Community Participation and Benefits in REDD+: A Review of Initial Outcomes and Lessons

By K. Lawlor, E. M. Madeira, J. Blockhus, David J. Ganz. 2013

124 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Global and Planetary Change, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/06da97e5952faa076e07487219eabd255ea813c6

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Citations in the corpus

REDD+ on the ground: A case book of subnational initiatives across the globe (2014, background): “Social co-benefits can be conceptualized as improving human well-being, assuring equitable benefit sharing and increasing the adaptive capacity of local people (Lawlor et al. 2013).”
The Different Dimensions of Livelihood Impacts of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) Schemes: A Systematic Review (2018, background): “For example, only a few studies reported increased land tenure security, often considered an important livelihood impact of PES (Lawlor et al., 2013).”
Envisioning REDD+ in a post‐Paris era: between evolving expectations and current practice (2017, background): “Similarly, while stakeholder participation is mentioned in most project documents and minimum requirements of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in implementing REDD+ projects are mostly adhered to, the participation of local communities in the decisionmaking and design of REDD+ projects varies”