protectedand sustainable use forest areas is necessary.Payment for environmental services schemes could constituteone element of a REDD strategy, appropriate forareas where land and forest tenure is well defined. Projectexperience shows that countries can manage the logisticsof enrolling, monitoring, and paying service providers. Ensuringsustainable finance has been a problem, but REDDmay solve this. More challenging is devising targetingmechanisms and payment schedules that are socially andpolitically acceptable as well as cost-effective in providingcarbon storage and other environmental services.Chain-of-custody tracing was an inefficientway to monitor environmental compliance:if trees are what you care about, it is cheaperto watch the forest than to follow the cowson their long journey to the market.Promotion of sustainably intensified agriculture is the flipside of forest conservation. If more forest is to be conserved,farms, ranches and tree plantations must be intensified onexisting, perhaps degraded lands, to meet the demand thatis driving deforestation. Chain-of-custody certificationof forest-competing products has been seen as a way ofshifting private sector incentives to sustainability, withoutrelying on often-ineffective government enforcement. Buta private-sector-only strategy is also problematic, and thatchain-of-custody tracing is difficult and expensive.A combination of nongovernmental organization- triggeredpressure on buyers, an independent governmental advocateforenvironmental enforcement, and government sanctionshas been effective. A key technical feature has beenthe use of wide-area remote sensing rather than chainof-custodytracing. If trees are the focus of conservation,it is cheaper to watch the forest than to follow the cowsand beans on their long journey to market. This experiencecould have important implications for palm oil, timber,and other markets.60 | Climate Change and the World Bank Group