by William Sunderlin, Senior Researcher, Rights and Resources Initiative

1. Rights: An essential
precondition for effectiveness,
efficiency and equity in REDD
by William D. Sunderlin, Arild Angelsen
and Timmons Roberts
“Rights, Forests and Climate Change”
A joint conference convened by Rights and Resources Initiative & Rainforest Foundation Norway
Oslo, Norway, 15-17 October 2008

2. Structure of presentation
• Definition of terms
• Rights, forests, REDD and justice
• Consequences if no rights in REDD
• Problems, even with attention to rights in REDD
• How attention to rights assures effectiveness,
efficiency, and equity in REDD
• Necessary steps for adequate attention to rights
in REDD
• Summary and closing thoughts

3. Definition of terms
• Rights = tenure over land, trees, carbon, but also broader
range of rights
• REDD =
 At the global level
 Readiness funds (capacity building)
 An incentive mechanism (implementation of pay the polluter
principle) in a possible Copenhagen protocol
 In national strategies:
 Implement similar incentive mechanisms through performance-
based pay to forest owners/users/managers
 Tenure and governance reforms
 Extra-sectoral policies

4. Definition of terms
• Effectiveness = to what extent REDD
reduces GHGs
• Efficiency = to what extent REDD
achieves goal at minimum cost
• Equity = to what extent REDD achieves
fair distribution of cost and benefits in the
program

5. Rights, forests, REDD and justice
• Few people in forests have statutory rights of ownership
or access
• Long history of exclusion only recently beginning to head
in a good direction
• Reasons for recognizing rights in forests predates REDD
• REDD threatens to worsen rights violations if rights not
given adequate attention in REDD
• Conversely REDD can greatly assist fulfillment of rights if
given adequate attention
• Rights in REDD should be seen not just as a means for
effectiveness, efficiency, and equity within REDD, but as
an end for attaining broader social justice goals

6. Consequences if no rights in REDD
(1) Contracts and benefits will go to the relatively
few and large forest owners causing:
• Increasing inequality, resentment, and conflict in
forest population (inequity), especially if large
amounts of REDD funds attract powerful elites
• Reduced effectiveness and efficiency of REDD
because of sub-optimal area of coverage
• Possibility of retaliatory sabotage by those left out,
further reducing effectiveness and efficiency

7. Consequences if no rights in REDD
(2) Government will resort to renewed and
increased state control to compensate for low area
coverage, which will cause or aggravate:
• Anti-people, “guns and fences,” exclusionary models
of forest conservation
• Possibility of evictions of people from forests they
depend on for livelihoods
• Increased violation of tenure and other rights
• Possibility of retaliation by those whose rights and
livelihoods are trodden upon, reducing effectiveness
and efficiency further still

8. Consequences if no rights in REDD
(3) Aggravates the effects of moral hazard (rewards
to deforesters and none to forest conservers) by
restricting rewards to worst deforesters:
• For example, with no prior forest tenure reform,
REDD benefits would go mainly to cattle ranchers in
Central America, who are more likely to have land
rights and to be worst deforesters
• This leads to cynicism, lack of identification with
national forest conservation strategies, sabotage of
REDD efforts, and further undermining of
effectiveness and efficiency.

9. Problems, even with attention to rights in
REDD
We recognize that expanding tenure rights can
create new problems, e.g.:
• Forest ownership as a precondition for REDD
participation creating a land race
• New forest ownership leading to land sell-off
• Privileging of individual forest tenure over
communal tenure to overcome free rider
problems
But these are probably surmountable problems.

10. How attention to rights assures effectiveness,
efficiency, equity in REDD
Attention to tenure and other rights avoids most
negative outcomes described above by:
• Helping to rectify a historic injustice
• Maximizing the number of REDD beneficiaries
and area of coverage
• Potentially aiming toward reducing inequalities
• Creating a sense of belonging and identification
with the goals of REDD
• Potentially creating incentives for long-term
forest custodianship

11. Necessary steps for adequate attention to
rights in REDD

12. Necessary steps for adequate attention to
rights in REDD
(1) Prior forest tenure reform on a large scale through:
• State recognition of customary land claims of
indigenous peoples and collective titling
• State recognition and extension of ownership rights and
not mere access rights
• Enforcement of existing ownership rights because they
frequently do not assure ability to exclude outside
claimants, among other problems
• Clarification and extension of community rights not just
to land and forest resources, but also to carbon, and
also to the full panoply of rights (e.g. human rights,
citizenship, civil rights, gender)

13. Necessary steps for adequate attention to
rights in REDD
(2) Procedural priorities in forest reform:
• Full information to, and consultation with forest peoples in
design and implementation of REDD
• Up front financing and long timetable, perhaps through
trust fund for REDD/property rights through UNFCCC
• Assistance in technical and legal matters

14. Necessary steps for adequate attention to
rights in REDD
(3) Enabling context necessary because attention to
rights alone is insufficient:
• Good governance, anti-corruption measures, and
oversight of carbon value chain to prevent funds diversion
• Improvement of government capacity
• Regulatory reform to remove anti-poor laws
• Support small and medium enterprises
• Rationalize forest policy: dominance of REDD or agrofuels
objectives?
• Link REDD to national development policy

15. Necessary steps for adequate attention to
rights in REDD
(4) Take extra-sectoral logic on board in REDD:
• Many underlying causes of deforestation and degradation
reside in society at large and not at forest site, so makes
no sense to focus only on local level incentives. (Example:
Biofuels expansion nullifying ability of local owners to
exclude counter-claimants)
• By same token, most causes of forest restoration to date
have little to do with conscious policy steps, so REDD
policies must take these society-wide forces into account.
(Example: If urban employment reduces forest pressures,
expand these opportunities.)

16. Summary and conclusion

17. Summary and conclusion
• There are clear instrumental (means →
end) reasons for giving strong attention to
rights in REDD: It’s a precondition for at
least partial fulfillment of effectiveness,
efficiency and equity goals
• There are also clear ethical (end in itself)
reasons for giving strong attention to rights
in REDD: It may be a key step for
rectifying a historic wrong

18. Summary and conclusion
Necessary steps for appropriate
implementation of REDD include:
• Prior forest tenure reform on a large
scale
• Observance of procedural priorities that
fully involve and support forest peoples
• Creation of an enabling policy framework
• Take extra-sectoral logic on board in
REDD

19. Closing thoughts
• Strong representation of forest people is
necessary in the planning,
implementation, and monitoring of REDD
to narrow the gap between an
instrumental approach in REDD (mere
fulfillment of effectiveness, efficiency,
equity) and the broader social justice
aspirations of forest peoples

20. Closing thoughts
• If conditionality is not possible or
desirable, then the only option to motivate
governments to give adequate attention to
rights is to convince them of the need for
attention to rights as an essential
precondition for successful REDD
performance.

21. Thank you
William D. Sunderlin - Senior Researcher, Rights and Resources Initiative
Arild Angelsen - Professor, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB)
Timmons Roberts - Professor, College of William and Mary