An Assessment of the Introduction of REDD+ in Brazil : A case study of the Bolsa Floresta Programme in the Rio Negro Sustainable Reserve

The project “Impacts on poverty and sustainable development of the REDD architectures: forequity options, growth and for the environment” (POVSUS-REDD) is aimed at increasing theunderstanding of how different options for REDD will affect the achievement of reducinggreenhouse gas emissions while benefitting sustainable development and poverty reduction.In such a context, this thesis is part of a study that assesses the processes of introduction ofREDD+ in Brazil and Tanzania. The focus of this research is the Brazilian case.In Brazil, the POVSUS-REDD project is coordinated by the ‘Sustainable AmazonasFoundation’ (FAS), being Bolsa Floresta the programme under which REDD+ is beingimplemented. The aim of this thesis is to document and evaluate the process of introducingREDD+ in the Rio Negro Sustainable Reserve (RDS Rio Negro) in Brazil.The RDS Rio Negro in the State of Amazonas was selected as the research area due to itsproximity to the state capital (Manaus), easy access, and mostly because all four componentsof the programme Bolsa Floresta are running in this area.The thesis used theories of ‘institutions and institutional change’, ‘participation’ and ‘processlegitimacy’ in order to classify the findings collected from a combination of both qualitativeand quantitative research methods. For the collection of qualitative data, interviews were usedwith resource persons from the FAS, the government’s organisations and the localcommunities; and focus group discussions were used with members of the communities. Thequantitative data was collected using questionnaires with the people from the communities.The findings showed that there were institutional and organisational changes in the area as aresult of the process of introducing Bolsa Floresta. The family component of the programme(BFF) created new institutions related to the introduction of a contribution to each family thatcommits to BFP individually. These findings are classified using theories of institutions andinstitutional change.Regarding the association component (BFA), it was found that a new organisation wascreated to organise the people of the communities in order to increase participation andinvolvement in matters concerning the RDS’ as a whole. In the case of BFR and BFS, a vastviinumber of projects aimed at improving the infrastructure of each community and creatingincome generation projects for its members were started.The research showed the existence of an unsolved conflict in one of the areas of the RDS.The conflict is related to the amount of money given from BFF and the illegal extraction ofwood. The people are not satisfied with the amount of money given from the familycomponent of the programme and in some communities they are exceeding the limits onwood extraction.Regarding the evaluation from the people living in the area, one important output is that theyare mostly satisfied with the programme, how it was introduced and recognise that FAS hasdone a good job introducing Bolsa Floresta in the RDS. However, the concern amongst thelocals is the amount of money given to each family individually, as they consider it to be low.On the other side, it was evidenced that the implementing organisations are satisfied with thedevelopment, processes and outcomes of the BFP. However, regarding the reported conflict,FAS explains that there is a misunderstanding of the rules introduced by the creation of theRDS and those from the BFP. They argue that the limitations on wood extraction were setwith the RDS and FAS is only contributing to the families for having committed to BFP, thusthe conflict itself is not an outcome of the process of implementing BFP.The use of qualitative and quantitative methods approach used for this research wasconvenient. Using the theories of ‘institutions and institutional change’, ‘participation’ and‘process legitimacy’ along with the mixed-research methods increased the strengths andminimised the potential weaknesses of the collected data, analysis of the findings anddiscussion.