Forest Carbon Rights: Lessons Learned from Australia and New Zealand

The global community has agreed to the concept of reducing greenhouse gases emissions through forest sequestration in the post-2020 international climate change regulatory framework. While the concept is included in the December 2015 Paris Agreement, significant legal questions remain about how domestic legal systems will adapt the necessary regulatory frameworks to recognise and protect forest carbon rights, which are fundamental to the operation of a forest sequestration scheme. This article analysis some of the world’s first forest carbon regulatory frameworks, in Australia and New Zealand. Drawing lessons from the establishment and development of these regulatory frameworks, this article proposes principles upon which policymakers and others can rely in developing forest carbon regulatory frameworks in the post-Paris Agreement context.