RESEARCH NEEDS FOR SUSTAINABLE COCOA PRODUCTION IN GHANA

REDD+ stands for "countries' efforts to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, and foster conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks".

Overall, the experts seem to agree that REDD+ is not functioning well enough at this moment and the carbon markets currently cannot provide benefits to farmers (Ruf, 2011). Therefore it will be necessary to look at different models of financing the project and incentivizing farmers as long as carbon credits are not possible (Anon., personal communication).

Cocoa agroforests appear to qualify as forest according to the official definition (Anon., personal communication) and therefore it is often thought that farmers will be able to benefit from REDD+ once the fundamental structures at a national level are in place (Anon., personal communication). However, at the moment there is a lot of talk about it, but there is also a lot of confusion (Anon., personal communication). REDD+ should be established as a pilot because it is not happening on the ground yet. Relevant information can be gathered by reviewing all the documents and testing their assumptions in trails to see what works in practice. Future research can then focus on the questions that come up in the trials (Anon., personal communication).

As with PES, it is important not to raise false hopes with the stakeholders until REDD+ is properly established (Anon., personal communication). In the preparatory phase of potential REDD+ implementation, it is important to clearly define the benefit sharing scheme. Since many people contribute to the carbon sequestration benefits, it is not clear who should be financially compensated (Anon., personal communication; Anon., personal communication).