Multi-stakeholder design of forest governance and accountability arrangements in Equator province, Democratic Republic of Congo

Good forest governance is an increasingly important topic for stakeholders in many different settings around the world. Two of the best-known international initiatives to improve forest governance are the regional Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) ministerial processes supported by the World Bank, and the European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. Designed to support and complement such initiatives, the IUCN project “Strengthening Voices for Better Choices” (SVBC) is piloting improved forest governance arrangements in six countries in Africa, Asia and South America. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of three project countries in Africa, SVBC has created multi-stakeholder platforms at local, territorial and provincial levels for this purpose

Development of draft quality-of-governance standards for climate change mitigation and beyond: groundtruthing of developed verifiers in REDD+ pilot area, Nepal

Governance has been identified as central aspect of sustainable forest management. While all participants within the forest policy arena would agree with this observation, it has been less easy to determine how best to evaluate forest governance. Building on the work of the 1992 UN Statement of Forest Principles, and using a hierarchical framework of principles, criteria and indicators (PC&I), Dr Cadman has developed a consistent approach to evaluating forest governance at the global, regional, national and local levels. Tim and Tek applied their work to a range of global policy mechanisms, including REDD+, and has been used by the forest sector in developing countries (Nepal) to develop on-the-ground standards for evaluating REDD+ effectiveness and governance quality

Seeing 'REDD'?: Forests, Climate Change Mitigation and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Examines proposals for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and their failure to protect indigenous peoples' rights or to address forest governance problems. Calls for talks to include civil society and indigenous peoples

Balancing Interests in Forest Governance in Brazil and Indonesia

Forests play a major role in reducing levels of Greenhouse gasses which are a major contributor to global warming. Conversely, deforestation is a major contributor to climate change. This study examines the concept of good forest governance, dispelling notions that resource use needs to be a zero-sum game. Rather, it identifies local collective agreements as espoused by Elinor Ostrom in Governing the Commons as the best means of balancing the undeniable economic potential of converting forests to other uses (grazing, farming, and mining) with the more sustainable approach of protecting forests for their environmental benefit. For Ostrom, these collective agreements are the most promising approach to achieving good governance which protects forests, reduces deforestation, and creates a sustainable balance between economic growth and forest preservation. Despite a major focus of states, international organizations, NGOs, and foreign aid donors, improving forest governance has proven to be a challenge. Using efforts in Brazil and Indonesia to implement forest governance, this study uses the PEAT (Participation, capacity for Enforcement, Accountability, and Transparency) framework to evaluate the role of state actors, non-governmental organizations, agribusiness, and Indigenous people and local communities in forest governance. By presenting a structured comparison of forest governance in these two countries, the thesis seeks to highlight successful efforts to improve forest governance, identify persistent obstacles, and extract lessons from each case that can be applied to improve forest governance elsewhere

Global Forest Governance – Discussing legal scholarship from political science perspectives

Scholarship in international law aims at addressing global forest governance comprehensively. This article reviews the recent contribution Global Forest Governance - Legal Concepts and Policy Trends by Rowena Maguire and puts it into the perspective of recent political and policy science research on global forests. While finding Maguire's volume being a very timely and valuable contribution to the interdisciplinary discussions on international forest governance, we identify some weaknesses which are mostly rooted in methodological critique and a lack of a systematic framework for analysis

Achieving Gender Justice in Indonesia's Forest and Land Governance Sector: How Civil Society Organizations Can Respond to Mining and Plantation Industry Impacts

Land based industries, most significantly palm oil plantations, timber concessions and mining operations, are expanding quickly in Indonesia. With approximately 840,000 ha of forest loss per year (Margono et al 2014), Indonesia suffers the world's highest rate of deforestation. As civil society organizations (CSOs) implement forest conservation strategies and programs to respond to the issue of forest loss, there is a growing concern that they lack the ability to address gender justice, or more specifically, Gender, Environment and Development, one field of Gender and Development. 1 This weakness may undermine CSO's ability to ameliorate the gendered injustices that limit women and marginalized communities' participation in forest governance. It also limits CSO's ability to build grassroots constituencies, which are crucial for driving reform. Drawing on the Gender, Environment and Development literature, and a gender assessment of selected Indonesian environmental CSOs, this paper provides a brief overview of the major gender issues relevant to forest and land governance, and makes six recommendations to help CSOs develop more gender sensitive advocacy and programming. The paper aims to contribute to the overall objective of improving gender justice (including women's participation) in forest governance

Reform or Reversal: the Impact of REDD+ Readiness on Forest Governance in Indonesia

Indonesia has turned its alleged role as global leader of land-based carbon emissions into a role as a global trailblazer exploring modalities for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+ ). REDD+ readiness is largely about improving forest governance, but this itself is a multilayered concept. This article analyses how the processes and practices of REDD+ readiness are leading to various forest governance reforms in Indonesia. We analysed six dimensions of REDD+ readiness progress over the past six years and the way these interact with land tenure reform and land-use planning. We found evidence that (1) tenure issues are taken more seriously, as evidenced by the development of social safeguard mechanisms and efforts to accelerate the gazettement of forest boundaries, although a constitutional court recognition in 2013 for customary forest management is, however, yet to be operationalized; (2) spatial planning relates forests more clearly to other parts of the landscape in terms of compliance with Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) commitments; and (3) the forest and peatland conversion moratorium initiative led to a revamping of forest management. Despite progress, there are still major obstacles to full REDD+ implementation in Indonesia. The discussion focuses on the weaker part of readiness and possible ways forward