June 2009: The World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), a research center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has initiated a research project on the socioeconomic drivers and impacts of deforestation.

The study will seek to provide policy options for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD).
The project, called REDD-Alert, will focus on land-use changes in Cameroon, Indonesia, Peru and Viet Nam, and investigate key issues related to REDD such as: drivers of change in the forest/agroforest transition; aboveground carbon stock accounting and abatement cost curves; belowground carbon and greenhouse gas emissions of major land-use options in the tropical forest margins; and linking incentives, drivers, emissions and accountability. These and other issues were also discussed during a stakeholder workshop convened on the occasion of the project’s official launch in Bogor, Indonesia, on 25 May 2009.
The project will address the ‘missing link’ between agreed national level targets under international level REDD rules and changes in the behavior of indigenous people, farmers, ranchers, and loggers who live on the land. The findings of this three-year project will be interpreted in respect of current and future UNFCCC policies on deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as in the broader global context of the sustainable use of tropical forests. [Press Release]