Forest Transition and REDD+ in developing countries: challenges for climate change mitigation

This paper discusses the challenge of the forest transition in developing economies. The forest transition refers to the evolution of the forest stock in a country under three phases: deforestation, stagnation and reforestation. When a country experiences a transition, the turning point occurs and net deforestation ends. In other words, once reached the turning point, the country turns from net emitter to net CO₂ absorber. Within this framework, we consider the potential role of REDD+ for future forest transitions. Depending on the type of program (e.g. reforestation or avoided deforestation), REDD+ may lead to different transitions in terms of both deforestation length and environmental values. We found that favouring AR projects reduces the length of cumulative deforestation, while the development of RED projects helps to provide turning points with higher CO₂ emissions reduction and more biodiversity. In the end, our work completes the general theory of the forest transition by distinguishing primary native forests from secondary ones. (authors)