REDD countries

The UN-REDD Programme is supporting Sri Lanka in its initial REDD Readiness activities through a three-year programme starting in July 2011 through to June 2014. The managing agency for this Programme is the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Forest Department (FD) has drafted a Programme Proposal and conducted stakeholder consultations. The REDD Readiness Proposal is to be finalized and submitted to the UN-REDD 7^th Policy Board meeting by October, 2011. The Forest Inventory & Management division of the FD has just finalized a nationwide forest cover assessment from 2010 that will provide an updated overview of the nation’s forest resources. The results are not yet published.

The draft NJP proposes to help survey and demarcate a part of the Permanent Forest Estate (PFE) as a step towards better protecting and managing its carbon and other resources.  With Asian Development Bank (ADB) funding, 40% of the PFE has already been demarcated (Bandaratillake, 2011). Given the lack of clarity in land titles and records, the BimSaviya: National Land Title Registration Programme was launched in 2007 by the Ministry of Land and Land Development to survey and demarcate lands, issue titles and strengthen land ownership.  

Sri Lanka has so far had very  few sub-national REDD activities. Seven CDM AR projects have been started but none have proceeded through to validation and implementation. One voluntary market project - the Hiniduma Biodiversity Corridor project - is currently being developed by Conservation Carbon Company of Sri Lanka for certification to the Plan Vivo standard (Chokkalingam & Vanniarachchy, 2011). The NJP draft proposes to conduct pilot REDD+ projects to assess the emissions reduction impacts of forest based livelihood development activities with the involvement of local stakeholders. Five pilot projects are to be set up in five different districts (Bandaratillake, 2011).