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The goal of this chapter is to review the role of land tenure with respect to REDD+ using the academic literature and REDD+ planning documents. Tenure issues are generally considered crucial to REDD+ implementation. For example, in his review on the economics of forests and climate change Eliasch (2008) stated that ‘[o] nly when property rights are secure, on paper and in practice, longer-term investments in sustainable management become worthwhile’. This is a key message of other chapters in this book, including that by Xu and Hyde on China’s forest reforms.

One focus of this chapter is the distributional effects of implementing REDD+ in concert with tenure reform. There is a general agreement that tenure needs to be clear and secure if REDD+ is to have the potential to function as an efficient and equitable system for compensating those who incur opportunity costs in the course of sequestering carbon. However, clear and secure tenure does not per se imply equity. Although tenure reform is often aimed at addressing the demands for greater community rights, conservation efforts and climate policies are often driven by global demands and frequently lack understanding of local needs. It is only a recent trend that indigenous peoples’ rights are being taken into account in the design of forest tenure initiatives (Barry et al., 2010). In addition to securing tenure over land, calls are also heard for the clarification and safeguarding of carbon rights, which are distinct from land and forest rights and are relatively new. Most countries have not defined carbon rights, but if REDD+ becomes a market-based system, carbon rights will become central …