no one will deny that there are a number of concerns and challenges with REDD (both carbon-market and fund-based or other) that need to be resolved. The list is similarly long for many of the proposed approaches to addressing deforestation. Many of the outstanding questions you list apply to non-carbon market approaches as well, such as government-based or fund-based, and others, notably the transparency and corruption question may be even more prominent with the latter.

You ask: “Why can you not see that one solution would be to abolish carbon trading?” So what is the solution you actually propose? Abolishing one mechanism that is not even established (with regards to REDD) does nothing but leave in place the status quo. Is that what you want? What do you propose constructively? We are really wasting our time with these discussions if REDD-monitor and others are not willing or able to bring forward constructive suggestions – remaining critical but also honest and not self-righeous.

Sorry for the perhaps emotional response but while I certainly appreciate and support the role of campaigning organisations, we need more than NO-campaigns! And I am really frustrated with how much energy and resources are mobilised just to block things without working towards a solution for what is certainly not a sustainable nor desirable situation for forests, people and the climate today!

@johannes ebeling – Why can you not see that one solution would be to abolish carbon trading? Let’s have a “solution-oriented” discussion about that (please). Mongabay (which is pretty much pro-REDD) recently listed some of the concerns about REDD that still remain:

- financing to support the mechanism and provide sufficient economic incentives to stop deforestation;
- criteria for establishing credible deforestation baselines;
- technical aspects of monitoring and verifying change in forest cover;
- concerns over poor governance and illegal logging;
- international leakage, whereby forest conservation in one country drives deforestation in another;
- scale of implementation, including the debate over “national” versus “sub-national” projects;
- equity, including land tenure, ownership, and participation of forest-dependent communities;
- questions on how to address drivers of deforestation including consumption in rich countries;
- sustainable forest management (i.e. reduced impact logging) versus protection of primary forests as intact ecosystems;
- protection of biodiversity and environmental services in non-carbon-rich ecosystems; and
- controversies over carbon offsets and including forest carbon in market-based trading schemes.

Why is it ideological to reject carbon trading but non-ideological to assume that carbon trading can be part of a solution to climate change (which is an impossible position to defend, given that carbon trading by definition does not reduce emissions).

I believe that many readers would be overjoyed if we could for once read a balanced, honest, and, above all, constructive contribution to the REDD debate on this website. Please, let us try to leave ideology aside, even if it makes for such easy and morally righteous debates. We really owe more to the world’s forests, people and climate.

Consider the statement we are asked to sign on to: “Forests have been and can only be protected through … strictly enforced bans on trade in timber products…”. Further, the declaration warns that “REDD could become…a ‘cash cow for forest destroyers’.” and stokes the fear of forest plantations – clearly the satanic counterpart to thriving virgin forests. Why does everything have to be so black and white, and what is wrong about combining different elements of solutions we know can work without demonizing others?

Rather than, for example, calling for a ban on all timber trading – why not consider a more constructive approach of promoting, or even requiring FSC certified timber trade? I am sure you will be quick to point out controversies about cases of forest certification. But anyone working in poor countries trying to protect forests knows that an economic value (not just for evil corporates but also local people and national governments) needs to be created to keep forests standing. And – if you deny this option – then the world’s thirst (not just in the North but just as much in developing countries) for agricultural products, timber, and pulp and paper will surely cause forest destruction with more harmful consequences to people and the planet than those you may conjure up for approaches such as forest certification and REDD+.

On the other example, the much beloved devil of plantations, just how do you propose to stop deforestation (to benefit people depending on forests for their livelihoods) while providing fuelwood and charcoal (on which the vast majority of the world’s poorest people depend), timber, paper and other products without planting new forests? I am particularly curious given your opposition to sustainable forest management on a commercial scale (i.e. carefully managed logging) to provide the latter goods. Equating planted forests with forest destruction is really too simplistic and is a debate we should have overcome ever since safeguards such as the 1990 (CDM) and 10-year (VCS) rules were introduced (which ban carbon crediting for reforestation on recently deforested land).

I and other readers are more than willing to engage in a constructive discussion about the risks of markets, how they can be addressed through better regulation, and what alternatives exist. I am certainly aware of other approaches proposed (carbon tax revenues, auction revenues etc.) and believe that a combination of elements of all of these is needed. A solution-oriented discussion (please!) should also include a frank analysis of the risks of corruption, intransparency, and marginalisation of people in government-to-government schemes and other approaches suggested (although there is a clear role for them as well). Even using revenues from auctioning of carbon credits or carbon taxes would face many of the potential problems seen by large-scale public and multilateral funding campaigns in developing countries.

But all of this should be discussed constructively and non-ideologically (and I do mean it) in order to improve what was tried in the past.

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Este posicionamiento desecha lo bueno junto con lo malo. REDD+ puede ser una gran ayuda para combatir la deforestación en los países tropicales. Esto no sólo es necesario para mitigar emisiones de CO2, sino sobre todo para conservar la biodiversidad. Además, REDD+ no necesariamente tiene que ser financiado por los mercados de carbono sino por un Fondo Global para Bosques proveniente de impuestos al carbon de los países altamente industrializados.
Dejar de explotar el petróleo no es factible en el mundo actual, no solo porque la civilización contemporánea colapsaría, sino sobre todo porque los sistemas de producción de alimentos no podrían alimentar a gran parte de la población mundial, ya que la agricultura industrial es intensa en petróleo.
Lo que se puede y debe hacerse es no explotar el petróleo en areas protegidas, como ha propuesto la Iniciativa Yasuní de Ecuador, o como propone PRODENA en el Parque Madidi de Bolivia.
Los fondos para REDD+ deberían provenir de impuestos a los combustibles fósiles y los que se dan para subsidiar a estos combustibles en los países industrializados.
Al mismo tiempo tenemos que expandir la agricultura orgánica.
Todo depende cómo se diseñe REDD+, y debe hacerse para favorecer a los pueblos indígenas y otros que habitan en los bosques tropicales. Ya que la gente que tradicionalmente ha habitado los bosques es la más perjudicada con la deforestación.