Institutions and Policies to Protect Rural Livelihoods in REDD+ Regimes

While there is a growing interest among researchers and practitioners concerning the risks that emerging REDD+ regimes pose to rural livelihoods, there has been little scholarly analysis of specific policies that could be applied to guard against these risks. This paper argues that for REDD+ regimes to avoid negative impacts on local populations, social safeguard policies will need to overcome the significant barriers posed by ambiguous property rights and week governance and create five institutional conditions.