Both the academic and the policy debate associate REDD primarily with “positive incentives” in the form of compensatory mechanisms. The simple idea is that farmers will stop slashing forests if they were offered incentives conditional on conservation targets (“carrots”).

The more complex reality, however, is that direct compensation payments can only work where rights to land are clearly defined and effectively controlled. Even in leading REDD candidate countries, such as Brazil, insecure tenure and irregularities prevail in much of the forest land under pressure. Moreover most REDD candidate countries have readily applicable environmental legislation that could reduce the lion’s share of deforestation if effectively enforced.

Command-and-Control (C&C) instruments (“sticks”) are often dismissed as inherently ineffective, but recent experiences in Brazil have shown that regulatory mechanisms combined with political will can make an astonishing difference at fairly low additional implementation costs.

Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has experienced an unusually sharp drop since it peaked at over 27,000 square kilometers in 2004 – among other reasons, doubtless due to more effective law enforcement. Implementing REDD+ through C&C, would leave the major share of total emission abatement costs – opportunity costs – with land users. This can be convenient from the perspective of public budget planners, especially if C&C comes with fine revenues. Hence, why would REDD recipient countries opt for expensive carrots with limited scope for application if they have handy and less budget intensive C&C measures right at their disposal?

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