FOREST CONSERVATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION POTENTIAL THROUGH REDD+ MECHANISM IN MEGHALAYA, NORTH EASTERN INDIA: A REVIEW *Kitboklang Sun and S.S. Chaturvedi Department of Environmental Studies, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong- 793005 E-mail: carelykid@gmail.com (*Corresponding Author) Abstract: Climate change is one of the burning issues in the present days as it has the capacity to affect lives and sustenance on earth. On a global scale there have been a lot of efforts put forward in order to cope with or adapt or simultaneously adapting and coping with slowing down the rate at which climate change is happening. Naturally, earth itself is trying to balance this change by capturing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as carbon in the soil and forests vegetation biomass. However forests have always been on pressure from the various developmental activities which ultimately reduce their capacity or potential to store carbon. For this purpose, saving forests is an important step in order to tackle climate change. REDD+ one of the steps that emerge in the UNFCC in order to tackle climate change may possibly helps in saving and improving forests condition which will in turn improve the forests carbon storage capacity and reducing the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere. Successful implementation of REDD+ in Meghalaya, a state with high percentage of forest cover and people directly involving in both the ownership and utilization of forests can positively lead to successful forest conservation and reducing the rise in the green house gases level and ultimately contributing to combating or mitigating climate change. Keywords: climate, Climate change, carbon, forests, REDD+ Introduction Earth is the only known planet where life exists. The continuation of life in this planet depends on the stability of the system often referred to as life supporting system. The climate system of the world is an integral part of this of life-supporting system, and currently this system is under pressure because of the rise in temperature resulting from the trapping of incoming solar radiation by the gases released from various human developmental and economic activities. Maintaining a balance in this life supporting system is important in order that life will continue in this planet. This paper stress on the need to stabilize climate change and one way of doing so is by capturing of carbon in the forests vegetation biomass, conserve and improve the condition of the existing forests whereby it will also contribute to conservation of biodiversity and allowing life to continue side by side with development International Journal of Science, Environment ISSN 2278-3687 (O) and Technology, Vol. 5, No 6, 2016, 3643 – 3650 2277-663X (P) Received Sep 27, 2016 * Published Dec 2, 2016 * www.ijset.net