Forest, Livelihoods and REDD+ implementation in the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve, Ecuador

Forests represent vital food and income sources for rural households as well as reserves for crisis periods. Therefore, deforestation and forest degradation can endanger the livelihoods of forest dependent communities. Moreover, deforestation is the second largest cause of GHG emissions, and triggers biodiversity loss and global climate transformations. Rural livelihoods need special attention since they are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In this context, REDD+ has arisen to the UNFCCC negotiation table as an affordable option to mitigate climate change and at the same time to promote sustainable development. However, a better understanding of the potential positive and negative impacts of REDD+ implementation is needed. The latter, is especially true for Indigenous Peoples (IP) and forest dependent dwellers in tropical rainforests. The research presented herein is a multilayer study that contributes to elucidate possible tradeoffs of REDD+ implementation from a bottom-up perspective. The Yasuni region in the Ecuadorian Yasuni Biosphere Reserve was selected as a case study. The region is part of a larger REDD+ project conducted by the German NGO Welthungerhilfe. Here, the three most widespread ethnic groups living on the buffer zone of the Yasuni National Park were chosen. Two communities from each ethnicity, the Shuar and the Kichwa indigenous groups and the Colonists (mestizos), with different distance to markets were selected as study groups. The multilayer approach starts at the household level then goes up to the community and finally to the regional-landscape levels. At the household level, an analysis of income generation from subsistence and cash sources is presented. In summary, all the communities in the study earn high off-farm revenues from unskilled labor provided by oil companies and receive external aid. The study also shows that IP have higher dependency on forest and environmental resources when compared to colonists. Eventually, high off-farm income might reduce, at least temporally, the pressure on forests. Against this background, REDD+ is a weak incentive for the studied households when compared to the high off-farm revenues from unskilled labor. This applies even more when considering the engagement in time-consuming REDD+ project activities like reforestation, forest monitoring, etc. At the community level, the land configuration and institutional frame for decision-making for shared resources are analyzed. Here two forms of communal arrangements are presented: Common Property Management Regimes (CPMRs) and Colonists’ Cooperatives. The framework of Ostrom (1990) on governance of Common Pool Resources (CPR) is used as a conceptual setting. The results suggest that more and more, both, IP land configuration and community-based organizations are acquiring mestizo characteristics. This partially governmental promoted mestizaje through Agrarian Reform legacies and actual legal frameworks is triggering privatization of farms inside community lands and hence promoting forest fragmentation and affecting ancestral forms of rules for resource use. At the landscape level a revision of the historical and territorial configuration as well as the management plans for the YBR are presented. Additionally, legal frameworks for REDD+ as well as consultation and participation mechanisms are discussed. According to the data of the study, insecure land administration and titling rights can hinder REDD+ implementation and generate conflicts due to the overlapping of IP lands with oil blocks and protected areas. Moreover, inconsistencies between management plans and legal frameworks reduce the effective involvement and decision making of IP and small farmers. The analysis concludes suggesting a wide and embedded landscape vision for the Yasuni area. The Livelihood Framework has been commonly used to study household conditions and use patterns of environmental resources that can shape and predict conservation, deforestation or degradation processes. However, attempts like the one presented here exemplify the necessity of bottom-up perspectives prior to the implementation of global climate change mechanisms such as REDD+. From a practical perspective, the results provide insights for project developers and policy makers for the design of REDD+ approaches. The full and complete involvement of local communities into forest governance is the only way to reach conservation and sustainable development of tropical forests. Moreover, multicultural diversity and customary resources use rules, and traditional practices should also be promoted.