Land Tenure & REDD+: Devolution of Forest Rights, Rights to Benefit from Forest Carbon and Benefit Distribution

The devolution of forest rights to local communities has been proposed as an approach to promote participation of Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities in REDD+. This approach has the potential to offer insight into the interactions between tenure and REDD+ on the ground. National governments own the majority of the world's forest land, with many critics arguing that public stewardship of forests has been poor due to a lack of capacity and/or political will to manage forests sustainably. In response, a global movement in support of devolving forest rights from governments to local levels has emerged. Over recent decades, many communities have gained formal ownership rights to forest land, while others have gained rights to access, use, manage, and/or market forest resources on government-owned land. In many cases, forest rights devolution has been found to result in improved forest stewardship and enhanced local livelihoods. REDD+ is anticipated to channel significant international financing to developing countries from both public and private sources. At the local level, REDD+ financing will need to be transformed into "benefits" that create appropriate incentives and rewards for the domestic stakeholders who contribute to, and/or incur opportunity costs related to REDD+ programs. REDD+ benefits could reach local communities in at least three forms: direct cash payments, direct provision of goods, services, or entitlements, and indirect benefits from the implementation of REDD+ activities. The concept of "carbon rights" is relatively new and poorly understood, with many interpretations varying between legal contexts. Countries must define and clarify who is legally entitled to REDD+ benefits, which could be complex in areas where multiple actors have overlapping forest ownership and usufruct rights. Concerns have been raised that centralized national processes to define carbon rights may actually diminish communities' customary rights to use and manage forest resources. The three reports commissioned by the USAID Land Tenure Division describe important links between existing LTPR regimes and emerging REDD+ programs. Specifically, the reports reveal three ways that LTPR is likely to impact REDD+: LTPR influences forest management outcomes, though the relationship is not always direct or predictable; LTPR has implications for the clarity and security of carbon rights, thus playing a role in access to REDD+ benefits; and LTPR may shape local benefit sharing rules and institutions. To shed light on how these relationships work in practice, the case study findings will be presented in the context of three generic LTPR scenarios: areas where full ownership rights have been devolved to forest-dependent communities; areas where there are co-management arrangements or limited devolution of rights to communities; and areas where there is no legal recognition of community forest rights. These scenarios are stylized, and results for both social and emission reduction objectives will be highly contextual. Scenario 1: Devolution of full ownership rights to communities. Since 1980, local communities and Indigenous Peoples have gained ownership rights over large areas of forest land, particularly in Latin America and to a lesser degree in Asia and Africa. Granting communities control over forest resources can provide impetus to develop improved forest management rules. However, evidence suggests that secure tenure by itself does not ensure improved stewardship. Experiences in Latin America suggest that overarching incentive structures, regulatory frameworks, and community capacity are also key factors for enabling sustainable forest management on community-owned lands. The case studies suggest that communities that own their land are more likely to have clear and secure rights to benefit from forest carbon, even if carbon rights are not explicitly addressed in the law. In Mexico, for example, land-owning agrarian communities known as ejidos are thought to be in a strong position to participate in and benefit from REDD+. Intermediary institutions may be necessary to link ejidos to the entities seeking to invest in forest carbon. Nonetheless, ejidos are likely to be the focal point for REDD+ activities in Mexico.