Dealing with locally-driven degradation: A quick start option under REDD+

Degradation - the (anthropogenic) loss of biomass in 'forests which remain forests' [1] - is one of the five components included in international policy on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), the others being deforestation, forest enhancement, sustainable management of forests (SFM) and conservation [2]. In many ways, degradation is the least understood component of REDD+. In the literature on REDD+, 'degradation' is often implicitly used to refer to the effects of selective logging (legal or illegal) in humid tropical forests [3-6]. This is only one of the processes by which degradation occurs however. Low level chronic degradation occurs in a variety of forest types, and is quite possibly a much larger contributor to global carbon emissions than degradation by selective logging, as it occurs over much wider areas. Low-level degradation results from continuous over-exploitation of forests by communities for their livelihood needs, particularly for grazing, but also for shifting cultivation and in some places for fuel. It is more prevalent and widespread in dry forests than in rainforest because of the higher population densities of these areas [7]. A third major cause of degradation, besides commercial selective logging and local-driven low level chronic degradation, is escaped manmade fire. This may occur in a variety of forest types, and is particularly difficult to deal with in REDD+ because in some ecosystems, fire is a natural element and essential for their long run maintenance [8].Although these major types of degradation can be easily recognized, it has proven very difficult to define degradation in terms which can be used in the international agreements, and more importantly, which allow measurement and carbon accounting.This paper provides a short review of the technical challenges involved in defining degradation specifically for the purposes of REDD+, and suggests an approach that would enable countries to start measuring the c