1.0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Deforestation especially in the tropics has been one of the resultant forces of land use change in the world today and its avoidance has not been realized eligible as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in the Marrakesh Accords. Avoidance of deforestation is not yet eligible as CDM activity mainly because of leakage related issues (Kanninen, et al., 2007).
Deforestation involves a permanent process of land-use change which could be a result of forests conversion into croplands and pastures. However, the process of deforestation could also be a temporary or partial forest trees removal due to shifting cultivation and selective logging (Moutinho & Scwartzman, 2005) i.e. converting forest from its original course to
it involves reduction in the original quality level and grade of a land/forested area over a period of time (Bai Z G; Dent D L.; Olsson L; Schaepman M E, 2008). Its occurrence could be slow and cumulative over time and its effect is long lasting mostly on the rural community who vulnerability never cease to increase. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), apprehends this situation of land as a global change and environmental contest and points out desertification as the worst form of land degradation. However, the major contributors to land degradation and desertification have been attributed to human unsustainable activities on fragile lands and natural disasters like flood or drought (UNEP, 2009). The report from Kenya’s 2002 National Action Programme on desertification says that these existing ecological conditions due to desertification are harsh and fragile especially in the drylands. Furthermore, desertification is being worsened by regular drought, overgrazing and the migration of people (GoK, 2002). Forest degradation could also be as aresult of natural disturbances like wide-fires or human induced (EEA,
This review is then further divided into five major segments, which will be summarized below.
The first section gave a general overview on deforestation, land degradation and climate change. It also delved into the matters of IPCC and how REDD+ came to be. The second section will explain the different view on forest definitions and the importance of the forest ecosystem. The second section will also talk about the coverage of REDD+ as it started out from RED and the section will round-off with the cordiality of REDD+ and Biodiversity.
The third section will view the scopes at which REDD+ can be implemented with their pros and cons. The fourth section will review the important economic dimensions faced by the buyers and sellers of carbon credits. Such economic challenges include the drivers of deforestation/degradation, forest resource governance, leakage, MRV, baseline permanence and liability. And finally, some concluding thoughts and suggestions on REDD+ implementation will be discussed in the last section.

1.2 IPCC AND THE BIRTH OF