What is needed to make REDD+ work on the ground? lessons learned from pilot forest carbon initiatives

There is now unprecedented global recognition of the urgent need to sharply reduce rates of deforestation and forest degradation to help avert dangerous levels of climate change. At the United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009, the international community recognized in the Copenhagen Accord “the crucial role of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emissions by forests” and agreed on the need to provide positive incentives for REDD+. With this new international mandate to tackle deforestation and forest degradation, there is now an urgent need for detailed guidance on how to design and implement fi eld activities that effectively achieve emissions reductions.