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Special Issue: The Legal Aspects of REDD+ Implementation: Translating the International Rules into Effective National Frameworks ∙ Operationalizing Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for REDD+: Insights from the National FPIC Guidelines of Cameroon

Sophia Carodenuto, Kalame Fobissie


The international legal framework for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, plus the role of Conservation, Sustainable Forest Management, and Forest Carbon Stock Enhancement (REDD+) provides a regime for advancing forest conservation while also respecting human rights, through a mechanism referred to as the “safeguards”. Under the international framework, REDD+ countries are granted the flexibility to further interpret and enforce these safeguards within their national territories. Cameroon’s national government called for the development of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) guidelines as part of its safeguarding efforts to ensure REDD+ activities not only avoid undue harm to local forest communities, but promote respect for the human rights of indigenous peoples and improve forest governance related to stakeholder participation. Although the validation of these guidelines marks the success of civil society coalitions advocating for social safeguards at the national level, achieving progress on FPIC is hampered by a number of legal and institutional barriers, including the non-binding nature of the FPIC guidelines and the challenges facing the Ministry of Environment in enforcing compliance. Nonetheless, the validation of these FPIC guidelines represents a step forward in advancing human rights and environmental justice in a country where the participation and representation of forest communities and indigenous peoples in natural resource governance has been largely absent.

Sophia Carodenuto is a consultant at UNIQUE forestry and land use, Climate Division, and a Ph.D. candidate within the Chair of Environmental Governance, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg; Kalame Fobissie is the Coordinator of the Climate Change Programme at Viikki Tropical Resources Institute (VITRI), Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Both authors follow the UN climate negotiations closely and participated directly in Cameroon’s FPIC guideline development process. This paper benefits from feedback received during a presentation held at the 3rd Yale/UNITAR Conference on Environmental Governance and Democracy, “Human Rights, Environmental Sustainability, Post-2015 Development, and the Future Climate Regime,” New Haven, Conn., 5-7 September 2014.

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