Kenniskring: REDD-plus and FLEGT applied at the global, national and local levels

On April 19 2011, Tropenbos International and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands co-organised an expert meeting in the framework of the Knowledge Network on Sustainability Climate and Energy. Over 50 participants from the academic community, government, NGOs and the business community discussed forestry and development at the Ministry in The Hague (the Netherlands) in a meeting entitled “Do Global Intentions lead to Local Improvements? – The Forestry Case”, which focused on the challenges of designing and delivering effective international environmental policies.

FLEGT and REDD+ were taken as case studies of international environmental policies using different strategies but aiming at comparable and significant development and environmental impacts. In a series of presentations and working group sessions, participants examined the design and intended and unintended impacts of these international policy instruments on people’s livelihoods, forests and landscapes in tropical countries. They discussed ideas how to make REDD+ and FLEGT work on the ground, among the range of economic, political and policy incentives that shape people’s land use decisions and as component of broader development goals.

Participants embraced a “Forest+” perspective, where the plus expresses the broad interpretation of forests supporting business, livelihoods, agriculture and environmental services. They concurred in recognising the interrelated roles of the international discourse, market regulation and civil society empowerment in shaping forests and livelihoods in tropical forest landscapes, and the need for international development initiatives to foster each of these. While local, bottom-up initiatives are capable of producing tailor-made solutions to deforestation and legal timber requirements, international markets demand large-scale, simple and effective approaches to REDD and timber trade. This highlights the importance of governance at the national level as the scale where the diverging interests of local and international needs and demands can be reconciled. Good governance that integrates adequate social and environmental safeguards helps levelling the playing field for businesses and communities and enables a meaningful role of forests in sustainable economic development.