Page 31 - Governing Congo Basin Forests in a Changing Climate • Olufunso Somorin

General Introduction and Research Setting
Locatelli et al., 2008 & 2011; Pramova et al., 2012). While a few authors focused
on meta-analysis of scientific publications, others have reviewed the National 1 Adaptation Programme of Actions (NAPAs) submitted by low income countries
(mostly countries in sub-Saharan Africa) to the UNFCCC. Examples of forest-
related activities that constitute adaptation strategies include: sustainable
forest management (SFM); natural resource management (NRM), conservation
of forest genetic resources; conservation of biodiversity-rich primary forests;
restoration of degraded forestlands through reforestation or afforestation; soil/
water conservation; rangeland management; and improvement of plant and
wildlife habitats. For instance, SFM and restoration of degraded forestlands can
offer opportunities for providing forest goods for local communities to support
improving their livelihoods and diversify their income sources (see MEA, 2005).
Despite the recognition of these roles, literature holds that contestations still
remain among policy actors in most developing countries on designing policies
to promote these roles.
The role of forests in climate mitigation is rather straightforward, at least from the literature. Through the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation2 (REDD+) mechanism, tropical forest is now regarded as one of the solutions to mitigating climate change (Miles and Kapos, 2008; Angelsen et al., 2009; Grainger et al., 2009; Corbera and Schroeder, 2011; Gupta, 2013). REDD+ is intended to establish incentives for developing countries to protect and better manage their forests by creating and recognizing a financial value for the additional carbon stored in forest ecosystems (Agrawal et al., 2011; Corbera and Schroeder, 2011; Lederer, 2012). Nevertheless, a number of political contestations still exist around REDD+, and they include: global architectures, the financing mechanism (direct funding vs market-based), national design and implementation, natural forests vs. forest plantations, land tenure, carbon rights, safeguard issues, technical issues such as reference levels, leakage, monitoring, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), and benefit sharing (Angelsen et al., 2009; Skutsch and McCall, 2010; Agrawal et al., 2011; Brown et al., 2011; Visseren-Hamakers et al., 2012; Awono et al., 2014, Buizer et al., 2014). In any case, many tropical countries have signalled their interest in REDD+, and are
2 Within the UNFCCC, the full meaning of REDD+ is “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries”. This full definition provides insight into eligible activities under REDD+.
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