Institutional Mechanisms for REDD+ - Case Studies Working Paper

officials and NGOs seem to agree that REDD+ project intermediaries might keep REDD+ cash payments at
their level and instead offer services or non-cash benefits to local communities. Those involved with REDD+
pilot projects in the DRC say they prefer to provide socio-cultural and in-kind economic benefits to local
communities rather than share cash revenues. The NC-REDD+ and REDD+ project managers feel that
communities are not ready to manage cash.
2.2.2 WHO ARE THE REDD+ BENEFICIARIES IDENTIFIED IN THE NATIONAL
STRATEGY?
No official document has been produced yet to identify formally REDD+ beneficiaries. The NC-REDD+
organized a first consultation workshop with experts and NGOs on this issue in July 2011. This issue is
largely debated within NC-REDD+ and linked with discussions on the carbon rights regime that will be
established. 63
Interviews with government officials, civil-society organizations, and REDD+ project managers demonstrate
that there is a growing consensus on the semantic distinction between REDD+ ―beneficiaries‖ and those
―service providers‖ who directly contribute to set up REDD+ projects (investors, technicians, auditors, etc.).
The State (centralized and decentralized government) and local communities are more often labeled
beneficiaries, although NGOs and NC-REDD+ are still debating on where they should fit based on what
they bring to REDD+ projects. There is little agreement on what should constitute the legal basis for the
claims of the State or local communities. In addition, the terms of the problem are understood differently
among the Ministries and local governments.
In a technical note 64, the NC-REDD+ presented the two following options:
1. Claims to REDD+ benefits are based on who owns the land, the forests, and forest products; and
2. Claims to REDD+ benefits are based on who contributes to the project that generates carbon credits.
The first option would place land tenure at the heart of the REDD+ benefit-sharing mechanism to be
established. The DRC Land Law and Forest Code both establish that the State owns all land and forests, but
the Constitution and the Forest Code also recognize customary tenure (see Box 2.2). In this sense, local
communities and logging concession holders (or other holders of any form of titled land) may have
concurrent legal property rights over a given forest area. On non-forested land, the Land Law applies and
long-term land lease holders (contrat d’emphyteose) may have concurrent legal property rights with riparian
communities (customary authority). Whether customary property rights can be extinguished by a legal title
over land or forests is not clear. Some lawyers 65 argue that the Constitution offers strong protection to
customary rights by establishing that customary rights to natural resources cannot be taken away without
proper compensation (Article 56).
As a result, claims to REDD+ benefits based on land/forest tenure would potentially open competing rights
to three types of stakeholders: the State, local communities with customary rights, and concession holders.
As highlighted by the NC-REDD+, the first option has an important caveat: it requires that communities
agree on their land‘s boundaries, a daunting task given the size of the country and the number of land
conflicts, especially in the eastern portion of the DRC. In addition, if the Forest Code and its implementing
regulation somewhat clarified the legal status of customary tenure over forested land, the Land Law still needs
63 Refer to the Appendix A presenting the general context in DRC for more details on the terms of this debate.
64 ―La propriété du crédit carbone en RDC, Éléments de discussion,‖ Bruno Guay, Technical Advisor within NC-REDD+(adapted from ONFI‘s
Guidebook of Evaluation and Development of REDD+ projects, 2010).
65 Augustin Mpoyi, director of Conseil pour la Défense de l’environnement, la Légalité et la Traçabilité (CODELT, registered as an NGO).
PRRGP INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS FOR REDD: CASE STUDIES – WORKING PAPER 25