Combating Deforestation through REDD+ in the Brazilian Amazon: a New Social Contract?

Brazil is developing a number of REDD+ schemes in Amazonia that offer economic

incentives to discourage deforestation and promote conservation. Building upon

longer traditions of forest preservation and sustainable development in the region,

REDD+ could be said to embody elements of a new ‘social contract’ that underpins

resource governance, based on mutual obligations, rights and responsibilities. This

will have to be founded on negotiated agreements among major stakeholders;

namely, central and state governments, the NGO sector, private business interests

and local beneficiary populations. Despite its embryonic nature and having to face

major challenges of implementation and scaling up, REDD+ could offer the

beginnings of a fresh paradigm in environmental policy based on a social contract

that could help sustain low rates of forest loss in future.

Sustentabilidade em Debate