Discourses on Benefit Sharing, Legitimacy and Equity in

REDD+: Lessons for Social Forestry

Maria Brockhaus, Cecilia Luttrell, Grace Wong, Pham T.T.,, L.N. Dung, J.S. Tjajadi, L. Loft, and S. Assembe Mvondo

Fifth Conference of the ASEAN Social Forestry Network - Kota Kinabalu – 24.05.2014

From Forest Management and Biodiversity Conservation

to REDD+ • Part of UNFCCC mitigation efforts, early idea

was a simple PES market idea (history of green markets .. CDM A/R carbon offsets etc.)

• but controversial: sovereignty, land use autonomy in tenure complex, verification issues

REDD+ challenges

And numerous other challenges, most still unresolved: among others ...

• Coordination across sectors and administrative levels (in decentralized systems)

• Tenure, financing systems, benefit sharing and participation

• MRV systems and capacity

• Scope, scale, permanence, leakage

• Sovereignty and ownership over process and reform(s)

• Capacity and political will to address the drivers of forest carbon change (driven oftentimes by interests of powerful elites) and identifying an effective policy mix

From Readiness to Results

• REDD+ is moving through different phases (Meridian 2009)

• With introduction of performance based payments, it becomes important to link MRV systems to benefit (and cost) sharing systems

• Monitoring data gets more and more robust, but payment mechanisms, clear rules, and measures for performance are still lacking

What do we mean by ‘benefit sharing’

• Benefit sharing is the distribution of direct and indirect net gains from the implementation of REDD+

• Two types of direct benefits:• Monetary gains from international

and national finance related to REDD+

• Benefits associated with the increased availability of forest products & ecosystem services

• Indirect benefits e.g. improved governance infrastructure provision

What is a BSM

• Range of institutional means: governance structures and instruments that distribute finance and other net benefits from REDD+– Direct incentives e.g. cash transfers, PFM, ICDPs– Policy and governance processes e.g. tenure

clarification, law enforcement, agricultural intensification

Benefits come with costs: net benefits are what matter

• Direct financial outlays related to REDD+ (implementation and transaction costs)

• Costs arising from changes in forest land and resource use (opportunity costs)

Cost recovery (compensation) vs. the surplus (REDD rent)

Discourses on benefit sharing

Discourse

Discourse is critical in public policy-making because it shapes how a policy

problem is perceived and, consequently, what kinds of solutions are conceivable or could be considered the ‘right’ choice

(Hajer and Versteeg, 2005)

Discourses on ‘who should benefit’?

Different discourses which different implications for design of BSMs

But there are trade-offs

Effectiveness/efficiency vs. equity discourses Effectiveness/efficiency = goal of emission

reductions Equity = who has the right to benefit

Efficiency/Effectiveness discourseREDD+ as a mechanism for paying forest users & owners to reduce emissions:• Focus on emissions reductions• Payments as incentive for those who change in behaviour• Benefits should go to people providing these services

Agreement with “REDD benefits should reward large-scale industries/companies for reducing forest emissions”

Data from CIFOR’s GCS’ policy network analysis by Levania Santosa & Moira Moeliano (Indonesia), Maria Fernanda Gebara & Shaozeng Zhang (Brazil)

Equity discourses

Equity discourses take a distributional perspective and ask who are the actors who have the „right“ to benefit from REDD+:

• Focus on preventing unfair distributional results• Strengthening moral and political legitimacy of REDD+ mechanism

Equity Discourse I: Benefits should go to those

with legal rights

But no REDD+ country has legally defined carbon rightsWill existing tenure rights be the legal basis for REDD+ BS?

carbon rights not necessarily vested in rights to land or trees?

Distinct from right to benefit from sale Will state claim carbon rights? Risk that those without formal rights

may lose out

Equity Discourse II:

Benefits should go to low emitting forest stewards

Many of these are low-emission situations No additionality A possible solution is a baseline definition

based on future threats

Equity Discourse III:

Benefits should go to those incurring costs

Compensate for implementation, transaction and opportunity costs regardless of emission reductions

In early stages of REDD+ implementation there is a need to incentivize actors to get involved

Inputs are easier to define than to measure emissions reductions

Equity Discourse IV: Benefits should go to effective facilitators of implementation

What is the ‘right’ proportion?• to attract investors • but prevent windfall profits?

Right for governments to retain some revenue for incurring implementation and transaction costs?

What‘s the exact level of costs occurring to government?

Negotiating choices:

Legitimacy of the process

Learn from existing benefit sharing mechanisms at the local level (e.g. from social forestry), be aware of trade offs between new and old institutions!

Clarify objectives of national REDD+ implementation before designing BSMs Clarity on objectives help to define who ‘should‘ benefit

Lack of clarity over what is the ‘competent agency’ with these decision making powers

Legitimacy of the decision needs the decision to be made by those with:• Legal mandate to make them• Adherence to due process & to procedural rights

Requires a legitimate decision-making process and institutions

Some further reading: Pham, T.T., Brockhaus, M., Wong, G., Dung, L.N.,

Tjajadi, J.S., Loft, L., Luttrell C. and Assembe Mvondo, S., 2013. Approaches to benefit sharing: A preliminary comparative analysis of 13 REDD+ countries. Working Paper 108. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia.

 Luttrell, C., L. Loft, F. M. Gebara, D. Kweka, M. Brockhaus, A.

Angelsen and W. Sunderlin 2013. Who should benefit from REDD+? Rationales and Realities. Ecology and Society.

 Assembe-Mvondo, S., Brockhaus, M., Lescuyer, G., 2013.

Assessment of the Effectiveness, Efficiency and Equity of Benefit-Sharing Schemes under Large-Scale Agriculture: Lessons from Land Fees in Cameroon. European Journal of Development Research 25, 641-656.

Loft, L., Pham, T.T., and Luttrell, C. 2014. Lessons from payments for ecosystem services for REDD+ benefit sharing mechanisms. CIFOR Infobrief No.68.

 

We acknowledge the support from:

NORAD, Australian Aid, UKAID, EC, USAID

& all research partners and individuals that have contributed to the GCS research

Thanks