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REDD AND REDD+ PROJECTS IN AFRICA


REDD AND REDD+
INTRODUCTION
REDD is the acronym for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. It is a concept currently being developed and negotiated as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The negotiations for REDD centred on the provision of incentives that is financial payments to developing countries to reduce level of their forest losses, and at the same time to promote environmental, economic and social benefits, while protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities. The main idea is that the payments are not for keeping forests, but for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (Parker et al, 2008).
Starting as RED with a single D for deforestation, the second D for forest degradation was added later. More recently, during the climate talks in Ghana in August 2008, the term ‘REDD plus’ was coined. This includes conservation, sustainable management of forests, and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks (Parker et al, 2008).
REDD was first discussed in 2005 by the UNFCCC at its 11th session of the Conference of Parties to the Convention (COP) at the request of Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea, on behalf of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, when they submitted the document “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries”. This idea of REDD became formal at the UNFCCC 13th Conference of the parties (COP 13) in Bali in 2007, the seeds for REDD were planted in the Kyoto Protocol (IPCC, 2000). Also Tanzania is among the countries that initiate the REDD project through UN REDD where by the contract was signed between Norway and the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) in University of Dar es Salaam in 2009.
REDD offering new benefits such as increase income and employment opportunities, improved local environmental assets and long-term stable benefit flows, provides watershed services including reduce peak flows, landslide and water erosion prevention, improve water quality and reduce sedimentation of reservoirs and waterways. Also forest, particularly humid tropical forests, they are extremely rich in biodiversity and provide a range of important ecosystem services, on top of carbon storage cover such as biodiversity, hydrological or scenic beauty as the result there is a need of protecting and preserving the forest (UN REDD, 2009).

REDD also facing some challenges including natural forests and trees are dispersed in an agricultural landscapes, in a global perspective Ghana illustrates an increasingly common scenario where remaining natural forests and trees are dispersed in an agricultural landscape with no single distinct forest frontier (Kanninen, 2007). There is no reliable data which can be used to estimate present carbon stock. The study reveals that there is no reliable data which can be used to estimate present carbon stock and the historic reduction rate in Ghana due to the scattered distribution of closed canopy forests and trees farmland (Diani, 2013). Agricultural expansion, wood extraction and infrastructure extension. The study suggests the proximate (direct) causes of deforestation and forest degradation in Ghana to include agricultural expansion, wood extraction and infrastructure extension. With all three direct causes being at play outside forest reserves and the latter two inside forest reserves, underlying drivers include demographic, economic, technological and policy and institutional factors that are frequently interacting.
The following are the differences between REDD and REDD+
REDD is the abbreviation of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation, is an international mechanism aiming at reducing greenhouse gases caused by deforestation and forest degradation  while  REDD+  is a proposed policy mechanism under UN discussion within the UNFCCC ( United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)                                Conference of parties (COP) for reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation as well as to foster  conservation , sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks  in developing nations also REDD+ is seen as an environmental mechanism for directing funds from the North (developed nation) to the South (developing countries) to help expand low-carbon development and poverty reduction (Brown &Seymour et al ,2008).
REDD+ is seen as a complement to land use, land use change and forestry projects that also targets developing nations for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while REDD is laid in land use, land use change and forestry (Eliasch, 2008 ).
Introduction of concepts around financial mechanisms and equitable distribution of funds. REDD+ provides developing nations an economic alternative to the more destructive use of forest lands thereby providing developing nations and their people a financial to keep their forest intact while REDD was developed to award and to persuade the people to change the use of their forests (MNRT, 2007a).
Inclusion of the rights of Indigenous people and new social and environmental safeguards, REDD considers much on the indigenous knowledge that has been used by the community members in the protecting and managing the forest therefore it is much including their rights in the reduction of emissions of deforestation and forest degradation while the REDD+ is based on the adding of the new ways of conserving and environment management of forest (Odgaard, 2005).
Generally REDD was excluded from the Kyoto protocol because there were policies and methodology issues that were considered too difficult to solve at the time then decided to add plus that is REDD+ to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation while increasing the   conservation, sustainable management of forest, enhancement of forest carbon stocks so that to solve the problems that was facing REDD.












REFERENCES
v  The Special Report of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry, 2000 (IPCC SR LULUCF) and Trines, Eveline, P. (with contributions from Gert-Jan Nabuurs and Jan Verhagen) ‘Land-Use Change and Forestry in future climate regimes:  An inventory of some options’ 9 November 2004 Commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. The Netherlands.
v  Diani, M. 2003 Leaders or brokers? Positions and influence in social movement nrtworks. Pages 105-122 in M. Dian and D. Griffiths, T. 2008. Seeing REDD? Forests, climate change mitigation and the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh, UK.
v  Kanninen, M., Murdiyarso, D., Seymour, F., Angelsen, A., Wunder, S., German, L. 2007. Do trees grow on money? The implications of deforestation research for policies to promote REDD. Forest Perspectives 4. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia, 61p.s
v  Brown D., Seymour F.  And Peskett L. (ed.) (2008). Moving ahead with REDD: Issues, Options and Implications, CIFOR, Bogor Indonesia.
v  Eliasch J. (2008). Eliasch Review: Climate Change _Financing Global forests.
v  Parker C., Mitchell A., Trivedi M and Mardas M. (2008). The Little REDD Book. Global Canopy Foundation.
v  MNRT, 2007a. Community Based Forest Management Guidelines, Ministry of Natural Resource and Tourism. Dar es Salaam.
v  National Framework for Reduced Emissions from Defforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). First Draft. United Republic of Tanzania, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Forestry and Beekeeping Division. February 2009.
v  R. Odgaard: “The Struggle for Land Rights in the context of Multiple Normative Orders in Tanzania”. In S. Ewers, M. Spierenburg and H. Wels: Competing Jurisdictions: Settling Land Claims in Africa. Brill Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands. 2005.


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