Safeguards and Dangerguards: A Framework for Unpacking the Black Box of Safeguards for REDD

The idea and practice of safeguards – usually expressed as sets of environmental and social principles – have become integral components of the ongoing global policy efforts aimed at mitigating climate change through the mechanism of Reducing Emissions on Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). Donors, civil societies, business organisations and other different bodies are investing resources on initiatives aimed to propagate different guidelines and principles expected to be adopted, supported and promoted by national governments as safeguards. Yet, there is little research critically examining the different ideas, objectives and understandings embedded in the term and their implications for the purpose for which safeguards are designed for. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on safeguards by presenting REDD+ Safeguard Spectrum, a framework which can be used to unpack the many faces of REDD+ safeguards to guide their application and operationalization at national and local levels. Focusing largely on the social goals espoused under REDD+, the paper characterises social safeguards of REDD+ into four categories—preventive, mitigative promotive and transformative. [Display omitted] •The idea and practice of safeguards are growing; yet very little attention has been paid to the slippery nature of the term.•REDD+ Safeguards Spectrum (RSS), a framework proposed here, distinguishes safeguards as preventive, mitigative, promotive and transformative.•Each category or combination of them, has differential implications on the livelihoods and non-carbon goals expected to be achieved under REDD+.•The RSS can be used as a descriptive framework as well as an analytical framework to structure discussions on planning, implementation and understanding better the stylised outcomes of social safeguards for REDD+.