Talk:Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation/Archive 1

Archive 1

Editing, POV

This is going to be deleted because it "promotes some entity", granted it is badly written but I don't believe it promotes REDD which is not in itself a commercial entity. A section on REDD would be extremely useful for researchers as it is such an active topic of debate in environmental science.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Getmel (talk • contribs) 17:35, 2 March 2009

Though I agree that the article is badly written, I think it rather promotes a skeptical view of carbon credits and their trade. Either way, the text does not seem to be objective at all (which is no surprise given the political and economic meaning of the topic). Some clean up and higher-level references (UNFCCC instead of blogs, etc.) is definitely necessary. --Asdirk (talk) 10:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Agree with Asdirk that finer editing and better references are needed --m4ck5 (talk) 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi! I agree - I think this article needs a lot of editorial work. I just checked the references, and asides from lots of them being blog posts (from one blog in particular) a bunch came up as 404 errors on the sites they were supposed to be hosted on. Also, I think it needs to be re-written and restructured to be more informative and NPOV. I'll see what I can do this week. Runner Five (talk) 11:20, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

As a somewhat high-profile article (many links), I'd suggest using this talk page to discuss major changes, and perhaps also developing a sandbox version for comment... Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi @DA - I think those ideas are great! I'm pretty new to Wikipedia, so I'd love to know how we create a sandbox of this article. Runner Five (talk) 11:07, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed. Removed section containing original research and/or written from a non-neutral point of view. The article is coming along, though further efforts needed. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The UN program seems to be called "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation". First, is there agreement that it's "Reducing", not "Reduced"? Second, should "forest" be lowercased, per some reliable sources ( http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=573&ArticleID=6102&l=en , http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/blog/un-approves-program-to-reduce-emissions-from-deforestation/4407/ ) or uppercased per the MOS and other RS ( http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2008/080924_REDD.doc.htm )?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

And, additionally, should we use the title from the UN program, or a more-generic title as the article currently has?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• According to the article, it is "reducing". Move to Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
• Do it. It has to be moved from camelcase anyway. 199.125.109.124 (talk) 12:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
•  Administrator note I've moved it to Anthony's suggestion, in lieu of any better. If reliable sources in the future seem to favor all caps, then feel free to move it there.--Aervanath (talk) 15:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
• I've moved the page to Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation to include the word "forest". The sources above include the word and the UNFCCC portal on REDD writes it this way, too. (The suffix "in developing countries" appears to be descriptive and not a main part of the title.) I hope this is acceptable. Duncan MacKenzie (talk) 10:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Despite the discussion above & associated move, the article was moved back to all initial caps on 19 August 2010 and has apparently stayed that way. Any objections to returning it to the first capital only? Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 04:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Without expressing an opinion on all caps or not, it's worth noting that, as an acronyn, the R, E, D and D are left as capitals because they are part of the acronym - whereas the f for forest is not. Something else I'm pondering is whether the world at large is starting to follow Wikipedia's policies on punctuation, not just capitalisation in titles. Best wishes Francis Hannaway (talk) 08:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 20:18, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The original submission by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, on behalf of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, dated 28 July 2005, was entitled Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries: Approaches to Stimulate Action, exactly as is written here, in camelcase (and also bold and underlined). COP-11 entered the request to consider the document as agenda item 6: Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action, again written here exactly as in the official text. The name for the agenda item was also used at COP-13 in Bali, December 2007. By COP-15 in Copenhagen, December 2009, the scope of the agenda item was broadened to Methodological guidance for activities relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries, moving to Policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries by COP-16, after which they gave up on the broader topic and started making decisions on elements of REDD+, in the title of the decisions referring back to earlier decisions like so: Guidance on systems for providing information on how safeguards are addressed and respected and modalities relating to forest reference emission levels and forest reference levels as referred to in decision 1/CP.16.

None of these documents uses an acronym for the title of the agenda item or otherwise; the ubiquitous acronym is thus not coined by the COP of the UNFCCC. Surprisingly therefore, the set of decisions on REDD+ that were adopted at COP-19 in Warsaw, December 2013, were jointly christened the Warsaw Framework on REDD-plus.

All things considered, there should be no confusion on the name:

• REDD -- Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries.
• REDD+ -- Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

However, the name as used for this article is how the mechanism is commonly referred to by all but the legalistic few (of which I am, perhaps sadly, one, even though IANAL). I suggest the article keep its current name but that a section along the lines above is added.

I suppose that the issue of capitalization is a matter of style. Same goes for the use of "REDD-plus" or "REDD+". I personally use the latter and this is what I most often encounter.

--Pvanlaake (talk) 17:45, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Emphasis on developing countries?

The UN material on this topic seems to consistently situate REDD in the context of developing countries. Yet this seemingly important aspect is not currently mentioned in the article lead. Comments? Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 04:59, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

REDD+ is by definition only available to non-Annex I Parties to the UNFCCC, i.e. developing country Parties in UNFCCC parlance.

--Pvanlaake (talk) 16:49, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposal for new article structure

Hi! So I've been thinking about this a lot after reading a bunch of sources from this page, and I think the best way to start editing this article would be to begin by changing the structure to be more readable & logical. As per @DA's comments above under Editing & POV I thought I'd post these here before starting a big overhaul.

Here's what I've come up with, please let me know what you think:

1. INTRO

2. BACKGROUND i. Land-use change and forestry (LUCF) emissions ii. REDD Activities iii. International policy

3. ELEMENTS OF REDD POLICY AND PRACTICE i. Scope ii. Baselines iii. Monitoring iv. The carbon market

4. CONCERNS i. Leakage ii. Permanence iii. Indigenous peoples

Thanks! Runner Five (talk) 11:17, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Atricle has been completely restructured and updates to latest status (COP-19). Pvanlaake (talk) 14:41, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with United Nations REDD Programme (closed, rejected)

These two articles address the same topic. The United Nations REDD Programme article should be a section within the larger REDD article. Merging the two should produce a more robust, integrated single article on an important subject. DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 14:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree - while REDD is more like a concept and United Nations REDD Programme is an application of that concept, I am pretty sure that someone seeking information on the UN REDD programme would need the context of REDD, and someone seeking to understand REDD would need to know about the UN REDD programme as REDD in practice. I don't think keeping the articles separate serves either of these audiences. Runner Five (talk) 12:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

It is certainly not appropriate to merge the UN-REDD entry with the entry on REDD (or REDD+). "REDD+" refers to a track of negotiations under the UNFCCC, and the mechanism that will potentially be implemented under a future international climate change agreement. "UN-REDD", on the other hand, is a joint programme of the three UN agencies FAO, UNDP and UNEP on "REDD+ Readiness", not REDD+ itself. It is one of several such programmes - another being the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) of the World Bank - that assists developing countries to prepare for a future REDD+ mechanism. "REDD+" and "UN-REDD" are confused too often, and this proposal to merge the two Wikipedia entries is an example of such confusion. (UN-REDD, 18 October 2013) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.90.216.134 (talk) 06:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment, which is apparently coming from the UN-REDD Programme itself, that a merger is inappropriate. REDD+ is a concept under multi-lateral negotiation which may result in a mechanism under the UNFCCC endorsed by its member Parties, while UN-REDD is a specific implementation of the UNFCCC decisions on REDD+ with no inherent importance, value or persistence (the UN-REDD Programme is dependent on external funding). Pvanlaake (talk) 03:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Seeing that after initial suggestion and secondment almost a year ago only one opinion has been voiced which goes against the merger (discounting my own), I have decided to close the discussion on the proposed merger and to reject the proposal. Pvanlaake (talk) 03:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Costs

Appearantly, protecting land isn't a simple thing for private investors. Although the land can be rather cheap to obtain (312 euro/hectare), the upfront costs of certification, forest inventory, etc are extremely high (between 200000 and 300000 euro -in Brazil-), making projects protecting forests with an area lower than 20000 hectare not profitable (revenue per hectare is about or lower than 650 to 1000 euro/hectare). That means a private investor needs to do a minimum investment of 6440000 euro to 6550000 euro -in Brazil-. Most private investors may not hold that amount of money, so is unable to save any forest land via REDD. 109.130.196.172 (talk) 07:30, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps that banks can help out in this, ie by setting up group purchases (they can advise many people -say several hundred people- to invest their money in a particular REDD project). Perhaps that organisations such as Code REDD can relay this idea to the banks/bank sector.

109.130.196.196 (talk) 06:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Article structure and content need a serious makeover

This article does not do justice to the importance of REDD and REDD++. I wanted some information but instead got a lot of opinions and "facts" which were not referenced.

In fact, this article should start off with a presentation of all the relevant UNFCCC COP decisions on REDD+ as these are the only authoritative source on REDD+. Right now it is a jumble of opinions with very little structure and no presentation whatsoever of what makes REDD+. In fact, there are patent errors on the page and it is out-of-date by a few years (reference to the "upcoming COP-16" when we have just had COP-19, for instance; also most of the financial support text is outdated).

I would suggest to restructure the article as follows:

• Introduction with facts only, no discussion of controversies or status.
• History - brief overview of things leading up to the adoption by the COP of the agenda item on REDD+
• Status of negotiation - reference all the COP decisions on REDD+
• Structure of REDD+ - present the constituent elements of REDD+

1. National strategies or action plans
2. Drivers of deforestation and reference levels
3. National forest monitoring system
4. Eligible activities
5. Safeguards
6. Reporting
7. Verification
8. Results-based payments and benefit distribution

• Demonstration activities

1. "Readiness" activities at national level - UN-REDD, FCPF, FIP, bilateral
2. "Readiness" activities at sub-national level - project-based REDD+, VCS REDD+ methodologies
3. Demonstrating elements of REDD+ - e.g. UN-REDD FPIC work, studies on benefit distribution, MRV and monitoring, international finance, RLs,etc.

• Criticsm of REDD+ - most of current page, but better structured

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pvanlaake (talk • contribs) 00:41, February 14, 2014

Done. Article fully updated.Pvanlaake (talk) 14:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)