What is REDD+?

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a mechanism set up by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that seeks to protect forested areas by empowering locals and governments through financial benefits and incentives. The crux of this mechanism is to reward countries and organisations financially for reducing their carbon footprint and preserving natural forested land.

In Indonesia’s context, the recent democratisation shift in its government has allowed local governments and forest communities to participate in forest management legally for the first time. REDD+ projects can serve to complement the new shift in power to assist newly-formed district governments and local communities with various forms of financial resources to facilitate agricultural reforms or other initiatives on the ground.

However, both the democratisation shift and REDD+ initiative remains relatively new, and its benefits and costs remain unknown to many of its participants. Such an obstacle may influence locals’ level of support for REDD+ projects and prevent long-term sustainability goals from being reached. Even in its early stage, REDD+ has already faced criticism from indigenous peoples’ representatives for providing wealthy nations a license to continue pollution and emitting carbon at the expense of locals. Clearly, local support is imperative for the success of REDD+ projects in the decades to come.

How do locals perceive REDD+?

Because REDD+ is fairly new, studies that highlight the perception of REDD+ among Indonesian locals remain fairly rare. One such study was conducted by Rakatama et al. (2020), who examined the perceived benefits and costs of REDD+ under state, private and community forest management regimes.

The authors found that while perceived environmental benefits was the only benefit associated with a positive support for REDD+, perceived economic benefits did not. In addition, local responses indicated that a community-based management regime was more strongly associated with environmental benefits as compared to private or governmental regimes, which could signify an avenue to garner support for REDD+ through greater community involvement and management instead of a traditional top-down approach from private and governmental firms.

On the other hand, perceived economic costs was associated with a negative support for REDD+, which aligns with the known concerns locals have regarding their livelihoods. Social costs also decreased support for REDD+, suggesting a desire among locals to prioritise maintaining their livelihoods and community or a loss aversion bias. Most locals reported a single dimension of benefits and costs, suggesting that many locals remain unaware of the multidimensional components of REDD+ with regards to forest management.

How do these findings translate to implementing REDD+?

Firstly, it is important to educate local communities of the importance of REDD+ projects and how these projects may impact them over various dimensions. Specifically, because locals tend to exhibit fears of losing social and economic capacities over perceived benefits, planning authorities should address these causes of concern before discussing potential benefits.

Secondly, community engagement and participatory planning can be a powerful tool into securing these environmental benefits that locals perceive and motivate other stakeholders to maintaining these benefits. Furthermore, by increasing the sense of perceived control among local communities, future REDD+ projects can be reoriented to target specific community needs and foster continual support in the programme, all while reaping the other multidimensional benefits that REDD+ may deliver.