‍

As climate change and its effects become increasingly apparent across the globe, mitigation and adaptation strategies have taken a center stage in response to its impacts. Forest ecosystems can play a significant role in devising both of these strategies, where causes of climate change are dealt with mitigation interventions and consequences are dealt with adaptation (CIFOR, 2009). In many instances, policies and negotiations at international-level have treated adaptation and mitigation separately (Locatelli et al., 2016). REDD+ is such an intervention with a primary focus on climate mitigation in developing countries. The REDD+ acronym refers to five activities; reducing emissions from deforestation, reducing emissions from forest degradation, conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (UNFCCC, 2021). With deforestation and forest degradation accounting for ~11 percent of the world’s total carbon emission, REDD+ plays a significant role through its various tools and involved mechanisms like deforestation and forest degradation monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), determining carbon emission baselines, forest reference emission levels (FREL), forest reference levels (FRL), establishing National Forest Monitoring Systems (NFMS) to name a few. REDD+ allows developing countries to aggregate funds / income from developed countries / private sector to help reduce emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation through various market mechanisms such as carbon credits.

‍

‍

Developed and introduced by Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2008, REDD+ is expected to have a lifetime of 20 years and already involves 70+ countries engaged in REDD+ activities. REDD+ aims to create a ‘Global forest governance system’ through participation of local government and forest dependent communities and address complex governance issues through the proposed decentralized forest management system. Climate change mitigation interventions are extremely important in addressing the causes of climate change, however climate will continue to change even under strong mitigation efforts.  In this era of climate change, forests are heavily influenced by the natural disturbances as they impact the forest structure, composition, forest ecosystem function, carbon stocks and carbon sequestration capacity of the forests. Consequently they cross paths with the design and implementation of REDD+ at multiple levels (Nguon and Kulakowski, 2013; Dale et al., 2001; Oliveira et al., 2007; Long, 2009). Therefore, it is incumbent on the policy makers to incorporate natural disturbances, especially climate change-induced ones, as root causes or DDFD) within the REDD+ design. This will help improve the efficiency and integrity of incentive mechanisms and allow officials to investigate further into the underlying reasons or motivations behind deforestation and forest degradation - whether it be personal, institutional, political and economic driven undertakings (Nguon and Kulakowski, 2013; Verchot and Petkova, 2010; Kissinger et al., 2012; Angelsen, 2008; Parrotta et al., 2012). These climate-type droughts not only result in tree mortality and plant stress during the drought period but also increases the vulnerability of trees to future disturbances and stunt the growth of plants. This post-drought tree physiological stress and tree mortality can diminish the climate mitigation potential of forests and lead to transition of forests from carbon sink to carbon source if left unchecked - thereby nullifying benefits from REDD+ in several regions, especially in tropics.

‍

Despite REDD+’s emphasis on country-specific drivers and national level policy mechanisms, overlooking the varying degree of droughts from nation to nation can result in biases in MRV criteria. Additionally, due to the spatiotemporal variability in tree mortality and independent trends of isolated droughts, accompanied by complex nature of natural-natural and natural-anthropogenic disturbances interactions, existing REDD+ design might grapple to comprehend the extent of drought-related deforestation even if it chose to consider droughts as DDFD . COVID-19 has precipitated new uncertainties in the forest management sector, which can translate into social, political and economic spheres, thereby impacting REDD+ implementation, measurement and success rates in a negative way. These can be attributed to: limited budgets for for monitoring, constraints on field work and travels, reduced workforce due to medical issues and safety concerns, communication gaps, relocation of INGO (international non-governmental organisation) members, lax in land use policies, decline in ecotourism revenues, elevated food production demands, return of emigrant workers and increase in xenophobic mentalities among the locals (Mohan et al., 2021; McGinlay et al., 2020; Hockings et al., 2020;)

‍

References

1. Michaelsen, A. C., Perz, S. G., Briceño, L. H., Menis, R. F., Chura, N. B., Santillan, R. M., ... & Brown, I. F. (2017).   Effects of drought on deforestation estimates from different classification methodologies: Implications for REDD+ and other payments for environmental services programs. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 5, 36-44.2. Nguon, P., & Kulakowski, D. (2013). Natural forest disturbances and the design of REDD+ initiatives. Environmental science & policy, 33, 332-345.3. Zahawi, R. A., Reid, J. L., & Fagan, M. E. (2020). Potential impacts of COVID‐19 on tropical forest recovery. Biotropica, 52(5), 803.Myers, Jennifer Moore (2019). Managing Drought in Forest Ecosystems. CompassLive (blog). Accessed March 2, 2021. https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/compass/2019/12/10/managing-drought-in-forest-ecosystems/.4. Bayrak, M. M., & Marafa, L. M. (2016). Ten years of REDD+: A critical review of the impact of REDD+ on forest-dependent communities. Sustainability, 8(7), 6205. Woods, P. (1989). Effects of logging, drought, and fire on structure and composition of tropical forests in Sabah, Malaysia. Biotropica, 290-2982nd subpage - Event CalendarEvent Calendar - (Fundraiser / Webinar etc)