Social Safeguards in National and Sub-national REDD+ Initiatives: A comparison based on literature review

Abstract

REDD+ is an approach to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, using economic incentives to influence behavior. The need for safeguards has emerged to avoid the negative social and environmental impacts caused by an overemphasis of such economic incentives. In the context of safeguards, in addition to the UNFCCC's official efforts, voluntary activities (initiatives) by many organizations have attempted to formulate principles, criteria, indicators and guidelines. In this article, we clarified the elements to enhance social safeguards and discussed how those elements are included in each initiative. We reviewed the literature on the SEPC, SESA and REDD+ SES initiatives, and clarified the focal points and problems relating to social safeguards. We found that benefit-sharing is an important aspect of social safeguards, and that more discussions are needed to enhance initiatives. The REDD+ SES initiative has received little criticism in literature to date and has the best-covered elements including "benefit-sharing" among the three initiatives. If more countries adopt REDD+ SES and more cases can be accumulated to identify problems and solutions, it could become a popular initiative in the international community to enhance the social safeguards in REDD+.

Navigating a just and peaceful transition: Environment of Peace (Part 3)

“…110 Another set of safeguards developed by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, 111 the REDD+ Social and Environmental Standards (REDD+ SES), sets out 28 criteria over seven principles, including land rights, benefit sharing, good governance, biodiversity, participation and the rule of law. 112 Despite such safeguards, REDD+ continues to be a potential driver of conflict risk, especially in a context where forests are viewed primarily as carbon sinks rather than complex ecosystems. 113 This threat persists because projects consist of multiple actors-including affected communities, private investors, civil society, and local, regional, national and international governance-each of which has a different interpretation of the rules.…”

Natural climate solution potential in the ASEAN region—Opportunity for investment in natural climate solution readiness in national climate policies with meaningful co‐benefits

“…Seven countries -Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnamhave submitted their FRL/FREL (Table727,28 ). SIS is an important and only element amongst the Warsaw Framework that focuses on avoiding negative social and other environmental impacts and risks that may be caused by REDD+ projects, especially by securing of benefit sharing with local communities 29. REDD+ projects and site-scale activities will need to be integrated into national REDD+ programs through a process referred to as "nesting."…”