Schemes in Tanzania: Evaluating the Lowest Cost for Emission Reduction

REDD+ Schemes in Tanzania: Evaluating the lowest cost for emission reduction

By: Areno Papadaki – 43643374

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is a strategy to mitigate the adverse effect of the climate change through financial incentives for the developing country’s effort to protect the forest. There has been an increasing consent towards REDD+ as the appropriate mitigation strategy for two reasons. First is the significance of deforestation activities that responsible to nearly 12% of greenhouse gasses worldwide. Second is because the cost to utilize forest to sequestrate carbon is relatively low (Corbera, Estrada, & Brown, 2010). Approximately 48 million ha of Tanzania is a forest (United Republic of Tanzania, 2014) particularly 90% of it is filled with woodland (Blomley et al., 2008). However, these natural resources are in peril, and the country is materially affected by the adverse effect of climate change. Tanzania is experiencing the deforestation and its rate is among the highest and most pervasive in the continent. The main causes include irresponsible clearing practice in agriculture, lack of planning in land utilization, wildfires and over exploitation particularly for charcoal production. It has resulted nearly 100 million tons of greenhouse gases emission annually (UNESCO, 2011). Hence, REDD+ is a pivotal mitigation strategy for Tanzania to address the effect of the climate change.

This essay tries to evaluate the lowest cost for the emission reduction through the case study of REDD+ project in Tanzania particularly in Mpanda and Kigoma, Kilosa, and Lindi district. The essay is structured as follow. Started with the overview of REDD+ project in Tanzania, followed with the discussion on the factors and criteria to define the cost element with the case study, and then ended with recommendation and conclusion.

REDD+ in Tanzania

        The rate of deforestation and forest degradation in this country are relatively high. Annually 1.1% of the overall forest area was cleared just between the year of 1990 and 2005 (Blomley et al., 2008). However, it must be admitted that Tanzania has been making a significant progress to address the issues. And since the early of 1990s, the Tanzania government has introduced the participatory forest management both in the form of community-based and joint forest management. This effort was meant to achieve the sustainability of its forest (Blomley et al., 2008). In the year of 2009, Tanzania entered in to a collaboration with the Norway government to prepare the framework of national REDD+ strategy. The main goal of this strategy is to facilitate an effective implementation through coordinated policies and set of activities to achieve the sustainable development and climate change plan. This framework also helps Tanzania government to develop the mechanism needed for this country to get the benefit of forest carbon trading based on the REDD+ scheme. Other elements on the partnership between Tanzania and Norway include the establishment and piloting of trust fund, research and capacity building, and public and private sector engagement. (United Republic of Tanzania, 2012).