The Manaus LCE Dialogue Forum on

Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry

19-21 November 2009, Manaus, Brasil

Background

The LULUCF Group is one of the three working groups of the Low Carbon Economy process initiated by InWEnt in conjunction with the anchor countries of German development cooperation.
On its first meeting at Berlin in April 2009, the group had convened to frame the issue in the same manner the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will do in its upcoming Fifth Assessment Report, namely as AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use). For practical reasons however and on the background of the REDD+ debate, the group is focusing on forests.

The anchor countries are powerful actors, which are in the position to implement and enforce rules, once they agree upon them. They thus have the potential to minimize international leakage in land use.
This report is structured as followed: First the issue is introduced, followed by short meeting minutes. A further section will resume the main results of the meeting, rounded up by a perspective on the planned 2010 meeting in Jakarta.

Main issues of the Manaus meeting

At the time the meeting started, some of the anchor countries had already submitted their socalled R-PIN with the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) of the World Bank, respectively these had already been approved. The R-PIN is to represent the national approach on reducing deforestation and forest degradation. Subsequently, the countries will design their R-Plan verged towards implementation.

One central issue with reducing forest emissions is policy failure. Bad governance is a necessary, yet not sufficient, condition for degrading land use. The buzzwords in this debate are ownership, territorial planning, overlapping competences and the revaluation of land. All these issues can alternatively be seen from the angle of the private or the public sector, both of which were represented among the participants. Two subsidiary working groups were implemented, which worked five hours over two consecutive days. Most presentations from the podium centered around the host Brazil and its specific land use issues.