5 December 2014: The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) convened an event on the sidelines of the Lima Climate Change Conference titled ‘REDD+ Emerging?: What We Can Learn from Sub-National Initiatives.’ The event’s speakers, starting from the premise that sub-national initiatives provide the context in which national and international policies must operate, considered both the challenges sub-national REDD+ initiatives face and ways to align local and national level actions.

Presenters focused on overcoming these challenges and scaling sub-national initiatives. They noted the importance of embracing realities on the ground and local variations in REDD+ implementation, explaining that credible benefit-sharing mechanisms can ensure community buy-in and stressing the need for both community and gubernatorial leadership.

William Sunderlin, CIFOR, presented “REDD+ on the Ground: Lessons from CIFOR’s global comparative study,” a recently launched publication focusing on subnational initiatives. He highlighted challenges such as financing, tenure, scale, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) and safeguards. On financing, he informed participants that currently most sub-national initiatives rely on non-conditional livelihood payments, which he described as far from the original expectation of REDD+.

Heru Prasetyo, Head, REDD+ Agency, Indonesia, discussed the integration of sub-national activities into a national framework. He highlighted his country’s bottom-up jurisdictional approach, drawing attention to memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with eight provinces to ensure equitable sustainable growth, curb biodiversity loss and lower carbon emissions in order to achieve green growth and implement REDD+.

Márcio Sztutman, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), presented the case of the Brazilian municipality São Felix do Xingu, which was on the national black list due to massive deforestation driven by cattle ranching, illegal logging, illegal land appropriation and weak governance structures. He described measures taken to restore São Felix do Xingu, including the implementation of a rural environmental registry to provide information for deforestation attribution and the establishment of a sustainable beef “farm-to-fork” initiative.

Monica de los Rios, State of Acre, Brazil, spoke on REDD-readiness in her state, noting that Acre has channeled funds allocated to REDD+ to local communities and conservation efforts. Though the municipality is now REDD-ready, she explained that balancing low deforestation rates with economic and social development will remain a challenge.

In the discussion, participants added, inter alia, that forestry schools should provide more region-specific education; the market should be linked to sector-specific REDD+ activities; and communities should be more effectively engaged in the implementation process. CIFOR is a member of the CGIAR Consortium. [IISD RS ENBOTS Coverage] [IISD RS Coverage of Lima Climate Change Conference] [CIFOR Event Announcement] [IISD RS Story on CIFOR Publication]