The latest news from the UN-REDD Programme

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PERSPECTIVES

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Greetings!

Welcome to our first Resource in 2020, the Super Year for Nature. We have ahead of us 10 months packed with critical milestones for people and planet. And forests, a tested, proven and available key nature-based solution with an annual 5.3 GtCO2e potential, are at the centre. In addition, as the articles show, they deliver on biodiversity conservation, water protection and improved local livelihoods - making a significant contribution to the Sustainable Development Agenda.

FAO’s Director-General Qu Dongyu , UNDP’s Administrator Achim Steiner and UNEP’s Executive Director Inger Andersen highlight in their article the exemplary collaboration between the UN-REDD agencies in supporting Paraguay with its highly successful Green Climate Fund (GCF) results-based payment proposal and forthcoming implementation. This ONE UN effort also provides a stellar example of joining forces to respond to the call by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to build an unstoppable momentum for the SDG Decade of Action and the future we want.

As other articles underline, benefit sharing needs to begin at the grassroots. When communities have a true voice in determining how benefits from forest protection are shared, their commitment and support are dramatically increased. An outstanding community leader was the late Nobel Laureate and Green Belt Movement founder Wangari Mathai whose Day we celebrate this week. Let us find our inspiration in her tireless and brave actions to protect the forests of the world.

“There are opportunities even in the most difficult moments.”

― Wangari Maathai

PERSPECTIVES

Why Paraguay can be “beacon state” for forest management

UN agencies are jointly collaborating to advise Paraguay on accessing and managing result-based payments from a range of public and private sources thus ensuring robust fiduciary management and compliance with UNFCCC social and environment safeguards.

Getting the incentives right on forest protection - guest blog from the World Bank BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes

When discussions about benefit sharing focus exclusively on revenue distribution from carbon payments, they ignore some of the most meaningful benefits a REDD+ program can deliver—things like improved forest governance structures, clarified land tenure arrangements, enhanced biodiversity, or other ecosystem services. A number of global forest and climate initiatives, including the UN-REDD Programme , have supported the informed and meaningful involvement of all stakeholders, including Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent communities.

¿Por qué Paraguay puede ser un “país imán” para el manejo forestal?

Las agencias de la ONU ahora están colaborando conjuntamente para asesorar a Paraguay sobre el acceso y la gestión de pagos por resultados de una variedad de fuentes públicas y privadas, asegurando así una gestión fiduciaria sólida y el cumplimiento de las salvaguardas sociales y ambientales de la CMNUCC.

Indigenous voices, a policy spark to protect the world's forests

Connecting indigenous knowledge with climate finance is drawing up transformational pathways for sustainability, including reforms for the sustainable governance of lands and forests, and actions to recognise community rights.

STORIES

REDD+ hits the road in Democratic Republic of the Congo

The project aims to reduce emissions by addressing the key drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, including shifting agriculture, logging and charcoal/fuelwood production. Indigenous peoples and local communities play an important role in it.

The indigenous approach to National Forest Monitoring in Peru

A set of indigenous forest monitoring initiatives has been developed in Peru to generate useful data and information for the management of their resources, and ultimately, to empower local and indigenous communities to monitor and measure their forests.

Mapping forest degradation using remote sensing data in Uganda

Uganda has started developing a structured NFMS within the framework of the UN-REDD Programme’s support. Today, the Remote Sensing/GIS unit is considered one of the most strategic of the NFA.

"One mangrove, a thousand hopes" – mangrove rehabilitation in Nigeria

The need to restore mangroves inspired Williamson to get involved in a Community Based REDD+ (CBR+) project that saw the whole community come together to plant more than 10,000 seedlings.

2019 Progress on REDD+ safeguards: a year in review

Unprecedented progress in meeting REDD+ safeguards requirements was made in 2019. Over the course of the year, the number of safeguard information systems that were put online doubled. The same happened with summaries of safeguards information.

Planning for REDD+ benefits beyond carbon

In order to ensure benefits beyond carbon, a series of articles analyses the lessons learned from country experiences such as Argentina, Cote d’Ivoire and Vietnam.

Cote d'Ivoire: how to finance the transition to agroforestry?

The main issue with cocoa production in West Africa is the quality and quantity of cocoa yields has been systematically failing over the years. Extensive cultivation practices have meant ever-increasing expansion of cocoa areas, deterioration of soil quality and decreasing crop yields.

Making secured Collective Tenure Rights a reality in Nepal, Peru and Tanzania

The recently-launched paper, “Collective tenure rights: Realizing the potential for REDD+ and sustainable development,” explores the key contribution of collective tenure rights towards mitigating climate change, and proposes a range of measures that countries can take to accelerate progress towards collective tenure rights recognition.

#vlogging4forests: youth advocating for forests

“I feel a strong need to share simple stories that will increase people’s knowledge of the importance of forests. Since people tend to believe what they see over what they hear, vlogging is a good way to raise awareness,” says Oluwaseun Adekugbe from Akure, Nigeria.

Knowledge exchanges for the development of strategies to increase finance for the forestry sector

The UN-REDD Programme convened six virtual exchanges over the course of 2019 with 6 national development banks in the region with the aim of sharing experiences in the design and management of financial instruments for the forestry sector in Latin America.

Championing women’s inclusion in forests for climate change action in Asia Pacific

Over the years, the UN-REDD Programme has supported countries in integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment into the design and implementation of REDD+ actions. To help illustrate the breadth of this support, a series of gender and REDD+ case studies from the Asia-Pacific region have been put together.

From data to decisions: How countries link forest monitoring into policy-making

It is often acknowledged that making decisions based on scientific evidence is good practice and that, therefore, providing decision-makers with reliable information is an important development strategy.

Chile restores its native forests affected by the Canadian beaver

They brought 20 beavers and released them in Lake Fagnano, with the aim of creating a fur industry that later did not receive much attention. The beaver can now be found in an environment without predators and gradually begins to settle on the island, and because it has a kind of forest that does not resist flooding, it begins to generate a drastic impact on the areas it floods, causing hypoxia in the surrounding species.

Chile restaura bosques n a tivos afectados por el castor canadensis

Traen 20 castores y los liberan en el lago Fagnano, con el objeto de crear una industria peletera que luego no recibe mayor atención. El castor se encuentra en un sitio sin depredadores y gradualmente empieza a instalarse en la isla y al tener una especie de bosque que no resiste la inundación, empieza a generar un impacto drástico en las zonas que anega, provocando la hipoxia de las especies circundante.

Gender at the forefront of National Forest Monitoring Systems

Women and men frequently have differing roles, responsibilities and priorities in their use, knowledge and experience of forests. This knowledge can offer critical inputs to policy and field interventions that will enable the long-term success of REDD+ and other actions against deforestation on the ground.