Subnational Governments and Jurisdictional Approaches to REDD+ in Peru: An Analysis of the Current Legal And Policy Framework

This brief reviews Peru’s current and forthcoming policy and legal framework to understand how subnational governments can be involved in jurisdictional approaches and to assess where the national government rules are heading. The brief finds that currently, there are no policies or regulations for jurisdictional initiatives by subnational governments in Peru. However, the national government is developing rules and is considering guidelines for nesting initiatives using the Forest Reference Emissions Level (FREL) and the Forest Reference Level (FRL) for the Peruvian Amazon biome that could provide relevant rules for these types of jurisdictional initiatives.

The brief also highlights that legal uncertainties remain for jurisdictional approaches led by subnational governments. These include defining the areas within their jurisdictions that could be part of an initiative, whether the legal framework allows subnational governments to carry out carbon market transactions, and how they would receive and manage the proceeds of those transactions. Peru is a useful case study given that some of the country’s subnational governments have signed agreements for the sale of emission reductions from future REDD+ programmes in their jurisdictions.