Rohit Jindal | MacEwan University (original) (raw)

Papers by Rohit Jindal

International Journal of the Commons, 2014

European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2011

... for watershed management in Cidanau watershed, West Java, Indonesia 106 Beria Leimona with Ra... more ... for watershed management in Cidanau watershed, West Java, Indonesia 106 Beria Leimona with Rachman Pasha and NP Rahadian 6 The ... Rural Development for the Alto Acre Region and Capixaba (CTAC) and co-author of Planejando futuros sustentáveis para os pequenos ...

Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2012

Payments for environmental services (PES), the non-provisioning part of ecosystem services, targe... more Payments for environmental services (PES), the non-provisioning part of ecosystem services, target alignment of microeconomic incentives for land users with meso- and macroeconomic societal costs and benefits of their choices across stakeholders and scales. They can interfere with or complement social norms and rights-based approaches at generic (land-use planning) and individual (tenure, use rights) levels; they interact with macroeconomic policies influencing the drivers to which individual agents respond. In many developing country contexts, community scale factors strongly influence land users' decisions, whereas unclear land rights complicate the use of market-based instruments. PES concepts need to adapt. Multiple paradigms have emerged within the broad PES domain. Evidence suggests that forms of “coinvestment in stewardship” (CIS) alongside rights are the preferred entry point. Commodification of environmental services (ES) and ES markets might evolve later on, but requir...

As payment for environmental services (PES) initiatives spread to collectively managed natural re... more As payment for environmental services (PES) initiatives spread to collectively managed natural resources, questions arise because the incentive structures that might be appropriate for individually managed resources will not necessarily promote the collective action required to manage the commons. Theory suggests challenges for cash payments to promote collective action, and for alternative payment types to facilitate conditionality. Possible ways to reconcile this disconnect involve conceiving of PES more broadly through the use of multiple forms of payment including non-cash incentives and placing greater focus on building institutions for collective action than on strict conditionality.

With growing interest in payment for environmental services (PES) as a means to promote conservat... more With growing interest in payment for environmental services (PES) as a means to promote conservation (Wunder et al., 2008), a persistent question for programme designers concerns the likely cost of achieving a given environmental objective (Ferraro, 2008; Jindal et al., 2013). PES assumes that landowners will undertake conservation investments if they get paid for their opportunity cost of doing so, but those costs are unknown to outsiders. In general, opportunity costs will vary with farm and farmer characteristics. PES initiatives can be designed more cost effectively if they can estimate the likely payments that landowners will require to undertake conservation. This chapter examines such questions in the context of a forestry programme in the Lake Victoria basin in Western Kenya that encourages local farmers to plant trees. We analyse farmers’ demand for planting trees on their land as a function of farm and farmer characteristics and also as a function of a hypothetical conditional payment that farmers could receive for planting each additional tree. The results presented here are based on a survey of local households in the Yala and Nyando river basins, which contribute a significant proportion of water (and silt) flow into Lake Victoria (Swallow et al., 2009). The research was conducted in the context of the Global Environment Facility-funded Western Kenya Integrated Ecosystem Management (WKIEM) project, which aims to conserve these river basins through forestry activities with local farmers.

There is growing concern amongst tropical countries on the emphasis of REDD+ to the conservation... more There is growing concern amongst tropical countries on the
emphasis of REDD+ to the conservation of forest areas alone,
while significant tree cover can be found outside forest areas
and officially demarcated forestlands may have little tree
cover. A landscape approach to REDD+, which accounts for
emission reductions from all land uses can help address this
concern. Reducing Emissions from All Land Uses (REALU) is a landscape approach that is being tested in selected tropical countries. The REALU concept is based on the argument that trees
outside forests contribute to carbon-rich landscapes, and
incentives for forest conservation alone may undermine
the potential of local communities to conserve or enhance
carbon outside forest boundaries. Drawing from our REALU
feasibility study in Bac Kan province, in the northeast region,
we provide insights for a national REALU strategy in Vietnam.

Ecological Economics, 2012

Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering ... more Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering payments to groups of land users will motivate them to organize collectively to provide environmental services. In contrast, research from behavioral economics shows that introducing monetary incentives can undermine collective action that is motivated by social norms. In such a case payment could have perverse impacts. In view of this dichotomy, we conducted choice and field experiments in rural Mexico and Tanzania to test the response of prosocial behavior to incentives. The field experiments involved voluntary participation in real communal tasks under different incentive structures. Findings suggest that payments help raise participation where people are otherwise uninterested, but that participation in communal tasks can be high irrespective of the incentive if social norms favoring participation are present. In Tanzania, high individual payments do not undermine participation although they appear to reduce people's satisfaction from the task relative to when there is no payment. In Mexico, group payments made through village authorities yield lower participation where people distrust leaders. Challenges to conducting field experiments in our research settings limit what we can conclude from our work, but the findings raise important points and suggest areas for further research.

A carbon offset or credit is equal to a ton of carbon (or 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide) that doesn... more A carbon offset or credit is equal to a ton of carbon (or 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide) that doesn’t flow into the atmosphere or is absorbed from the atmosphere and retained on earth. Other greenhouse gases (GHG) such as nitrous oxide and methane too have carbon dioxide equivalents that are used to estimate carbon credits. Carbon credits are the currency in which carbon markets deal – a way for market mechanisms to drive industrial and commercial processes in the direction of low emissions of carbon dioxide and other GHGs into the atmosphere. There are many ways in which carbon credits are produced. Examples include renewable energy projects and shifting from coal fired power plants to hydroelectric ones. This concept note explains how carbon credits or offsets are generated from the forestry sector - both in terms of growing new trees as well as protecting existing ones, and how they are traded in international markets. It is important to note that these projects and the resultant offsets are only a part of a long set of solutions that the international community is considering to address climate change. We also explain why in spite of the surge in international carbon markets, actual trading in forestry carbon offsets remains low. Indeed, despite the prolific increase in reference material on ecosystem services, particularly forest carbon services, there is a relative dearth of literature that explains basic concepts in easily accessible language. For instance why is someone willing to pay for not cutting down trees (or for planting new ones) when that person (or company) is not even located in the same country? Or why don’t we see many forest carbon projects even when international carbon markets are now worth billions of dollars? We attempt to answer these questions by using key economic concepts such as cap and trade that help generate carbon offsets, and by explaining how international carbon markets are further segregated into voluntary and compliance based markets, each with its own rules on how forest carbon offsets can be traded. The appendix at the end provides a list of useful sources to access additional material on any of the topics covered. In order to maintain simplicity, we focus on the main aspects of the carbon market - the way trading takes place, differentiating between carbon sequestration and maintenance of forest carbon stocks, and the role of carbon standards. We believe that once the target audience understands key market concepts, it would be much easier for them to access more technical literature on these issues.

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) target alignment of micro-economic incentives for land user... more Payments for ecosystem services (PES) target alignment of micro-economic incentives for land users with meso- and macro-economic societal costs and benefits of their choices across stakeholders and scales. They can interfere with or complement social norms and rights-based approaches at generic (land use planning) and individual (tenure, use rights) levels, and with macro-economic policies influencing the drivers to which individual agents respond. In many developing country contexts, community scale factors strongly influence land users’ decisions while unclear land rights complicate the use of market-based instruments. PES concepts need to adapt. Multiple paradigms have emerged within the broad PES domain. Evidence suggests that forms of “co-investment in stewardship” alongside rights are the preferred entry point. Commodification of ES and ES markets might evolve later on, but require strong government regulation to set and enforce rules of the game. We frame hypotheses for wider testing and “no-regrets” recommendations for practitioners.

Debates about the potential poverty alleviation impacts of global carbon markets are far from set... more Debates about the potential poverty alleviation impacts of global carbon markets are far from settled. We extend this debate by examining the impacts of a project in Mozambique that pays local people for carbon forestry activities. We conduct before-and-after project comparison using household data from project and non-project villages. Even though the poorest households participate widely in the project, the impact on incomes is small despite generous carbon accounting and contract terms. Leakage and impermanence remain strong concerns. Development activities under the project unrelated to carbon sequestration have a much bigger impact, albeit on a smaller number of households.

Land Use Policy, Jan 1, 2011

Determining the level of payment and selecting participants are important but frequently neglecte... more Determining the level of payment and selecting participants are important but frequently neglected issues that affect social, economic and environmental performance of payment for environmental services (PES) programs. We use a pilot auction to address these issues in the context of a PES program in Tanzania's Uluguru Mountains. Two-hundred fifty-one local farmers submitted sealed bids in the auction. The results reveal the supply of PES contracts at different prices. Simulations using the auction results and household data show large tradeoffs between achieving cost effectiveness and maximizing participation by poor households. A monitoring survey 21 months after the auction found that most auction winners’ trees had survived, with performance uncorrelated to the farmer's poverty status or bid level. Although aspects of our auction design limit the strength of some of the conclusions we draw from the data, our study shows how pilot auctions can assist decision makers in estimating payment levels for PES contracts. Auction participants stated that the auction provided transparency in contract allocation and that winners felt peer pressure to comply with contracts, which suggest areas for future research regarding the potential advantages of using auctions to allocate PES contracts in developing countries.

The PES Sourcebook was developed to provide potential managers of PES projects with basic backgro... more The PES Sourcebook was developed to provide potential managers of PES projects with basic background material on PES that is required to effectively design, implement, and manage PES programs. The Sourcebook uses a broad perspective on what constitutes a "payment." Depending on the context, payments can imply either cash or noncash incentives, rewards or compensation. The Sourcebook is meant to serve as both a ready reference and a repository of useful knowledge on PES.

This Sourcebook is available in two forms: a PDF of the entire PES Sourcebook complete with a set of covers suitable for binding, or view/download PDFs of individual sections.

We also have a page on Further Reading About PES with additional documents to view/download.

Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering ... more Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering payments to groups of land users will motivate them to organize collectively to provide environmental services. In contrast, research from behavioral economics shows that introducing monetary incentives can undermine collective action that is motivated by social norms. In such a case payment could have perverse impacts. In view of this dichotomy, we conducted choice and field experiments in rural Mexico and Tanzania to test the response of prosocial behavior to incentives. The field experiments involved voluntary participation in real communal tasks under different incentive structures. Findings suggest that payments help raise participation where people are otherwise uninterested, but that participation in communal tasks can be high irrespective of the incentive if social norms favoring participation are present. In Tanzania, high individual payments do not undermine participation although they appear to reduce people's satisfaction from the task relative to when there is no payment. In Mexico, group payments made through village authorities yield lower participation where people distrust leaders. Challenges to conducting field experiments in our research settings limit what we can conclude from our work, but the findings raise important points and suggest areas for further research.

Journal of Sustainable …, Jan 1, 2009

This article reviews 15 payment for watershed services (PWS) programs in Asia, most of which are ... more This article reviews 15 payment for watershed services (PWS) programs in Asia, most of which are in early stages of implementation. Important constraints against PWS in Asia include high population density that escalates transaction costs of contracting potential service suppliers, and state control over most forestlands. China has two nationwide programs that encourage afforestation to arrest soil erosion. Indonesia has several local PWS schemes to conserve catchments upstream of dams and hydroelectric plants. Vietnam, Nepal, and the Philippines have similar initiatives, funded by international donors or local hydroelectric companies. India presents two cases where village communities came up with innovative social arrangements to secure watershed services. However, in most cases conditionality is weakly enforced, and participation may be mandatory. Government is the major buyer of watershed services, while private or quasi-private companies are involved in a few watersheds in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Nepal. Evidence of PWS on poverty alleviation is tenuous in most cases. China’s Sloping Land Conversion program has helped the poor increase their asset base while landless farmers in Indonesia have received conditional land tenure.

Natural Resources Forum, Jan 1, 2008

Carbon sequestration through forestry and agroforestry can help mitigate global warming. For Afri... more Carbon sequestration through forestry and agroforestry can help mitigate global warming. For Africa, carbon sequestration also represents an opportunity to fund sustainable development through financial inflows. However, with a low share of global carbon trade, there are strong concerns that African countries are losing out on this valuable opportunity. Through a comprehensive review of 23 carbon sequestration projects across 14 countries, this paper discusses ways to overcome critical challenges to scale up carbon investments in Africa. These projects are expected to sequester 26.85 million tCO2 beyond the baseline situation. Within the continent, East Africa is the preferred destination for carbon investors. Most projects are non-Kyoto compliant and represent voluntary emission reductions. While project benefits such as increased local incomes and improved natural resources are promising, there are concerns that conversion of grasslands into tree plantations can harm local ecosystems. Insecure land tenure constrains new investments and increases the risk that local communities will lose access to forests. Another challenge is that projects with smallholders have high transaction costs. These costs can be overcome by building strong community institutions and simplifying project guidelines. To attract more projects, African governments will need to build their capacity to identify relevant opportunities.

International Journal of the Commons, 2014

European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2011

... for watershed management in Cidanau watershed, West Java, Indonesia 106 Beria Leimona with Ra... more ... for watershed management in Cidanau watershed, West Java, Indonesia 106 Beria Leimona with Rachman Pasha and NP Rahadian 6 The ... Rural Development for the Alto Acre Region and Capixaba (CTAC) and co-author of Planejando futuros sustentáveis para os pequenos ...

Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2012

Payments for environmental services (PES), the non-provisioning part of ecosystem services, targe... more Payments for environmental services (PES), the non-provisioning part of ecosystem services, target alignment of microeconomic incentives for land users with meso- and macroeconomic societal costs and benefits of their choices across stakeholders and scales. They can interfere with or complement social norms and rights-based approaches at generic (land-use planning) and individual (tenure, use rights) levels; they interact with macroeconomic policies influencing the drivers to which individual agents respond. In many developing country contexts, community scale factors strongly influence land users' decisions, whereas unclear land rights complicate the use of market-based instruments. PES concepts need to adapt. Multiple paradigms have emerged within the broad PES domain. Evidence suggests that forms of “coinvestment in stewardship” (CIS) alongside rights are the preferred entry point. Commodification of environmental services (ES) and ES markets might evolve later on, but requir...

As payment for environmental services (PES) initiatives spread to collectively managed natural re... more As payment for environmental services (PES) initiatives spread to collectively managed natural resources, questions arise because the incentive structures that might be appropriate for individually managed resources will not necessarily promote the collective action required to manage the commons. Theory suggests challenges for cash payments to promote collective action, and for alternative payment types to facilitate conditionality. Possible ways to reconcile this disconnect involve conceiving of PES more broadly through the use of multiple forms of payment including non-cash incentives and placing greater focus on building institutions for collective action than on strict conditionality.

With growing interest in payment for environmental services (PES) as a means to promote conservat... more With growing interest in payment for environmental services (PES) as a means to promote conservation (Wunder et al., 2008), a persistent question for programme designers concerns the likely cost of achieving a given environmental objective (Ferraro, 2008; Jindal et al., 2013). PES assumes that landowners will undertake conservation investments if they get paid for their opportunity cost of doing so, but those costs are unknown to outsiders. In general, opportunity costs will vary with farm and farmer characteristics. PES initiatives can be designed more cost effectively if they can estimate the likely payments that landowners will require to undertake conservation. This chapter examines such questions in the context of a forestry programme in the Lake Victoria basin in Western Kenya that encourages local farmers to plant trees. We analyse farmers’ demand for planting trees on their land as a function of farm and farmer characteristics and also as a function of a hypothetical conditional payment that farmers could receive for planting each additional tree. The results presented here are based on a survey of local households in the Yala and Nyando river basins, which contribute a significant proportion of water (and silt) flow into Lake Victoria (Swallow et al., 2009). The research was conducted in the context of the Global Environment Facility-funded Western Kenya Integrated Ecosystem Management (WKIEM) project, which aims to conserve these river basins through forestry activities with local farmers.

There is growing concern amongst tropical countries on the emphasis of REDD+ to the conservation... more There is growing concern amongst tropical countries on the
emphasis of REDD+ to the conservation of forest areas alone,
while significant tree cover can be found outside forest areas
and officially demarcated forestlands may have little tree
cover. A landscape approach to REDD+, which accounts for
emission reductions from all land uses can help address this
concern. Reducing Emissions from All Land Uses (REALU) is a landscape approach that is being tested in selected tropical countries. The REALU concept is based on the argument that trees
outside forests contribute to carbon-rich landscapes, and
incentives for forest conservation alone may undermine
the potential of local communities to conserve or enhance
carbon outside forest boundaries. Drawing from our REALU
feasibility study in Bac Kan province, in the northeast region,
we provide insights for a national REALU strategy in Vietnam.

Ecological Economics, 2012

Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering ... more Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering payments to groups of land users will motivate them to organize collectively to provide environmental services. In contrast, research from behavioral economics shows that introducing monetary incentives can undermine collective action that is motivated by social norms. In such a case payment could have perverse impacts. In view of this dichotomy, we conducted choice and field experiments in rural Mexico and Tanzania to test the response of prosocial behavior to incentives. The field experiments involved voluntary participation in real communal tasks under different incentive structures. Findings suggest that payments help raise participation where people are otherwise uninterested, but that participation in communal tasks can be high irrespective of the incentive if social norms favoring participation are present. In Tanzania, high individual payments do not undermine participation although they appear to reduce people's satisfaction from the task relative to when there is no payment. In Mexico, group payments made through village authorities yield lower participation where people distrust leaders. Challenges to conducting field experiments in our research settings limit what we can conclude from our work, but the findings raise important points and suggest areas for further research.

A carbon offset or credit is equal to a ton of carbon (or 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide) that doesn... more A carbon offset or credit is equal to a ton of carbon (or 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide) that doesn’t flow into the atmosphere or is absorbed from the atmosphere and retained on earth. Other greenhouse gases (GHG) such as nitrous oxide and methane too have carbon dioxide equivalents that are used to estimate carbon credits. Carbon credits are the currency in which carbon markets deal – a way for market mechanisms to drive industrial and commercial processes in the direction of low emissions of carbon dioxide and other GHGs into the atmosphere. There are many ways in which carbon credits are produced. Examples include renewable energy projects and shifting from coal fired power plants to hydroelectric ones. This concept note explains how carbon credits or offsets are generated from the forestry sector - both in terms of growing new trees as well as protecting existing ones, and how they are traded in international markets. It is important to note that these projects and the resultant offsets are only a part of a long set of solutions that the international community is considering to address climate change. We also explain why in spite of the surge in international carbon markets, actual trading in forestry carbon offsets remains low. Indeed, despite the prolific increase in reference material on ecosystem services, particularly forest carbon services, there is a relative dearth of literature that explains basic concepts in easily accessible language. For instance why is someone willing to pay for not cutting down trees (or for planting new ones) when that person (or company) is not even located in the same country? Or why don’t we see many forest carbon projects even when international carbon markets are now worth billions of dollars? We attempt to answer these questions by using key economic concepts such as cap and trade that help generate carbon offsets, and by explaining how international carbon markets are further segregated into voluntary and compliance based markets, each with its own rules on how forest carbon offsets can be traded. The appendix at the end provides a list of useful sources to access additional material on any of the topics covered. In order to maintain simplicity, we focus on the main aspects of the carbon market - the way trading takes place, differentiating between carbon sequestration and maintenance of forest carbon stocks, and the role of carbon standards. We believe that once the target audience understands key market concepts, it would be much easier for them to access more technical literature on these issues.

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) target alignment of micro-economic incentives for land user... more Payments for ecosystem services (PES) target alignment of micro-economic incentives for land users with meso- and macro-economic societal costs and benefits of their choices across stakeholders and scales. They can interfere with or complement social norms and rights-based approaches at generic (land use planning) and individual (tenure, use rights) levels, and with macro-economic policies influencing the drivers to which individual agents respond. In many developing country contexts, community scale factors strongly influence land users’ decisions while unclear land rights complicate the use of market-based instruments. PES concepts need to adapt. Multiple paradigms have emerged within the broad PES domain. Evidence suggests that forms of “co-investment in stewardship” alongside rights are the preferred entry point. Commodification of ES and ES markets might evolve later on, but require strong government regulation to set and enforce rules of the game. We frame hypotheses for wider testing and “no-regrets” recommendations for practitioners.

Debates about the potential poverty alleviation impacts of global carbon markets are far from set... more Debates about the potential poverty alleviation impacts of global carbon markets are far from settled. We extend this debate by examining the impacts of a project in Mozambique that pays local people for carbon forestry activities. We conduct before-and-after project comparison using household data from project and non-project villages. Even though the poorest households participate widely in the project, the impact on incomes is small despite generous carbon accounting and contract terms. Leakage and impermanence remain strong concerns. Development activities under the project unrelated to carbon sequestration have a much bigger impact, albeit on a smaller number of households.

Land Use Policy, Jan 1, 2011

Determining the level of payment and selecting participants are important but frequently neglecte... more Determining the level of payment and selecting participants are important but frequently neglected issues that affect social, economic and environmental performance of payment for environmental services (PES) programs. We use a pilot auction to address these issues in the context of a PES program in Tanzania's Uluguru Mountains. Two-hundred fifty-one local farmers submitted sealed bids in the auction. The results reveal the supply of PES contracts at different prices. Simulations using the auction results and household data show large tradeoffs between achieving cost effectiveness and maximizing participation by poor households. A monitoring survey 21 months after the auction found that most auction winners’ trees had survived, with performance uncorrelated to the farmer's poverty status or bid level. Although aspects of our auction design limit the strength of some of the conclusions we draw from the data, our study shows how pilot auctions can assist decision makers in estimating payment levels for PES contracts. Auction participants stated that the auction provided transparency in contract allocation and that winners felt peer pressure to comply with contracts, which suggest areas for future research regarding the potential advantages of using auctions to allocate PES contracts in developing countries.

The PES Sourcebook was developed to provide potential managers of PES projects with basic backgro... more The PES Sourcebook was developed to provide potential managers of PES projects with basic background material on PES that is required to effectively design, implement, and manage PES programs. The Sourcebook uses a broad perspective on what constitutes a "payment." Depending on the context, payments can imply either cash or noncash incentives, rewards or compensation. The Sourcebook is meant to serve as both a ready reference and a repository of useful knowledge on PES.

This Sourcebook is available in two forms: a PDF of the entire PES Sourcebook complete with a set of covers suitable for binding, or view/download PDFs of individual sections.

We also have a page on Further Reading About PES with additional documents to view/download.

Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering ... more Incentive-based schemes for natural resource conservation are based on the premise that offering payments to groups of land users will motivate them to organize collectively to provide environmental services. In contrast, research from behavioral economics shows that introducing monetary incentives can undermine collective action that is motivated by social norms. In such a case payment could have perverse impacts. In view of this dichotomy, we conducted choice and field experiments in rural Mexico and Tanzania to test the response of prosocial behavior to incentives. The field experiments involved voluntary participation in real communal tasks under different incentive structures. Findings suggest that payments help raise participation where people are otherwise uninterested, but that participation in communal tasks can be high irrespective of the incentive if social norms favoring participation are present. In Tanzania, high individual payments do not undermine participation although they appear to reduce people's satisfaction from the task relative to when there is no payment. In Mexico, group payments made through village authorities yield lower participation where people distrust leaders. Challenges to conducting field experiments in our research settings limit what we can conclude from our work, but the findings raise important points and suggest areas for further research.

Journal of Sustainable …, Jan 1, 2009

This article reviews 15 payment for watershed services (PWS) programs in Asia, most of which are ... more This article reviews 15 payment for watershed services (PWS) programs in Asia, most of which are in early stages of implementation. Important constraints against PWS in Asia include high population density that escalates transaction costs of contracting potential service suppliers, and state control over most forestlands. China has two nationwide programs that encourage afforestation to arrest soil erosion. Indonesia has several local PWS schemes to conserve catchments upstream of dams and hydroelectric plants. Vietnam, Nepal, and the Philippines have similar initiatives, funded by international donors or local hydroelectric companies. India presents two cases where village communities came up with innovative social arrangements to secure watershed services. However, in most cases conditionality is weakly enforced, and participation may be mandatory. Government is the major buyer of watershed services, while private or quasi-private companies are involved in a few watersheds in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Nepal. Evidence of PWS on poverty alleviation is tenuous in most cases. China’s Sloping Land Conversion program has helped the poor increase their asset base while landless farmers in Indonesia have received conditional land tenure.

Natural Resources Forum, Jan 1, 2008

Carbon sequestration through forestry and agroforestry can help mitigate global warming. For Afri... more Carbon sequestration through forestry and agroforestry can help mitigate global warming. For Africa, carbon sequestration also represents an opportunity to fund sustainable development through financial inflows. However, with a low share of global carbon trade, there are strong concerns that African countries are losing out on this valuable opportunity. Through a comprehensive review of 23 carbon sequestration projects across 14 countries, this paper discusses ways to overcome critical challenges to scale up carbon investments in Africa. These projects are expected to sequester 26.85 million tCO2 beyond the baseline situation. Within the continent, East Africa is the preferred destination for carbon investors. Most projects are non-Kyoto compliant and represent voluntary emission reductions. While project benefits such as increased local incomes and improved natural resources are promising, there are concerns that conversion of grasslands into tree plantations can harm local ecosystems. Insecure land tenure constrains new investments and increases the risk that local communities will lose access to forests. Another challenge is that projects with smallholders have high transaction costs. These costs can be overcome by building strong community institutions and simplifying project guidelines. To attract more projects, African governments will need to build their capacity to identify relevant opportunities.