exploring the human security implications of forest carbon regimes

Traditionally, the evolution of governance mechanisms has been studied at a macro level, whereas the impacts of institutions and regimes are investigated at a micro-level. There has been insufficient attention paid to understanding the vertical linkages of institutions from the international level down to the household level. Similarly, there has been little research on the interactions of horizontally linked institutions at multiple scales and what impacts they have on achieving policy outcomes and affecting local livelihoods. As states continue to negotiate the future of a global climate regime, it is important that better understand its potential distributional and human security implications; the current segmented research approach masks these consequences. The proposed research seeks to address this research gap with both methodological and substantive contributions through an in-depth investigation of forest carbon regimes. More specifically, the proposed research will examine the institutional relationships in three Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) countries in order to understand the potential impacts of the introduction of a new, global regime. By mapping the causal relationships between institutions and livelihoods and identifying the horizontal and vertical networks across scales, this research will provide scholars and policy makers with a more robust understanding of how global governance architectures directly impact local communities. This paper presents one component of the proposed research: the Laos case study. The Forest Carbon Partnership Fund identified Laos as one of the first REDD- Ready countries to receive pilot funding for forest conservation. REDD, however, has the potential to contribute to uncertainty for communities, increasing vulnerability among the marginalized poor. By creating new property rights systems and restricting access for forest-dependent villagers, REDD transforms the traditional institutions that help provide stability in communities

Transforming Justice in REDD+ through a Politics of Difference Approach

Since Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation “Plus” (REDD+) starting gaining traction in the UN climate negotiations in 2007, its architects and scholars have grappled with its community-level justice implications. On the one hand, supporters argue that REDD+ will help the environment and forest-dependent communities by generating payments for forest carbon services from industrialized countries seeking lower cost emissions reductions. Critics, by contrast, increasingly argue that REDD+ is a new form of colonization through capitalism, producing injustice by stripping forest communities of their rights, denying them capabilities for wellbeing, and rendering forest peoples voiceless in forest governance. This paper argues that current REDD+ debates are too focused on relatively simple visions of either distributive or procedural justice, and pay too little attention to the core recognitional justice concerns of REDD+ critics, namely questions of what values, worldviews, rights, and identities are privileged or displaced in the emergence, design, and implementation of REDD+ and with what effects. This paper examines the tensions that emerge when designing institutions to promote multi-scalar, multivalent justice in REDD+ to ask: what are the justice demands that REDD+ architects face when designing REDD+ institutions? Complexifying the concepts of justice as deployed in the debates on REDD+ can illuminate the possibilities for a diversity of alternative perspectives to generate new institutional design ideas for REDD+

The Justice Gap in Global Forest Governance

<p>Claims of injustice in global forest governance are prolific: assertions of colonization, marginalization and disenfranchisement of forest-dependent people, and privatization of common resources are some of the most severe allegations of injustice resulting from globally-driven forest conservation initiatives. At its core, the debate over the future of the world's forests is fraught with ethical concerns. Policy makers are not only deciding how forests should be governed, but also who will be winners, losers, and who should have a voice in the decision-making processes. For 30 years, policy makers have sought to redress the concerns of the world's 1.6 billion forest-dependent poor by introducing rights-based and participatory approaches to conservation. Despite these efforts, however, claims of injustice persist. This research examines possible explanations for continued claims of injustice by asking: What are the barriers to delivering justice to forest-dependent communities? Using data collected through surveys, interviews, and collaborative event ethnography in Laos and at the Tenth Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, this dissertation examines the pursuit of justice in global forest governance across multiple scales of governance. The findings reveal that particular conceptualizations of justice have become a central part of the metanormative fabric of global environmental governance, inhibiting institutional evolution and therewith perpetuating the justice gap in global forest governance.</p>Dissertatio

Special section: Methodological innovation in the study of global environmental agreement making

The development of this methods project, and the articles in the special section, started from a simple shared observation: the concepts for studying global environmental agreement-making did not fit with what we—researchers in this area of study—have observed in practice. This observation raised two critical questions: first, what constitutes a site of global environmental agreement making, and second, which actors and forms of power shape the negotiation dynamics and final agreed text? Reconsidering what constitutes a negotiating site in global environmental politics emerged from research into the practices of intergovernmental assessment production and adoption within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Although these assessment-making bodies are typically not considered or studied as sites of global environmental agreement-making, when you gain access and observe the production of intergovernmental text, it becomes possible to compare and connect these sites—and the knowledge they produce—with the negotiations they are designed to inform. Exploring these intergovernmental scientific processes as negotiation sites enables us to empirically investigate the processes through which actors seek to uphold or contest the knowledge and authority that underpins global environmental action. Second, which actors are identified as significant and what constitutes their power remain bounded by an accepted convention that agreement-making happens between state actors. While scholarship on NGO participation, among other work, has already challenged this convention, our conceptualizations of power continue to overlook the effects of the participation of marginalized groups, such as Indigenous Peoples, in global environmental negotiations. To adequately study the multiple sites of agreement-making and identify the influence of all actors invested in its products, we need new conceptual and methodological apparatus. The articles in this special section begin the process of designing and testing this new apparatus, with the aim of challenging who, what and how we explore the processes of negotiating the collective response to environmental degradation

Special section: Methodological innovation in the study of global environmental agreement making

The development of this methods project, and the articles in the special section, started from a simple shared observation: the concepts for studying global environmental agreement-making did not fit with what we—researchers in this area of study—have observed in practice. This observation raised two critical questions: first, what constitutes a site of global environmental agreement making, and second, which actors and forms of power shape the negotiation dynamics and final agreed text? Reconsidering what constitutes a negotiating site in global environmental politics emerged from research into the practices of intergovernmental assessment production and adoption within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Although these assessment-making bodies are typically not considered or studied as sites of global environmental agreement-making, when you gain access and observe the production of intergovernmental text, it becomes possible to compare and connect these sites—and the knowledge they produce—with the negotiations they are designed to inform. Exploring these intergovernmental scientific processes as negotiation sites enables us to empirically investigate the processes through which actors seek to uphold or contest the knowledge and authority that underpins global environmental action. Second, which actors are identified as significant and what constitutes their power remain bounded by an accepted convention that agreement-making happens between state actors. While scholarship on NGO participation, among other work, has already challenged this convention, our conceptualizations of power continue to overlook the effects of the participation of marginalized groups, such as Indigenous Peoples, in global environmental negotiations. To adequately study the multiple sites of agreement-making and identify the influence of all actors invested in its products, we need new conceptual and methodological apparatus. The articles in this special section begin the process of designing and testing this new apparatus, with the aim of challenging who, what and how we explore the processes of negotiating the collective response to environmental degradation

Rethinking and Upholding Justice and Equity in Transformative Biodiversity Governance

Justice and equity are fundamental to the complex choices that societies need to make to achieve transformative change (Bennett et al., 2019; IPBES, 2019; Leach et al., 2018; Martin, 2017). Evidence that more socioeconomically unequal societies tend to experience higher rates of biodiversity loss (Holland et al., 2009; IPBES, 2019) suggests that injustice and threats to biodiversity are closely intertwined. Injustice can function as an underlying cause of biodiversity loss, such as where colonial expropriation of Indigenous peoples’ land paves the way for its exploitation (Martinez-Alier, 2002)