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REDD’s scope has been expanded beyond forests and now includes all land and coastal ecosystems. This expanded scope is indicated by the two plus signs after the acronym: REDD++.
Here is a breakdown of REDD’s evolution.
REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) Includes plantations According to the United Nations, a ‘forest’ is any area bigger than 500 square meters with crown cover of 10 per cent and trees capable of growing two meters high. This means that not only the biodiverse forests like the Amazon and the Congo Basin are considered forests for REDD, but also millions of hectares of monoculture tree plantations are considered forests, too. REDD also includes what the UN calls “perverse incentives” to cut down real forests and replace them with plantations of invasive species like pine, eucalyptus, spruce or acacia.11 The UN also allows for the use of genetically modified trees for REDD.12
REDD+ Includes more plantations and logging REDD+ is REDD plus conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancing of carbon stocks.
Here is an explanation of these concepts:
Conservation
Although forest conservation sounds good, the history of the establishment of national parks and protected areas includes massive evictions of indigenous peoples and local communities.13 As a recent study shows, these parks and protected areas performed worse than community-managed forests in controlling deforestation.14
Sustainable forest management (SFM)
In the climate negotiations “sustainable forest management” is code for logging. It is worth noting that “temporally unstocked carbon” is code for clear-cuts and is also allowed under REDD.15
Enhancement of carbon stocks
Enhancing carbon stocks may be implemented through large-scale monoculture plantations with adverse impacts on biodiversity, forests and local communities.
Landscape REDD16, as its names suggests, is REDD with the addition of entire landscapes and could include Climate Smart Agriculture, also a form of REDD with soils and agriculture, and even organic farming and agroecology.
For the purposes of this briefing, we will refer to all the variants of REDD as simply REDD. We will also use the term “REDD-type projects.” REDD- type projects are not officially REDD projects but they use forest carbon to generate carbon credits and are indicative of what the impacts of REDD implementation may be. It is also worth noting that currently REDD is in what is called the “REDD readiness” phase but with the signing of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, REDD may begin to enter into its implementation phase.
