The likely mechanism for implementing REDD policy in Tanzania
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Date
2012
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Think Global Act Local, Research Project
Abstract
Till 2012, establishing new forest is the only eligible practice for forest carbon trading under the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Management of natural forest is not credited at present.
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) policy, is an alternative
mechanism that is still discussed for the post 2012 regime. Under REDD, countries would, on a
voluntary basis, aim to reduce the rate at which their forests are being lost, and receive compensation
in proportion to the carbon emissions saved compared to a baseline reference scenario which
represent the ‘without intervention’ case. The REDD policy is therefore likely to be undertaken
nationally, the country deforestation baseline would be determined by depicting historical land use
changes from satellite imagery and typical carbon stock data for different types of forests to calculate
the changes in terms of tons of carbon. After developing national level reference scenarios for the
entire country, a system of ‘nested baselines’ i.e. an interlocking set of baselines that covers the whole
country and sums to the national baseline is needed. ‘Nested baselines’ are necessary to
operationalize REDD internally for the different geographic regions and to account for different
forest regimes e.g. national parks, forest reserves, community forests, and private forests. This system
is needed in order to provide incentives to stakeholders who are responsible for reductions in carbon
losses within the country. In line with the current forest policy, the government is urged to consider
Participatory Forest Management (PFM) as part of their approach under REDD. The established
village framework in the Tanzanian Government offers the opportunity for implementing the REDD
policy nationally. This can be achieved through developing and implementing land use plan for each
village. From the start of the project, monitoring is done to determine the standing stock in both
protective forests and productive forests. For a village to be rewarded carbon credits at any
accounting time there must be evidence of forest enhancement or reduced deforestation/degradation.
Since there are no data on carbon stocks, studies on forest inventories using methodology such as that
developed by the Kyoto: Think Global Act Local research project are recommended. Possible strategy
for the scaling up of the participatory inventory methodology is to train villagers and their local
supporting forest staff to carry-out forest inventories on their own in the entire country.
Description
Kyoto: Think Global Act Local, Research Project
Sokoine University of Agriculture,
Morogoro, Tanzania.
Keywords
Implementing REDD Policy, REDD+, Management natural forest, Tanzania