Greening the blue Pacific: Lessons on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+)

Shipra Shah and Digby Race

Forest Policy and Economics, 2024, vol. 166, issue C

Abstract: Across the Pacific, deforestation and forest degradation are driving the loss of ecosystem services. Increasing recognition of the need for mechanisms that can bridge economic development and environmental sustainability has led to the emergence of the broad concept of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), including Payments for Environmental Services (PES) such as ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’ (REDD+) of forested areas. REDD+ projects are being piloted in the region, but the scale of adoption remains limited raising doubts about whether the concept has much appeal beyond small-scale government-supported initiatives. Although a relatively simple concept, it is proving difficult to translate into an appealing practice that is widely understood and adopted by rural land managers. We conducted a review of the achievements and challenges of REDD+ projects in Melanesia while drawing on global and regional lessons. Most projects are reaping the benefits of enhanced community development, employment, capacity building, and stronger governance. Perverse incentives, lack of systematic assessments of carbon offsets, poor stakeholder engagement, insufficient feedback mechanisms, marginalisation of women, and the lack of prosperous and sustainable alternative livelihoods remain key challenges. This suggests the need for developing policy mixes, understanding the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, addressing equity concerns, strengthening tenure security, removing perverse incentives, and ensuring financially competitive conservation incentives for enhancing the appeal of REDD+ to rural communities, policymakers, and the private sector, so its reach across the Pacific can be extended.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Forest conservation; Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; Pacific Islands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934124001175
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:166:y:2024:i:c:s1389934124001175

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103263

Access Statistics for this article

Forest Policy and Economics is currently edited by M. Krott

More articles in Forest Policy and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().