ABSTRACT
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) offers a holistic framework for supporting sustainable land management by integrating policy and resource governance in the rural landscape with the development of analytical capacities, consultative processes and economic incentives. Malawi’s economy is faced with two linked challenges of persistent high poverty levels and high environment and natural resource degradation rates. Uncontrolled fires are another significant threat to Malawi’s forests while watershed degradation has also undermined Malawi’s potential for irrigated agriculture. Environment and natural resource degradation have therefore had both macro- and micro-level socio-economic impacts. The REDD+ framework targets at mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, increasing removals of GHG from the atmosphere by enhancing forest carbon stocks, and reducing emissions in forest management operations in developing countries. The Lake Chilwa Basin Climate Change Adaptation Programme primarily facilitated the REDD+ readiness processes. This readiness is a foundation for building future forest development programmes that are catalysed by incentives to the local level through carbon trading.
