Understanding REDD+: What and how can we learn from Pilots? Plenary during SANDEE's Biannual Meeting in Park Village Resort by Dr. Erin Sills, Dec 7, 2014

Erin O. Sills, editor of "REDD+ On the Ground" and Professor of Forest Economics, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, NC State University/CIFOR gave a plenary presentation at SANDEE's Biannual Research and Training Workshop on learning from REDD+ pilots.

REDD+, a leading near term instrument for global climate change mitigation, is being implemented in pilot form worldwide in order to demonstrate its viability. More than 300 pilots are ongoing at sub-national levels. Prof. Sills discussed lessons from a study undertaken by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in 23 sites in 6 countries to test REDD+. These sites had well-defined boundaries, were all sub-national initiatives, and were in diverse areas with varying degrees of deforestation. The viability of REDD+ strategies were examined by matching REDD+ sites with counterfactuals, selected by applying various matching techniques, including synthetic matching. The pilots suggest that: REDD+ programs devoted significant effort to clarifying and securing forest land tenure; few offered conditional incentives; nearly all restricted use of forest land but supported livelihood development; and funding was mainly through international and NGO support, rather than sale of carbon credit.