This paper focuses on the Rio Branco Declaration (RBD) and the 30 first-order subnational jurisdictions located in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Peru that signed it between 2014 and 2018, committing to reduce deforestation 80% by 2020, conditional upon adequate support from the international community. The authors assess each study jurisdiction’s progress toward that commitment in terms of reducing deforestation, and examine a subset of the potential factors supporting or slowing progress, including the existence of commensurate targets within jurisdictions’ legal frameworks and the international financial support pledged to jurisdictions.

The authors found that progress toward achieving the target was slow and likely unattainable in most jurisdictions outside of Brazil. Among the four jurisdictions likely to achieve the target under current deforestation trajectories, only Mato Grosso State has a target within its legal framework that is more ambitious than the RBD target. They also found that the international response to the RBD was sluggish and likely inadequate – with only one financial pledge made in direct response to the declaration and the majority of funding to support jurisdictional efforts coming from one source. The authors explore what may explain individual jurisdictions’ performance with respect to the target, including specific jurisdictional circumstances, national context, and international support.

This case study looks into private sector engagement in the Siak Pelalawan Landscape Programme (SPLP), which currently comprises eight palm oil producers, traders, and downstream buyers, namely namely Cargill, Danone, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), L’Oréal, Musim Mas, Neste, PepsiCo, and Unilever, in the Siak and Pelalawan districts in Riau province, Indonesia. The Coalition has been facilitated by Proforest and Daemeter Consulting, who also implement the programme.

Several key lessons for future private sector engagement in jurisdictional initiatives were identified. First, companies find collaboration on achieving a common goal in general attractive and efficient. The presence of a neutral convener is seen as essential to build trust within the coalitions as well as bridge trust with other stakeholder groups to allow real engagement and collaboration to take place. While SPLP activities are funded and implemented by its members, the mainstreaming of local government’s commitment to sustainable land use into policies is also highlighted as key to ensuring jurisdictionwide impact related to sustainable palm production. Companies interested in jurisdictional initiatives should be ready to commit for an extended period, as building coalitions takes time.

Jurisdictional approaches have become popular in international forums as promising strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and to guarantee sustainable commodity supply. Yet, despite their growing popularity, up to now, there is little consensus on how such approaches should move forward in specific jurisdictions.

In this paper the authors examine two contrasting municipal-level case studies in the eastern Amazonian state of Pará where jurisdiction-wide efforts are underway to reduce deforestation. By developing detailed forest governance intervention timelines since 2005, conducting semi-structured interviews with key informants, analyzing municipal deforestation trends, plus extensive examination of project reports, governmental documents and other secondary sources, this paper performs two main analyses. First, it characterizes the processes in each municipality by linking context and forest governance intervention timelines to deforestation trends. Second it provides a systematic comparison of processes based on (1) the role of the government, (2) multi-stakeholder participation and inclusiveness, (3) adaptive management, (4) horizontal and vertical coordination, and (5) alignment of public and private (supply-chain) initiatives. In so doing, this article answers some of the imperative questions on how to implement and improve jurisdictional approaches aimed at halting deforestation in the tropics.