Tenure matters in REDD+: Lessons from the field

At the national level, efforts to address land and carbon tenure issues have been limited, although REDD+ has brought unprecedented international attention to tenure and other rights of forest peoples. Project level interventions to address tenure encounter substantial obstacles if they do not have national backing; at the same time, national land registration institutions are often inadequate for effectively addressing the central, underlying issue of customary tenure rights.REDD+ policy makers can move forward on macro level approaches by attacking the underlying drivers of deforestation, while proceeding in parallel to target solutions to specific tenure problems; both, however, are likely to face resistance.