Rights: An essential precondition for effectiveness, efficiency and equity in REDD

by William D. Sunderlin, Arild Angelsenand Timmons Roberts

“Rights, Forests and Climate Change”A joint conference convened by Rights and Resources Initiative & Rainforest Foundation Norway

Oslo, Norway, 15-17 October 2008

Structure of presentation

• Definition of terms

• Rights, forests, REDD and justice

• Consequences if no rights in REDD

• Problems, even with attention to rights in REDD

• How attention to rights assures effectiveness, efficiency, and equity in REDD

• Necessary steps for adequate attention to rights in REDD

• Summary and closing thoughts

Definition of terms

• Rights = tenure over land, trees, carbon, but also broader range of rights

• REDD = At the global level

Readiness funds (capacity building) An incentive mechanism (implementation of pay the polluter

principle) in a possible Copenhagen protocol

In national strategies: Implement similar incentive mechanisms through performance-

based pay to forest owners/users/managers Tenure and governance reforms Extra-sectoral policies

Definition of terms

• Effectiveness = to what extent REDD reduces GHGs

• Efficiency = to what extent REDD achieves goal at minimum cost

• Equity = to what extent REDD achieves fair distribution of cost and benefits in the program

Rights, forests, REDD and justice

• Few people in forests have statutory rights of ownership or access

• Long history of exclusion only recently beginning to head in a good direction

• Reasons for recognizing rights in forests predates REDD

• REDD threatens to worsen rights violations if rights not given adequate attention in REDD

• Conversely REDD can greatly assist fulfillment of rights if given adequate attention

• Rights in REDD should be seen not just as a means for effectiveness, efficiency, and equity within REDD, but as an end for attaining broader social justice goals

Consequences if no rights in REDD

(1) Contracts and benefits will go to the relatively few and large forest owners causing:

• Increasing inequality, resentment, and conflict in forest population (inequity), especially if large amounts of REDD funds attract powerful elites

• Reduced effectiveness and efficiency of REDD because of sub-optimal area of coverage

• Possibility of retaliatory sabotage by those left out, further reducing effectiveness and efficiency

Consequences if no rights in REDD

(2) Government will resort to renewed and increased state control to compensate for low area coverage, which will cause or aggravate:

• Anti-people, “guns and fences,” exclusionary models of forest conservation

• Possibility of evictions of people from forests they depend on for livelihoods

• Increased violation of tenure and other rights

• Possibility of retaliation by those whose rights and livelihoods are trodden upon, reducing effectiveness and efficiency further still

Consequences if no rights in REDD

(3) Aggravates the effects of moral hazard (rewards to deforesters and none to forest conservers) by restricting rewards to worst deforesters:

• For example, with no prior forest tenure reform, REDD benefits would go mainly to cattle ranchers in Central America, who are more likely to have land rights and to be worst deforesters

• This leads to cynicism, lack of identification with national forest conservation strategies, sabotage of REDD efforts, and further undermining of effectiveness and efficiency.

Problems, even with attention to rights in REDD

We recognize that expanding tenure rights can create new problems, e.g.:

• Forest ownership as a precondition for REDD participation creating a land race

• New forest ownership leading to land sell-off

• Privileging of individual forest tenure over communal tenure to overcome free rider problems

But these are probably surmountable problems.

How attention to rights assures effectiveness, efficiency, equity in REDD

Attention to tenure and other rights avoids most negative outcomes described above by:

• Helping to rectify a historic injustice

• Maximizing the number of REDD beneficiaries and area of coverage

• Potentially aiming toward reducing inequalities

• Creating a sense of belonging and identification with the goals of REDD

• Potentially creating incentives for long-term forest custodianship

Necessary steps for adequate attention to rights in REDD

Necessary steps for adequate attention to rights in REDD

(1) Prior forest tenure reform on a large scale through:

• State recognition of customary land claims of indigenous peoples and collective titling

• State recognition and extension of ownership rights and not mere access rights

• Enforcement of existing ownership rights because they frequently do not assure ability to exclude outside claimants, among other problems

• Clarification and extension of community rights not just to land and forest resources, but also to carbon, and also to the full panoply of rights (e.g. human rights, citizenship, civil rights, gender)

Necessary steps for adequate attention to rights in REDD

(2) Procedural priorities in forest reform:

• Full information to, and consultation with forest peoples in design and implementation of REDD

• Up front financing and long timetable, perhaps through trust fund for REDD/property rights through UNFCCC

• Assistance in technical and legal matters

Necessary steps for adequate attention to rights in REDD

(3) Enabling context necessary because attention to rights alone is insufficient:

• Good governance, anti-corruption measures, and oversight of carbon value chain to prevent funds diversion

• Improvement of government capacity

• Regulatory reform to remove anti-poor laws

• Support small and medium enterprises

• Rationalize forest policy: dominance of REDD or agrofuels objectives?

• Link REDD to national development policy

Necessary steps for adequate attention to rights in REDD

(4) Take extra-sectoral logic on board in REDD:

• Many underlying causes of deforestation and degradation reside in society at large and not at forest site, so makes no sense to focus only on local level incentives. (Example: Biofuels expansion nullifying ability of local owners to exclude counter-claimants)

• By same token, most causes of forest restoration to date have little to do with conscious policy steps, so REDD policies must take these society-wide forces into account. (Example: If urban employment reduces forest pressures, expand these opportunities.)

Summary and conclusion

Summary and conclusion

• There are clear instrumental (means → end) reasons for giving strong attention to rights in REDD: It’s a precondition for at least partial fulfillment of effectiveness, efficiency and equity goals

• There are also clear ethical (end in itself) reasons for giving strong attention to rights in REDD: It may be a key step for rectifying a historic wrong

Summary and conclusion

Necessary steps for appropriate implementation of REDD include:

• Prior forest tenure reform on a large scale

• Observance of procedural priorities that fully involve and support forest peoples

• Creation of an enabling policy framework• Take extra-sectoral logic on board in

REDD

Closing thoughts

• Strong representation of forest people is necessary in the planning, implementation, and monitoring of REDD to narrow the gap between an instrumental approach in REDD (mere fulfillment of effectiveness, efficiency, equity) and the broader social justice aspirations of forest peoples

Closing thoughts

• If conditionality is not possible or desirable, then the only option to motivate governments to give adequate attention to rights is to convince them of the need for attention to rights as an essential precondition for successful REDD performance.

William D. Sunderlin - Senior Researcher, Rights and Resources Initiative

Arild Angelsen - Professor, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB)

Timmons Roberts - Professor, College of William and Mary

Thank you