Forests+ will be coordinated by learning instruments, involving the development of new policy learning and engagement platforms.
To support coordination by learning, forests+ needs, at the international level, an open arena with a mandate to think more broadly about the drivers of undesirable change in forests and to facilitate collaboration and learning in global forest governance. While forest policy has attracted a more diverse group of actors over the last two decades, this highly desirable diversity is not always appropriately represented in international forest-related fora. Above all, the new platforms for policy learning must encourage broad participation and ensure that while forests+ embraces cross-sectoral and cross-institutional complexity it retains a central focus on forests and forest livelihoods.
Forests+ calls for more inclusive governance.
Innovative mechanisms for international forest governance might include the generation and dissemination of norms, private rule-making (such as market-based incentives and standards-setting), network governance, social learning, capacity building and awareness-raising. As the full range takes effect, there will be a transition to more inclusive global forest governance.
The nature of a Forests+ approach will vary according to national capacities and policy styles.
Implementation and enforcement strategies in target countries that include the direct provision of resources and improved access to policymaking networks can yield swift and immediate results – as long as international actors and organizations do not add requirements that directly conflict with the priorities of national governments or are beyond national capacity. For example, illegal logging can be addressed through a combination of bilateral and regional initiatives, such as trade and legality verification agreements, and domestic reform.
Spatial scale is important for Forests+.
Many of the most promising international forest-related initiatives are taking place at a regional rather than a global level. Actors and institutions should develop and endorse an appropriate interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity (which holds that issues should be dealt with by the most decentralized competent authority) to support these initiatives and address the particular challenges of implementing Forests+ at the regional, national and sub-national levels. This interpretation must balance current trends towards decentralization and local control with the need for appropriate regulatory, financial and procedural support by national and international institutions.
New or adapted institutional arrangements are needed to strengthen and coordinate forest policy learning at the global level and to support engagement and problem solving among diverse stakeholders.
This brief proposes three options for the institutional change required to support Forests+ and coordination through learning.
The First Steps
There is wide-spread and deep recognition that forests are critical for food security, the mitigation of climate change, the conservation of biodiversity, and the maintenance of livelihoods. The governance challenge is how to promote these multiple goals simultaneously and synergistically. Meeting that challenge requires careful experimentation and rapid learning from successful innovation.
Forests+ implies an attempt to create a governance framework that captures all forest values and cross-sectoral linkages – and ensures that they are considered in forest policy and management. A narrow focus on forest practices to promote carbon sequestration, for example, might have unintended consequences that cause the loss of other forest values. When it became clear that robust land-use policies and other interventions are needed to control these consequences, attention shifted from REDD to REDD+. The proposed shift from forests to forests+ and the emphasis on coordination through learning are intended to bridge the gap between those actors taking part in international negotiations and those engaged in project-level activities. Many elements of a bridging architecture already exist: they include successful problem-focused partnerships, dialogues, round tables, working groups, networks, regional initiatives and collaborations. But such efforts need a different kind of coordination and support than they are currently receiving.
The first steps towards forests+ are proposed below. They emphasize policy learning because:
- Learning about the science of forest degradation and related issues can expose misunderstandings that limit common policy approaches and frameworks.
- Policy learning can expose legitimate differences over goals and objectives that divide stakeholders.
- Policy learning about ‘how things work’ can induce organizations to change their preferences for policy instruments. Learning reveals win-win solutions, the discovery of which might have been hampered in the past by debates over divergent goals. Such policy learning can occur within but also outside the core components of the international forest regime, as stakeholders puzzle through and identify innovative and synergistic interventions across sectors.
- Policy learning can expose difficult win-lose scenarios that, although much more intractable, have a greater chance of being resolved once their unique challenges are understood.
Knowledge Management
The first step in building policy learning into the architecture of international forest governance is to take a global approach to knowledge management. This includes the setting up of a comprehensive clearing-house mechanism for forest-focused and forest-related research.
Such clearing houses already exist at national and regional levels {the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Forest Clearing House Mechanism is a particularly strong example of the latter}. These can be drawn on as models. A number of international organizations, especially those with a research mandate such as the International Union of Forest Research Organizations and the Center for International Forestry Research, can also provide insights. What is needed is an organization with both a clear mandate and the capacity to scale up existing experiments with the use of learning as a coordination tool to the global level.
Learning Platforms
Establishing a comprehensive clearing-house mechanism is largely a technical challenge requiring the imaginative use of appropriate information and communication technologies.
