Avoided Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Abstract
Deforestation and forest degradation account for one fifth of greenhouse gas emissions
around the world, second only to fossil fuel combustion. While the Kyoto Protocol
has no mechanism that aims to stop forest loss, climate negotiators have begun to
devise a program – to be built into Kyoto’s successor – that would reward developing
countries for “avoiding deforestation” that otherwise would have occurred. Reduced
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, certainly offers a lot
of promise: by allowing poor forested countries to earn, and then sell, tradable carbon
credits on a global carbon market, the program could generate a substantial amount
of revenue. And many observers have argued that these funds could be used to help
fight poverty in forest-dwelling communities.
But REDD implementation would not be easy: it would require the technical capacity
to measure and monitor forest cover and the governance capacity to both stop forest
loss and distribute REDD-derived income. These challenges would be particularly daunting
in countries that already struggle to govern effectively. To consider this issue in
greater depth, this paper uses the Democratic Republic of Congo as a lens through
which to examine the challenges of REDD implementation, especially with regard to
how the program might impact the country’s poor forest dwellers. The paper concludes
that, in the face of such governance challenges, the DRC should take concrete steps
to create a facilitating environment for the program’s implementation. These steps
include increasing investment in the forest sector, strengthening land tenure among
forest-dwelling people, devolving more control over forests to local actors, and taking
measures to increase transparency and combat corruption.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/846Citation
McClanahan, Paige (2008). Avoided Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/846.Collections
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