Post on 16-Jan-2023
Institutional approaches for carbon financing in the forestsector: learning lessons for REDD+ from forest carbonprojects in Uganda
Leo Peskett a,*, Kate Schreckenberg b, Jessica Brown a
aOverseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7JD, UKbUniversity of Southampton, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9
a r t i c l e i n f o
Published on line 18 November 2010
Keywords:
Carbon forestry
Development
Agroforestry
Collaborative forest management
Rules
a b s t r a c t
With momentum building around the implementation of REDD+ programmes and projects,
questions surrounding the appropriate structuring of institutions are becoming increasingly
important. We examine how the variations in the institutional arrangements related to the
carbon finance aspects of projects affect the opportunities for poor rural producers involved,
or those living in the vicinity of projects. Evidence is drawn from a review of three forest
carbon projects in Uganda, based on qualitative stakeholder interviews and supported by
policy documents and literature. Three aspects of project institutions are discussed; actors,
rules and links to existing external institutions. The findings suggest that supporting such
projects with carbon finance can have some positive impacts on opportunities through
improved monitoring, but that considerable progress needs to be made in balancing the
interests of project financers with those of the communities involved and improving policy
coordination with existing institutions external to projects. We suggest that these lessons
are particularly transferable to the growing number of REDD+ approaches that are strongly
performance based or funded through carbon markets, and implemented through direct
payment systems between buyers and local producer groups or individuals.
# 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci
1. Introduction
REDD+ is a mechanism being negotiated through the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
to mitigate climate change by compensating developing
countries for demonstrated reduced emissions from deforesta-
tion and forest degradation (Phelps et al., 2010). Since REDD was
introduced on to the UNFCCC agenda in 2006 its scope has been
expanded through successive negotiations to include not only
forest conservation activities, but also forest enhancement and
sustainable management of forests (the so-called REDD+
agenda) (Holloway and Giandomenico, 2009). With growing
* Corresponding author at: Overseas Development Institute, Rural Policy7JD, UK. Tel.: +44 020 7922 0300; fax: +44 020 7922 0399.
E-mail address: l.peskett@odi.org.uk (L. Peskett).
1462-9011/$ – see front matter # 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reservedoi:10.1016/j.envsci.2010.10.004
momentum to develop REDD+ systems, there has been
increasing focus on the appropriate institutional arrangements
for implementing REDD+ at the international, national and
project levels. Some of the key institutional questions that need
to be addressed include how carbon finance can be effectively
distributed in REDD+, how to ensure benefits reach forest
communities, and what the tradeoffs may be between
approaches in areas such as managing finance, and evaluating
greenhouse gas reductions or removals.
Recent studies have looked at some of these issues at the
international level (Meridian Institute, 2009) and increasingly
at the national and subnational levels (Angelsen, 2009). They
and Governance Group, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1
d.
1 The CDM is a mechanism which has been developed under theKyoto Protocol. It involves the development of emissions reduc-tion or carbon sequestration projects in developing countries fromwhich certified credits (equivalent to 1 t of carbon dioxide) can bepurchased through emissions trading markets by developed coun-tries seeking to meet their own emissions reductions obligationsunder the Protocol.
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9 217
highlight a range of institutional options, which vary
depending on the way REDD+ is financed, how it fits into an
international climate agreement, at what scale REDD+ policies
and measures are implemented (e.g. by national governments
across the whole forest estate, or in targeted project areas) and
whether they aim to conserve standing forest, or promote
afforestation and reforestation (A/R) (Parker et al., 2009).
Despite a growing literature on these issues, there is still
only a small evidence base related to existing forestry
greenhouse gas reduction or removal projects and, where
evidence does exist, often a lack of systematic lesson learning
for REDD+. This paper focuses on drawing lessons for REDD+
from existing carbon A/R projects. It looks at the institutional
design of three different projects in Uganda, in terms of the
actors involved, the rules under which they operate and their
links to existing external institutions, particularly with regard
to how greenhouse gas emissions and related carbon finance
flows are governed. The question it seeks to address is how
variations in these institutional arrangements, particularly
those required by the carbon finance aspects of the projects,
affect the opportunities for poor rural producers involved, or
those living in the vicinity of projects.
2. Institutional arrangements for forestcarbon projects and opportunities for the ruralpoor
While there are many different notions of institutions within
the political science literature, in this paper we use a rule-
based approach which refers to institutions as ‘‘the rules that
humans use when interacting within a wide variety of
repetitive and structured situations at multiple levels of
analysis’’ (Ostrom, 2008). From this, we break our analysis
into a study of the different participants and actors involved in
projects and the rules that they have created to manage
interactions between them. We also draw from this definition
the need to understand the extent to which actors and rules
are newly created or existing, and the level at which they
operate.
Forest carbon projects (defined here as forestry projects
financed through ‘markets commercializing emission rights
generated through carbon dioxide fixation by forest ecosys-
tems’, after Corbera and Brown, 2008), are a sub-set of
‘Payments for Environmental Services’ (PES) projects which
have developed since the 1990s ‘‘as a mechanism to improve
the efficiency of natural resource management’’ (Pagiola et al.,
2005). The dominant conceptual approach sees PES as a policy
tool to internalise environmental externalities (Pascual et al.,
2010). In theory, incentives are generated through a market in
which users of environmental services channel finance to
service providers (land managers). Most definitions of pay-
ments for environmental services emphasise the require-
ments for a well defined trading commodity, the existence of
at least one ‘buyer’ and one ‘seller’ of the service and the
principle of conditionality (i.e. payment delivered only where
the seller secures provision of the environmental service)
(Landell-Mills and Porras, 2002; Wunder, 2005). These theoret-
ical principles influence the institutions that have emerged
around PES systems and mean that at a general level, many of
the building blocks of projects, and the markets in which
carbon is traded, are similar.
In practice, however, there are large variations in the
details of how institutions have emerged and operate,
particularly at the local scale. Observers argue that this is
partly due to the fact that projects do not conform strictly to
the definition of PES given above (Wunder, 2005) or are not yet
operating in self-sustaining markets (Corbera and Brown,
2008). However, it also relates to the different types of actors
that can come together within projects, under different formal
or informal sets of rules operating at different scales. To date,
only a few projects have been studied in detail (e.g. Asquith
et al., 2002; Boyd, 2002; Nelson and de Jong, 2003; Corbera et al.,
2009; Corbera et al., 2007), but existing literature and publicly
available Project Design Documents (PDDs) highlight some of
the main differences that arise across these three aspects of
institutions. These are summarised in Table 1.
REDD+ programmes are likely to share many of the
institutional features of carbon forestry projects. The most
direct links can be made with REDD+ approaches that include
projects operating in specific geographic areas (as opposed to
broad policy reforms), where implementation occurs through
local PES systems that link direct payments to individual or
group performance and which incorporate existing institu-
tions into their operation. Initial surveys of REDD+ demon-
stration activities and strategies indicate that a number of
countries are approaching REDD+ implementation in this way
(Wertz-Kanounnikoff and Kongphan-Apirak, 2009).
There is a small literature on the opportunities that forest
carbon projects offer for the rural poor, though insights can also
be drawn from the wider PES literature, because forest carbon
projects operate under PES principles. The literature suggests
that whilst PES was developed with efficiency objectives in
mind, it can provide some livelihood benefits (Landell-Mills and
Porras, 2002; Pagiola et al., 2005; Porras et al., 2008; Wunderet al.,
2008). These include: increased income above opportunity costs
(Wunder et al., 2008), increased tenure security (Asquith et al.,
2008; Engel and Palmer, 2008) and increased social capital
(Grieg-Gran et al., 2005). However, high transaction costs related
to complex methodologies may be a barrier to participation
(Grieg-Gran et al., 2005; Pagiola et al., 2005) and indirect effects
can occur such as reduced quality of roads and water, and
increased prices of local produce (Grieg-Gran et al., 2005).
Relatively little is known about the impacts on non-participants
(Tacconi et al., 2009). Whilst there are a number of studies on the
international and national features of carbon markets (e.g.
Olsen and Fenhann, 2008), only a few studies have directly
analysed the links between opportunities and risks arising and
the way institutions function within projects (e.g. Nelson and de
Jong, 2003; Boyd et al., 2007b). Minang et al. (2007) explicitly look
at how principles underlying the operation of the Kyoto
Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism1 (CDM) (such as
Table 1 – The main actors, rules and external institutions operating in carbon forest projects and considered in this study.
Institutional aspect Main components Functions Comments
Actors Participantsa Implement emissions reduction or
sequestration activities and sell
carbon credits
The overlaps between actors and
their roles can be complex and more
actor types can be involved. Projects
can broadly be classified on a
continuum from more private sector
focussed projects with profit
objectives, to more NGO led projects
with more philanthropic objectives
(Boyd et al., 2007b)
Project developers Design, establish and often fund
projects (and can act as participants)
Intermediaries May act as aggregators for
participants, brokers, or providers of
technical services such as monitoring
and verification
Buyers Purchase carbon credits originating
from the activities
Rules Standards Specify the processes that project
developers need to go through in
order to establish carbon forestry
projects, such as project pre-
assessment procedures (e.g.
community consultation), design and
ongoing monitoring
Procedures are similar across
different standards, but the level of
detail required can vary significantly
(Peskett et al., 2007)
Project Design
Documents (PDD)
Incorporate information from project
pre-assessments and establish
processes which are to be used in the
operation of the project, such as
monitoring plans
PDDs are highly standardised but
content varies depending on type of
project and type of methodology
approved by the CDM Executive
Board for calculating carbon dioxide
emissions and removals
Emissions Reduction
Purchase Agreements
(ERPAs)
Comprise the main formal set of
rules used to structure carbon
finance agreements. Specify expected
carbon credit volumes, carbon credit
prices, duration and scheduling of
payments, risk reduction
mechanisms and forest management
systems
ERPAs for forestry projects often
contain similar clauses but can vary
in aspects such as fixed or variable
pricing
Links to external
institutions
Forest, land use and
investment policies
Provide a framework for, and may be
referenced in, project rules; include
policies such as collaborative forest
management agreements or
environmental policies
Most standards stipulate that
projects must follow local policies
and regulations, so these can be
instrumental in areas such as the
design of benefit sharing systems
External actors Provide links to (and potential
coordination with) policies and
processes that may affect efficiency
and impact of the project, e.g. local
environmental officers managing
environmental impact assessment or
district agricultural officers managing
adjacent lands
External actor networks also exist at
the national level (e.g. focal points for
the UNFCCC; foreign direct
investment promotion depts.) and
international level (e.g. donors
influencing implementation of
poverty reduction policies)
a Note that we use the term participant throughout the paper to refer to community members involved in project activities. This is narrower
than the formal definition given in the CDM Glossary of Terms, Version 03.
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9218
additionality, leakage and certification) place demands on
community capacity to implement community carbon forestry.
3. Case studies and methods
This study was carried out as part of a larger project funded by
the Ford Foundation to investigate the opportunities that
carbon offset projects offer for poor rural communities
(Peskett et al., 2010). The study focused on Africa because of
the limited number of empirical studies of carbon forestry
projects in Africa (Bozmoski and Hultman, 2010; Skutsch and
Ba, 2010; Minang et al., 2007). Uganda was chosen as a case
study country because it is one of only a few countries in Africa
to have several relatively well advanced carbon forestry
projects in which activities have been implemented for a
number of years.
Three different projects were chosen as case studies: the
Nile Basin Reforestation project (a CDM project implemented
on National Forest Authority (NFA) land); the Trees for Global
Benefit (TGB) project (an NGO-run voluntary carbon project
implemented by farmers on their own private land); and the
Kikonda Forest Reserve project (a voluntary carbon project
implemented by a private company on NFA land). These
projects were chosen because of their length of operation,
their different institutional arrangements in terms of actors,
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9 219
carbon standards used and land use systems, and because
they all have arrangements to deliver carbon payments
directly to participants.
To understand the different ways in which the projects are
operating and their impacts on participants and non-partici-
pants, we employed a qualitative research process based on
in-depth stakeholder interviews and focus groups (5–15 people
each) conducted in March and April 2009. At the project level
we consulted three main groups of stakeholders:
� People active within each of the carbon offset projects.
These included participants who were planting trees either
individually or in groups to earn carbon credits, local project
staff and on-site project managers (47 people in 5 focus
groups and 24 people in smaller or individual meetings).
� Non-participants living or working in project areas. These
included community members with no particular interests
in the projects as well as occupational groups, such as
charcoal burners and grazers, with specific concerns related
to the projects (36 people in 4 focus groups).
� Government staff providing the external policy, governance
and information context for the projects, such as District
Forest, Agriculture and Environment Officers, local NFA
officials as well as two representatives of another local
carbon offset project (10 people).
The local-level fieldwork was carried out by a team
including the two lead authors (one an expert on REDD+
and the other specialised in community forestry and partici-
patory research approaches) together with a Ugandan re-
searcher, Roselline Nyamutale, specialised in agricultural
development and veterinary science. For field visits to the
Nile Basin and TGB projects, the team was joined by Janet
Fisher, a PhD student from the University of East Anglia, who
was carrying out related PhD fieldwork in Bushenyi District.
Where necessary, interviews and focus groups were translat-
ed by our Ugandan team member or by local project staff. All
interviews were guided by a checklist of questions surround-
ing institutional functions developed through a detailed
review of project documentation, existing research studies
and scoping interviews with researchers and market partici-
pants in the UK. These focused on issues including the policy,
legal and institutional context for the projects, sustainability
of benefit flows, how carbon offsets and benefit flows were
monitored, and potential benefits and opportunity costs for
the poor. Meeting notes were discussed in the evenings and
queries or contradictions checked with other informants.
The lead author undertook 16 further interviews in
Kampala with national staff of the organisations responsible
for negotiating the projects and carbon credit sales as well as
with non-project national stakeholders (Ministry representa-
tives, NGO staff, and private sector organisations). These
interviews were carried out both before and after the project-
level fieldwork and began with a preliminary list of informants
developed through a review of project documents. These
initial interviewees were then asked to recommend other
useful informants. Further telephone interviews and e-mail
exchanges were conducted with international staff involved in
the projects during the reporting and analysis phase of the
work.
4. Carbon market and forest policies inUganda
Carbon offset projects have operated in Uganda since the mid
1990s. By the end of 2009 there was one CDM and four
voluntary forest carbon projects, with around 14 more in
development (UNEP Risoe, 2010; and information from
stakeholders). There are some concerns that, despite numer-
ous CDM capacity building initiatives (Olsen, 2007), the lack of
operational funds and competing existing commitments of
officials and insufficient staff within the Designated National
Authority (DNA—the institution which approves CDM pro-
jects) have caused delays in project progress. This has been
exacerbated by high levels of bureaucracy in the CDM and
relevant UNFCCC bodies within the CDM globally (UNDP,
2006). The National Environmental Management Authority
(NEMA) is also involved in the approval process for CDM
projects, establishing Environmental Impact Assessment
guidelines for use by District Environment Officers in the
approval process. The capacity to carry out such assessments
is generally extremely low, so it is unlikely that the process is
particularly meaningful in practice.
Following the 1995 Constitution of Uganda, reforms in the
forest sector were initiated. This led to the development of a
forest policy, a forest law and a national forest plan, with a
focus on decentralization and collaboration (Kamugisha-
Ruhombe, 2007). The National Forestry and Tree Planting
Act, which turns the policy into legislation, came into force in
2003. It classifies forests under five different management
regimes, of which two are of relevance here: Central Forest
Reserves (CFRs), managed by the NFA and Private forests, owned
and managed by individuals, the private sector or NGOs.
Sections of the Act prohibit certain activities in a Forest
Reserve (e.g. grazing and cultivation of crops), except when
they are permitted in the specific forest management plan.
Despite efforts by the NFA to develop approaches to involving
communities, there is frequent conflict. A strategy of the NFA
to help resolve some of these conflicts has been to establish
Collaborative Forest Management agreements (CFM) which
define rights, roles and responsibilities of communities living
on forest-adjacent land. In practice, the effectiveness of such
arrangements has been hampered by issues such as a lack of
guidelines for benefit sharing, limited implementation capac-
ity, a lack of information for communities and the limited
duration of agreements (EMPAFORM, 2006).
5. Institutional structures and carbon financearrangements in the three projects
5.1. Nile Basin Reforestation project
The Nile Basin Reforestation project began in 2006 and
consists of five small-scale Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM) projects being implemented in the Rwoho Central
Forest Reserve in South Western Uganda. Around 50% of the
9100 ha reserve is available for reforestation with pine trees
(Pinus caribaea 75%) and the indigenous trees Maesopsis eminii
(20%) and Prunus africana (5%). The total emissions reductions
from all five sub-projects are expected to be approximately
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9220
260,000 t CO2e by 2017. The overall project is being imple-
mented by the NFA with carbon finance provided by the World
Bank Biocarbon Fund. Although, at the time of study, planting
had occurred in most project sites, only one site had been
registered as a CDM project.
Local communities are involved in the project in two ways.
Formal ‘participants’ collaborate through pre-existing or
newly formed community associations in each of the five
project areas and ‘non-participants’ are involved through
employment on the plantation.
The participant associations enter into a Collaborative
Forest Management agreement with the NFA to manage part
of the reserve. At the time of the study, this had only occurred
in one project site between the NFA and the Rwoho
Environmental Conservation and Protection Association
(RECPA). The agreement gives RECPA members limited access
rights to a 200 ha area of the forest reserve in which they are
currently managing 60 ha as part of the carbon project. RECPA
receives free seedlings and is entitled to carbon and timber
revenues from the area it manages. All local community
members are given restricted access rights to the remaining
natural forest in the CFM agreement areas.
Payments for carbon credits will be made to the NFA based
on annual reports, but corrected after each verification carried
out by a third party (likely to be at 5-yearly intervals). Carbon
finance for communities is generated by sale of credits from
the trees planted on their CFM areas. The tree planting licence
agreements for the CFM areas do not stipulate who is entitled
to benefit from the carbon credits, because appropriate
national regulations have not yet been developed. However,
the current understanding of the Ministry of Lands, Water and
Environment and the NFA is that, whilst the NFA will be the
rights holder and maintains overall responsibility for deliver-
ing carbon credits, the community association (RECPA) is
entitled to the revenue from both the trees and the carbon in
its area. Following third party monitoring RECPA will receive
an initial payment for carbon and further payments after
every subsequent monitoring period. RECPA should receive
around $62,640 in the period to 2017, based on the projected
credit volumes from their CFM area and reasonable assump-
tions about prices.2 This figure does not take account of any
transaction costs which have to be covered from the carbon
revenues and could be deducted from the income received by
the NFA (and possibly passed on to communities as a
reduction in payments).
RECPA’s governance structure includes an internal ‘carbon
group’, membership of which is contingent upon buying up to
six shares to cover maintenance and planting costs. The above
carbon revenues will be divided depending on the number of
shares, with a small proportion going to the wider RECPA
group. If RECPA continues to have its current 73 members,
each member’s annual average carbon payment over the first
ten years, after a one-off joining fee ($53) and the share cost
2 The details of the ERPA are confidential, but it is reasonable toassume prices are similar to the average price for temporary CDMforestry credits of $4.76 per ton CO2e reported in Hamilton et al.(2009).
3 Based on exchange rate at 1 April 2009: US$1 = UGX2115.
($47 per share) have been deducted, is expected to be about $84
per share (Fig. 1).
Permanence is dealt with through a variety of conditions,
such as limitations on when thinning, harvesting and re-
planting can occur, and placing certain requirements on the
NFA up to the end of the contract period (to 2037) relating to
payment of damages and taking corrective actions depending
on the cause of permanence failure. The project will also
generate temporary credits, which expire at the end of the
Commitment Period following the one during which they were
issued.
The project has been implemented under standard CDM
guidelines for small-scale A/R projects. These require social
impacts to be outlined in the Project Design Document. A
number of community consultations were carried out prior to
project implementation and a basic social survey involving 25
participants was conducted, although there is little reference
to how issues raised in this process will be addressed in project
implementation.
5.2. Kikonda Forest Reserve project
The Kikonda forest reserve project is a commercial planta-
tion in a 12,186 ha Central Forest Reserve in central Uganda.
It is being implemented by German-based company, Global-
Woods AG through a local subsidiary called ‘Sustainable Use
of Biomass’ (SUB) and certified by the CarbonFix standard.
The standard is currently being applied to nine projects
worldwide and defines procedures for generating verified
emissions credits from forestry projects, including measur-
ing and monitoring sequestered carbon, implementing
forest management systems and assessing social and
environmental impacts.4 200,000 t CO2 are estimated to
have been sequestered within the first 1000 ha that have so
far been validated. SUB is the originator of carbon credits
from the plantation, being responsible for all plantation
activities (though carried out within the rules specified by
the NFA). They can be sold directly to buyers, through
brokers or online.
The company currently employs around 300 people,
though not all local. It is also collaborating with 300
community members (individual households and institutions
such as the church and school) through a group called the
Kikonda Community Forestry Association (KiCoFa) (Fig. 2).
This was established by the company in 2005 to encourage tree
planting in the vicinity of the plantation, facilitate training and
improve information dissemination (KiCoFa Constitution,
cited in Steiss, 2007). The only requirement for membership
was that farmers owned land for planting and showed a
capability and interest in managing trees. KiCoFa is governed
by an elected nine-member executive including SUB’s Public
Relations Manager—a founding member of KiCoFa and also a
principal signatory on the association’s bank account. SUB has
been working with KiCoFa members to support tree planting
on their own land, providing technical advice and free
seedlings. Carbon finance contracts developed with KiCoFa
members would make payments based on the CO2 seques-
4 See CarbonFix standard website for more details: http://www.carbonfix.info/CarbonFix-Standard.html.
Rwoho Environmental Conservation and Protection Association (RECPA)
Other community groups for four other projects (yet to be agreed)
World Bank/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
National Forest Authority (NFA)
Collaborative forest management agreement - Community groups manage ~ 15% of area planted under the projects - RECPA will be paid for carbon after monitoring visits
Emissions reduction purchase agreement (ERPA)
RECPA Carbon Group
Internal community association agreements within RECPA - Carbon revenues divided on a shareholding basis and other criteria
Wider community
Legend Carbon finance (agreement exists)
Carbon credits
Carbon finance (agreement pending)
Fig. 1 – Flow of carbon finance between actors and associated rules (dotted boxes) in the Nile Basin Reforestation Project,
Uganda. (Note that the term ‘carbon credits’ is used here for all projects in a general sense to refer to the transfer of certified
emissions reductions/removals resulting from activities.)
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9 221
tered through these trees, with revenues divided 25% to the
farmers, 25% for community schemes and 50% to global-
woods. However, there is little understanding within KiCoFa
about the payment schedule or related contractual stipula-
tions. Unfortunately, the contracts are currently meaningless
as the company has been unable to certify their activities
under the CarbonFix standard. This is because the mailo5 land
tenure, which predominates in the areas outside the Central
Forest Reserve, is perceived by investors (though not local
people) to be too insecure to guarantee that the trees will be
retained for the duration of the contracts.
At two sites SUB is also piloting collaborative forest
management (CFM) agreements by which community mem-
bers manage a 100 m wide perimeter strip of land within the
reserve in a similar way to the Nile Basin project. They have
been given free seedlings and will be entitled to the timber and
carbon revenues from trees grown on the strip. The two
groups (one of five and one of seven members) have been
newly convened by the SUB Public Relations Manager. They do
not include all of the people actually living along this section of
5 The Land Act of 1998 formalised ‘‘parallel claims to mailo land’’,which is land occupied by customary tenants under often absen-tee landowners (Hunt, 2004).
the plantation boundary, which could pose risks for the
desired ‘buffering’ effect of the collaborative strip. This is
supposed to prevent encroachment and reduce fire risk by
increasing the incentives for adjacent local communities to
protect the strip. Draft carbon finance contracts are being
developed between SUB, each pilot group and individuals
managing the land (and co-signed by the NFA as owner of the
land). Each group has a representative who will sign the
contract with SUB but this will specify the individual
members, their land area and seedling entitlement. 90% of
the financial benefits will go to individuals and 10% to the
group. The draft contract includes the possibility of providing
an advance to cover labour costs which would be repaid from
the carbon credits or timber sales. In late 2009 this scheme had
stalled because, according to the company, the NFA is not
willing to have the land ‘‘sub-licensed’’ to farmers selected
and monitored by SUB.
Global-Woods claims that the introduction of carbon
finance to the plantation has had some positive effects on
the way it is managed. Better baseline assessments have
been conducted and monitoring systems have been put in
place. Achievement of ‘silver’ status under the Climate,
Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard and the likely
application for FSC certification also mean that there has
Wider community
KiCoFa members – planting on private land
Community groups – boundary planting
Buyers: Petrol stations, public transport companies, electricity boards, conferences, festivals purchasing credits from CarbonFix
- Carbon contracts with KiCoFa members (not operational) - Contracts between SUB and community groups incorporating a collaborative forestry management agreement under NFA rules (yet to start)
- Emissions reduction purchase agreements with buyers - Rule setting by NFA (land owner) and CarbonFix Standard for SUB’s plantation and carbon management
Internal community association agreements (yet to be designed)
Global Woods
Sustainable Use of Biomass
Individuals Community fund
Wider community
Legend Carbon finance (agreement exists)
Carbon credits
Carbon finance (agreement pending)
Fig. 2 – Flow of carbon finance between actors and associated rules (dotted boxes) in the Kikonda Project, Uganda.
6 The Plan Vivo system has been developed for implementingcommunity-based ecosystem service projects. Registered projectsexist in Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania and Mexico, www.planvi-vo.org.
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9222
been much consideration of community impacts and appro-
priate safeguards.
5.3. Trees for Global Benefit project
The TGB carbon offset project uses carbon finance to fund
the planting of indigenous trees by project participants
on their private land (Fig. 3). It has explicit objectives of
poverty reduction and environmental protection. The
project spans three districts in Western Uganda and is
managed by ECOTRUST, an environmental NGO based in
Kampala. This case study focuses on project activities in
Bushenyi District.
The TGB project grew out of an existing relationship
between ECOTRUST and the Biteriko Women’s Group which
was started in the late nineties to create a savings and credit
scheme for women implementing projects such as clean cook
stoves, goat breeding and eucalyptus planting. The carbon
project began in 2003 with external support from donors and
NGOs. A total of 345 participants have registered sale
agreements since 2003 and the project is expanding rapidly.
Under the project each participant has to implement the
‘Plan Vivo6’ system for tree planting which consists of a seven
step cycle for generating Verified Emissions Reduction (VER)
carbon credits. Following introduction to the project by local
ECOTRUST volunteers, producers develop simple plans of
their land holdings, detailing current uses and plans for future
management schemes (which must include certain types of
local or indigenous tree species). These plans are evaluated
and if they meet criteria relating to land ownership, land size
and access to a bank account, farmers are registered with
ECOTRUST to participate in the carbon scheme and become
eligible for carbon payments based on the numbers and types
of trees they are planning to grow. Once registered, farmers
may start planting. Agreements are usually signed later after
the buyer and price have been confirmed. ECOTRUST
negotiates the price, typically between US$4 and $10 per
Community fund Producers
planting on private land
- Emissions reduction purchase agreements - Plan Vivo Standard
- Carbon sale agreements with farmers based on Plan Vivos - Direct payments to farmers over 10 year period - 10% of credits to community fund
Buyers: e.g. Tetrapak
ECOTRUST
Legend Carbon finance (agreement exists)
Carbon credits
Fig. 3 – Flow of carbon finance between actors and associated rules (dotted boxes) in the Trees for Global Benefit Project,
Uganda
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9 223
tonne, on behalf of the participants. Priority of allocation of
buyers is given to those who have demonstrated commitment
by planting after their Plan Vivo has been approved. In practice
this appears to be quite an ad hoc system, with some farmers
confused as to why they did not yet have buyers.
The sale agreement stipulates the area of land being
planted, the management system, the length of time the trees
must be maintained (this appears to have been revised from 50
to 25 years, or around the length of one rotation for most of the
species that are planted (Fisher, pers. comm., 2009), the price
of carbon and the requirement to re-plant trees if they are lost.
Participants are paid, on average, around US$1000 in total in
regular instalments over the first ten years (ECOTRUST, 2007)
but with higher payments early on to help cover establishment
costs. After the first payment in year zero, subsequent
payments are made following monitoring visits by ECOTRUST
and the fulfilment of any corrective actions.
In addition to individual payments, a ‘community carbon
fund’ has recently been established. This has not yet been
discussed with participants but new Plan Vivo contracts
include a clause stating that 10% of the payments will be
deducted and pooled into a community fund. Administered by
ECOTRUST, the aim of the fund would be to support capacity
building, community development projects and any farmers
that face natural disasters or other calamities related to
planting (based on procedures yet to be agreed) (ECOTRUST,
2008).
One of the features of the Plan Vivo system is that carbon is
sold upfront by ECOTRUST, meaning that all carbon seques-
tered over the course of the contract (25 years) is sold to
buyers. This means that ECOTRUST is then bound to deliver
the reductions that have been promised and must ensure that
participants maintain their trees, making the management of
permanence particularly important. Monitoring of trees is
carried out every three months by local volunteer coordina-
tors, who count the number of trees on each plot. Once the
trees reach five years of age, growth rates are assessed and
third party verification is carried out.
6. Discussion
The analysis presented here draws links between the
institutional arrangements in the three case studies, particu-
larly those relating to carbon finance, and the opportunities
and risks for local communities, triangulating with wider
carbon forestry and community forestry literature where
possible. Lessons are drawn for the development of REDD+
institutions.
6.1. Actors
All three projects work with groups of participants, even the
TGB project in which tree-planting takes place on individual
land. Project developers explain that working with groups
reduces transaction costs and provides participants with peer
support leading to more positive project outcomes. However,
there is clearly a difference in capacity between pre-existing
groups, like the TGB Biteriko women’s group and RECPA in the
Nile Basin project, and the other groups in the Nile Basin and
Kikonda projects, which have been established especially for
the carbon projects and appear to be much weaker. In the case
of the Kikonda project, the KiCoFa community group was
founded and continues to be part-managed by a company
employee, making it more of a liaison group for the company
than a group representing the interests of a clearly defined
community. As also found by other studies (Boyd et al., 2007a),
this suggests that REDD+ projects would initially benefit from
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9224
working with well-established groups and only then taking
this experience forward with new groups which should
be sufficiently independent of project developers and
intermediaries.
Whether working with new or existing groups, projects
need to be aware of potential barriers to entry for individuals
who are less well networked, less able to understand the
market or pay upfront costs and – in the case of individual
tree-planting – lacking land. Even within groups, some
individuals may be disadvantaged. For example, in the TGB
project, buyers are allocated first to those participants who
have demonstrated commitment by planting after their plan
has been approved, thus tending to favour wealthier farmers
who are able to cover upfront costs. To encourage poorer
members, RECPA, in the Nile Basin project, allows shares to be
paid in cash or kind but few if any poorer people have taken up
this offer. Our observations suggest that this is because the
association’s membership is strongly biased towards wealthi-
er community members and professionals (even including the
wife of the country’s President) with non-members pointing
out the difficulty of meeting membership fees and annual
subscriptions. To prevent the elite capture widely discussed in
the community forestry literature (McDermott and Schreck-
enberg, 2009; Pagdee et al., 2006), REDD+ projects may need to
support good governance and pro-poor activities within
participant groups. This is more complex than merely
insisting on equal participation (McDermott, 2009), as was
done in one of the Nile Basin groups, for example, where a
requirement that women participate simply led male mem-
bers to register their wives.
As with any new product, there are relatively few
intermediaries available to link carbon credit producers and
buyers. Participants in the three case studies are not able to
choose between different intermediaries, increasing their
vulnerability to the potential collapse of ‘their’ intermediary as
well as to unscrupulous practices (though these were not
noted in the case studies). The potential for conflict between
partners in PES schemes has led to calls for ‘honest brokers’ to
stimulate and facilitate the process (Wertz-Kanounnikoff and
Kongphan-Apirak, 2008), building trust and sharing knowl-
edge between stakeholders (Pham et al., 2010). The literature
on community forestry (McDermott and Schreckenberg, 2009;
McDougall et al., 2007) and forestry outgrower schemes (Race
and Desmond, 2002) also suggests the involvement of a third
organisation, often from civil society, to build technical and
organisational capacity among producer groups and enable
them to draw on a wider network of experience to improve
their ability to negotiate an informed and fair deal. However,
no such independent actors are currently involved in the three
case studies. In both the Kikonda and the Nile Basin project,
the project developers are themselves also producers and in
the case of the Nile Basin project, the involvement of
community groups is simply a condition of their own contract
with the buyer. In the TGB case, the project developer is an
NGO with no production activities of its own, but it is
nevertheless funded from a share of the sales income. To
reduce the vulnerability of communities and thus increase the
stability of carbon value chains, REDD+ projects and pro-
gramme developers may consider encouraging the develop-
ment of civil society actors not directly involved in
transmitting carbon credits, but able to perform a critical
information and capacity-building role. Whilst accountability
is a key theme in the REDD+ debate at national level (Angelsen,
2009), there has as yet been little discussion about the details
of how best to equip communities to deal with the complex set
of external actor interests introduced at the local level.
In the projects reviewed here, only a small sub-set of the
community benefits directly from the carbon payments,
though a school teacher is supported in the Kikonda project
which has benefits for the wider community, and a commu-
nity fund is planned for the TGB project. In all three sites, there
is an expectation among both participants and non-partici-
pants of general benefits from increased circulation of cheaper
wood products and related employment in the future.
However, the projects all seem to impose some costs on
non-participants. In the TGB project, for instance, there is
some indication that participants have increased their
landholding size since becoming members (Carter, 2009).
Whether they were already reasonably wealthy to start off
with and bought up more land to shift their crops on to, or
have become wealthier as a result of the project, such changes
in land ownership may increase disparities and conflict,
affecting project sustainability. In the Nile Basin and Kikonda
projects, carbon finance provided the resources and impetus
for stricter enforcement of existing rules preventing adjacent
populations from cultivating crops or grazing their livestock in
the reserve. This has led livestock owners to sell or move their
herds with the result, according to carbon project participants
in the Nile Basin case, that the price of a cow had increased
and milk had become scarce. To ensure the wider sustainabil-
ity of REDD+ projects, they may need to retain the flexibility to
respond to such unexpected impacts and consider making
special provisions for non-participants. Another possibility
not explored in these cases is to eschew individual payments
(which appear small in any case) in favour of community-level
benefits, as has been suggested by a number of authors (van
Noordwijk et al., 2004; Rosa et al., 2003), although this
approach is not without challenges in PES schemes (Wunder,
2005).
6.2. Rules
The three projects illustrate very different approaches to
scheduling carbon payments (Table 2). In both the TGB and the
Kikonda projects, carbon credits are sold up-front—a recogni-
tion of buyers’ willingness to underwrite sequestration costs
and share in some of the risk that trees may not be maintained
for the contracted period. This makes permanence manage-
ment more of an issue than in the Nile Basin project where
payments are only made once carbon sequestration has been
verified. The TGB project passes the up-front payment on to its
participants, providing them with staggered payments over 10
years to pre-finance their costs. Although this leaves the
project with no financial incentives (or sanctions) to apply in
the final 15 years of its 25 year agreements, it claims that, after
10 years, the economics of maintaining trees until year 25 will
outweigh those of removing them early. Furthermore, it
retains a buffer of 10% of credits. These assumptions about
payment schedules could hold true for the current harvest
cycle, but may not incentivise further activities without
Table 2 – Types and timing of expenditures incurred and incomes received by different project stakeholders in three forestcarbon offset projects in Uganda.
Nile Basin Reforestationproject
Kikonda Central Forest Reserve Trees for global benefit
Collaborative forestmanagement model
KiCoFa model(on farmers’ own land)
Expenditure
Project preparation
costs
NFA/World Bank
Biocarbon Fund
German-based Global-Woods (GW) and Ugandan
subsidiary SUB
ECOTRUST
Participation costs Membership fee plus
annual subscription of
RECPA, plus purchase
of shares in RECPA’s
‘carbon group’
CFM group membership KiCoFa membership
fees plus land
ownership
Group membership fee,
land ownership, bank
account
Land Provided by NFA Provided by SUB Participants’ own Participants’ own
Tree seedlings NFAa SUBa Participants
Land preparation,
planting, tree
care, thinning
Participants Participants SUB provides support for fire fighting Participants
Regular monitoring NFA, annually SUB ECOTRUST volunteers,
every 3 months
3rd party verification NFA, every 5 years GW/SUB, every 5 years GW/SUB ECOTRUST, every 5 years
Certification NFA GW/SUB GW/SUB ECOTRUST
Price negotiation NFA GW/SUB GW/SUB ECOTRUST
Income
Sale of tree products Participants: thinnings
after 12 years; timber
at 20 years (3� rotations)
Participants: Thinnings after 12 years, timber at
20–25 years (2� rotations)
Participants: Fruit from
5 years, timber from
20–50 years
Carbon credit sales Sale by NFA after Yr5
verification
Upfront sale by GW (after certification which has
not been achieved in the KiCoFa model)
Upfront, by ECOTRUST
Carbon income
for participants
First payment expected
after Yr5 verification,
and then annually
thereafter for 15 years
(until timber harvest).
Payments proportional
to number of shares owned
Intention to split
income: 90% to
individual member;
10% to CFM group
Intention to make
annual payments
until first timber
harvest, with income
split: 50% to GW 25%
to community 25% to
individual member
Total payment split into
community fund (10%)
and participants (90%).
Latter paid out in 5
tranches: Yr0 = 30%
Yr1 = 20% Yr3 = 20%
Yr5 = 10% Yr10 = 20%
a Because of the scale of their planting (at least 25 ha), the NFA and SUB received a 50% subsidy for the seedlings through the European-funded
Sawlog Production Grant Scheme.
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9 225
sustained incentives (Wunder et al., 2008). The Kikonda and
Nile Basin projects minimise the risk that participants may
renege on their agreements by providing seedlings but not
paying until trees are established, and then providing small
annual amounts until contract end.
The process of price establishment for carbon payments is
an issue that affects the ability of participants to benefit
economically from carbon sales. In all of the projects,
participants have had no role in price negotiation, which
has been dealt with by the project developers or intermediar-
ies. This is not necessarily a problem (and it may be
unreasonable to expect producers and buyers to negotiate
directly), but if the terms of contract and price are poorly
understood this could result in payments that are much lower
than required by communities to manage their land in
accordance with the contracts. This risk is particularly evident
in the Nile Basin project where the shareholding arrange-
ments within RECPA are an important determinant of the level
of economic benefits that participants can expect from carbon.
In this case each participant is limited to six shares but there is
no limit on the number of shareholders, and the group’s lack of
knowledge about potential carbon income levels could result
in diminishing returns for each shareholder. Similarly, lack of
understanding in the group about who is responsible for
replanting dead trees means that sound financial planning is
impossible. In the TGB project, upfront costs for farmers have
risen considerably due to loss of trees during the early stages,
changing the opportunity costs of involvement in the project—
an issue reported in other Plan Vivo projects (Nelson and de
Jong, 2003). REDD+ developers therefore need to understand
how carbon finance may be managed by communities and
provide groups with sufficiently detailed income (and expen-
diture) projections and details of related permanence man-
agement arrangements to enable them to make financially
viable decisions on internal arrangements.
Price variation between participants is an issue in the TGB
project, where prices can vary between $4 and $10 per tonne of
carbon, with different participants receiving different prices.
The rationale for having such a pricing system (rather than
one set price established by ECOTRUST) is that buyers are keen
to have direct agreements with individuals. However, it has
resulted in some concerns among participants (ECOTRUST,
2008), which could undermine their confidence in the project.
At present it appears that most farmers are fairly unaware of
7 ‘Leakage’ is the displacement of emissions generating activi-ties outside the boundaries of the project. ‘Permanence’ is linkedto the fact that carbon sequestered during a tree’s growth can bere-emitted into the atmosphere if trees are removed and decay orburn, therefore having a minimal impact on atmospheric carbondioxide reductions.
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9226
the differences in price (Fisher, pers. comm., November 2009)
but this may change as more farmers become involved and
share experiences. The fact that prices in these contracts are
fixed over long periods could help to isolate participants from
price fluctuations and enable longer-term planning. However,
unlike in the Fairtrade sector, where producer prices are set to
cover the costs of sustainable production and a sustainable
livelihood plus a social premium (Fairtrade Foundation, 2008),
carbon prices are set by the market at the time of contract
negotiation and may not necessarily take account of any
changes in the opportunity costs of participation over time.
There is also a potential risk that the structuring of contract
negotiation in this way concentrates power towards buyers
and intermediaries, and could lead to projects that respond to
buyers’ demands rather than those of communities as has
been reported in the Mexican Fondo Bioclimatico project, for
example (Nelson and de Jong, 2003). For REDD+ projects this
suggests that decisions about price-setting mechanisms may
need to balance buyers’ desires for direct contracts and
producers’ rights to a fair deal.
Social impact assessment and monitoring requirements
vary depending on the standards used, but usually include at
least one community consultation during project design.
Consultation processes varied from detailed plot-by-plot
assessments in the TGB project to a baseline social impact
study in the Kikonda project and a more general stakeholder
workshop and small survey in the Nile Basin project. The
Kikonda project is now certified with both the CarbonFix and
the CCB Standard, both of which are supposed to require high
standards in terms of analysing and mitigating social impacts
of projects (CCBA, 2008). Whilst the risks for the wider
community have been documented in the assessments for
these standards, the processes for their mitigation appear to
have been poorly assessed. These findings support earlier
studies that have found that consultation processes are often
poorly conducted if at all (May et al., 2004) or can decline in
priority as projects progress (Nelson and de Jong, 2003). In
addition to good pre-assessments, ongoing and participatory
monitoring of REDD+ projects is clearly necessary to avoid the
kinds of negative impacts on the wider community outlined
above (Angelsen, 2009). Further training for project verifiers in
social impact assessment methods (cf. Richards, 2008;
Schreckenberg et al., 2010), in addition to carbon assessment,
could also help to improve these processes.
The monitoring requirements for carbon stocks are a
potentially positive aspect of carbon forestry projects. For
example, the regular monitoring in the TGB project provides
participants with extension services related to tree manage-
ment where they would have otherwise been weak. However,
there are also trade-offs to be considered. These include high
upfront and transaction costs (Lipper and Cavatassi, 2003),
which can act as a barrier for smaller projects to enter the
market, and potentially increased land concentration (May
et al., 2004). The TGB project highlights a further concern about
the scaling up of an approach relying on volunteer coordina-
tors and whether the monitoring protocols used can fit with
the increasingly rigorous requirements of standards as they
evolve in the carbon offsetting industry. This may introduce
further trade-offs, for example, if local capacities to carry out
monitoring or third party verification services are not
supported, leading to a reliance on international consultants
as has been reported in other studies (Minang et al., 2007).
REDD+ projects may need to consider how to support the use
of community-based monitoring systems (Bond et al., 2010),
but also pay attention to how these may have to develop over
time as international and national REDD+ requirements
evolve.
6.3. Links to external institutions
Existing policies form an important framework on which
carbon finance related rules are established, for example in
terms of who holds rights to trade environmental services and
forest management systems to be used in project activities.
They are likely to form a key aspect of REDD+ implementation
(Angelsen, 2009). CFM agreements and related implementa-
tion guidelines and Tree Planting Licenses are the basis on
which the Nile Basin project interacts with local communities
and determines the sharing of carbon benefits. Yet these are
considered to be relatively weak instruments in Uganda,
having a lifespan of only 10 years and often being poorly
implemented (EMPAFORM, 2006). Although generally consid-
ered a good approach for benefiting communities, there is
huge variation in what CFM means in different countries and
the extent to which it benefits the poorest within communities
relative to options such as employment provision or non-
forestry interventions (McDermott and Schreckenberg, 2009;
Lawrence, 2007; Sunderlin et al., 2005). When incorporating
existing policies – particularly in order to benefit local
communities – REDD+ projects could capitalise on their
international links to draw on not just national, but interna-
tional, best practice.
Despite the incorporation of specific national policies
within the case study projects, there is little evidence of links
to institutions that are less directly involved in project
implementation. An example is the clear disconnect between
project developers (SUB in Kikonda and the NFA in the Nile
Basin project) managing the Central Forest Reserve land, and
the District Agriculture Department managing lands outside
the reserve. Given the importance of land management
outside the reserves for managing leakage and ensuring
permanence7 this raises risks from a carbon management
perspective. However, it could also impact on the sustainabil-
ity of alternative livelihood strategies promoted by the
projects and therefore the opportunities for both non-
participants and participants in the long term. There is also
a risk that the establishment of carbon projects will have
perverse incentives on surrounding farmers not involved in
projects. Some non-participants interviewed in this study
highlighted their interest in planting trees only if they receive
financial incentives. This even occurred between regions, with
participants in the Nile Basin project wondering why they
were unable to receive funding to plant trees on their own
e n v i r o n m e n t a l s c i e n c e & p o l i c y 1 4 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 2 1 6 – 2 2 9 227
private land, as they had heard was the case in the TGB project.
Similar impacts have been discussed in the PES literature—for
example, the increased clearing of land outside forest areas
because farmers are being paid to preserve forests and
‘ransom behaviour’ involving threats from participants in
order to leverage additional income (Jack et al., 2008). This
suggests that REDD+ projects need much more focus on
coordinating activities with institutions operating beyond the
project boundary, especially given that initial surveys on
REDD+ highlight lack of policy coordination as a major issue
(Peskett and Brockhaus, 2009).
7. Conclusions
The case studies presented here offer lessons particularly for
the growing category of REDD+ programmes and projects that
are likely to be funded through carbon markets (or funding
approaches with a strong emphasis on performance) and
implemented through direct payment systems between
buyers and local producer groups or individuals. They
illustrate the diversity of institutional arrangements that
can exist, even in projects implemented with similar objec-
tives and in similar institutional contexts. They also highlight
some of the different ways in which the carbon financing
requirements place constraints on institutional design. There
are some clear linkages between how these institutional
aspects are being handled in project implementation and the
opportunities and risks for local communities. Clearly the
diversity of actors, rules and links to existing institutions
needs to be fully understood during the design process for
REDD+ projects to ensure opportunities for the rural poor.
The main positive aspect is the potential for better
monitoring and support to participants, given the require-
ments for the long term security of carbon assets, although
there is clearly a need to ensure adequate participation in
monitoring processes and that the focus on carbon does not
come at the expense of social impact assessment. From the
perspective of project developers, these requirements can also
increase the financial burden, which could increase, rather
than reduce, barriers to the involvement of communities.
A related point is that approaches need to be developed to
balance the strong external interests driving projects, and the
way rules are established, such as pricing and payment
scheduling. This may be of more importance in REDD+
because of the increasing international momentum and high
expectations about financial benefits. Effective communica-
tion is clearly important, both for project developers to
understand the intricacies of community institutions, and
for communities to understand the details of financing and
contract arrangements. This needs to occur in an impartial
way, and support for more independent entities, whether
government extension services or civil society organisations,
operating at the community level, could assist communities.
The coordination of project institutions with existing
external institutions and the incorporation of existing policies
are the most challenging areas for project implementation.
The case studies illustrate that coordination does not
necessarily achieve the desired outcomes if policies are
already weak, do not follow best practice or where there are
few incentives for coordination between different actors.
Coordination is prominent in the language of emerging
national REDD+ strategies, and there is hope that the national
focus of REDD+ policy development will promote more
landscape based planning, even where REDD+ is implemented
as distinct projects. This could enhance opportunities for
project participants without imposing unacceptable costs on
the wider non-participating community.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Sami Izutsu and David Brown
for their help in planning the fieldwork. Many thanks go to
Roselline Nyamutale, Cornelius Kazoora and colleagues at the
Sustainable Development Centre (SDC) and Janet Fisher in
Uganda for their assistance with fieldwork.
Role of the funding source: Funding for this study was provided
by the Ford Foundation. The funder had no involvement in
study design, data collection or writing of the report.
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Leo Peskett is a Research Fellow in Climate Change Mitigation andDevelopment at the Overseas Development Institute. He has sev-en years of research experience on international climate policy,including research in Asia and Africa. His research interests in-clude social implications of climate change policies, particularlyforest carbon markets, REDD+ and bioenergy.
Kate Schreckenberg is a Research Fellow in the School of CivilEngineering and the Environment, University of Southampton.She has over 20 years of research experience in Africa, Asia andLatin America. Her research interests include natural resourceproduct value chains, community-based management of naturalresources and forests in climate change policy.
Jessica Brown is a Research Officer at the Overseas DevelopmentInstitute. She has seven years of research experience on climatechange and development issues. Her research interests includethe institutional structures surrounding climate change financeand carbon market impacts on developing countries.