Coalition for Rainforest Nations (CfRN)
The participants within the Coalition for Rainforest Nations seek responsible stewardship of the World's last great rainforests through innovative strategies which integrate social, economic and scientific rationales to achieve environmental sustainability. The Coalition for Rainforest Nations seeks to underpin lasting environmental sustainability and economic advancement with strengthened technical capacity and international market reform designed to enhance tropical forest stewardship,biodiversity conservation and global climate stability.
The Rainforest Coalition endeavors to move from unsustainable to sustainable use of the forests, and in the process, members will be able to:
- Manage tropical rainforest areas in support of climate stability, biodiversity conservation, sustainable development and poverty alleviation
- Improve the living standards of people living in forest area
- Guarantee the long-term security of their living standards
- Set a precedent for other similarly forested countries.
The Rainforest Coalition seeks to achieve environmental sustainability by developing viable economic alternatives for tropical forest resource-owners through:
- utilizing selective logging practices,
- harnessing and remunerating the carbon sequestration and absorption capabilities of the rainforest,
- by valuing biodiversity,
- by facilitating eco-friendly community businesses and
- by avoiding deforestation and the associated pulsed releases of carbon.
CfRN support a REDD+ mechanism that incentivizes both the reduction of deforestation and degradation and the enhancement of carbon stocks, including through afforestation and reforestation, with the possibility of incorporating AFOLU activities in the future. Recognising that national circumstances vary across developing countries, CfRN propose a stepwise implementation to maximise participation in REDD activities. Movement between categories is voluntary and activities between categories may occur simultaneously in some cases.
Category I would primarily use new and additional ODA to strengthen capacity and support demonstration activities. Category II could be funded by revenues generated from the auction of AAUs and carbon taxes within Annex I countries, and would support the scaling-up of demonstration activities. Category III would use global carbon market funds that could be supported by the auction of AAUs and carbon taxes to finance REDD. Longterm funding for conservation activities may be sought through non-market financing, including during Category III.
CfRN propose a national reference emissions or removal level using historical data over a period of at least five years. This level can be either elevated or reduced using a developmental adjustment factor that takes into account both national circumstances and capabilities and countries with historically low rates of deforestation and forest degradation.