Forest Trends, US

In this report, Environmental Defense Fund and Forest Trends map the landscape of the available sources of funding for climate action in forests, with a focus on REDD+, through 2017. To provide a comprehensive overview of the different sources of REDD+ finance, the report first defines the three phases of REDD+, and then provides a summary of the various finance sources, types, and mechanisms.

Governments, companies, banks and civil society are placing more emphasis on the rigorous application of the mitigation hierarchy to avoid, minimize and compensate for projects' impacts on biodiversity. The final step in the mitigation hierarchy sequence are biodiversity offsets to achieve No Net Loss (NNL) or Net Gain (NG). Thirty-nine countries have existing laws or policies on NNL/NG, biodiversity offsets or compensation, and twenty-two countries are developing them.

This overview document provides an introduction to the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme, its work to date, the principles and challenges of offset development, and the programme’s vision for the future.