Facilitating REDD in the Amazon: tools and methodologies to inform decision making = REDD en el Amazonas: herramientas y metodologías para tomar decisiones

The Amazon Basin contains the world’s most extensive tropical forest ecosystem—and accounts for a large proportion of the world’s tropical deforestation. Renewed international commitments to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) are now trying to reverse that trend, through climate change mitigation agreements that promote and incentivize conservation. Attention to REDD has recently expanded to incorporate the added target of enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD+). Such initiatives have already become increasingly popular in the Amazon and other tropical forests, but significant challenges remain in ensuring the success of REDD+. The most fundamental obstacle is the information gap. REDD+ projects mandate that their planning and implementation is guided by high-quality information regarding forest characteristics, socioeconomic contexts, and trends in deforestation and forest degradation. For a region as vast, remote, and diverse as the Amazon Basin, acquiring such reliable data can be difficult. Researchers at CIAT are working to make this essential information available. Already the research center has developed a range of tools and methodologies enabling decision-makers to better monitor deforestation, estimate the sequestration effects of REDD+, and identify opportunity costs.