Lost in implementation? REDD+ country readiness experiences in Indonesia and Vietnam

ABSTRACT

The REDD+ readiness phase leading up to implementation has been slow and has fallen short of expectations. In this article, we present REDD+ experiences from two countries, Indonesia and Vietnam, with a focus on the readiness phase, examining policy processes at the central, provincial and local levels. Interviews with key stakeholders (officials, donors, NGOs, village representatives) and data from household surveys suggest that efforts have been concentrated at the central level, with the provincial level mainly feeding data into the process and the local level practically left to its own devices. Furthermore, the REDD+ design may be misguided as it exempts the major stakeholders, namely the state and private enterprises, from declaring emissions sub-targets in the national carbon reduction action plans, and focuses exclusively on rural forest dwellers who struggle to understand the ideas that underpin REDD+.

KEYWORDS:

• REDD+
• environmental governance
• stakeholders
• tree cover

Notes on contributors

Thorkil Casse is an economist by training and works with REDD+, tradeoffs or reconciliation between conservation and development objectives and environmental state issues under authoritarian rules in Asia.

Anders Milhøj has a Phd in mathematical statistics. His research interests cover general statistics applied to practical issues within the social sciences, especially time series analysis and survey sampling.

Martin Reinhardt Nielsen is working on development and behavioural economics focusing on the human dimensions of natural resource and conservation management and the socioeconomic and cultural impacts of management policies and interventions.

Henrik Meilby’s research interests lie in assessment and monitoring of living natural resources, including vegetation and wildlife, resource management, economics of sustainable resource use, and the interaction between nature and society.

Yanto Rochmayanto holds a PhD from Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia and works for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Research, Development and Innovation Agency). His PhD was on how to reduce deforestation by use of property rights in Berau, East Kalimantan.

ORCID

Thorkil Casse http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6965-9725

Martin Reinhardt Nielsen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8941-6031

Henrik Meilby http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3770-3880

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by DANIDA (http://drp.dfcentre.com/project/redd-forest-grab-all-times) research grant: REDD+ The forest grab of all times? 13-08KU.