An APN-sponsored conference was held at St. Anne’s College, Oxford, on 23-24 March 2012, to discuss this question of how justice and equity can be ensured for a mechanism that permeates local, national and international levels of governance. It was co-organised by the University of East Anglia, the University of Oxford and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and brought together some 110 REDD+ scholars and practitioners from around the word to address the pressing concerns of REDD+ and its implications for economically marginalised people. What has emerged from discussions is that to get REDD+ right is to effectively coordinate and implement it across levels of governance – from international REDD+ rule making through national law making to local practice building. Challenges include: (1) communicating across knowledge traditions of natural versus social sciences and Western versus indigenous approaches; (2) a clash of framings of deforestation and underlying agendas from carbon sequestration and commodification of carbon at the international level through economic development at the national level to forest conservation and traditional forest stewardship at the local level; and (3) transforming disjointed attempts at developing ‘safeguards’ and ‘co-benefits’ internationally into integrated and livelihood-enhancing objectives on the ground.
Project • AOA2011-05NSY-Forest Governance