Ghana advances rights-based REDD+ through existing local forest governance initiativesGhana’s Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) are providing the ideal entry point to advance rights-based approaches to REDD+ implementation.

Protecting the rights of forest-dependent communitiesA critical area of interest for REDD+ benefit sharing has been ensuring that REDD+ activities engage forest-dependent communities and safeguard their rights and interests. In Ghana, the access that economic and political elites have to education, governance institutions and other forms of power can contribute to the inequitable sharing of benefits or opportunities among stakeholders, especially at the grassroots level. REDD+ interventions, particularly in relation to livelihood improvement, risk being hijacked by

Ghana

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a privileged few, leaving the majority of stakeholders under-served and creating a potential disincentive for support.

To date, it has been a challenge for Ghana to pilot livelihood-enhancing initiatives during the design phase of REDD+ because of lack of dedicated funds. Adequate funding for REDD+ implementation has proven to be critical in order to convince political constituencies and grassroots communities of the environmental and livelihood benefits of REDD+.

Ghana’s CREMAs help advance rights-based REDD+ effortsOver the past 15 years, Ghana has invested significant resources in strengthening local forest governance through the development of 25 community resource management areas (CREMAs). These geographically defined zones are where two or more communities come together to manage their natural resources in a sustainable manner. The strength of the CREMA model lies in the devolution of significant power and authority to the communities involved in managing rights to natural resources. This allows them to become active participants in their environment, and ensures communities have adequate control over the benefits derived from the resources they manage.

A core tenet of the CREMA approach is that conservation is best achieved where there are tangible economic and cultural returns to local communities. IUCN and partners are actively engaging with CREMAs in Ghana to motivate smallholders to adopt a rights-based approach to sustainable livelihoods and resource management practices.

Deploying options to enhance rights, livelihoods and engagement of forest-dependent communities There is wide consensus that CREMAs are the best institutional delivery mechanism at the community level in Ghana, as proven by IUCN and partners’ engagement with them to deliver projects on the ground. Though the CREMA concept was initially designed with a focus on wildlife protection and conservation, IUCN and partners (including Ghana’s Nature Conservation Resource Centre, A Rocha, the Development Institute and others) have helped deepen the appreciation of CREMAs as a model that can be applied beyond wildlife management, for REDD+ implementation.

Linking rights-based REDD+ approaches to existing initiatives among Ghana’s CREMAs is opening up new streams of potential benefits for local communities and helping to ensure the long-term success of initiatives to foster natural resource democracy. Working with strategic partners, IUCN’s REDD+ efforts have engaged with Ghana’s CREMAs to deploy a wide range of rights-based approaches to REDD+ implementation.

Woodfuel for cassava processing in a community near Mole National Park. Photo: Saadia Bobtoya / IUCN

CREMAs have provided an entry point and framework to:

● propose nature-based, livelihood-enhancing options and REDD+ financing mechanisms in the two pilot landscapes of Wassa Amenfi and Mole Ecological;

● enhance collaborative natural resource governance arrangements;

● clarify land and tree tenure rights; ● advance gender considerations for REDD+; ● conduct stakeholder dialogues with CREMA communities

in Mole Ecological Landscape to advance an agreement on sustainable grazing protocols;

● shape national-level REDD+ strategy approaches for how to consult with local communities and increase their participation;

● elaborate three benefit-sharing arrangements that could be implemented at thelocal level; ● work with Ecosystem Alliance to advocate for the elaboration of legal frameworks for

CREMAs in the wildlife bill currently before Ghana’s parliament for approval; and ● provide recommendations for scaling up CREMAs in the national REDD+ process, which

are being integrated into Ghana’s REDD+ readiness package.

CREMA community members participated in several REDD+ meetings, trainings and advocacy activities. Some community members (especially CREMA executives in Wassa Amenfi district and Mole Ecological Landscape) have also served as facilitators for some of the project’s socio-economic activities, including the application of the IUCN poverty-forest tool kit and household surveys.

Engaging with Ghana’s CREMAs has increased interest and support for the rights-based approach to REDD+. It has also helped to highlight to community members the importance of having equitable REDD+ benefit sharing arrangements that protect natural resources while improving livelihoods.

New knowledgeDespite the significant potential of CREMAs to provide a governance platform for community resource management and REDD+ implementation, CREMA leadership and communities still face capacity challenges to self organise. In some cases, research funded by SIDA has revealed inadequate accountability by local leadership and a lack of elections to turn over and invigorate governance units (Baruah 2015). Analysis has also shown that CREMAs require a very high level of enabling actions in the long-term to improve fund management and monitoring capacities.

Ongoing stakeholder consultations have revealed that communities are still apprehensive about land and tree tenure rights. This has been highlighted as a priority issue to be addressed at the policy level, followed by on-the-ground changes before full participation in CREMAs can be achieved. If these governance, monitoring and policy challenges are properly addressed, CREMAs have the potential to evolve into a truly democratic institution, leading the way for new initiatives such as REDD+ to build on these foundations.

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Tree nursery in Wassa Amenfi. Photo: Jan Willen Den Besten

“CREMA institutions are the low hanging fruit, already enabled to implement REDD+. CREMAs allow us to use a local institution, with conservation already in mind, to achieve equitable REDD+ benefit sharing at the local level.” —Adewale Adeleke, IUCN, Ghana

WORLD HEADQUARTERSRue Mauverney 281196 Gland, SwitzerlandTel: +41 22 999 0000Fax: +41 22 999 0002www.iucn.org

Further reading ● IUCN (2015). ‘Ghana bridges existing local forest governance with design of REDD+

benefit sharing.’ Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. www.iucn.org/content/ghana-bridges-existing-local-forest-governance-design-redd-benefit-sharing

● IUCN (2010). ‘PROFOR-IUCN Poverty-Forest Tool Kit.’ Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. www.iucn.org/content/profor-iucn-poverty-forest-tool-kit

● Baruah, M. (2015). ‘Effect of Institutional Choices on Representation in a Community Resource Management Area in Ghana.’ Responsive Forest Governance Initiative Working Paper No. 22. Series editors: J. Murombedzi, J. Ribot, G. Walters. Dakar: IUCN, University of Illinois and CODESRIA. portals.iucn.org/library/node/45941

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IUCN and REDD+Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) can improve lives, protect forests and biodiversity, and mitigate climate change. Forests serve as natural storage for carbon, and deforestation is the second leading cause of carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Furthermore, more than one billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods, and tropical primary forests are particularly high in terrestrial biodiversity.

IUCN’s REDD+ work focuses on the integration of rights-based approaches as the foundation for the design and deployment of landscape, sub-national and national climate change mitigation and forest management strategies. A pro-poor orientation delivers tangible environmental, economic, social and cultural benefits to the poor. In this regard, IUCN works with partners and REDD+ stakeholders in tropical countries to ensure that by 2020, national climate change mitigation policies and initiatives have incorporated and are implementing the tenets of right-based approaches and pro-poor principles.

With support from the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), IUCN is engaged with partners in Cameroon, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and Uganda to pilot and upscale frameworks and mechanisms that support and deliver rights-based and pro-poor outcomes.