Nesting refers to the coordination and integration of various scales of REDD+ initiatives, ranging from individual projects to larger jurisdictional or national efforts. Understanding nesting in REDD+ projects within jurisdictional contexts is crucial for achieving high-integrity and impactful emissions reduction goals. It involves harmonizing efforts, coordinating stakeholders, and aligning policies across different scales to effectively address deforestation and forest degradation.
Here are some essential tips that countries and jurisdictions can follow to get right the nesting of REDD+ initiatives within jurisdictional contexts:
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Policy coherence: subnational efforts should align with national policies, and individual projects should align with subnational ones to ensure coherence.
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Governance structures: jurisdictional REDD+ systems that contain stand-alone REDD+ initiatives require more complex governance mechanisms to coordinate multiple stakeholders and interests.
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Interconnected goals: while individual projects might target specific emissions reductions, jurisdictional systems aim to harmonize and coordinate these goals across broader landscapes, contributing to national mitigation commitments and the net-zero transition.
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Capacity building: nested systems require capacity-building efforts to ensure all levels can effectively understand, implement and manage REDD+ activities.
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Stakeholder engagement: effective nesting involves actively engaging stakeholders at all levels, from local communities to governmental bodies, to ensure their diverse roles, interests and concerns are not only acknowledged but actively addressed.
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Monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) and carbon accounting: effective carbon accounting within nested REDD+ efforts require robust Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems capable of avoiding double counting and tracking emissions reductions across various scales.
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Social and environmental safeguards: as efforts scale up, aligning and harmonizing safeguards policy to protect local communities' rights, gender equality, preserve cultural heritage, and prevent environmental harms becomes critically important.
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Benefit sharing mechanism: funding mechanisms should ensure that local populations have transparent and fair access to benefits and that project resources contribute to a broader jurisdictional strategy.
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Flexibility and adaptability: in this very dynamic and diverse landscape of national frameworks and carbon standards , nested approaches should be adaptable to changing circumstances and evolving knowledge.
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Learning from others: analyze existing REDD+ systems that include nesting features to better understand how they are structured, managed, and have achieved their objectives. Leveraging these insights can greatly inform and enhance the implementation of your own nested REDD+ systems.
Embracing a REDD+ nested system is more than a technical choice; it is progressively becoming essential, particularly for multiple-scales REDD+ approaches seeking to diversify access to carbon finance sources. As they progress along this process, ensuring integrity will be of utmost importance to ensure success.
