Editorial

• Date: 01 July 2011
• Author: Hugh Wilkins
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9388.2011.00723.x
• Published date: 01 July 2011

Editorial

In the lead-up to the 1992 Conference on Environ-

ment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, there was

broad international agreement that several key inter-

national environmental issues needed to be better

addressed, regulated or governed. These generally

included the need for international mechanisms for

addressing forests, climate change, biodiversity and

desertification issues. Although by no means were any

of these issues easy to address, the Convention on Bio-

logical Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Frame-

work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) were

negotiated in time for the Rio Conference in June 1992.

Efforts to agree on a treaty to address land degradation

and desertification took a little longer with the adoption

of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in

1994. On forests, however, participants at Rio only

agreed to the non-binding Forest Principles, which fail

to address key governance issues. Efforts since that

time to adopt a binding international treaty on forests

have been unsuccessful.

A significant challenge with forest regulation and

governance issues is that forests are not only an essen-

tial mechanism for environmental and human health

and well-being, but also constitute valuable natural

resources. Important economic, cultural and trade

issues come into play when forests issues are raised.

Sovereignty issues also arise. Major forest countries are

often unwilling to give up any control of their important

and strategic forest resources. As a result, there exist

only non-binding instruments, policy fora and trade-

focused (rather than environment-focused) treaties

that address forests.

Since 2005, with a proposal by Costa Rica and Papua

New Guinea to discuss options for reducing emissions

from deforestation in tropical countries, the role that

climate change measures can take to protect forests has

begun to change the course of international forest law

and policy. The concept of reducing emissions from

deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) became

a UNFCCC agenda item in 2007 and subsequent

UNFCCC decisions now allow countries with tropical

forests to be compensated for their efforts to reduce

deforestation and forest degradation in their jurisdic-

tions. Many believe that the carbon sequestration ser-

vices that forests provide may be an important tool in

combating climate change, especially as many countries

are unwilling or unable to substantially reduce green-

house gas emissions.

The topics to be addressed in this issue of RECIEL focus

on the growing impacts of climate change law and

policy on forests. The issue commences with an article

by Nidhi Srivastava who examines the history of inter-

national efforts to regulate and govern forests and the

direction that REDD is now taking international forest

law. Providing insight on how forests issues have been

addressed, she reviews the past regulation of trees as a

commodity, as endangered species, as a tool to combat

desertification, as an aspect of biodiversity, and now as

a tool to address climate change. Srivastava finds that

by monetizing forests, REDD is in fact reminiscent of

the typical colonial treatment of forests, and questions

whether this is indeed anything new or an indicator of

progress.

In his article, Ian Fry reviews how forests issues are

being addressed under the UNFCCC and Kyoto Proto-

col regimes, focusing not on REDD, but on negotiations

concerning land use, land-use change and forestry

(LULUCF) issues. Following on two earlier articles on

LULUCF that he has contributed to this journal, Fry

explores new accounting rules, methodologies and defi-

nitions, particularly in relation to forest management.

He touches on the use of harvested wood products, new

activities such as wetland management and the future

of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) with

respect to LULUCF. Fry concludes with an analysis of

future challenges for accounting for emissions and

removals from these activities.

Harro van Asselt analyzes in his article how biodiversity

considerations are being integrated in REDD design.

Noting the opportunity that REDD provides to develop

synergies between the climate and biodiversity regimes,

he finds that REDD’s impacts on biodiversity must be

addressed. He reviews how biodiversity considerations

may be integrated in REDD and concludes that such

efforts will result in tradeoffs that some counties may

not want to make.

In her article, Sophie Lemaitre addresses the issue of

the compatibility of indigenous peoples’ land rights and

REDD. Emphasizing that identifying rights over a

forest and determining entitlement to REDD benefits

will be challenging, she cautions that although REDD

initiatives have the potential to benefit indigenous

peoples, they may not in practice do that. Lemaitre

reviews international human rights instruments that

recognize indigenous peoples’ rights to land and finds

frequent gaps between the protection granted by inter-

national law and that applied domestically. Using the

situation in Guyana as a case study, she finds that

REDD may endanger indigenous peoples’ rights.

Review of European Community & International Environmental Law

RECIEL 20 (2) 2011. ISSN 0962 8797

© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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