Abstract
Defra has recently funded research aimed at providing operational guidance to assist countries in preserving the rich natural biodiversity in forests under the international REDD+ scheme (aimed globally at reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, encouraging forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and conserving carbon storage in forests). According to estimates, from 50% to 80% of land-based plant and animal species can be found in tropical forests , and they provide livelihood and sustenance for 1.6 billion people worldwide . The research, which was carried out by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), builds on discussion on this issue at last year’s Nagoya and Cancun conferences on biodiversity and climate change respectively, and will contribute to work further defining safeguards and indicators for protecting biodiversity under REDD+ currently taking place under the Convention on Biological Diversity and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The report comprises an overview of existing safeguards provisions and the opportunities or challenges they highlight for biodiversity preservation, followed by a consideration of the resource required to ensure effective attention is given at each stage of national REDD+ programming to achieving biodiversity goals. An annex sets out a proposed initial set of operational guidelines, which can also help REDD+ practitioners to implement varying provisions in a harmonised manner. The work links to the UK’s strategy for REDD+, and the current independent review, commissioned by the UK Government, assessing options for how the UK can most effectively deliver scaled up finance for forestry in support of REDD+ : http://www.decc.gov.uk/media/viewfile.ashx?filetype=4&filepath=InternationalClimateChange/1807-funding-for-forests-uk-government-support-for-red.pdf&minwidth=true The review is designed to help inform the UK's strategy underpinning our commitment to spending £2.9bn on climate finance over the next 4 years (2011-15) under the International Climate Fund (ICF) - some of which will be spent on helping reduce global deforestation.
United Kingdom