Seeing REDD: Reducing Emissions and Conserving Biodiversity by Avoiding Deforestation

Protection of existing forests through Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD)—a system of providing incentives for reduced deforestation—has the potential to deliver both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation benefits. This article explores how these complementary environmental goals can be supported by international payments for ecosystem services (IPES) via the emerging global carbon market. REDD, through an IPES framework, offers an opportunity to “bundle” payments for reduced emissions with payments for biodiversity conservation in order to allow for cost-sharing between the multiple beneficiaries of REDD. The article outlines two potential cost-sharing arrangements between carbon investors financing reduced emissions and the beneficiaries of biodiversity conservation provided by REDD. One scheme combines finances from general biodiversity beneficiaries as a whole with carbon investments in REDD through a global “fund”; a second scheme matches payments from specific biodiversity beneficiaries with investments in REDD through a payment “partnership” between both groups. Each scheme falls on either end of a spectrum of opportunities for bundling payments for different environmental benefits into one investment in REDD. The discussion is intended to incite further dialogue on potential systems for implementing the emerging concept of bundling payments for ecosystem services.