Working Paper
Leveraging Global Climate Finance for Sustainable Forests

Forest loss and degradation remains a leading environmental problem. The long history of sustainable forest management has often failed to meet expectations—constrained by funding, governance, capacity and competing interests. Initiatives from the climate change policy arena are opening new ways for a broader mainstreaming of forest management, specially through foreign aid mechanisms towards Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). This paper addresses key questions regarding the potential of REDD+ to support sustainable forest management in the context of complex, multiple stakeholder interests and negotiations, including those of local resource users and international donors.