Q&A session

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Session 1 Keynote Speech – Q&A Session

Q&A Session(Q1: Dr. Kubo)

Thank you, William, for your inspiring discussions all the time.

impressed with your comments.

I am really

I just want to deal with your open questions to understand thefinancing required to support the REDD+. Let me distinguish between investment project and policyand measures.

For investment projects, yes, we definitely need a certain scale to attract the private

sector engagement.

In terms of the policy and measures, it really depends to what extent we caneffectively implement the policy and the measures. To address deforestation and degradation, thesignificance of policy and measures cannot be ignored.

Actually, REDD+ is supporting theacceleration of the implementation of the policy and measures.
For example, in the context of Indonesia, there is a government policy of legalizing the customary
tenure.

Under the framework of REDD+, now the indigenous communities and the government areworking together.

Last December, the indigenous communities, the network of these groups, theysubmitted 4.8 million hectares of the forest that are under the management of the customarycommunities together with 517 maps.
customary management.

Based on their research, altogether 40 million hectares are under

Therefore, if the government really legalized these 40 million hectares ofland under customary tenure and endorses their authority over sustainable forest management, the risk
against deforestation is significantly reduced.

At the moment, because of the lack of a legal

framework, these lands are assigned for such use as oil palm plantations and other development
purposes.
Therefore, this risk of deforestation would be mitigated if these policies and measures are implemented.
My point is not really question, but my discussion to you is that, yes, investment projects are required
to engage the private sector. That engagement of the private sector is really pushing the process of
the REDD+ to advance. This is really important in a sense as well. At the same time, we need tolook at how effectively these polices and measures are implemented to address the deforestation anddegradation.

That is my comment.

(Dr. Sunderlin)

I think Indonesia has made remarkable strides in laying the appropriate groundwork

for REDD+, yet there is just an enormous distance to cover.

Undoubtedly, investments are going tobe part of the picture and this comes out very clearly in our research on the ground. Yet theseinvestments on the ground are not going to bear fruit unless there are, not just strong polices andmeasures, but really quite strong ones.
In Indonesia, more so than any country that we are working, we find that the need for local
stakeholders to be able to legally and effectively exclude outside claimants on the forest intended to beDAY2
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protected through REDD+ stands out. This is because, at every single one of our research sites, there
are oil palm claims inside the REDD+ boundaries that are an active source of controversy andcontestation between the REDD+ proponent organization, the government, and the companies.
For this reason, in Indonesia, the focus of REDD+ is very strongly on tenure and to try to find legal
instruments for excluding these external claimants.
called Hutan Desa.

One is called village forestry and in Indonesia it is

Another major instrument is called ecosystem restoration concessions that we findat Rimba Raya, Katingan, and a couple of other projects.
difficulties in implementing Hutan Desa and the ERCs.

However, there had been tremendous

The government needs to find a way to be

more supportive of these instruments for legitimizing a form of tenure that would make tenure secure
within REDD+.
The constitutional court decision 35 that legalizes customary tenure is a tremendous step forward that,in one decision, has turned Indonesia from one of the outliers in the tenure situation with a very, verysmall fraction of the formal forest estate coming under the control of communities and indigenousorganization, to potentially one of the strongest.

I underscore the word ‘but’ because there have been

tremendous difficulties in moving from the constitutional court decision to actually having it meansomething on the ground.
retain some hope.

AMAN, the organization you are referring to has had difficulties.

They

It remains to be seen under the new presidency whether this policy is going to get

traction or not.
And I will just say, incidentally, that another important example of a big step forward (but I amwondering whether is it really a step forward or not) is the Indonesian Forest Moratorium that waslaunched three years ago under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Ambitious in scope, it was inpretty short order restricted in terms of the amount of lands that would fall under this moratorium.
Almost all secondary forests were excluded under the reasoning that it was important to preserve theoption of converting these forests for food etcetera.

Critical reports have been written about this.

My own take on it is that the fact that these were automatically excluded is testimony to the enduring
power of what we call the ‘business as usual interests’.

Scientifically defined, those are the political andeconomic interests in a given country that are tied to the conversion of forest to non-forest uses.
Those remain very strong in Indonesia.

(Q2)

In your presentation, you talked about the donor of the fund and also that REDD+ may havesome gaps. The fund donor may only be interested in the reduction of deforestation.
REDD+ may say that they are doing more activities.
this.

However,

REDD+ might ask why they do not understandThe fund donor, as a matter of fact, is raising funds for what purpose?

It is for climate change.

Even if REDD+ pushes other causes, it may not be impactful to the donors.

Safeguards and also thehuman rights, why REDD+ is saying that is not to increase the fundraising, but rather it is a negative
checklist. Since these activities are done, it has an impact.

Unless the REDD+ says we are not asking

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to raise funds, we are talking about the rise, so I think maybe there with a conflict of interest between
the two.

(Dr. Sunderlin) That is another excellent question.

Your point was in response to my claim about,within the private sector, the carbon brokers are mainly interested in reduced deforestation and reduced
greenhouse gas emissions and are much less interested in the wider variety of other things that REDD+
is promising.
My point of view is this: I think that the carbon brokers would do well to catch up on theirunderstanding of what is happening in REDD+, how it is changing, and recognize crucially this point:
this wide array of co-benefits I would claim are instrumental for REDD+ for fulfilling its promise toreduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words, the conditional payments that are being made arenot, to my knowledge, being aimed at providing a reward above and beyond what is needed tocompensate opportunity costs.

In some cases, precisely because the price of carbon is low, REDD+

proponents are struggling to produce a sufficient stream of income to compensate those opportunitycosts.

This is one crucial point.

Another goes to the point I am raising about tenure.

Tenure is absolutely central in REDD+.

It is

one of the co-benefits that every single proponent on planet earth recognizes, but many people outsideof the realm of REDD+ do not, is that really the first step is to clarify and strengthen local tenure as aco-benefit for a wide range of reasons that I will not specify right now.

However, it is outside of therealm of finances, it is a co-benefit, and it is absolutely necessary as a measure to have REDD+ fulfill its
objective of protecting forests.

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