Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-7 (section)

==== 7.6.2.2 Regulatory Approaches ====

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'''Regulations''' on land use include direct controls on how land is used, zoning, or legally set limits on converting land from one use to another. Since the early 2000s, Brazil has deployed various regulatory measures to slow deforestation, including enforcement of regulations on land-use change in the legal Amazon area. Enforcement of these regulations, among other approaches is credited with encouraging the large-scale reduction in deforestation and associated carbon emissions after 2004 ( [[#Nepstad--2014|Nepstad et al. 2014]] ). Empirical evidence has found that regulations reduced deforestation in Brazil ( [[#Arima--2014|Arima et al. 2014]] ) but over time, reversals occurred when enforcement was not consistent ( [[#Azevedo--2017|Azevedo et al. 2017]] ) (Box 7.9).

Many OECD countries have strong legal frameworks that influence agricultural and forest management on both public and private land. These include for example, legal requirements to protect endangered species, implement conservation tillage, protect riparian areas, replant forests after harvest, maintain historical species composition, forest certification, and other approaches. Increasingly, laws support more widespread implementation of nature-based solutions for a range of environmental issues (e.g., see [[#European%20Commission-EU--2021|European Commission-EU 2021]] ). The extent to which the combined influence of these regulations has enhanced carbon storage in ecosystems is not quantified although they are likely to explain some of the persistent carbon sink that has emerged in temperate forests of OECD countries ( ''high confidence'' ). In the least developed and developing countries, regulatory approaches face challenges in part because environmental issues are a lower priority than many other socio-economic issues (e.g., poverty, opportunity, essential services), and weak governance ( [[#Mayer%20Pelicice--2019|Mayer Pelicice 2019]] ; [[#Walker--2020|Walker et al. 2020]] ) (Box 7.2).

'''Set asides and protected areas''' have been a widely utilised approach for conservation, and according to ( [[#FAO--2020d|FAO 2020d]] ), 726 Mha (18%) of forests are in protected areas globally. A review of land sparing and land sharing policies in developing countries indicated that most of them follow land sparing models, sometimes in combination with land sharing approaches. However, there is still no clear evidence of which policy provides the best results for ecosystem services provision, conservation, and livelihoods ( [[#Mertz--2017|Mertz and Mertens 2017]] ). The literature contains a wide range of results on the effectiveness of protected areas to reduce deforestation ( [[#Burivalova--2019|Burivalova et al. 2019]] ), with studies suggesting that protected areas provide significant protection of forests (e.g., [[#Blackman--2015|Blackman 2015]] ), modest protection ( [[#Andam--2008|Andam et al. 2008]] ), as well as increases in deforestation ( [[#Blackman--2015|Blackman 2015]] ) and possible leakage of harvesting to elsewhere (Kallio et al. 2018). An estimate of the contributions of protected areas to mitigation between 2000 and 2012, showed that in the tropics, PAs reduced carbon emissions from deforestation by 4.88 PgC, or around 29%, when compared to the expected rates of deforestation ( [[#Bebber--2017|Bebber and Butt 2017]] ). In that study, the tropical Americas (368.8 TgC yr −1 ) had the largest contribution, followed by Asia (25.0 TgC yr −1 ) and Africa (12.7 TgC yr −1 ). The authors concluded that local factors had an important influence on the effectiveness of protected areas. For example, in the Brazilian Amazon, protected area effectiveness is affected by the government agency controlling the land (federal indigenous lands, federal PAs, and state PAs) ( [[#Herrera--2019|Herrera et al. 2019]] ). Because protected areas limit not just land-use change, but also logging or harvesting non-timber forest products, they may be relatively costly approaches for forest conservation ( ''medi'' ''um confidence'' ).

'''Community forest management (CFM)''' allows less intensive use of forest resources, while at the same time providing carbon benefits by protecting forest cover. Community forest management provides property rights to communities to manage resources in exchange for their efforts to protect those resources. In many cases, the local communities are indigenous people who otherwise would have insecure tenure due to an advancing agricultural frontier or mining activity. Other examples are forest owner associations like those discussed in Box 7.8. According to the [[#Rights%20and%20Resources%20Initiative--2018|Rights and Resources Initiative (2018)]] , the area of forests under community management increased globally by 152 Mha from 2002 to 2017, with over 500 Mha under community management in 2017. Studies have now shown that improved property rights with community forest management can reduce deforestation and increase carbon storage ( [[#Deininger--2002|Deininger and Minten 2002]] ; [[#Alix-Garcia--2005|Alix-Garcia et al. 2005]] ; [[#Alix-Garcia--2007|Alix-Garcia 2007]] ; [[#Bowler--2012|Bowler et al. 2012]] ; [[#Blackman--2015|Blackman 2015]] ; [[#Fortmann--2017|Fortmann et al. 2017]] ; [[#Burivalova--2019|Burivalova et al. 2019]] ). Efforts to expand property rights, especially community forest management, have reduced carbon emissions from deforestation in tropical forests in the last two decades ( ''high confidence'' ), although the extent of carbon savings has not been quantified globally.

'''Bioenergy targets.''' Multiple policies have been enacted at national and supra-national levels to promote the use of bioenergy in the transport sector, and for bioelectricity production. Existing policies mandate or subsidise the production and use of bioenergy. In the past few years, policies have been proposed, put in place or updated in Australia (Renewable Energy Target), Brazil (RenovaBio, Nationally Determined Contribution), Canada (Clean Fuel Standard), China (Biodiesel Industrial Development Policy, Biodiesel Fuel Blend Standard), the European Union (Renewable Energy Directive II), the USA (Renewable Fuel Standards), Japan (FY2030), Russia (Energy Strategy Bill 2035), India (Revised National Policy on Biofuels), and South Africa (Biofuels Regulatory Framework).

While current policies focus on bioenergy to decarbonise the energy system, some also contain provisions to minimise the potential environmental and social trade-offs from bioenergy production. For instance, the EU Renewable Energy Directive (EU-RED II) and US Renewable Energy Standard (US-RFS) assign caps on the use of biofuels, which are associated with indirect land-use change and food-security concerns. The Netherlands has a stringent set of 36 sustainability criteria to which the certified biomass needs to comply. The EU-RED II also sets a timeline for the complete phase-out of high-risk biofuels ( [[#7.4.4|Section 7.4.4]] ).

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