Report on FY2013 International Seminar “REDD+ Implementation and Sustainable
Forest Management”
The REDD Research and Development Center, the Forestry and Forest Products
Research Instituteand participants for their attendance. After abrief explanation of the seminar purpose, heencouraged participants to actively take partin the panel discussions.

Outline of the SeminarTheinternationalseminar,
REDD+
Implementation and Sustainable Forest
Management, was held at the U ThantInternational Conference Hall of United
Nations University (UNU) on February 6
and 7, 2014, organized by the Forestry andForest Products Research Institute (FFPRI)
and Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations (FAO), and co-organized
by UNU, Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA), The International Tropical
Timber Organization (ITTO), and The
Institutefor
GlobalEnvironmental
Strategies (IGES).

Following the remarks from Dr. Suzuki, amessage from Dr. Kazuhiko Takeuchi,
Senior Vice-President of UNU, was read out.
He stated in his message that UNU is
working on REDD+ as one of its missions tosolve global problems including those indeveloping countries. He also expressed hishope in the message that the seminar would
serve an opportunity for facilitating
cooperation among researchers all over theworld and SFM would be realized by
maximizing REDD+.

Under the theme “REDD+ Implementationand Sustainable Forest Management,” theseminar aimed turning sustainable forest
management (SFM) into means andopportunity for REDD+ by facilitatingexchanges of experiences and tools for SFM
implementation that can contribute to
REDD+ activities, exploring the challenges
associated with scaling up the REDD+
activities, and facilitating reflections about
the role of SFM in the context of the
REDD+ implementation. In the seminar,
information on the latest SFM approaches
and activities at various scales and by forest
types was presented. Based on the presented
information, various thought-provoking
opinions were exchanged in the panel
discussion.

Mr. Akihito Miyahara, Deputy Director
General of the Forestry Agency, Japan, madea speech on behalf of the guests. In his
speech, he noted that the Japanese Forest
and Forestry Basic Act aims to facilitate
SFM. To this end, various efforts related to
REDD+ are underway. He also expressed
his hope that the seminar would serve an
opportunity to share gained knowledge andexperiences and strengthen cooperation
among interested parties.
Mr. Eduardo Mansur, Director of the Forest
Assessment, Management and Conservation
Division, the Forestry Department at FAO
stressed that deforestation and forest
degradation accounts for a large percentageof global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
caused by human activities, therefore, thechallenge is how to avoid forest use that
affects the function of forest carbon stock.
Realizing SFM through the context of
REDD+ implementation is particularly
important.

Seminar: Day 1 (February 6)
Opening Session
On behalf of the organizers of this seminar,
Dr. Kazuo Suzuki, President of FFPRI,
made opening remarks, in which heexpressed his appreciation to all the speakers
1for
non-market-based
approaches,
non-carbon benefits resulting from REDD+
implementation, experiences in developing
safeguard information system, and the typesof information.

Session 1
Sharing information on international
negotiations
Update on the international negotiations
on REDD-plus under the UNFCCC - keyoutcomes from Warsaw
Session 2
SFM in theimplementation

Ms. Jenny Wongcontextof

REDD+(UNFCCC Secretariat)
Ms. Wong outlined the key points of the
Warsaw Agreement at COP 19 and showed
the negotiation schedule for 2015.

SFM and REDD+: Two discourses - one
ultimate goalShe started her presentation from explaining
about the Bali Action Plan and the Cancun
Agreements that are important outcomes
since 2007. The clarification of five REDD+
activities and the decision on technicalissues were particularly important outcomesin the Cancun Agreement. She also referredto the “Warsaw Framework for REDD-plus.”
REDD+ provides funds based on results,
therefore, REDD+ implementing countries
are required to provide information on MRV
and safeguards. Next, she talked about theGreen Climate Fund (GCF) and the requests
from COP to the Standing Committee on
Finance (SCF) of COP concerning financing.
She mentioned that the UNFCCC Secretariat
will establish an information hub on the
UNFCCC web platform to increase
informationtransparency.
Information
submission is a prerequisite for receiving
result-based payments.

Dr. Patrick Durst(FAO Regional Office for Asia andthe Pacific)

Dr. Durst made a presentation about theimportance of strengthening cooperation
between REDD+ and SFM, both of which
are working on toward the common goal.
The summary of his presentation is asfollows:
Principles for SFM have been proposed atvarious international conferences and theSeventh Session of the United Nations
Forum on Forests, where various definitionsof SFM have been proposed based on it. The
basic idea of SFM is to “enhance economic,
social, and environmental values of allforests for the benefit of present and future
generations.” The issues of climate change
cannot be solved without realizing SFM.
Furthermore, REDD+ and SFM need to be
implemented based on democratic forest
governance and to lead to sustainable
livelihoods for local people. To this end, thecooperation
with
local
peopleisindispensable. In addition, SFM will help
facilitate the implementation of REDD+ asenhancing forest carbon stock andpreventing forest degradation. REDD+ is
considered to contribute to SFM, because it
could increase funding flows, facilitate
further participation of broader actors, andmake more information about forests andforestry available. Dr. Durst concluded his
presentation by emphasizing the need ofintegrating and further facilitating REDD+

Following this, Ms. Wong outlined the key
points regarding technical issues, such asmodalities for national forest monitoring
systems (NFMS), the timing and frequencyof the submission of information on
safeguards, technical assessments ofproposed reference levels, modalities for
MRV, and decisions on addressing thedrivers of deforestation and forest
degradation.
Ms. Wong concluded her talk by announcing
schedules and agendas of SBSTA, SBI, andthe experts’ meeting for 2014. She called forviews regarding methodological guidance2Dr. Thompson expounded that the provisionof ecosystem services and the biodiversity
are closely related and that a certain level of
biodiversity is essential to maintain theresilience of forests. Resilience is extremely
important factor for ecosystems. SFM aims
to develop and utilize forests to the extent
that does not cause irreversible changes by
securing the resilience of forests. Therefore,
he stressed that dividing landscapes into
zones in accordance with development andutilization purposes, securing biodiversity,and reducing physical disturbances are ofparamount importance. He also indicatedthat SFM is essential for REDD+ to bringvarious benefits including the carbon storage.
For this purpose, scientific efforts areneeded to understand how to maximize
ecosystem service, where the limit of it, andhow ecosystems services are affected, andwhat is the causes of the impacts.

and SFM since most of the challenges that is
drawing international attention such as
climatechangeissues,biodiversity
conservation, establishment of sustainablelocal communities, and enhancement ofmultiple functions of forests, are connected
to REDD+ and SFM.
Sustainable forest management in thecontext of REDD+

Dr. Ian Thompson(NaturalResources
Canada ，Canadian Forest Service / the Global
ForestExpertPanels,theInternational Union of Forest
Research
Organizations(IUFRO-GFEP)

Dr. Thompson gave a talk about theenvironmental conservation effects for SFM
in REDD+ from a scientist’s standpoint. The
following is the summary of his talk:

Dramas of the CPRs: logical developmenttotakelessonsfor
REDD+
implementation

Difference between sustainably managed
forests and fastwood plantation forests isthat logging and harvesting in sustainably
managed forests can be done while
maintaining high carbon storage levels, on
the contrary, the carbon storage levels in the
fastwood plantation forests could be
increased in the short term, but almost all
stored carbon is released when they are
harvested. In order to realize SFM, somemeasures are under way: proposals forstandards and guidelines for quantifying
SFM, implementation of various forest
certification processes, and technical andscientific supports by multiple internationalorganizations. However, SFM is not realized
in most of tropical forests due to poor
governance of SFM, lack of economic
attractiveness, and absence of appropriate
knowledge and capacity. In such situation,
forest conservation through REDD+ isthought to be highly promising, but somechallenges such as unsustainable forest use,lack of governance, issues related tocarbon-based management are still remain
unsolved.

Dr. Makoto Inoue(Graduate School of Agricultural andLife Sciences, the University ofTokyo)

Dr. Inoue talked about the lessons learned
from discussions on common-pool resources(CPRs), which are useful for REDD+
implementation. In his talk, Dr. Inouepointed out that the citizens all over theworld are concerned about forests looking at
the standpoint of science such as
biodiversity
conservation
andCO2
emissions, and try to conserve forests. On
the other hand, local peoples deeply depend
on forests for their livelihoods. It is a stark
contrast between them. Dr. Inoue showedstrategies for local peoples to sustainably
utilize resources: (1) to refuse intervention
from outside and maintain their autonomy,(2) to accept NGOs and consultants to adopt
their measures, and (3) to adopt parts of both
strategies and work in cooperation withvarious stakeholders. He supported the idea3

level and to build relationships with local
people.

of (3) to avoid unnecessary safeguard issues,
where local people can make decisions on
their own with help from NGOs when
implementing REDD+. He emphasized thatthe smooth implementation of REDD+ will
be ensured when people stop seeing local
people as a culprit of damaging forests andrecognize them as main players in thesustainable resource management and forest
conservation. Dr. Inoue also emphasized that
local people choose land use based ondiversified needs in their livelihood.
Therefore, when developing REDD+, it isdesirable to provide economic benefits toprevent social anxiety and to develop safety
net that will guarantee land use for local
people.

Session 3
Multipurpose of SFM and REDD+
activities: Importance of data/informationcollection to support them
National forest monitoring systems in thecontext of REDD+, importance of datacollectionDr. Maria Jose Sanz-Sanchez(UN-REDD Programme, the Forest
Assessment,
Management
andConservation Division, the FAO
Forestry Department)

Session 2: Q/A session

Dr. Sanz-Sanchez talked about theimportance of national forest monitoring
systems (NFMS) in the context of REDD+
and FAO’s support for the establishment of
NFMS.

Questions and answers to three speakers in
Session 2 were carried out. Dr. Mitsuo
Matsumoto, Director of the REDD Researchand Development Center, FFPRI, served asa moderator. The content of Q/A session was
as follows:First, she explained that while the purpose offorest monitoring is changing from timber
supply to biodiversity, to SFM, and tocurrent purpose, REDD+, and is expected tochange further, forest monitoring is always
important in order to make decisions basedon high quality information. She explainedthat forest monitoring is particularly
important to provide data to fulfill
international reporting system and toformulate management plans for making thebest use of forest resources.

Question: Implementing sustainable forest
management seems to be difficult because
developing countries seek short-term profit.
What do you thing about this?
Answer: Forest certification can become oneof the incentives for local people. There is agood example that PES (payment forecosystem services) was used for an oilpalm plantation. SFM can be done inplantations. What REDD+ should learn frompast experiences are not to makenegotiations complicated, make a system sothat local people who use forests can change
the actions easily, and to build partnershipwith local people taking the background ofsocial forestry into consideration.

She then explained that FAO conducts
monitoring at different scales: at the forest
stands level, at the subnational level, at thenational level, and at the global level. She
pointed out that it is important for forest
information at national level in particular, totake various aspects of forests including
forest area, biological diversity, forest healthand vitality, social and economic functions
into consideration.

Question: While the importance of local
people’s participation is frequently talked, it
is not reflected in the system.
Answer: It is important for those who workon projects at the national and global level tothink about specific measures at the field

Dr. Sanz-Sanchez also mentioned that FAO
supports the establishment and operation of4was as follows:

NFMS towards the realization of REDD+.
The main pillars of its support include thecollection of land coverage data through aremote sensing system and the calculation ofemission factors based on the results of thenational forest inventory (NFI). The
challenge is to continue monitoring
conducted especially in developing countries.
In these circumstances, she said that FAO
facilitates the implementation of NFMS by
dividing the process into three phases: (1)enhancing capacities, (2) developing theSatellite Land Monitoring System (SLMS)
and monitoring demonstration activities, and(3) collecting activity data (data on forest
coverage) using the satellite system,
calculating emission factors based on the
results of NFI, and implementing MRV
integrated with the monitoring of REDD+
implementation. These three phases are
implemented keeping consistency of thethree phases of REDD+ (readiness,demonstrations and actions). However, theprogress varies with each country; therefore,
guidelines should be developed and utilized
takingaccountof
eachcountry’s
circumstances and phases.

REDD+ activities are a mechanism toprovide economic incentive based on theamount of GHG emissions reduction or theamount of GHG absorbed. Thus, developing
a MRV system that provides reliability ofactivities for funding is needed. For thispurpose, the UNFCCC framework put
importance on developing robust andtransparent national forest monitoring
systems using a combination of remotesensing and ground-based inventory.
However, various problems became clear:
the gap between implementations at
project-level and at national-level, anddifference in quality of accumulated dataand in measuring methods in developing
countries. Therefore, it is important for all
developing
countries
toestablishnational-level monitoring systems in Phase1.
He also introduced technologies andmethods for collecting accurate data throughremote sensing and field surveys by giving
examples in Malaysia, Cambodia andParaguay, where the REDD Research andDevelopment Center worked together. He
also introduced technical methods how to
remove seasonal variability and theinfluence of clouds from the data gained
through remote sensing. He emphasized theimportance of verifying the results of theforest-type classification obtained using
remote sensing and understanding of theamount of carbon stock. He also pointed outthat there still remain many problems incollecting reliable field data such as land
tenure and illegal logging. Dr. Hirata
concluded his talk by introducing“REDD-plus Cookbook” which is acompilation of experience and knowledge
accumulated by the REDD Research andDevelopment Center.

She also mentioned that FAO’s role in
REDD+ readiness phase is to help countries
develop, implement, and operationalize their
NFMS, and assist conceptualizing andimplementing REDD+ activities anddeveloping policies and measures. For this,FAO focuses on a step-wise approach forcontinuous improvement, the developmentof the system to build on existing capacities,
data, and systems, the use of open-sourceand data available to anyone, and capacity
building through training on site.
For the sake of the establishment of
reliable forest carbon monitoring system
Dr. Yasumasa Hirata(The Chief of the Global Warming
Response Promotion Office, FFPRI)

sCreen - Fast track estimation of carbon
benefits from forestry activities

Dr. Hirata’s talk included problems
concerning the development of monitoring
systems and technical solutions. His talk

Dr. Carmenza Robledo(Ecoexistence5-

RobledoAbadobtaining data (whether the same criteria
and indicators were applied on the data
without bias), but not merely aim tominimize unreliability. Carbon monitoringby local people might increase unreliability
and could increase training costs, therefore,
it would be ideal to develop a system inwhich their traditional (local) knowledge
would supplement the carbon monitoringdata. Some of the countries are considering
how to use monitoring results for SFM andwhat kinds of additional information should
be collected for that purpose. Mr. Miyazono
concluded the session by introducing NFMS
for REDD+ implementation developed in
Papua New Guinea with the support of JICA
that could contribute to SFM as an important
information source for conducting selective
logging activities. How to link SFM to
REDD+ is on the process of trial and error
and further practice and experience isneeded.

Althaus)Dr. Robledo talked about a simple
estimation method for carbon benefits using
sCreen. sCreen is a simulation program thatcan predict behavior of carbon caused byvarious forest management activities (suchasrestoration,conservation,
SFM,
afforestation, and agroforestry) at thelandscape level from five objectives: carbon
sequestration, carbon enhancement, GHG
emissions from deforestation, GHG
emissions from degradation, and the
production of timber and wood products.
The behavior of carbon changes depends onthe combination of activities. Therefore, thesimulation can predict to certain extent how
and what activities should be allocated tosupply timber products while receivingcarbon benefits before initiating activities.
The feature of this method is that it canassess potential carbon benefits obtained
from the production of timber and wood
products as well as from afforestation andforest conservation activities. On the other
hand, the data created by sCreen is nothighly accurate, because the estimations are
based on existing data, default values, andhistorical trends to prioritize low cost andhandiness. However, it enables local
communities to select desirable forest
practices including land use conversion or
the continuous utilization of timber andwood products based on the simulation. The
important role of the program is to facilitate
dialogue among stakeholders related toforests and to encourage decision makers tomake substantive decisions. It is difficult todetermine user-friendliness of sCreen at thisstage and need to improve by viewing
feedbacks from the user.

Session 4:
Experiences from SFM while promoting
REDD+
REDD+ and SFM; Status, Opportunities
and Challenges in India
Prof. N. H. Ravindranath(Centre for Sustainable Technologies,
the Indian Institute of Science)Prof. Ravindranath gave a talk on forest
policies and programs in India. In India,
deforestation has progressed due to the highpopulation density in rural areas and thehigh demand for fuelwood and timber. In
order to address this, the Indian government
enacted the Forest Conservation Act in 1980
to prevent the inappropriate conversion offorest land to non-forest purposes. The
Indian government introduced the Joint
Forest Management (JFM) in 1990 as adecentralized forest management program.
As the result of the promotion of forest
conservation and the natural regeneration of
degraded forests through the active

Session 3: Q/A session
Questions and answers to three speakers in
Session 3 were carried out. Mr. Hiroki
Miyazono of JICA served as a moderator.
Comments from the speakers are as follows:
It is important to put importance on costeffectiveness and being consist over time in6

stressed that what learned from the pastexperiences in REDD+ is not a panacea nor
new initiative, but an integrated approach,and it is important to prioritize REDD+ in
the national process, and to develop
ownershiptoraiseawarenessofstakeholders.

participation of local governments and local
residents, the deforestation rate was reduced
at the national level. This experience is avaluable lesson for achieving REDD+
including safeguards, and SFM. He said thatIndia would like to work for the
implementation of REDD+ and to establish
a decentralized, community-based MRV
system and to develop human resources,
while maintaining consistency with existing
forest policies. In particular, he said, Indianeed to reorient forest governance andpolicies to work on the “plus” of REDD+
such as the enhancement of carbon stocks.

Session 4: Q/A session
Questions and answers to two speakers in
Session 4 were carried out. Dr. Henry
Scheyvens from IGES served as a moderator.
In the session, Prof. Ravindranath explained
the factors that lead to successful policy
implementation in India: robust enforcementof forest conservation, community-based
forest management under the government’s
land use plan and effective governance inmediating conflicts over land.

Linking REDD+ with SFM: The REDD+
Readiness Process in Zambia


Mr. Deuteronomy Kasaro(REDD+ Coordination Unit, theMinistry of Lands, Natural Resources
and Environmental Protection, theRepublic of Zambia)

He also explained that deforestation as
REDD+ is not a major problem in India,
therefore, it is difficult to obtain credits
through the prevention of deforestation.
Using existing JFM that involves local
communities,
India
will
promoteenhancement of carbon stocks byrehabilitating highly degraded forests.

Mr. Kasaro’s talk included the process
towards implementing REDD+, SFM, androles of forests. In Zambia, fuelwood is an
important energy source as only 22% of total
population can access to electric power(hydroelectric power). As the result,agriculture
expansionandcharcoalproduction are main drivers of deforestation.
Towards the implementation of REDD+, the
UN-REDD program is underway inconjunction with ILUA II (Integrated Land
Use Assessment Project) that is a technicalsupport by FAO. These programs identify
the drivers of deforestation, create land
cover maps, and develop a decentralized andprovincial-level monitoring system by using
GIS. These activities will be open to public
via website to facilitate understanding of
deforestation trends at the regional level.
These activities are conducted as part ofnational policy, but involvement of broader
stakeholders is indispensable. Capacity
development of stakeholders to avoid
excessive expectations toward REDD+ andto devolve authority to the implementing
entities is important. In conclusion, he

Mr. Kasaro said showing the case in Zambia
thatconsensus
amongstakeholders
including local residents is essential forachieving SFM including REDD+, and thatthe key issue is to what extent responsible
actions can be taken on site and at the local
level. He mentioned that he would like towork on the development of a decentralized
framework for forest management including
the maintenance of regional offices.
Dr. Scheyvens concluded the Session 4 byexpressing his view that REDD+ and SFM
are evolving concepts. A key to success is tounderstand the causes of deforestation
through landscape approach and to develop
policies, laws, and regulations to address thecauses.

7

replace fossil fuels. Technologies to supply
energy materials made from biomass, which
is produced in a short rotation (1-2 years)
coppice system, are being established withthe cooperation of local residents. Thesematerials are transformed into wood pellets
and exported to Europe and the US.
However, judging from the discussions on
climate change in Indonesia, understandingof the economic value of the biomass energy
produced by forests and the roles andpossibilities of REDD+ have not fullyrecognized. In this situation, the challenge inthe future is how to utilize REDD+ for green
economy and how to realize SFM. She
expressed her expectations that the JCM(Joint Crediting Mechanism) signed between
Indonesia and Japan would provide a good
opportunity to transfer Japanese experienceand technology to Indonesia, as Japan has
created 80% of its domestic credits in theforest sector by utilizing wood pellets andfacilitating thinning using J-VER1.

Summary of Day 1
 Dr. Mitsuo Matsumoto(The Director of the REDD Researchand Development Center, FFPRI)
Dr. Matsumoto summarized the points ofdiscussions of Day 1. He reviewed that thediscussions in past seminars focused onplans, strategies, and concepts for the future,but in this seminar, presentations were madebased on reality and experience.
Day 2: February 7
Opening Session
Dr. Mitsuo Matsumoto(The Director of the REDD Researchand Development Center, FFPRI)

Dr. Matsumoto reviewed the discussions of
Day 1, and explained the purpose of thethree sessions and the panel discussion of
Day 2. Then, Dr. Matsumoto explained
about the panel discussion, in which one
speaker from each session of Day 1 and Day
2 is invited as panelists to discuss with theparticipants. He also encouraged all theparticipants to actively contribute to thediscussions.

Session 1: Panel Discussion
(The United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies(UNU-IAS))

Dr. Makino Yamanoshita(Senior Policy Researcher at IGES)

Session 1:
Lessons from REDD+ readiness anddemonstration project implementations
and linkages with SFM

Dr. Richard Rastall(UNU-IAS)

In the wake of a talk from Dr. Rusli, thepanel discussion with three young experts
was conducted. Dr. Ma Hwan-Ok from
ITTO served as a moderator. Dr.
Yamanoshita pointed out of the importanceFuturePerspectiveof
REDD+
Implementation and the National Forest
Policy in Indonesia
Dr. Jose Antonio Puppim De Oliveira

Dr. Yetti Rusli(Senior Advisor, the Ministry ofForestry, the Republic of Indonesia)

1

J-VER (Offset Credit) Scheme: J-VER is the name for carbon
credits which were certified by the Ministry of the Environment, inorder to trade the credits (which were obtained through reducing
emissions, increasing forest carbon sinks, etc. in Japan) in the
carbon offset market. The J-VER Scheme is also the name of thesystem. The system was established in FY2008 by the Ministry of
the Environment. In FY2013, the system was integrated into thedomestic credit system controlled by the Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry.

Dr. Rusli introduced the dynamic activities
related to REDD+ in Indonesia. Indonesia
promotes biomass energy which is arenewable (carbon neutral) and could
8Mr. Heng Hong from the Ministry ofEnvironment, Cambodia, reported that they
have facilitated the participation of residents
and regional stakeholders, and havestrengthened support measures. However,they are facing insufficient cooperation
among the relevant entities, poor
communication about management planamong the relevant entities, and difficulty
introducing market mechanism due tolimited knowledge of local people, limited
resources, and a lack of quality reliability.

of community-level monitoring. She said
monitoring conducted from a broader
perspective of carbon and local community
is needed. In addition, synergic effects canbe created by involving local community
into the government policy planning.
Dr. Rastall pointed out that trade-off
betweenforestconservation
anddevelopment has not been resolved yet andthis remains as a challenge of REDD+. He
insisted that we should work toward bigger
goal than REDD+ and improve land use
management at the landscape level.
Following the comments from Dr. Rastall,
Dr. Puppim pointed out the need ofmultilateral, time-wise, and regional
cooperation and linkage. He also stressedthat it is important to create an initiative tolink REDD+ to larger-scale economic andsocial problems and to link the local to theglobal. Specifically, market mechanism,
land ownership, the issue of accountability
and safeguard, and the realization of
governance with multiple stakeholders are
given as examples. Various methods andmarkets will be needed, as SFM andacquisition of economic benefits is difficult
to go hand in hand in developing countries.
Thus, expectations for outcomes of JCM arehigh.

Mr. Haji Abdul Khalim Bin Abu Samah
from the Pahang State Forestry Department
in Malaysia said Malaysia has two types ofactivities for SFM: one is conducted by thefederal government and another isconducted by the state governments.
Training programs, SFM, how to use twocertification systems are conducted by thefederal government, and the REDD+
projects is carried out by the state
government.
Being invited a comment from Dr. Ma, Dr.
Rusli called for the participants to keep
going and do our best. She also stated to theexperts from the United Nations,international organizations, and universities
that it is important to show clear results inorder to move forward.

Session 1: Q/A session

Session 2:

Participants from the floor presented
activities in their countries. Mr. Ebonine O.
Raymond from the Federal Ministry ofEnvironment, Nigeria, talked about theactivities jointly conducted with the
Department of Climate Change. Nigeria
joined the UN-REDD Programme in 2009and has been conducting various activities
such as establishing a national bureau incharge of REDD+, establishing andmanaging offices, training personnel, anddeveloping a national plan, but challenge
still remains in securing budget. Application
process for receiving fund from the WorldBank’s FCPF (Forest Carbon Partnership
Facility) is under way.

Moving from local experiences to national
implementation. SFM at different scales.
Carbon accounting and registering
Development of REDD+ Guidelines for
JCMDr. Mitsuo Matsumoto(The Director of the REDD Researchand Development Center, FFPRI)

Dr. Matsumoto reported about the progressof guidelines for implementing REDD+
within the JCM framework which the REDD
Research and Development Center of FFPRI
has been working on the development. The
9for REDD+ activities at subnational/
national-level. JNR has three scenarios thatcan be used in accordance with different
approaches and parties to be credited. Inorder for jurisdictional governments to beable to access multiple financial sources(public funds and voluntary markets), VCS
is considering allowing them to use JNR in
combination with external safeguard
standards developed by the World Bank andNGOs, and allowing them to add
requirements at the request of jurisdictional
governments. Currently, multiple pilot
projects are ongoing. Acre, Brazil isplanning to issue jurisdictional-level
REDD+ credits by the end of 2014. In Chile,rather than conducting jurisdictional-level
programs, zoning is conducted at the
subnational level by taking different types offorest management and the costs related toforest management, and ecoregions into
consideration.

general concept of the guidelines is to make
REDD+ activities operational, therefore,
they stipulate the use of default values (Tier1) and permissible levels of accuracy. The
guidelines are updated to integratecomments and opinions from FS (feasibility
study) proponents and VCS. Received
feedbacks included how to deal with leakage
and the “plus” of REDD+, and how toscaling-up, how to address safeguards andregarding guidelines preparation process.
Responding to these indications, Dr.
Matsumoto explained that leakage could be
addressed by buffering, and proposed three
approaches for setting reference levels when
scaling up from project levels to subnational
levels.
VCS Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+:
Advancements and Opportunities

Ms. Naomi Swickard(Verified Carbon Standard)

Ms. Swickard explained that the different
standards set by multiple financial sources
such as the World Bank, the State ofCalifornia, and JCM could limit the optionof financial sources available to those who
implement
projects
andsubnational
programs. As for Japan’s JCM, collaboration
between VCS and JCM would enable JCM
to work with a larger number of programsand to ensure consistency with various
frameworks. She also introduced options
how to balance between the standards
stipulated in JNR and JCM Guidelines.

Ms. Swickard reported on the Jurisdictionaland Nested REDD+ (JNR) Standard which
is developed by VCS. VCS is NGO
headquartered in Washington, DC. Its
standards are used in more than 1,000
REDD+ projects around the world. The
VCS’s share of the carbon markets in the
agricultural and forest sector is 71%. In
many cases, the VCS Standard is used in
combination with safeguard certification
standards such as CCBS. VCS has
conducted project-level activities. In recent
years, 60% of REDD projects started
discussions how to balance their activities
and subnational/national activities. On theother hand, VCS receives requests for
guidance when developing a carbon
accounting system at the jurisdictional levelfrom multiple jurisdictional governments,
and also receives inquiries for scaling up
project-leveltonational/subnational
activities from those involved in projects,
such as how to integrate various activities
conducted at national, subnational, andproject level. In light of the situation, VCS isdeveloping JNR as guidelines used indeveloping a carbon accounting framework

Scaling Up: Challenges of Large-Scale
REDD+

Ms. Donna Lee(Climate Change Consultant)

Ms. Lee spoke about the issues associatedwith large-scale REDD+ program. The
challenges associated with scaling up the
REDD + project include not only a problem
of size of subject area, but also the issue ofinconsistencies of multiple projects in thesame country, diverse direct and indirectdrivers that cause deforestation and forest
10

between credits obtained through VCS and
JCM. Dr. Matsumoto said that in order toensure the credibility of credits obtained
through JCM and to make JCM operational,
further consideration of feedbacks fromVCS
andthird-party
certification
organizations is needed, taking account of
the profitability of private companies that
implement JCM.

degradation, and conflict of interest. The
REDD+ activities started as a project due tocomplexity of accountability to the entities
that provide funds and risk management, but
REDD+ is gradually scaling up tolarge-scale program. A nested REDD+
approach that combines these two efforts has
been gaining momentum. However, there
still have many challenges such as politicalissues that affect the nested REDD+
approach. Substantial benefits can beobtainedbymaintaining
constant
communication between the project level
and the national level and strengthening
verticallystructured
cooperation.
Experiences gained from these efforts can beapplied to the national strategy. However,there still remains various problems, such assustainability of activities, fragmentation indemand of REDD + credit (due to theemergence of multiple approaches),
uncertainty of REDD + funds in the future,
concerns about the transparency of the
profit-sharing rules. Mr. Lee said that theflow to large-scale REDD+ project isforming, however, experiences for its
implementation is still insufficient. She
concluded that long transition period would
be needed as it is necessary to clarify thecause-and-effect relationship of the resultsof emission reduction activities at projectlevel and that of program level, and to makeadjustments among multiple stakeholders.

Dr. Sanz-Sanchez concluded her talk by
stressing that when scaling up project-level
activities to national-level programs, various
challenges that are different from ones for
project activities will be raised, such as
government involvement when taking
measures. We need to think how to realize
our ultimate goal by collecting knowledge
obtained from past demonstration project,keeping the final goal of REDD+ in mind.
Session 3:
Thinking from broader
Landscape approachperspective:

REDD+ and Sustainable Landscapes:
Policy and Practice

Ms. Donna Lee(Climate Change Consultant)

Ms. Lee talked about ideas and challenges oflandscape approaches in the contest of
REDD+. A landscape approach is an
integrated approach that sees land use as awhole, including forests, farm lands, andwetlands, but not targets a single land use.
An integrated landscape management has
not unified definition, and it is jointly
managed by stakeholders in a different land
use sector and at different level. The key isdeveloping its process. She further
mentioned that while the importance of an
integrated approach is recognized, in ordertoobtaininternational
consensus,
implementation at national level that can add
flexibility to a fund management would be
the best option due to complicating factors
such as systems and agreement in each

Session 2: Q/A session
Questions and answers to three speakers in
Session 2 were conducted. Dr. Maria Jose
Sanz-Sanchez from FAO served as amoderator. The questions focused on the
differences between JCM and VCS, thecompatibility between JCM, and VCS.
The discussion included whether it isappropriate to equally treat the credits
created in the forest sector (REDD+) whichhave high levels of uncertainty and could be
produced in large amounts, and the credits
created in other sectors in the market.
Another discussion was about compatibility
11Dr. Verchot further said that when
implementing REDD+ at the jurisdictional
level, it is important to know about multiple
levels of governance that has complicating
structures of administrative organizations,purposes, their responsibilities and theirauthority.

issues, and conflicting benefits related tothem. She also introduced Bio Carbon Fundthat started as new efforts to seek solutions
at the landscape level with the help of theinitiative of the World Bank. In the case of
Ethiopia, approach to land use including
promotion of agricultural productivity,
improvement of cooking stoves, anddiffusion of biogas energy, as well as
participatory forest management andlivestock management is under way. The
Ministry of the Environment coordinates
and implements multiple policies at national
level.

Session 3: Q/A session
Questions and answers to two speakers in
Session 3 were held. Mr. Satoshi Akahorifrom the Forestry Agency served as amoderator. Discussions concerning how to
adopt
the
landscapeapproachincomplicating local situations.

REDD+ in landscapes: drivers ofdeforestation,
institutions
andjurisdictions


Ms. Lee explained that as presented in his
earlier speech, deforestation occurs not onlyin the forest and forestry sector, but in the
agricultural sector. Importantly, agriculture
is affected by droughts, the influx of
immigrants caused by family planning, andlack of birth control among local residents.
Deforestation is a very complicating issuecaused by the dynamics of human activities.
In order to prevent deforestation,
understanding local residents’ needs is thefirst step. For this purpose, cooperation andcoordination among ministries and agencies
are of great importance.

Dr. Louis V. Verchot(Director, Forests & Environment
Research,
theCenterforInternational
Forestry
Research(CIFOR))

Dr. Verchot spoke about the results of theinterdisciplinary analysis of REDD+
conducted over the past five years from thestandpoint of transformational change ingovernance, economy, and institutions. He
said that the key to the success of REDD+ is
to have legislation and law enforcement
environments in place. For this purpose, itneeds to understand that agriculture is theprimary driver of deforestation. In order toincorporate the connection between theforest sector and other sectors into thesystems and policies of REDD+, Dr. Verchot
showed a simulation of deforestation overthe period of 25 years, from 2000 to 2025, in
Mexico, as a deforestation model using thelandscape approach.

Concerning this subject, Dr. Verchot stressed
the importance of national policies,
including the development of appropriate
land use plans and the maintenance of laws
and governance, as well as the improvementof local peoples’ livelihoods. Now, theprivate sector aims to adopt a landscapeapproach for corporate social responsibility(CSR) and future business opportunities. Dr.
Verchot said that the advantage of thelandscape approach is that land use, land usechange, and the amounts of emissions andabsorption in the forestry sector and othersectors including the agricultural sector canbe determined, and measures against themcan be taken.

He also explained that the baseline andproject scenario can be compared byincorporating a CO2 fixation model andother factors into the landscape analysis. He
said that it is important to make proposals topolicy makers, keeping the improvement ofresidents’ livelihoods and climate change
measures in mind, while using these tools.
12accuracy is attained and to make NFMS as
simple as possible to make it feasible.

Session 4: Panel Discussion
The
role
of
SFM
in
REDD+
implementation: Enabling environments,
opportunities, and synergies.
Dr. Thompson replied to the question about
how to keep NFMS at low cost. NFMS isuseful to monitor the amounts of emissions
and absorptions and biodiversity, but inorder to ensure accuracy at low cost,utilizing the latest satellite technologies isneeded. A participant from the floor
commented that developed countries’ reportson the amounts of emissions and absorption
for LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change
and Forestry) provide useful information
concerning the development of NFMS.

Dr. Ian Thompson
Dr. Carmenza Robledo
Mr. Deuteronomy Kasaro
Dr. Ir. Yusurum Jagau (the Dean of
the Faculty of Agriculture, theUniversityofPalangka
Raya,
Indonesia)
Ms. Naomi Swickard

To the question regarding whether carbon
finance (CF) can be a silver bullet for SFM,
Dr. Verchot replied that CF was useful forrevising forest management policies indeveloping countries. He also said that ahuge amount of money is needed just tocover the opportunity cost for preventing
deforestation and forest degradation, and thepledged public funds are insufficient.
Therefore, measures to reduce investment
risk are needed in order to facilitate
investment by the private sector.

Dr. Louis V. Verchot, andDr. Yasumasa Hirata
The panel discussion was joined by seven
panelists. Mr. Mansur from FAO served as amoderator. Responding to the question,“What changes did REDD+ bring about inforest management?” Mr. Kasaro explainedthat the Forestry Department has alreadyrecognized the need for considering
problems outside the forest sector whenobtaining consensus of stakeholders andmaking decisions on policies. Dr. Jagau said
that in Indonesia, new forest management
units and community forest management
plans were introduced in line with the
National REDD+ Strategy.

To the question regarding how to consider
project-based REDD+ when implementing
full-scale national-level REDD+, Ms.
Swickard answered that REDD+ projects
have been implemented on a trial basis by
the private sector such as VCS. These
projects should be coordinated at thenational level in the future.

Responding to the question, “How to
avoid conflicts with residents who depend
on forests in preparing for REDD+ andSFM?” Dr. Robledo replied that it isimportant to make policies through dialogue
with stakeholders, while taking into
consideration that the structure may create
winners and losers.

A question was made from the panelist,“What kind of change did this seminar bringfor the way of thinking about REDD+?”
Participants from the floor said that they
renewed awareness that measures toimprove local residents’ livelihoods alone
are insufficient to achieve REDD+, and that
it is necessary to develop national land use
plans, laws, regulations, as well as ensuring
appropriate governance for enforcing them.
The importance of landscape approach that
includes agriculture, which is a main driverof deforestation, and the concept of SFM
including wood production and biodiversity

To the question, “What efforts and actions
should be prioritized to fill in the gap
between countries in the development of
national
forestinformation/monitoring
system?” Dr. Hirata replied that whenmoving up the preparation stage to theimplementation stage of REDD+, it needs toensure that the minimum level of verifiable13

were renewed.
Closing Session
Dr. Mitsuo Matsumoto(The Director of the REDD Researchand Development Center, FFPRI)

To summarize two-day seminar, Dr.
Matsumoto introduced the draft conclusionof the seminar. It will include important
discussion points at each session as “keymessages” and include 10 key messages:- SFM and REDD+ have strong synergies,
science plays an important role, particularly
ecosystems,- local people should be considered as
partners in implementing SFM and REDD+,- international support for REDD+ must be
considered to achieve SFM goals,- the role of government is important, and- the landscape approach needs to be
introduced.
The participants agreed with these key
messages. The conclusion will be further
elaborated before it was posted on thewebsite of the FFPRI and will bedisseminated at various events.
Dr. Matsumoto concluded the seminar
expressing appreciation to the organizations
that supported the seminar, speakers,
moderators, and all the participants. He also
expressed his hope that participants will
utilize the outcomes of the two-day seminar
to enhance REDD+.
-----

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