Dalsgaard, SØren; Funder, Mikkel; Hagelberg, Niklas; Harrison, Paul; Haule, Christognus; Kabalimu, Kekilia; Kilahama, Felician; Kilawe, Edward; Lewis, Simon L.; Lovett, Jon C.; Lyatuu, Gertrude; Marshall, Andrew R.; Meshack, Charles; Miles, Lera; Milledge, Simon A.H.; Munishi, Pantaleo K.T.; Nashanda, Evarist; Shirima, Deo; Swetnam, Ruth D.; Willcock, Simon; Williams, Andrew; Zahabu, Eliakim; Burgess, Neil D.; Bahane, Bruno; Clairs, Tim; Danielsen, Finn
Description:
The proposed mechanism for Reducing Emis-
sions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) offers
significant potential for conserving forests to reduce
negative impacts of climate change. Tanzania is one of
nine pilot countries for the United Nations REDD Pro-
gramme, receives significant funding from the Norwegian,
Finnish and German governments and is a participant in
the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. In
combination, these interventions aim to mitigate green-house gas emissions, provide an income to rural commu-
nities and conserve biodiversity. The establishment of the
UN-REDD Programme in Tanzania illustrates real-world
challenges in a developing country. These include currently
inadequate baseline forestry data sets (needed to calculate
reference emission levels), inadequate government capacity
and insufficient experience of implementing REDD+-type
measures at operational levels. Additionally, for REDD+ to
succeed, current users of forest resources must adopt new
practices, including the equitable sharing of benefits that
accrue from REDD+ implementation. These challenges
are being addressed by combined donor support to im-
plement a national forest inventory, remote sensing of
forest cover, enhanced capacity for measuring, reporting
and verification, and pilot projects to test REDD+ imple-
mentation linked to the existing Participatory Forest Man-
agement Programme. Our conclusion is that even in a
country with considerable donor support, progressive forest
policies, laws and regulations, an extensive network of
managed forests and increasingly developed locally-based
forest management approaches, implementing REDD+ pre-
sents many challenges. These are being met by coordinated,
genuine partnerships between government, non-government
and community-based agencies.