Some thirty-eight participants and resource persons attended the CoDe REDD event last October 7, 2009 at China Room, RECOFTC, Katsetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. The event was held parallel to the UN Climate Change Talks in Bangkok to provide a venue for Asian CSOs to share their efforts in REDD discussions; and eventually develop a regional REDD network strategy for engagement in Copenhagen and beyond. Country reports from the Federation of Community Forestry Users (FECOFUN) of Nepal; WALHI of Aceh, Indonesia; Vasundhara of India, Community Based Natural Resource Management Learning Institute of Cambodia, and Sustainable Rural Development of Vietnam highlighted lessons on initial REDD implementation in respective countries.
Key issues raised were:
a)benefit sharing brought to the fore concerns on risk of elite capture, capacity of government to manage,
b)low awareness of local communities,
c)transparency in community consultation and participation, rights holders,
d)land tenure security;
e)benefit sharing mechanisms;
f)capacity building, technical assistance and technology transfer;
g)sources of funds and REDD payment mechanisms.
What did Resource Persons say about REDD?
Mary Ann Sering, DENR Undersecretary:
The Philippine Government has the intentions to engage Civil Society Organizations and all stakeholders and that their inputs are appreciated and valued. The Philippines is pushing for its REDD ++ position (biodiversity conservation, IP rights, and governance) to the UNFCC negotiation, and recognizes the importance of looking not only at mitigation but also adaptation as recent typhoons in the Philippines are lessons to learn from.
Timothy Boyle, UN-REDD Regional Coordinator for Asia:
Thus far, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Vietnam have submitted but addtional countries like Cambodia, Sri Lanka are underway. The Philippines has expressed its interest of becoming a UN-REDD country.
Bhola Bhattarai of the FECOFUN:
There is a need for IPs and local communities’ full and effective participation in all stages of decision making. Land tenure system of Nepal is not favorable to IPs and LCs for their collective ownership of the land and resources. Nepal is concerned on how they can reduce the transaction costs of REDD project; government and broker’s role; and benefit sharing scheme across sectors… REDD pilot will be a great opportunity to re-direct constitutional, legal and policy framework for carbon within forestry sector… Community based forestry as learning ground, can demonstrate that the current institutional framework that could be used for REDD+ under voluntary market.
Romy Acosta, CoDe REDD Phil Technical Adviser:
REDD is presently not included in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. Under the Kyoto protocol, developed countries can finance projects in developing countries that can help offset their CO2 emission. The logic is simple: it is much cheaper for industrialized countries to invest in mitigation program in developing countries than to adopt measures that will affect their industrialization. These are the potentials and the uncertainties of REDD as a new project: (a) Determination of baselines, monitoring of carbon-stock changes and measurement; (b) National, sub-national, or project level approaches; (c) Issues of leakage, permanence and risks, (d) Measurement Reporting and Verification (MRV); and (e) Capacity building, technical assistance, technology transfer.
Ben Vickers, RECOFTC:
Community-based forest management is a key element to effective REDD implementation including the advantages of the same. For REDD to be effective, he said that follwoing activities should be undertaken:
(a) Mobilize local communities for the assessment of forest degradation for REDD; (b) hybrid approach to forest carbon accounting— combining remote sensing technology with community-based carbon accounting; (c) Including degradation as a powerful incentive for state and non state actors to implement and practice sustainable forest management, including through CBFM; (d) Local and indigenous sustainable forest management practices should be analyzed, documented, and recognized as strategies to reduce forest degradation.
Gangga R. Dahal, RRI Regional Facilitator for Asia:
Security of tenure should be given primary importance. Systems of rights, rules, institutions and processes regulating resource access and use is key to shaping the distribution of risks, costs and benefits. Security of tenure, gives local people more leverage in negotiation with government and private sector. REDD, as a changing paradigm, is “ No timber without trees; no trees without tenure; and no REDD without Rights”
Lawrence Ang, OPACC-Philippines:
There is a reference to include agriculture in it REDD. SFM is associated with industrial timber corporations and a lot of developing countries are careful about this. But these are contested by NGOs.
Ron Gutierrez, Philippine Delegation:
Among the possible problems in the REDD text negotiation may include: institutional arrangement; fund source; portfolio approach to securing financial support (whether market-based or fund-based), and would allow various options in securing funds (specialized funds, community trust funds, REDD window of the International Climate Fund, etc.), among others.
The Philippines has been busy as the Philippine Government policies lean towards exploiting areas for REDD. On the Other hand, CSOs have been busy with other issues like mining. It is only now that REDD is seen as an alternative to generate funds. The Philippines can learn from experiences of other countries in a few months time as strategies could be modeled.
Allison Bleaney, REDDnet:
The October 6 REDD net plan can be summarized into three thematic focus: Benefits sharing, participation and conflicts very well shared, Participation is the key focus to capacity building, and The question of looking at differences and similarities of development programs.
An action plan for the next 3 months capped the Bangkok activity.
