Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Brazil: Perceptions and Networks for Increased Collaboration

Brazil offers a complex and unique example of tropical landscapes. The country has considerably decreased deforestation over the past years, but Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is arguably under question. In seeking to identify the main actors in the REDD+ arena whose roles have impacts across levels, a first round of a Policy Network Analysis (PNA) was conducted in 2012/2013. This first study (Gebara et al. 2014) showed that the absence of coordination between different types of actors (i.e. private sector, government, and civil society) suggests that national REDD+ governance in Brazil is unlikely to be optimal. Based in a second round of PNA (2015/2016) this article investigates how actors perceive REDD+, how do they engage in REDD+ policy formation, how do they cooperate in the REDD+ arena, and how REDD+ implementation should move forward accordingly within the Brazilian context. We analyze actors’ “stances”, that is, their positions on statements, on key REDD+ issues (i.e. financing, benefit-sharing, governance and challenges) to identify the more legitimate ways of implementing REDD+ in practice. We argue that a better understanding how actors cooperate and perceive REDD+ will contribute to the national REDD+ framing and to more effective multi-level governance in Brazil. However, our results suggest that most actors do not clearly understand what REDD+ entails yet. On the other hand, findings point out that different actors have the same interests when it comes to their organizational efforts towards REDD+, suggesting that there is room for better coordination and collaboration among them.