The goal to seek reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) was accepted (in decision 2/CP.13) at the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 13), held in Bali in 2007. The challenge is to establish a functioning international REDD finance mechanism to provide appropriate revenue streams to the right people at the right time to make it worthwhile for them to change their forest resource use behaviour. REDD mechanisms need to take account of lessons learned on sustainable forest management, experience with forest governance projects and from the voluntary carbon market and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) on project design and emissions measurement methodologies.

A range of programmes and projects are responding to this challenge. For example, FAO, UNDP and UNEP have developed a collaborative REDD programme aimed at:

“Tipping the economic balance in favour of sustainable management of forests so that their formidable economic, environmental and social goods and services benefit countries, communities and forest users while also contributing to important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.….. The immediate goal is to assess whether carefully structured payment structures and capacity support can create the incentives to ensure actual, lasting, achievable, reliable and measurable emission reductions while maintaining and improving the other ecosystem services forests provide”.

(http://www.undp.org/mdtf/UN-REDD/overview.shtml)

An example of a highly successful REDD pilot initiative is the Juma Sustainable Development Reserve project in Amazonas State, Brazil. The programme involves direct monthly payments to families for continuing farming methods that do not involve forest degradation (satellites spotting fires which trigger to payments in that locality being suspended). It includes a benefit-sharing mechanism for local communities, who receive 100% of the benefits obtained in the voluntary carbon markets which are currently attracting the financial commitment of e.g. a major hotel chain (for more information, see Viana, 2010)

For such schemes to move beyond isolated examples, their potentials, risks and requirements need to be mainstreamed into the work of forestry, agriculture and rural development agencies and local authorities. These organisations are in the best position to use the schemes’ potential to tip the financial and governance balance in forestry or agriculture in favour of environmental and social sustainability.