With a significant portion of its territory covered by forests, Honduras can benefit from implementing a policy to reduce emissions from deforestration and forest degradation (REDD+), both to mitigate climate change and to adapt to its consequences. Adaptation is, without a doubt, a priority in Honduras, which has faced severe climatic events, including hurricanes and floods. Currently, a myriad of initiatives are implementing REDD+ activities in the country, and a readiness preparation process is taking place, financed by international programs. Regardless of which areas are chosen for REDD+ implementation, a review of national policies and experiences suggests that the success of Honduras’s approach to REDD+ implementation will be closely linked to finding appropriate solutions to problems associated with land and resource tenure. Particularly, it seems that ownership, possession, and occupation of land and forests could impact which stakeholders can participate in REDD+.
This resource tenure and sustainable landscapes assessment conducted for the U.S. Agency for International Development Tenure and Global Climate Change program examines the current obstacles and opportunities for REDD+ implementation in Honduras through:
- a tenure-based stakeholder analysis;
- an assessment of tenure under Honduras’s present policies;
- an analysis of rights to receive benefits based on ownership of resources; and
- an assessment of Honduras’s current legal framework for consultation and consent.
This assessment is also available in Spanish / disponible en Español.