Conservation vs restoration: What are REDD and ARR? And why do we need both?

Let’s be honest, the carbon markets are full of jargon and false binaries. Everywhere you look there seems to be an acronym to decipher or a supposedly either/or choice to make. Forest conservation and restoration projects are prime examples with REDD representing the former or ARR the latter – and buyers choosing to invest in one credit type or the other. 

But conservation and restoration are complex and intertwined. It’s important to understand what sits behind their acronyms and why both are important. 

Respira advocates taking a both/and approach to forest projects. Collectively we must conserve 30 percent of the world’s land and restore 30 percent of all degraded ecosystems if we are to meet the 2030 nature targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

This means we must consider REDD and ARR as equally vital and see them as complementary rather than competing credit types. 

REDD can create the highest impact now by halting deforestation rapidly. 

ARR is 100 percent necessary for reversing the damage deforestation has already caused and for increasing the earth’s overall resilience to environmental change.

Together, they can help us sequester more carbon and mitigate the climate crisis. Here’s how.

What is REDD?

REDD is an acronym for ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation’. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) developed REDD to mitigate climate change by addressing greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation.

REDD is designed to limit the volume of CO₂ emissions entering the atmosphere by preventing the loss of existing natural carbon sinks like rainforests, grasslands, and mangroves. It creates financial incentives for countries and communities to conserve nature by paying compensation when expected deforestation or degradation is avoided. In practice, this could look like stopping illegal logging in an area of threatened rainforest.

REDD focuses on the drivers of deforestation and degradation, which very often includes poverty. REDD projects share revenue from carbon credit sales with Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs), create jobs, and support sustainable development. Although these are sometimes called project co-benefits, they are actually at the heart of successful projects. If communities do not need to rely on extractive practices to live, then carbon sinks remain intact. 

What is ARR?

ARR stands for ‘afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation’. Like REDD these activities enhance carbon stocks, but they do so by creating new carbon sinks. 

Afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation are very similar but have important technical differences. Afforestation is planting trees in areas that were not previously forested, such as degraded land, reforestation is planting trees to regrow forests in areas that have been cleared, and revegetation is increasing vegetation cover on degraded land, including grassland restoration as well as forests.

All these ARR activities remove CO₂ from the atmosphere by growing trees, mangroves, and grasses that would not otherwise exist. 

Like REDD, IPs and LCs are central to successful ARR projects. It is not enough to plant and walk away, projects only deliver real climate and biodiversity impact if they become long-established. This means they must support the needs of IPs and LCs and have their long-term support. 

How do REDD and ARR differ?

On a foundational level, REDD and ARR are both fighting the same battle. Each aims to reduce the volume of CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere by investing in the natural sequestration potential of nature. These approaches also create very similar co-benefits for plants and animals as they conserve and restore their habitats.

However, there are some nuanced differences in these approaches that are important to understand. 

REDD is about protecting existing carbon sinks. These projects reduce the volume of emissions that would have been released into the atmosphere from deforestation and degradation by conserving forests. This means forests maintain their ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere

REDD projects are run at a national, jurisdictional or project level and use historical deforestation rates or forest loss scenarios to calculate baselines. The credits issued to these projects represent avoided emissions from what deforestation was likely to result from the project not conserving the area.  

ARR, on the other hand, is all about creating new carbon sinks. These projects increase opportunities for natural carbon removal by restoring land or planting trees so more carbon can be sequestered from the atmosphere.

ARR projects use an absence of forests or degraded land as a baseline. The credits issued to these projects represent carbon removal or sequestration.

How do REDD and ARR complement each other?

Although there are clear differences between these approaches, REDD and ARR are inherently complementary and can prove particularly effective when used together. We strongly advocate for the implementation of REDD and ARR projects.

We are losing the battle to protect standing forests, so REDD has been an urgent priority for many years and remains so. It is short-sighted to allow the destruction of the world’s most valuable carbon sinks, especially as well-established ecosystems are the most effective natural carbon sinks. 

That being said, we cannot achieve the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework without simultaneously scaling up ARR. Deforestation has already gone too far, so it is not enough to simply protect the natural carbon sinks that remain. We need developers to run REDD projects to protect existing forests while also deploying ARR to restore degraded lands.

This sounds like a big ask for already over-stretched climate action budgets, but it is the reality of the situation. We need both and we need them at extraordinary scale. 

How can REDD and ARR work together? 

REDD and ARR are not always separate but complementary projects, often they can work together in tandem – REDD can encompass ARR activity. Conservation can naturally reverse degradation, but also REDD project areas can contain ARR activities, once these are complete they come under the protection of the REDD project to ensure their long-term climate and biodiversity impact. 

This means identifying degraded lands close to the intact forest, setting both REDD and ARR metrics in the project’s goals and working with an independent standard to issue both REDD and ARR credits.

REDD and ARR can work together effectively when restoring cleared forests. In such an instance, a REDD project might stop deforestation in an intact forest and simultaneously reforest nearby land that had been cleared for agriculture but is now abandoned.

These approaches can also work together effectively when restoring degraded forests. A REDD project might run in degraded forests affected by selective logging or wildfires but also introduce native tree species to improve canopy cover, boost biodiversity and increase carbon storage capacity.

It is also effective to use REDD and ARR to promote natural regeneration. By reducing pressures such as grazing or fire, previously degraded lands can recover naturally. This approach is often cost-effective and enhances the success of REDD projects.

By combining REDD and ARR techniques, project developers can reduce emissions and increase carbon removals, both of which are critical for achieving our global climate goals. 

Far from pitting one against the other, we see how REDD and ARR can be most effective when used in tandem. We need to lean into REDD to halt deforestation while also investing in ARR approaches to increase carbon sequestration capacity.

REDD and ARR are complementary, interconnected, and essential.

Photo by Dave Robinson on Unsplash