Protecting and restoring the world’s forests is essential to keeping global warming below 1.5oC. With this knowledge, the ambitious global strategy to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation known as REDD+ has been at the top of the global climate agenda since 2007, as a way to promote both climate and development benefits from forests. CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (GCS REDD+) began soon after, now the largest global research programme of its kind. From national-level policy work to district- and community-specific actions, CIFOR researchers have been collecting data, sharing experiences and analyzing research to determine what has worked and what hasn’t with REDD+ across 22 countries.
Fighting deforestation is challenging and complex. GCS REDD+ builds on 27 years of CIFOR science aimed at understanding the causes of deforestation and forest degradation, and what can be done to stop it, while securing the rights and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities.
Effective, efficient and equitable REDD+ requires transparent and accountable forest monitoring, appropriate forest-friendly policies and actions adapted to different circumstances, as well as well-designed safeguards and benefit-sharing mechanisms. Moreover, forest-friendly policies need to balance competing policy objectives and stakeholder interests in order to support and promote transformational change.
Find out how GCS REDD+ is addressing five major global challenges with knowledge and actions.