A holistic approach to assessing Redd+ forest loss baselines through ex post analysis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15550338 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maren Pauly (0000-0003-0470-2678, corresponding author), William Crosse, Colin Moore (Wildlife Conservation Society), Kevin Brown (0000-0002-3238-3750), Kevin K Brown (0000-0002-9209-3261, Wildlife Conservation Society), Olly Griffin (0000-0003-2916-7560, Wildlife Conservation Society), Oliver Griffin, Edward T A Mitchard (0000-0002-5690-4055), Jeremy Freund (0009-0008-7478-2689), Joshua Tosteson |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 12 |
| Pages | 124096-124096 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/ad616c |
| OpenAlex | W4400482302 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 24 |
The implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects has become a key Nature Based Solutions strategy to protect at-risk forests using the sale of verified emission reductions (carbon credits) as financing, generated by reducing forest loss against counterfactual baseline scenarios. Controversy over the reasonableness of such baseline scenarios has thrown this nascent market mechanism into disarray. While new technical approaches to baseline-setting that promise wider market acceptance are set to roll out in the coming years, existing projects are becoming unviable, as carbon credit buyers reduce investment due to lost confidence in the integrity of emissions reduction claims. Transparent, reproducible methods to assess existing REDD+ project baselines are needed in order to provide a clearer picture of the real impact of projects, and provide an objective basis on which investment decisions can be made today. Here we introduce such a method. In contrast to existing studies which utilize only one method to create a single ‘control,’ we integrate actual forest loss rates from a variety of control sites to establish a ‘zone of reasonable accuracy (or ZORA)’. Application of our method in Cambodia, using two geospatial datasets (one global and one locally calibrated), shows that all three project baselines fall within or below ZORA. This approach is fully reproducible, and provides a transparent way for analysts to assess REDD+ baselines during this critical time when investment in forest protection must increase dramatically and without delay
Geography · Environmental Science · Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies · Forest Management and Policy · Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications · Forestry
Good practices for estimating area and assessing accuracy of land change
Overstated carbon emission reductions from voluntary Redd+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon
Long-term (1990–2019) monitoring of forest cover changes in the humid tropics
High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change
Evaluating the impacts of a large-scale voluntary Redd+ project in Sierra Leone
Estimating the potential of international carbon markets to increase global climate ambition
Land rights as an engine of growth? An analysis of Cambodian land grabs in the context of development theory
Exploring trade-offs between development and conservation outcomes in Northern Cambodia
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |