Biodiversity safeguards were introduced into the REDD+ mechanism to avoid potential harm to biodiversity. However, for REDD+ to truly contribute to biodiversity conservation, initiatives must go much further.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) attempts to address climate change from one angle – by paying developing countries to slow or stop deforestation and forest degradation. Trumpeted as a way to both mitigate climate change and assist countries with development, REDD was presented as a win-win solution. However, there have been few attempts to understand and analyse the overall framework. Why REDD Will Fail argues that the important goals will not be met under the existing REDD regime unless the actual drivers of deforestation and forest degradation are diminished. The book delves into the problematic details of the regime, ranging from; national capacity to monitor results, the funding mechanism, the definition of a forest, leakage, and the impetus behind the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. As the international community rallies around REDD and developed countries and companies are willing to commit substantial amounts to implement the scheme, this books seeks to address whether REDD has the potential to achieve its purported goals. This is an important resource for academics and students interested in the policy and management aspects of mitigating climate change, environmental policy, international relations and development studies as well as policy makers involved in the REDD process.

Born and raised under the umbrella of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the topic of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD ) is of undeniable relevance to the regime established by the Convention on Biological Diversity. This chapter first outlines how REDD may both positively and negatively impact on biodiversity protection. It then discusses how rule development on REDD under the UNFCCC has increasingly sought to address biodiversity concerns through a system of biodiversity-related safeguards. Finally, the chapter illustrates how, in the absence of detailed rules agreed at the international level, rules developed at the national and transnational levels will play an important part in ensuring REDD contributes to, rather than undermines, biodiversity protection.

REDD+ is one of the leading near-term options for global climate change mitigation. More than 300 subnational REDD+ initiatives have been launched across the tropics, responding to both the call for demonstration activities in the Bali Action Plan and the market for voluntary carbon offset credits.

Results-based financing of REDD+ is conditional on the implementation of national Safeguard Information Systems (SIS) to address social and environmental criteria that go beyond carbon. The briefs in this packet discuss the challenges of operationalizing safeguards from various perspectives – governance, benefit sharing, tenure, gender, biodiversity, technical monitoring – and highlight opportunities and strategies for dealing with these challenges.