Customary Land Tenure and the Institutional Conditions for Carbon Monetisation in Melanesia.

Carbon crediting for projects on forests on customary land in Papua New Guinea, the Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia depends on a number of institutional conditions. article explores how the combination of customary land tenure, national legislation and carbon standards’ rules affects the transition from forests’ ecological value to the creation of shared with local people. A comparative analysis of literature, of national legislation, programs as well as of the rules of several carbon standards is provided. An analytical sequence from ecosystems via rights to mitigation outcomes, from methodology via verification registration and finally from registration to benefits is developed. The recognition of rights in national legislation as well as the procedures to prove these rights on the ground as conditions for participation by communities are compared. While the absence of dedicated legislation for carbon rights does not necessarily mean that a project cannot be developed, the existence of legislation does not automatically guarantee effective implementation. Separately from the assessment of a project’s carbon stock, additionality of the mitigation outcomes by a project must be assessed. Social outcomes can be evaluated by looking at the degree community representation, the voluntary nature of decisions, the actual size of benefits and their impact on participants’ livelihoods. The findings presented here are limited analysis of documents and do not replace a study based on primary data from project