The Potential Role of Bamboo within the REDD+ Mechanism: Discussion and Review

Abstract

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation-plus) provides financial incentives for forest conservation through storing or enhancing forest carbon stocks. Bamboo is amongst the economically most important nontimber forest products, but only limited scientific and practical evidence is available regarding its potential role in REDD+. As this review shows, however, bamboo can grow in nearly all UN-REDD partner countries. In order to determine its potential role within the REDD+ mechanism, bamboo’s possible applications and functions within each of the REDD+ components are discussed. The findings from this study indicate that bamboo could indeed represent an efficient tool in REDD+ – mostly due to its characteristics as a fast growing and highly renewable plant with a wide range of uses and applications. This study demonstrates that bamboo can play an effective role in all components of REDD+. Nevertheless, it also highlights the need for intensified research to fill critical knowledge gaps and provide verifiable data for quantifying emission reductions, baseline scenarios and reference levels for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of REDD+ projects. Finally, the study argues that bamboo-specific policy making might lead towards an optimal utilization of bamboo within REDD+; especially with regards to bamboo’s ability to be regularly extracted.

Keywords: Agriculture, Agroforestry, Ecosystems, Forestry, REDD