Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, plus conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) is an international policy mechanism that seeks to mitigate climate change, while potentially alleviating poverty and contributing towards biodiversity conservation in developing countries. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) laid the foundations for REDD+ design and implementation in 2005 and the mechanism’s architecture was finalised in 2015. During that period, parties to the UNFCCC debated and developed procedures and guidelines on REDD+ technical and governance issues, including for example how to guarantee the meaningful participation of all relevant stakeholders and how to respect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. In parallel, several developing countries, supported by multilateral and bilateral aid, entered the so-called REDD+ readiness phase and started developing national strategies for implementing REDD+ activities through specific policies and actions. This thesis addresses three main issues of concern for REDD+ scholars and practitioners using Mexico’s readiness process as an example. First, it analyses the design and legitimacy of the institutional arrangements established by the Mexican government to draft the REDD+ national strategy. Second, it identifies the REDD+ discourses mobilised by the actors involved in the country’s REDD+ readiness process and it highlights how such discourses are reflected in national policy documents, thus shedding light on dominant ideas and narratives permeating into the national strategy. Third, using two rural communities as case studies, the thesis investigates the preferred scenarios for REDD+ implementation and benefit-sharing at the local level, and it identifies the key contextual and socio-economic factors mediating such preferences. At the national level, there is a high level of decision-making centralisation within the federal government’s environment agencies and there are two groups of participating actors with contrasting perceptions about the legitimacy of the REDD+ readiness phase. Among these actors, three main REDD+ discourses are identified. The first discourse relies on global environmental justice arguments to challenge the assumptions and foundations of REDD+ and, therefore, such discourse is not reflected in policy decisions to date. The second and partly institutionalised discourse encourages legal and policy reforms for REDD+ implementation to achieve social benefits and equitable outcomes across national REDD+ stakeholders. The third and dominant discourse openly supports REDD+ implementation but remarks the importance of making it an effective mechanism from a mitigation perspective. At the local level, findings indicate that, in the hypothetical case that REDD+ activities had to be developed, local people would prefer to implement a combination of land-use productive and conservation activities with governmental support, in exchange of direct payments. The results also reveal that individual preferences for REDD+ implementation and benefit-sharing are mediated by land tenure, gender and social status. This thesis contributes to a growing body of research analysing REDD+ governance processes. It suggests that Mexico’s government needs to decentralise the REDD+ design process to improve its legitimacy and perceived fairness. This would likely increase actors’ participation and the institutionalisation of their ideas. Overall, the research suggests that countries can only develop legitimate and fair REDD+ architecture if they avoid reproducing old-fashioned, government-led policy processes that might result in unfair policies. Instead, REDD+ host countries should design novel institutional arrangements to recognise the diversity of actors involved in land-use activities and their uneven power in policy design, while being sensitive to a diversity of narratives and positions about how to operationalise REDD+ at the desk and on the ground.
Uncovering REDD+ readiness in Mexico: actors, discourses and benefit-sharing
Spiric , J. (Author). 1 Feb 2016
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis