IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v14y2025i6p1152-d1664510.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Subnational REDD+ Implementation: A Synthesis of Opportunities and Challenges

Author

Listed:
  • Youjin Jung

    (Department of Forest Management, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Republic of Korea)

  • Joonsoon Kim

    (Division of Forest Science, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Republic of Korea)

Abstract

REDD+ is a global mechanism that reduces greenhouse gas emissions by preventing deforestation and forest degradation, enhancing forest carbon stocks, and promoting sustainable forest management in developing countries. It plays a crucial role for developing countries in achieving climate targets under the Paris Agreement and can be implemented at the project, subnational, and national levels. Subnational REDD+ offers several advantages over project-level, such as reduced risk of overestimating emissions and enhanced management of leakage. However, the comprehensive opportunities and challenges of subnational REDD+ have not been extensively investigated in the literature. This paper aims to undertake a thorough review of subnational REDD+, highlighting its potential and the obstacles it faces. This systematic review synthesizes the existing literature on subnational REDD+ implementation, analyzing 54 peer-reviewed articles published between 2005 and 2024. The review identified three key factors for the effective implementation of subnational REDD+: financial, social, and institutional factors. Within these three factors, both opportunities and challenges were discussed, drawing on case studies and synthesizing practical implications. Our findings demonstrate that successful subnational REDD+ initiatives require integrated approaches that address the causal relationships between financing mechanisms, governance structures, and stakeholder engagement. The discussion further explores these interdependencies, revealing how constraints in one dimension create cascading effects across others. This study provides empirical insights and actionable recommendations for policymakers and project developers engaged in climate change mitigation efforts.

Suggested Citation

  • Youjin Jung & Joonsoon Kim, 2025. "Subnational REDD+ Implementation: A Synthesis of Opportunities and Challenges," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-18, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:6:p:1152-:d:1664510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/6/1152/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/6/1152/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wurtzebach, Zachary & Casse, Thorkil & Meilby, Henrik & Nielsen, Martin R. & Milhøj, Anders, 2019. "REDD+ policy design and policy learning: The emergence of an integrated landscape approach in Vietnam," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 129-139.
    2. Rubén Ferrer Velasco & Margret Köthke & Melvin Lippe & Sven Günter, 2020. "Scale and context dependency of deforestation drivers: Insights from spatial econometrics in the tropics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-32, January.
    3. Fischer, Richard & Hargita, Yvonne & Günter, Sven, 2016. "Insights from the ground level? A content analysis review of multi-national REDD+ studies since 2010," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 47-58.
    4. Cadman, Tim & Sarker, Tapan & Muttaqin, Zahrul & Nurfatriani, Fitri & Salminah, Mimi & Maraseni, Tek, 2019. "The role of fiscal instruments in encouraging the private sector and smallholders to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation: Evidence from Indonesia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Lucio Pedroni & Michael Dutschke & Charlotte Streck & Manuel Estrada Porrúa, 2009. "Creating incentives for avoiding further deforestation: the nested approach," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 207-220, January.
    6. Correa, Juliano & Cisneros, Elías & Börner, Jan & Pfaff, Alexander & Costa, Marcelo & Rajão, Raoni, 2020. "Evaluating REDD+ at subnational level: Amazon fund impacts in Alta Floresta, Brazil," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    7. van der Haar, S. & Gallagher, E.J. & Schoneveld, G.C. & Slingerland, M.A. & Leeuwis, C., 2023. "Climate-smart cocoa in forest landscapes: Lessons from institutional innovations in Ghana," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    8. Cecilia Luttrell & Erin Sills & Riza Aryani & Andini Desita Ekaputri & Maria Febe Evinke, 2018. "Beyond opportunity costs: who bears the implementation costs of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation?," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 291-310, February.
    9. Sunderlin, William D. & de Sassi, Claudio & Sills, Erin O. & Duchelle, Amy E. & Larson, Anne M. & Resosudarmo, Ida Aju Pradnja & Awono, Abdon & Kweka, Demetrius Leo & Huynh, Thu Ba, 2018. "Creating an appropriate tenure foundation for REDD+: The record to date and prospects for the future," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 376-392.
    10. Gueiros, Carolina & Jodoin, Sébastien & McDermott, Constance L, 2023. "Jurisdictional approaches to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Brazil: Why do states adopt jurisdictional policies?," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    11. Larson, Anne M. & Solis, David & Duchelle, Amy E. & Atmadja, Stibniati & Resosudarmo, Ida Aju Pradnja & Dokken, Therese & Komalasari, Mella, 2018. "Gender lessons for climate initiatives: A comparative study of REDD+ impacts on subjective wellbeing," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 86-102.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. West, Thales A.P. & Grogan, Kelly A. & Swisher, Marilyn E. & Caviglia-Harris, Jill L. & Sills, Erin O. & Roberts, Dar A. & Harris, Daniel & Putz, Francis E., 2018. "Impacts of REDD+ payments on a coupled human-natural system in Amazonia," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 33(PA), pages 68-76.
    2. Wim Carton & Adeniyi Asiyanbi & Silke Beck & Holly J. Buck & Jens F. Lund, 2020. "Negative emissions and the long history of carbon removal," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(6), November.
    3. Olegas Beriozovas & Dalia Perkumienė & Mindaugas Škėma & Abdellah Saoualih & Larbi Safaa & Marius Aleinikovas, 2024. "Research Advancement in Forest Property Rights: A Thematic Review over Half a Decade Using Natural Language Processing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-28, September.
    4. Cauê Carrilho & Gabriela Demarchi & Amy Duchelle & Sven Wunder & Carla Morsello, 2022. "Permanence of avoided deforestation in a Transamazon REDD+ initiative (Pará, Brazil)," CEE-M Working Papers hal-03614704, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.
    5. Carrilho, Cauê D. & Demarchi, Gabriela & Duchelle, Amy E. & Wunder, Sven & Morsello, Carla, 2022. "Permanence of avoided deforestation in a Transamazon REDD+ project (Pará, Brazil)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    6. Augusto Carlos Castro-Nunez & Ma. Eliza J. Villarino & Vincent Bax & Raphael Ganzenmüller & Wendy Francesconi, 2021. "Broadening the Perspective of Zero-Deforestation Interventions in Peru by Incorporating Concepts from the Global Value Chain Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-17, November.
    7. World Bank, 2017. "Brazil’s INDC Restoration and Reforestation Target," World Bank Publications - Reports 28588, The World Bank Group.
    8. Aggarwal, Ashish, 2020. "Improving forest governance or messing it up? Analyzing impact of forest carbon projects on existing governance mechanisms with evidence from India," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    9. Ezgi Canpolat & Meerim Shakirova & Vince McElhinny & Kame Westerman & Alli Cruz & Theresa Buppert, 2022. "Fostering Gender-Transformative Change in Sustainable Forest Management," World Bank Publications - Reports 37127, The World Bank Group.
    10. Sheng, Jichuan & Qiu, Hong, 2018. "Governmentality within REDD+: Optimizing incentives and efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 611-622.
    11. Motoshi Hiratsuka & Chaloun Bounithiphonh & Phonevilay Sichanthongthip & Tomoko Furuta & Kei Suzuki & Natsuko Kobayashi & Haruko Chikaraishi & Chanhsamone Phongoudome & Masahiro Amano, 2021. "Variations in village-level performances related to reducing deforestation and forest degradation associated with a REDD+ project in northern Lao People’s Democratic Republic," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 2762-2784, February.
    12. Nhem, Sareth & Lee, Young Jin & Phin, Sopheap, 2017. "Sustainable management of forest in view of media attention to REDD+ policy, opportunity and impact in Cambodia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(P1), pages 10-21.
    13. Troxler, David & Zabel, Astrid & Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne, 2023. "Identifying drivers of forest clearances in Switzerland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    14. Tomas Gabriel Bas & Jacques Gagnon & Philippe Gagnon & Angela Contreras, 2022. "Analysis of Agro Alternatives to Boost Cameroon’s Socio-Environmental Resilience, Sustainable Development, and Conservation of Native Forests," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-28, July.
    15. Sheng, Jichuan, 2019. "Neoliberal environmentality and incentive-coordinated REDD+ contracts," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 400-407.
    16. Zambrano-Cortés, Darío Gerardo & Behagel, Jelle Hendrik, 2023. "The political rationalities of governing deforestation in Colombia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    17. Montoya-Zumaeta, Javier G. & Wunder, Sven & Tacconi, Luca, 2021. "Incentive-based conservation in Peru: Assessing the state of six ongoing PES and REDD+ initiatives," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    18. Kim, Yeon-Su & Latifah, Sitti & Afifi, Mansur & Mulligan, Mark & Burke, Sophia & Fisher, Larry & Siwicka, Ewa & Remoundou, Kyriaki & Christie, Michael & Masek Lopez, Sharon & Jenness, Jeff, 2018. "Managing forests for global and local ecosystem services: A case study of carbon, water and livelihoods from eastern Indonesia," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(PA), pages 153-168.
    19. Carlos Mendez & Felipe Santos-Marquez, 2022. "Economic and Social Disparities across Subnational Regions of South America: A Spatial Convergence Approach," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(4), pages 582-605, December.
    20. Sutterlüty, Andrea & Šimunović, Nenad & Hesser, Franziska & Stern, Tobias & Schober, Andreas & Schuster, Kurt Christian, 2018. "Influence of the geographical scope on the research foci of sustainable forest management: Insights from a content analysis," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 142-150.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:6:p:1152-:d:1664510. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.