Table 1 Relative difficulty of tackling different forms of degradation
From: Dealing with locally-driven degradation: A quick start option under REDD+
Degradation due to: | Most common in | Measures available to combat | Actors involved | Opportunity costs to actors of reducing degradation | Likelihood of leakage | Likely time horizon for implementation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Industrial and commercial selective logging | Humid tropical forest | Enforcement of existing codes; Introduction of stricter codes; Sector wide agreements on SFM practices with industry; Real time monitoring of logging and rapid response facility; Creation of indigenous peoples' reserves, with leakage safeguards | Commercial timber concerns, both legal and illegal; in some cases, corrupt or complicit officials | High | High | Long term; political opposition may be strong |
Community over-exploitation for subsistence and local market | Dry (savanna) forest, high altitude temperate forests | CFM programmes, PES programmes | Communities, facilitating NGOs | Low; in many cases CFM increases the supply of subsistence products | Low, since productivity increases may make up for lost production | Short to medium: greatest barrier may establishment of tenure and rights, but is acceptable politically in most countries at least in low value forests |
Manmade fires | All forests | Obligatory fire controls in SFM and CFM agreements; Real time monitoring and rapid response facilities | Communities, logging companies, other forest managers | Medium | Low | Long term; not least because the problem of factoring out natural fire from manmade is seriously difficult methodologically. |