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This briefing by UNEP-WCMC is designed to provide publicly available resources outlining key background information regarding the environmental safeguards applicable to REDD+, as part of the project ‘Overcoming the legal barriers to REDD+ implementation1’. As such, it aims at:i) Informing REDD+ countries about the specific legal issues they might need to address in order to promote and support REDD+ environmental safeguardsii) Informing project developers currently designing and implementing REDD+ demonstration projects (such as FFI’s global REDD+ programme operating in Cambodia and Viet Nam) what issues they need to address in their project design in order to be in line with environmental safeguards. This brief is not primarily concerned with the application of privately developed REDD+ standards such as those of the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), but rather with how REDD+ safeguards and standards at the international and national level might affect private REDD+ projects.iii) Informing REDD+ countries and REDD+ project developers alike about the implications of the development of a ‘National Approach to safeguards’ for the eventual ‘nesting’ of projects within a national REDD+ Programme. The issue of nesting is often approached in the existing literature from the angle of carbon accounting and rarely under that of safeguards implementation. This brief is an attempt to address this deficit, by looking at ways to reconcile the concurrent implementation of various safeguards processes at different scales.

Report of the second workshop of the South-South Knowledge Exchange on National REDD+ Fund Design, held in Oslo on October 28, 2013. This workshop covered issues on disbursement modalities and the alignment of fund design with strategic objectives.

REDD+ has the potential to contribute to achieving more policy goals than climate mitigation alone. In Tanzania, REDD+ is expected to deliver multiple benefits, whose nature and extent will depend on the location and type of REDD+ activity implemented. These benefits include sustainable use of forest resources, biodiversity conservation, poverty alleviation, maintenance of forest dependent communities’ rights, and improved community livelihoods. The REDD+ safeguards agreed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are intended to guide REDD+ implementation to avoid adverse effects to people and the environment, and to ensure multiple benefits. During the last years, the Tanzanian Forest Service has produced a unique set of forest, socioeconomic and governance related data and maps from 32 000 field inventory plots and interviews with 3500 households and 1100 key informants, which among other sources of data have been used for the production of analysis and maps in this publication. Maps can help to increase understanding of the spatial distribution of such potential benefits, and support decision-making on where and how REDD+ might be implemented. The maps presented in this brochure were developed to support Tanzania’s implementation of the REDD+ safeguards, and planning for multiple benefits from REDD+. Themes include natural forest, biodiversity, ecosystem services, drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, and potential zones for implementation of REDD+ activities