REDD and opportunities for the promotion of rural development projects in Brazil

Abstract

Concerns related to the role of tropical forest in climate change have been raising attention for the need of enhancing sustainable policy instruments for forest conservation together with agricultural growth. One of the instruments that have being under recent negotiation within the framework of the UNFCCC is the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation mechanism, more known by its acronym, REDD. This paper argues that there is a potential positive and important role of REDD in the promotion of not only forestry conservation, but also sustainable agriculture and rural development. A description of what consists the concept of REDD and its evolution under the climate change negotiations is given, as well on the latest round of climate change negotiations. The paper lather turns to argument that the REDD discussion should expand the view of forest conservation to the inclusion of agriculture and rural development aspects, because of the significant interaction of policies and effects in both domains. In practice, REDD initiatives are already expanding the scope of rural projects to include actors involved in agriculture, and the paper describes the case of Amazon Fund, a Brazilian REDD initiative recently presented at Copenhagen Conference which goes is this direction. The paper finally concludes that progress on REDD discussions could generate funds for important projects aimed at promoting forest conservation, while addressing the need of development of rural areas and agricultural growth.