Belize National REDD+ Policy 2021.

The Belize National REDD+ Strategy lays down strategies to facilitate emission reduction and carbon sequestration from REDD+ activities. The primary objective of REDD+ Strategy is to substantially lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from forests and enhance their capacity to sequester GHGs. This involves reducing emissions from deforestation, forest degradation, and promoting sustainable forest management over the next decade, while also facilitating carbon stock enhancement, forest conservation, and forest restoration. The specific goals of the Strategy are to: (i) transform Belize´s land use planning and management by strengthening coordination at the government level with platforms for cross-sector and public and private collaboration, reducing perverse incentives and creating new green incentives, and developing clear criteria for the evaluation of development plans; (ii) generate innovative, substantial and sustainable economic and non-economic incentives and benefits to enhance maintenance and/or expansion of forest resources and improve forest livelihoods; (iii) improve economies and livelihoods of forest dependent communities by supporting and enhancing their sustainable land and forest stewardship and sustainable economies and livelihoods; (iv) sustainably manage forest resources in a way that enhances social, environmental and economic benefits while reducing GHG emissions; (v) conserve Belize’s forests in order to sustain their ecosystem services, conserve biological diversity, conserve forest carbon stocks, provide benefits for forest dependent communities and maintain a cultural heritage for future generations; and (vi) implement active and passive restoration of landscapes to enhance carbon sequestration and recovery of biological diversity.
The development of carbon sequestration and other agro-ecological services will be supported through good agricultural practices. Reduced deforestation will be promoted through intensification and increased productivity in areas under cultivation. Appropriate mechanisms for development of an agro-ecological services business program will be identified through incentives for implementing environmental protection technologies and optimal use of natural resources for sustainable production. Carbon-neutral certification will be supported by providing a robust framework and credit certification that aims to reduce net carbon dioxide emissions to zero. Agroforestry will be promoted as a way of reducing the pressure on existing forests, reducing deforestation and degradation, thereby complementing the REDD+ target of increasing forest/tree cover for ecological stability and environmental services especially in the vulnerable regions. Forest carbon stocks will be enhanced by increasing forest cover, protecting flora and fauna species, and conserving the biodiversity and water resources at the national level.
Sustainable management and conservation of forests will be promoted to increase their environmental, economic and sociocultural benefits by enhancing ecosystems resiliency and functions, ensuring their sustainable utilization by forest users and stakeholders, planning and implementing strategies and actions with realistic, positive impacts and measurable results, and maintaining and/or increasing forest cover in conservation and priority areas. The coordination between different government offices and legal and policy framework will be strengthened. Reforestation and forest restoration efforts will be promoted across the country with the primary objective of enhancing national carbon stocks. The impacts of climate change will be mitigated through enhancing the forest’s natural ability to capture and store carbon as well as benefiting the conservation of biodiversity, controlled water management, and soil preservation. Improved forest management based on post-harvest assessment and grading system will be implemented for logging companies working inside forest reserves.
The REDD+ Readiness Preparation Project is being implemented by the Ministry of Fisheries, Forestry, the Environment and Sustainable Development through the National Climate Change Office. The project development objective is to assist Belize in carrying out key Readiness Preparation activities in order to strengthen their capacity to participate in future REDD+ carbon payment transactions.