What Will It Take To Make REDD Work? Identifying the Weaknesses, Exploring the Role of Sustainable Forest Management and Supporting the Post‐Development Potential

SUBSTANTIAL RESEARCH PAPER NOAH CHUTZ SPRING 2010

American University School of International Service United Nations‐Mandated University for Peace Natural Resources and Sustainable Development Master of Arts Candidate 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………….....p. 3 Trends in Forest Loss and Use……………………………………………………………...... p. 7

Chapter 1: Using our Forests, Sustainably………………………………………………………..p. 15 1.1 History in the Making: The Institutionalization of SFM……………………..p. 15 1.2 What Does it Mean, Exactly? Breaking Down the SFM Concept………...p. 19 1.3 Trying to Make it Work: Operationalizing a Definition in Progress……p. 22 1.4 Exploring the Flaws: SFM is not without its Critiques……………………….p. 25

Chapter 2………………………………………………………………………………………………………..p. 30 2.1 Building REDD out of the Conservation and Development Discourse...p. 30 2.1.1 The Influence of Shared Histories‐ Preparing the Stage for REDD as an Expression of Global Governance………………..………..…....……p. 30 2.1.2 Designing a Multi‐Level Mechanism…...... p. 38 2.1.3 Introducing the Players……………...... p. 44 2.2 Positioning REDD in International Governance and the Current Political Economy……………………………..……………………………………………………...p. 47 2.2.1 Creating A New Model of Conservation and Governance, or Redefining What Once Was?...... p. 47 2.2.2 A Twist on Neoliberalism?...... p. 49

Chapter 3: Blowing Down the House of Cards‐ REDD’s Future Failure and the Call for the Post‐Development Perspective………………………………………………………………….p. 52 3.1 Introducing the Post‐Development Concept………………………………...... p. 53 3.2 Post‐Development‐ What Does it Mean, Exactly?...... p 55 3.3 Market, State and Science: The Defunct Pillars of a Global REDD Initiative……………...... ……...... p. 59 3.4 Sustainable Forest Management in REDD: Daring for a Post‐Development Approach………………………………………………………………………………………..p. 69

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………...p. 73

Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………………………p. 78 3

INTRODUCTION

Intent of Research

This paper will explore the opportunities and challenges of defining and implementing Sustainable Forest Management principles within the context of the newly created Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation mechanism, better known as REDD. It will do so by first analyzing the theoretical components of Sustainable Forest Management and placing this concept within the global carbon debate, which has within the last 20 years become the focal point for the merging of the conservation and international development discourses.

Through investigating the institutional structure of REDD and its relationship to the dominant development paradigm built upon market capitalism and Western science, the paper will then use a post‐development critique to argue that REDD is a twenty‐first century extension of failed development policies and will, as a result, likewise fail to achieve its own global mission: substantially addressing climate change, protecting the world’s forests and biodiversity, and promoting sustainable development. The paper will conclude by identifying the components of SFM that in fact do offer great promise in promoting sustainable forestland use and which must be maintained and further developed if its success in ensuring community wellbeing at a global level is to be realized.

Importance and Target Audience

The importance of this research lies in its immediate applicability to both practical forest management dialogues and conceptualizing this nascent international governance regime. The Copenhagen Accord, issued on December 4

18th, 2009 has recognized an expanded version of the initial REDD mechanism, known as REDD‐plus, as a legitimate climate change mitigation mechanism that will feature prominently in the current international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.1 Among other forestland use activities that will be discussed in this paper, REDD‐plus directly states that “sustainable management of forests” will be a mitigation action available to the forest sector. As communities, governments, civil society organizations, the private sector and multinational donor agencies begin to implement this very complicated mitigation mechanism, a thorough analysis of opportunities, pitfalls and sustainable development potential through community‐ sponsored forest stewardship will be essential.

Therefore, this research and analysis largely targets two communities.

Firstly, the policy makers who currently hold the responsibility of developing the

REDD mechanism must be addressed. The Copenhagen Accord has spurred the creation of institutional structures and processes that will be responsible for the control of billions of dollars annually through the interaction of a global network of people, projects and earth systems. As REDD will be a critical component of this network, its creators must be conscious of the very basic tenets which threaten success from its inception. Secondly, the practitioners of Sustainable Forest

Management must constantly be incorporated as they provide the crucial link between grounded results and the decision makers mentioned above. By identifying the larger systemic requirements for SFM’s success, these practitioners will be able to continue focusing their efforts on clarifying implementable

1 (UNFCCC, 2009a) 5 definitions of SFM and its role in supporting truly endogenous, community‐ sponsored development strategies.

Methodology and Organization

The analysis presented in this paper is based upon information originating from various sources of literature. Textual analysis of academic articles forms the basis of the paper’s natural science and development theory analysis as well as the post‐development critique, with support from policy briefs, regional forums and both national and international conference proceedings discussing SFM, REDD‐plus and community development efforts.

A robust review of Sustainable Forest Management comes from the natural sciences, in which publications from academia, land and resource use professionals and the international forestry community have been thoroughly analyzed. SFM requires a global perspective as applied within the REDD‐plus framework due to its inclusion of multiple resources and resource users, which vary substantially between locations. As REDD‐plus has now become an international mitigation mechanism, it must be responsive to an international definition of SFM as well as able to be implemented across the globe.

Negotiating texts and reports from the UNFCCC and associated international bodies forms a very important part of this research. These texts are the institutional frameworks in which SFM will be expressed through REDD‐plus activities. Field reports and publications from civil society organizations involved in the design and implementation of REDD‐plus mitigation projects also are included in the literature 6 review. These are the most readily available materials due to the fact that REDD‐ plus is such a recent development in international climate change discussions.

Additionally, the internet has played a very prominent role in my efforts to reach the required saturation, as most publications become available on specific organizations’ websites.

The information and analysis is presented in three main chapters. Chapter

One concentrates on the evolution of Sustainable Forest Management as a land management philosophy and an institutional force, tracing the course of its development from the dominance of traditional forest timber harvesting, through its association with the sustainable development discourse of the 1980s and into its present, pluralistic form, with mention of its varied critiques. Chapter Two explores the merging of the conservation and international development discourses as the nexus of REDD’s creation. It discusses the institutional shifting that has taken place to make room for this global initiative, elevating SFM to international significance.

Chapter Three analyzes the foundational flaws inherent to REDD as an expression of the traditional development paradigm through a post‐development filter, criticizing its basic components of reliance on free market capitalism and technocratic science for mitigating climate change, alleviating poverty and promoting sustainable development. This chapter also identifies how SFM may operate as post‐ development practice and therefore be harnessed as a tool for safeguarding forest systems in the pursuit of re‐envisioning the process of sustainable development and natural resource use. The paper concludes by emphasizing the growing contradictions inherent in the pursuit of sustainable development practice and the 7 challenges this presents to REDD’s success. Further research that applies a post‐ development analysis on the mitigation options available through REDD that this paper has not discussed is highly encouraged.

TRENDS IN FOREST LOSS AND USE

Losing our Forests

The extent to which the earth’s tropical forest ecosystems are being lost, the rate at which this is taking place and the significant threats this presents to the healthy functioning of the planet and its people, have been well documented across the globe. As of 2005, the annual deforestation rate had reached approximately 13 million hectares, out of the 4 billion hectares of standing forest remaining. Although offset by both natural regeneration processes and reforestation and afforestation efforts taking place in various regions, the net forest loss globally from 2000 to 2005 was 7.3 million hectares annually, equal to roughly 200 km2 per day.2 Such large figures make conceptualizing the impact of this unprecedented rapid conversion of forest landscape extremely difficult, as does the fact that on an international scale, this only represents 0.325% of the land area covered by forest. However, when considering the specific ecological dynamics of forested ecosystems, the extensive and established socio‐economic networks of forest‐dependent people and the services such ecosystems provide to the global community as a whole, these statistics become extremely alarming.

2 ("Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations," 2009) 8

Tropical forests provide habitat for approximately 90% of all terrestrial biodiversity, and estimates from the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO) state that tropical deforestation may be resulting in the loss of

100 species per day.3 Not only does this represent a “pauperization”4 of the earth’s biological resources in a cultural and aesthetic context, it creates substantial challenges for the functional ecological services on which local and global communities, both human and nonhuman, depend as well. According to the

Convention on Biological Diversity, “the maintenance of ecological processes is dependent upon the maintenance of their biological diversity.”5 A report published in 2009 by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) categorized these processes into four distinct groups: supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural services.6 While the specifics of each group are beyond the focus of this paper, this list clearly illustrates the integral roles that forest biodiversity and the services it provides have in ensuring global ecological health.

Forests for Development

Increasingly, the discussion concerning tropical deforestation is expanding beyond environmental conservation and into international development. With over

1.6 billion people dependent on forests to some degree for subsistence and livelihood, and with a significant number living in extreme poverty, tropical forest loss and its many drivers cannot be separated from its negative impacts on human

3 ("Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations," 2009) 4 (Wilson, 2006) 5 ("Convention on Biological Diversity," 2009) 6 (Adaptation of Forests and People to Climate Change­ A Global Assessment Report, 2009) 9 communities.7 Uncontrolled large‐scale agriculture aimed largely at export markets, weak forest governance institutions, corrupt timber harvesting practices, population pressures, illegal logging activities and natural resource extractive industries contribute heavily to complete deforestation, various forms of forest degradation and increased marginalization of forest‐dependent people. According to the United Nations, regions of the world that have not yet achieved high levels of development are those which continue to suffer the most substantial forest loss.

Seven of the 10 countries that experienced the highest rates of deforestation between 2000 and 2005 fall in the bottom 25% of the United Nation’s Human

Development Index rankings.8

To make matters worse, the range of factors involved in perpetuating tropical deforestation operates at an increasingly international scale and have consequently made creating and implementing solutions extremely difficult. Efforts to create awareness of the loss of forest ecosystems and to encourage a reduction of deforestation rates coalesced in the Forest Principles of the Rio de Janeiro Earth

Summit’s 1992 hallmark document, Agenda 21. According to Principle Two, “Forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations.”9 While echoing many sentiments of the Brundtland Report, published five years earlier, the Forest Principles of the Rio Declaration provided little

7 (The Little REDD+ Book, 2009) 8 The top ten countries, with HDI rankings in parentheses, are Venezuela (61), Brazil (70), Indonesia (109), Myanmar (135), Sudan (146), Tanzania (152), Nigeria (154), Zambia (163), Democratic Republic of Congo (177) and Zimbabwe (unranked). 2008 Census 9 (Agenda 21, 1992) 10 substance on which the international community could successfully act in order to stem the loss of tropical forestland. They spoke broadly of the need to ensure the

“management, conservation and sustainable development of forests and forest lands” without guidance on how to do so or what this would entail.10 The World

Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development in 1999 published a report titled “Our Forests Our Future” that attempted to draw attention to the factors causing such widespread deforestation such as market failures and inaccurate forest valuation, illegal harvesting pressures, poor governance and land tenure policies that marginalize vulnerable communities, such as women and indigenous groups. In doing so, the Commission began to create an action plan to “stop the destruction of the earth’s forests” through multiple avenues, including intensified agroforestry operations, community forestry programs, the development of industrial timber harvesting codes of conduct, enhancement of market mechanisms to reflect true forest product values and greater public ownership.11 However, ten years have passed since the publication of this document and none of the recommendations have been seriously developed nor successfully implemented, either by national bodies or international development agencies.

What both documents do share as a common, fundamental concept for the preservation of global forest resources is their support for sustainable use. Tropical forests provide an immense variety of goods, both in the form of timber and non‐ timber products, that sustain tribal villages, provide income to local communities,

10 (Agenda 21, 1992) 11 (Our Forests Our Future, 1999) 11 play large roles in national economies and feature in a variety of established international markets. Complete no‐take conservation areas should definitely play a role in the global attempt to maintain and enhance the biodiversity and environmental processes of forestlands. However, the sustainable use of forest ecosystems, where extraction intensities vary depending on forest type and the product(s) of interest, will be a crucial component to providing continued human well being and sustaining ecological services.

The Missing Link

Although the concept of sustainable use has increasingly sought to incorporate the multiple resources that may be cultivated from forest systems, including seeds, fruits, gums, wildlife, artisan components and many more, much of the tension regarding sustainability and forests has arisen from the glaringly destructive practices of conventional tropical timber harvesting. Agricultural pressures, infrastructure development and fuelwood collection by many of the world’s rural poor constitute a large source of deforestation and forest degradation, yet the timber industry receives much of the criticism due to its visibility. Large‐ scale clearcuts, mudslides, completely denuded hillsides and post‐harvest landscape erosion damages are too often the legacy of uncontrolled, unmonitored and poorly planned timber harvesting operations. Forest ecosystems and the biodiversity it supports will not survive if such management practices continue. Indeed, the IUFRO 12 report candidly states that “at present…many forests are not managed sustainably.”12

Yet even with the growing popularity of sustainable management as a resource use paradigm, coming up with a strategy to combat unsustainable timber harvesting as well as the myriad other drivers of tropical forest loss proved to be practically impossible until 2005. The underlying factors were too diverse and widespread for a single approach. However, at the 11th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in

Montreal, Canada, Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea proposed a new, international concept that aimed at bringing all of the components which contribute to deforestation and degradation under one leading theme: carbon. As climate change grew into a global scientific and political phenomenon and an increasing number of mitigation initiatives formed, the link between forests and carbon assumed international prominence. Now there was an umbrella concept that could address all of the deforestation drivers and incorporate them within an active international dialogue.

The Rise of REDD

Known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), this strategy was immediately labeled by the international community as one of the most cost‐effective approaches for quickly reducing emissions and mitigating severe climate change consequences. While current estimates vary, deforestation and

12 (Adaptation of Forests and People to Climate Change­ A Global Assessment Report, 2009, p. p.9) 13 degradation activities contribute approximately 20% of the global carbon emissions and are second only to the energy sector, making this a carbon source that cannot be ignored.13 In essence, REDD operates on the premise that countries deforest in response to the land use system that realizes the highest current economic return, which can include mining, agriculture, timber removal, development of infrastructure or others. If accurate economic analyses are done on the value of forested lands, a country which receives payments that exceed profits from the most lucrative land conversion alternative will instead protect its standing forests, which are an immense pool and sink of the atmospheric carbon responsible for the observed rise in global temperatures. In this way, forested countries will have the financial incentive to avoid deforesting their land as part of an international attempt to reduce drastic changes in the climate, as well as achieve the various forest conservation goals that had proven to be so elusive in the past. Carbon, therefore, has become the forest’s most valuable asset.

REDD Approved

Among the many significant topics that were discussed at the December

2009 15th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Copenhagen, including the possibility of substantially deeper emission reduction targets by industrialized countries and the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the form and function of a REDD mechanism received considerable attention. Of particular significance to this paper is the inclusion of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) into the fundamental

REDD architecture, which began two years earlier at the December 2007 13th COP to

13 (The Little REDD+ Book, 2009) 14 the UNFCCC that met in Indonesia. At this meeting, the Parties expanded the potential scope of a REDD mechanism with the drafting of the “Bali Action Plan”, which calls for “policy measures and incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.”14 These latter three activities, known as REDD‐plus, significantly enlarge the mission of a REDD mechanism by extending funding to a wide range of land use options beyond just forest preservation. Appearing in various final Draft Decisions issued by the Copenhagen COP, REDD‐plus stands to become a very active future climate change mitigation mechanism.

14 (The Little REDD+ Book, 2009, p. (italics added)) 15

CHAPTER 1‐ USING OUR FORESTS, SUSTAINBLY

1.1 History in the Making: The Institutionalization of SFM

Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) has become a term used in a variety of contexts that aim to ensure the continual supply of forest‐based benefits into perpetuity. Although SFM lacks a concise and universally operational definition, and disagreement over its use and meaning is widespread, it has become an increasingly important topic of national and global debate and stands to become a dominant paradigm in international natural resource management. The concept of SFM began to gain significant political, economic and academic prominence during the relatively recent rise of international sustainable development discourse and activity, initiated by the Chairman of the World Commission on Environment and

Development, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who spearheaded the 1987 seminal work,

Our Common Future.15 In this publication, she presented the basic definition of sustainable development that has established itself as the principle building block, in one form or another, of practically all related discussions: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”16

Immediately, the international forest science and policy community began investigating the position of forest resource use and economic theory in this restructured framework that attempted to address the planet’s increasing environmental problems while simultaneously maintaining global economic growth.

15 (Hickey, 2008; Ljungman, Martin, & Whiteman, 1999; Oliver, 2003; Wang, 2004) 16 (Development, 1987, p. 42) 16

In fact, interest in the role of the forestry sector within the discourse of late twentieth century international development preceded the above mentioned events as expressed through the collaborative efforts of the UN‐sponsored International

Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), an intergovernmental partnership that actively promotes the sustainable management, conservation, use and trade of tropical forest resources. Dialogue concerning the rapid deforestation in tropical environments along with the growing market in timber products sourced from the tropics prompted the first International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) of 1983.

This aimed to marry the needs of tropical forest conservation while incorporating the increasingly popular tenets of sustainable development, namely socio‐cultural and ecological values, into the workings of the market‐driven global economy. As the ITTA underwent revision and updating over the years, the organization focused its ultimate goal on creating an international trade in tropical timber completely sourced from sustainably managed forests, called the Year 2000 Objective.17 While this has fallen short of its objective, the ITTO continues to provide international leadership in improving the tropical forestry sector and to influence the expanding pursuit of global sustainable forest management practice and thought.

The 15 years following the publication of Our Common Future witnessed a substantial effort to create the institutional structures and capacity that forestland resource managers, private conservation organizations, development agencies and both state and international policy‐makers considered necessary for the successful

17 (ITTO, 2004‐2010) 17 implementation of sustainable development rhetoric in the context of global forests.

As discussed above, the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit gave priority to forest ecosystem conservation translated through the language of the Brundtland Report, highlighting a variety of economic, social and ecological factors that must be incorporated into the forest conservation and development discourse. The 1995

Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), initiated by the Commission on

Sustainable Development then provided the initial platform for forest policy deliberations. Two years later, the IFF transformed into the Intergovernmental

Panel on Forests (IPF) with a goal of addressing previously unresolved themes, including the role and use of financial resources as well as the transfer of environmentally sound technologies. The currently operational United Nations

Forum on Forests (UNFF), created in 2001, represents the culmination of those past

10 years of international collaboration in the pursuit of establishing effective mechanisms to encourage forest policy dialogue and promote the “management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forest.”18 A legacy of the two former institutions is the IFF/IPF “Proposals for Action”, which encompass the products of the decade‐long dialogue process and which form the basis of the

UNFF’s global mission.

Contemporaneous with the developments taking place within the United

Nations, national government bodies and industry leaders began organizing into regional associations with a focus on creating sets of Criteria and Indicators that would directly guide the translation of sustainable development for forests from

18 (Forum on Forests, 2010) 18 international policy talk into practical land management strategies.19 One such association grew from a 1990 gathering of European ministerial leaders in

Strasbourg, Germany and became aptly known as the Ministerial Conference for the

Protection of Forests in Europe. Over the past two decades, they have adopted nineteen resolutions through five Pan‐European conferences for advancing the understanding and practical implementation of SFM throughout the continent.20

Across the Atlantic, another partnership formed and gathered under the auspices of the Montreal Process, which began in 1994 through the collaborative efforts of twelve non‐European countries that sought internationally agreed upon C&I for the sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests.21 Member countries to this Process are located in five of the seven continents and represent 90% of the planet’s temperate and boreal forests, equal to approximately 60% of total forest cover.22 Their multilateral discussions culminated in the 1995 “Santiago

Declaration”, a statement outlining the partnership’s commitment to implementing

Agenda 21 of the 1992 Earth Summit, expanding the concept of sustainability to incorporate resources beyond timber and to generally “provide a common understanding of what is meant by sustainable forest management.”23 From the private sector, market‐based certification schemes, the Forest Stewardship Council

(FSC) being the most recognized and active certifying organization, additionally

19 (McDonald & Lane, 2004) 20 (Forest, 2009) 21 Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Russian Federation, United States of America, Uruguay 22 (Montreal Process, 1998‐2005) 23 (Montreal Process, 1998) 19 contributed heavily to the establishment of SFM standards and continue to inform international policy and sustainable forestland management across the globe.

1.2 What Does it Mean, Exactly? Breaking Down the SFM Concept

Sustainable Forest Management fundamentally represents a significantly expanded conceptualization of the interaction between the multiple needs of modern society and the resources that forests across the planet can supply to satisfy them.24 According to forest economist Shashi Kant, “the concept of SFM is an outcome of dynamism in the human value system, and a reflection of social, cultural, economic and environmental conditions of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first century.”25 Also referred to as “ecosystems management” and “adaptive management”, SFM approaches forest resource use holistically and through a flexible, multidisciplinary framework that attempts to operate wholly within the ecological capacities of the forest while maximizing socio‐cultural benefits in a profitable way.26

This shift is in direct response to the forest industry’s conventional management strategy that solely concentrated on maximizing wood production, referred to by Wang as the “timber‐dominant management paradigm.”27 According to this perspective, the market value of forest systems rested in the standing volume of available timber and little else.28 The fastest and most profitable financial return was complete deforestation. Clean water, biodiversity, hydrological cycles and

24 (Wang, 2004) 25 (Kant, 2004, p. 197) 26 (Hickey, 2008; McDonald & Lane, 2004) 27 (Wang, 2004) 28 (Smith, Larson, Kelty, & Ashton, 1997) 20 climate regulation, not to mention indigenous forest community wellbeing, had no tangible, market‐determined price. The negative externalities associated with a strictly timber‐guided management objective did not find expression in the operation’s economic analysis and were therefore ignored. However, as the world began to demand an integration of ecological and social values into the economically driven forest management regime, the conventional system of single‐resource management began to fall out of favor. As Wang and Wilson state,

Its [SFM] goal is to seek the co‐existence of healthy forest ecosystems and harmonious human communities. The nature of SFM is to respect a range of dynamic conditions instead of a single, static target, and there is growing recognition that SFM is characterized by a shift in focus from timber to a wider spectrum of the forest.29

The transition from widespread stand removal and forest clearing as the dominant silvicultural prescription to the implementation of Sustainable Forest

Management principles as outlined above was not direct, and indeed is far from complete. A precursor to SFM is the concept of Sustainable Timber Management

(STM), also known as Sustained Timber Yield Management (STYM), which improves upon the conventional paradigm through its enlarged focus on long‐term objectives.

Although it still concentrates mainly on a single resource, STYM refers to a management plan that ensures a non‐declining supply of the desired timber products into perpetuity. While the various technical options for achieving this objective are beyond the scope of this paper and hotly contested amongst applied forest ecologists, the strength of this approach over the previous lies in the simple recognition that the forest resources must be treated in a way that will allow them

29 (Wang & Wilson, 2007, p. 744) 21 to produce repeatedly into the future. Timber supplies are maintained, damage to the residual stand is minimized and silvicultural prescriptions aim to increase growth rates and accumulation of merchantable biomass. The emphasis on long‐ term land use planning directly compliments the sustainable development language in which SFM as a concept was forming. The Brundtland Report candidly addressed the need to think inter‐generationally as the world’s natural resources are conserved and sustainably managed for both today and the future. As forest systems generally require multi‐decade growth cycles to reach stages of maturity, the SYTM focus on long‐term planning promised, in theory, to deliver a component of the paradigm for which Our Common Future appealed.

Thus, SFM is best understood in contrast to conventional forest management, representing a forest conservation ethos built upon a much larger range of ecological and socio‐cultural interactions and processes than ever before. The forest, from this perspective, is no longer valued solely for the timber in its trees but becomes a “multiproduct asset.”30 A diversification of forest benefits beyond wood requires a “diversified mode of activity” for the sustained management of multiple resources.31 As important as recognizing the environmental functions of forests that were hitherto ignored, such as biodiversity, water management and carbon cycling, is the acknowledgement of multi‐stakeholder participation in SFM. The expansion of ecological considerations widens the formerly narrow vision to encompass resource users and owners beyond industry. This inclusion of multiple levels of

30 (Oliver, 2003, p. 13) 31 (Wang, 2004, p. 207) 22 participatory management and ownership gives SFM what Wang and Wilson call a pluralistic perspective to forestry.32 Whereas conventional logging operated according to the vision of one commercial landowner, SFM functions dynamically and cooperatively, crafting management plans based upon the input of multiple resource users interested in diverse forest‐derived benefits, both consumptive and non‐consumptive. SFM therefore involves much more complexity, with its success dependent on the level of its flexibility as social demands change and evolve over time. Conventional management is static and timber‐focused, whereas SFM must be able to constantly adapt itself alongside multiple interests. As defining management objectives increasingly assumes a more pluralistic process with a variety of participants, SFM signifies a more socially accountable and responsive paradigm, one that has a larger capacity to extend greater benefits to a greater portion of society while operating within local ecological parameters.

1.3 Trying to Make it Work: Operationalizing a Definition in Progress

Whereas multiple state‐led initiatives, private sector efforts and international conferences have most definitely expanded the boundaries of SFM, both theoretically and operationally, consensus amongst all parties truly only exists in one arena: SFM has no agreed upon definition. This comes as little surprise considering the pluralistic framework in which the concept evolves and finds expression, especially when SFM principles are applied across the globe in a variety of extremely different ecological, socio‐cultural and economic environments. Yes, overlap exists in many definitions and within the various Criteria and Indicator

32 (Wang & Wilson, 2007) 23 standards that have been developed. Yet this very nature of SFM has been a major challenge in its successful implementation within both the land use and policy‐ making communities. A 1999 FAO publication entitled “Beyond Sustainable Forest

Management” states that “references to SFM are universally ambiguous and vague.”33 Sen Wang directly states, “it is my conviction that there is no uniform, fit‐ for‐all path to Sustainable Forest Management.”34 And yet both the scientific and policy‐oriented communities are pursuing ways to define SFM in their own contexts and strengthen all levels of capacity to bring about its fruition, from the Forest

Management Unit (FMU) to the conference halls of the United Nations.

Lengthy pursuit of a consensus definition of sustainable forest management is probably more of an impediment towards implementation than any limitation in our knowledge of the ecological and social functions of forests… [and] should not be used as an excuse for inaction.35

Several examples exist of this move forward in realizing SFM principles on the ground, despite the lack of complete agreement, and illustrate the progress being made by various forest sector players. According to the FAO’s 2007 State of the World’s Forest report, “sustainable forest management refers to the use and conservation of forests for the benefit of present and future generations.”36 This definition, though based upon a detailed set of thematic elements taken from multiple international consultations37, has merely taken the language of the

33 (Ljungman, et al., 1999) 34 (Wang, 2004, p. 211) 35 (Ljungman, et al., 1999, p. 4) 36 (State of the World's Forests 2007, 2007, p. p.3) 37 (1)Extent of forest resources, (2)Biological Diversity, (3)Forest health and vitality, (4)Productive functions of forest resources, (5)Protective functions of forest resources, (6)Socio‐economic functions. (FAO, 2006) 24

Brundtland Report’s sustainable development description and substituted in

“sustainable forest management.” Unfortunately, the language omits many of the specifications that have opened the concept to fierce criticisms from those who believe that SFM is a generic and misleading term that often labels very unsustainable operations ecologically and socially sensitive.

Adding more depth and scope to this developing management ethos, IUFRO states that SFM “is a system of forestry practices that aims to maintain and enhance the economic, environmental and social values of all types of forests.”38 This definition highlights the various categories of forest values that must be considered and adds language to move beyond just the notion of “use” and rather promote maintenance and enhancement for sustainability. In July 2009, the United Nations

Forum on Forests Secretariat released official language on SFM in its preparation for the UNFCCC 15th Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. A blend of the two previous definitions, this allows the parties to have an agreed upon description from which to base further agreements on SFM as a component to a Post‐Kyoto Protocol mechanism.39

The ITTO, through initiating an extraordinary amount of trainings, teachings, research, development programs and distributing publications, has perhaps created one of the most comprehensive and practical definitions of Sustainable Forest

Management:

38 (Adaptation of Forests and People to Climate Change­ A Global Assessment Report, 2009, p. p.9) 39 “Sustainable forest management as a dynamic and evolving concept aims to maintain and enhance the economic, social and environmental value of all types of forests, for the benefit of present and future generations.” 25

The process of managing forests to achieve one or more clearly specified objectives of management with regard to the production of a continuous flow of desired forest products and services without undue reduction of its inherent values and future productivity and without undue undesirable effects on the physical and social environment.40

The strength of this definition is that it provides a much more concrete and functional framework than those described above, which can be applied to the actual creation and implementation of field‐based forest management operations along comprehensive sustainable principles.

1.4 Exploring the Flaws: SFM is Not Without its Critiques

A comprehensive understanding of Sustainable Forest Management principles also requires an investigation into the various criticisms that have been elaborated by many different parties engaged in this discussion. Not so much a critique as a concern is the realization that the long‐term nature of SFM leads to numerous difficulties in its overall assessment. The predictions of a management plan for multiple harvests of various resources within a forest that often requires many decades to respond to disturbance are just that: predictions. The concept of

Panarchy has been employed in the context of forests more frequently to refer to this unpredictability in the dynamic patterns of flux and renewal of forest resources following disturbances, and impacts of management regimes may differ drastically from what was originally projected.41 In addition, the Criteria and Indicator standards being developed to address this challenge constantly evolve and require large amounts of time and resources. As discussed above, these have only recently

40 (Revised ITTO Criteria and Indicactors for the Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests, 2005, p. P.36) 41 (Wang, 2004) 26 been reaching a level of quality for field implementation and much waits to be seen in terms of their ability to successfully measure the level of sustainability that has been achieved.

This reference to sustainability also generates criticisms, as the concept itself often is unclear and hotly contested. The question always goes back to, “what is being sustained?” This could mean commercial timber volumes, non‐timber forest products, biodiversity habitat, clean water resources or a combination among these and many others. The question that immediately follows is “for whom?,” in terms of which the pluralistic framework of SFM can become extremely complicated. While a balance between multiple interests sounds extremely appealing in theory, the actual balancing act often creates much conflict amongst the participating parties. As benefits are weighed against costs in formulating management objectives, one set of interests will always be favored more than another. “Inherent to this definition is that SFM will mean different things to different people, at different scales of management and at different time periods.”42 Pearce and colleagues describe this as a process of achieving “optimal use” which contains obvious problems of defining of what and for whom.43 They respond to this challenge by suggesting compensation to parties who, in effect, lose out in the determination of what exactly is optimal. As the current international focus steadily hones in on carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation, investigating the management approaches that maximize the sustainability of this resource and the parties that benefit most will be of critical

42 (Hickey, 2008, p. 109) 43 (Pearce, Putz, & Vanclay, 2003, p. 232) 27 importance in expanding the scope of SFM as well as determining its impact on both human and non‐human communities.

Another angle from which SFM has received criticism is its alleged continued biases towards the conventional timber management paradigm of the past.44

Various non‐governmental organizations and public interest watchdogs, including

Global Witness and the online media source REDD‐Monitor, assert that SFM is a smokescreen for selective timber harvesting and general forest degradation practices.45 It allows non‐sustainable forest management activities to continue because it has a weak and broad definitional framework and operates in many countries where very little government support or institutional capacity exists to enforce any set of sustainability standards. Indeed, Chadwick Dearing Oliver of the

Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry speaks from an obviously wood‐centric perspective while discussing the productive qualities of the forest in the context of sustainable forestry, indicating that timber can still remain as a central priority. 46

One basis of criticism that may seem unexpected comes from an indictment of SFM in regards to its potential to have negative ecological ramifications. Rice and

Gullison, in studying the ecology of Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King) and the economics of its harvesting in the Bolivian Amazon, assert that SFM may actually provide incentive to move beyond extremely selective logging for one commercial

44 (Aplet, 1995) 45 (Lang, 2009) 46 (Oliver, 2003) 28 species and in fact increase more intensive harvesting at the landscape level.47

While conventional harvesting for Mahogany is largely unsustainable due to this species’ particular life characteristics, the damage done to the forest is relatively small and localized as compared to a SFM regime that would potentially impact a much larger area and target a variety of previously ignored species. The authors offer rebuttals to the arguments that strengthened land tenure rights, mixed species approaches and certification will increase the success of SFM, stating that

“sustainability is, in fact, a poor guide to the environmental harm caused by timber operations. Likewise, sustainable logging does not necessarily guarantee a low environmental toll.”48 Although criticisms to SFM on ecological grounds are not abundant, careful attention must be granted to ensure such perverse incentives are not created.

Yet probably the most widely discussed and researched area of concern and criticism to the concept of SFM focuses on its economic inferiority to the unsustainable forest management practices that dominate the tropical timber industry.49 As traditional methods of cost‐benefit analyses operate today, the most profitable forestland management option is to cut all commercial species to receive full monetary value immediately and maximize profits by avoiding mitigation responsibilities, such as site preparation, replanting, or watercourse protection, to name a few. Critiques point to a variety of economic factors (high discount rates

47 (Rice & Gullison, 1997) 48 (Rice & Gullison, 1997, p. 44) 49 (Kant, 2004; Ljungman, et al., 1999; Pearce, et al., 2003; Rice & Gullison, 1997; Wang, 2004; Wang & Wilson, 2007) 29 and low timber costs), ecological factors (slow growth rates) and institutional factors (weak governance, high levels of corruption and a lack of enforced land tenure policies) that all combine to maintain SFM as the perpetually less‐profitable management paradigm. However, proponents of this emerging discourse acknowledge this shortcoming and in turn reject the dismissal of SFM on these grounds by calling for a new economic approach to natural assets. They support the expansion of the concept of forest values and assert the profitability of SFM over conventional logging when prices reflect the true values of a forest’s multiple resources. As will be discussed below, carbon may take the lead role in this shift in economic practice as it becomes an ever more important component worth conserving.

30

CHAPTER 2

SECTION 2.1: BUILDING REDD OUT OF THE CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSES

2.1.1 The Influence of Shared Histories­ Preparing the Stage for REDD as an Expression of Global Governance

In order to situate the maturing REDD framework into the current discourses of both conservation and development, an examination of their ideologies and past expressions will provide clarity and context to the forces that have given it such international prominence. Significant shifts in governance have taken place throughout the histories of both conservation and development theory and practice, and as observed by Levine, along very similar lines.50 Colonial‐era conservation approaches, well exemplified in the fortress conservation models of African Game

Reserves and British Raj‐controlled Forestlands in India, operated on systems of control and governance from a distance. The seat of the Empire ruled the landscape from overseas, imposing foreign rules and regulations that dispossessed local peoples from access and resource use while serving the interests of a few colonial elites. “Development” during this period of imperialistic rule, as defined by progress towards civilized living and Western traditions and ethics, did not extend to the

“brutish” inhabitants of the non‐Western world. Resources were extracted and processed for the benefit and economic growth of the colonial core, and any infrastructural investments in the periphery colonies largely meant to serve foreign interests. Similarly, conservation of wildlife and landscapes stopped short of acknowledging the presence and histories of local people. It was a duty of the

50 (Levine, 2002) 31

“civilized, educated West” and could not be trusted in the hands of undeveloped, ignorant communities.51 The creation of the Society for the Preservation of the

Fauna of the Empire (SPFE) in 1937 provides an example of this perspective that nature itself was owned by the Crown, its conservation was a responsibility of the colonial power and that control from overseas was far more effective, and desirable, than management by local inhabitants.52 Conservation and development practices both unabashedly served the ruling foreign interests, first and foremost.

Following the end of World War II in 1945 and the creation of the Bretton

Woods Institutions, development of the Third World became an international priority. Ideological motivations, however, maintained the pervasive colonial perspective of economic and cultural dominance, therefore continuing the exploitation of poor nations for the growth and expansion of the industrialized

North. Modernization theorists attempted to explain the growing divide between rich and poor countries as the latter’s inability to shed out‐dated cultural baggage, which prevents economic growth and the “improvement in human well‐being.”53 W.

W. Rostow’s influential “Five Stages of Growth” outlined a linear path towards progress and development that involved a “take‐off” from traditional social

(dis)functioning and a drive towards modernity and high mass consumption, as seen in the developed North.54 What this philosophy accomplished, however, was an institutionally supported destruction of local economies and social structures at the behest of foreign business and colonial governments, all in the name of progress.

51 (Igoe, 2004) 52 (Levine, 2002) 53 (Harrison, 1985) 54 (Rostow, 1960) 32

Conservation efforts operated according to a similar discourse on the backward nature of traditional societies and the need for developed country intervention.

From the Strictly Protected Areas in South Asia and Wildlife Parks in Southeastern

Africa to the language of the 1964 Wilderness Preservation Act in the United States of America, native communities and their traditional land use practices were seen as barriers to effective conservation efforts and were subsequently displaced to achieve conservation goals.

The three decades from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1990s saw significant restructuring of the global political and economic order. Official colonialism in Africa came to an end as movements for national sovereignty and identity spread throughout the developing world. State‐led development strategies were created in reaction to the culturally, economically and politically destructive practices promoted by Modernization theorists and attempted, in various fashions, to establish thriving local economic structures and social support systems. While certainly influenced by local contexts, multiple examples exist that prove this to be a global phenomenon. The 1960s has been called the “golden age” of Central America, with Costa Rica enjoying an extensive growth in state‐sponsored social services and industry.55 Import‐Substitution Industries in many African countries trusted the state to create nationally appropriate and lucrative domestic markets for growth and development. This rise of state control represented a clear break from foreign rule, and extended into conservation initiatives throughout the world. Wildlife tourism in Africa came to be considered on par with other export commodities with

55 (Edelman, 1999) 33 direct benefits to the country’s economy and was heavily supported by government.

In 1969, Costa Rica passed the Ley Forestal (Forestry Law), which “established a system to designate and administer protected areas, such as national parks and monuments, that would be off‐limits to forestry and agriculture.”56 Across the globe, the decades following Indian independence in 1947 saw a large increase in the scope and authority of the state‐run Forest Department in terms of land management and forest conservation.

However, the majority of Third World countries promoting state sovereignty and national development objectives lacked many of the internal capabilities and political support necessary to compete in an increasingly globalized world. Much of their economic development agenda was tied to increasing foreign loans which played a significant role in the global financial crisis of the early 1980s, where various market shocks destroyed many of the developing world’s undiversified export economies and led to unmanageable levels of debt and international loan defaults. Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) instituted by the International

Monetary Fund aimed at stabilizing financial markets and guiding Third World nations along industrialized development. These large loans required political, economic and social restructuring according to the neoliberal principle of free‐ market access, creating what development scholars such as Dos Santos and

Wallerstein termed Dependency. Development processes as supported by international funding agencies, according to this school of thought, not only further

56 (Evans, 1999, p. 49) 34 impoverished Third World nations but in the process literally forced their economies to become dependent on those of the industrialized North.57

The rapid rate of industrial privatization and increase in Foreign Direct

Investment (FDI) that took place in the 1980s as a result of the implementation of

SAPs had significant consequences on the conservation of natural resources. As state sovereignty and control decreased, private industry swiftly took advantage of increasing opportunities for new market access to large reserves of lucrative natural resources. In Latin America, foreign export markets for beef, bananas, coffee, pineapples and various non‐traditional commodities, largely owned and run by foreign business interests, led to wide scale forest loss, land degradation and ecological disruption. As an example, Costa Rica lost 65% of its forests due to uncontrolled timber harvesting and land conversion to pastures for export‐oriented cattle production between 1950 and 1990.58 Not only does this have serious consequences for a nation’s natural capital, but as suggested by Durham, creates a cycle of impoverishment of local communities that reinforces a negative feedback loop for increased ecological degradation, human displacement and deepening poverty.59 Erosion of state control through the economic reforms imposed by international development agencies created unsustainable industries that supported foreign markets, further impoverished local communities and intensified environmental damage.

57 (dos Santos, 1970; Wallerstein, 1975) 58 (Edelman, 1999) 59 (Durham, 1994) 35

In response to the growing awareness that structural adjustment and neoliberal policies were not adequately addressing global poverty, but were actually causing it to worsen, the global development discourse again shifted in the 1990s to one focusing on the importance of locally‐driven and implemented processes. The conservation discourse followed on its heels, as evidenced by both the 1983 World

Commission on Environment and Development, with its historic Brundtland Report published in 1987 and the United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development, known more popularly as the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Both international initiatives sought to bring these two discourses together, acknowledging that one cannot be achieved without the other and development must follow sustainable principles. “Sustainable development” became the new catchword, and has subsequently created the space necessary for the current REDD initiative to develop.

Non‐governmental organizations officially became recognized as major players in international conservation and development initiatives and were welcomed participants at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. They began asserting their positions as locally based and more sensitive to the needs of communities, which had eluded the international development agencies and largely resulted in many of their projects’ failures. In this capacity, many of the previous responsibilities of the state effectively transferred to an ever‐growing civil society, which aimed to fill the gaps that the existing governance structure left empty.60

Development agencies increasingly sought partnerships with NGOs that had the

60 (Levine, 2002) 36 social capital and abilities to implement projects on a community scale, avoiding the harsh criticisms of their past, unsuccessful approaches.

In conformity with the merging of the development and conservation industries, Community‐Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) and

Integrated Conservation and Development Programs (ICDP) became very popular approaches to achieve the goals of both agendas.61 For example, Joint Forest

Management in India began in 1990 as a response to ever increasing tensions between the Forest Department and local villages and the continual degradation of forestlands. By forming Joint Forest Councils, the Forest Department relinquished a portion of its authority in allowing the community to create its own forest management system. Although many barriers to effective implementation existed and continue to hamper JFM success, including lack of participation of various classes, castes and genders, community power hierarchies and government inefficiencies, JFM was a very obvious shift towards local involvement in conservation and development.62 In the Brazilian context, Barboza indicates that environmental NGOs active in the country increased from an estimated 40 in 1980 to 900 in 1984. Encouraged by this momentum, non‐governmental organizations doubled in two years from 2,500 in 1991 to 5,000 in 1993, addressing national issues from racism and poverty to environmental degradation and indigenous rights.63

61 (Chapin, 2004) 62 (Agarwal, 2001) 63 (Barboza, 2003) 37

Not only did this global phenomenon pertain to non‐governmental bodies, but the involvement of private interest in conservation and development gained momentum during this time period as well and continues into the present day.

Patagonia, an international clothing company, has purchased large tracts of land in

Chilean Patagonia for conservation purposes, with significant impacts on the development of local livelihoods and future national infrastructure programs.

Ecotourism ventures, biological research stations, hunting reserves and privately owned corporate lands are a few examples of the arrangements being realized by private interests in the conservation industry.64 Indeed, the number of privately owned parks has not been thoroughly assessed nor has its impact as a type of conservation model in the larger sustainable development discourse. Whereas private conservation reserves do have a significant history in various parts of the world, as discussed above, their purpose was largely to serve the interests of a single royal figure or privileged community. Private conservation initiatives today, however, operate according to a more expanded mission of biodiversity preservation for the public good and the wellbeing of future generations. However, what can be gleaned from the participation of this player is that the community involved in conservation and development has not only grown quickly, but has taken on a very diverse character with authority resting in the hands of many. The international REDD mechanism is taking shape directly in this globally eclectic environment, and many questions exist for how it will both influence and behave within the current structure of global governance.

64 (Langholz, 2003) 38

2.1.2 Designing a Multi­Level Mechanism

The REDD concept became a significant component to the international climate debate at the 13th COP to the UNFCCC in Bali, Indonesia in 2007, where member states agreed that if a REDD mechanism is to be incorporated into a Post‐

Kyoto Protocol 2012 climate action plan, its specific design and infrastructure must be developed and agreed upon by the 2009 UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen.

However, coming to a consensus on what such a mechanism should look like and how it should operate has become extremely complicated. As the Draft Decision on

REDD’s methodological guidance produced during the 2009 Copenhagen

Conference did not make specific decisions regarding many components of its institutional structure, various arrangements still remain under current discussion.

Naturally, forming a general framework that can incorporate the enormous range of locally and nationally specific histories and capacities related to forest ownership, use and management found across the globe, especially in regards to carbon storage and emissions which itself is still a largely unexplored field, is a daunting endeavor.

To make the process more easily digestible, there have been multiple attempts to organize the main points of how REDD can be conceptualized, structured and implemented.

Fundamentally, the initial REDD mechanism proposed in 2005 aimed to create financial incentives for developing countries to maintain forest cover as a standing carbon resource and a potential sink for carbon sequestration in order to slow greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate potentially negative consequences 39 from climatic changes. Through the efforts of an active intergovernmental alliance of scientific communities that focuses on forest canopy research, education and conservation, known as the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), a framework has been created to help understand the various points of view that are contributing to an institutional architecture that would make such a mechanism function. This model identifies four basic components under debate: scope, reference level, distribution and financing.65

Scope

The “scope” of REDD refers to the various activities of forestland use that will make a country eligible to receive financial payments. At its most basic level, only nations that stopped all deforestation below a determined reference level, termed

RED, would qualify for payments.66 As of the most recently updated version of the

GCP synthesis released during the June 2009 Bonn Climate Negotiations, only one country of the 19 that submitted suggestions and two non‐governmental coalitions out of 14 advocated for this strategy.67

The next level of scope recognizes not only deforestation but also forest degradation (REDD), and had the most combined support from governmental and non‐state actors. The Nature Conservancy, one of the largest and most heavily funded conservation NGOs, which has been very active in the crafting process of the

65 (The Little REDD+ Book, 2009) 66 For example, in the case of Brazil, they advocate for a reference level that considers historical rates of deforestation. And so any future level of deforestation that falls below that level would qualify for payments. Under this scope structure, a nation need not halt all deforestation. 67 Brazil and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI)/Center D'Études et de Recherches sur le Developpment International (CERDI), respectively. 40

REDD mechanism, defines degradation as “the gradual reduction of biomass within the forest without resulting in land use conversion.”68 Degradation can take multiple forms, including disease and pest outbreak, fire, poor management in timber production forests, overgrazing, over extraction of fuelwood and Non‐

Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) and illegal logging.69 As degradation is often the precursor to greater levels of deforestation through a variety of drivers, and hence offers a more comprehensive paradigm than simply focusing on RED, the inclusion of this expanded concept in the future mechanism gained increasing popularity throughout negotiations leading to COP15.

The third level of scope for the REDD program, which was supported by the

2009 Copenhagen Draft Decision, builds on the degradation component by also adding conservation of standing forests, sustainable management of forests and activities that enhance forest carbon stocks to those management tools eligible to receive program funding. Whereas government support for this level of scope equaled that of those in favor of limiting it to deforestation and degradation, only one of the 14 NGOs advocated this as an acceptable option.70 A more thorough analysis of this approved design, referred to as REDD‐plus, and focusing specifically on the implications of including SFM for meeting resource management and national development goals, will follow shortly.

68 (Don't Forget the Second "D", June 2009) 69 (UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN­REDD), 2008) 70 The Terrestrial Carbon Group 41

Reference Level

The “reference level” addressed in the multiple proposals speaks to the manner in which emissions reductions will be measured, in terms of baseline emission levels for comparison and indicators of progress as well as the scale at which these measurements will be assessed. The three most commonly discussed reference levels include using a historical deforestation baseline, a historical adjusted baseline that seeks to incorporate factors that will steadily increase the pressures to deforest areas still intact over time, and a projected future deforestation baseline. Rates of deforestation that fall below these baselines will qualify the country for REDD funding. Significant obstacles can be found in all three of these artificial baselines, including a serious lack of historical information from which to work, unpredictable economic and socio‐cultural influences and development models with inflated economic pressures. Additionally, the chosen reference level will have substantial impacts on which countries may participate, which will benefit most heavily and those which will be left out, making this an extremely important component of any future international funding regime.

The scale of a REDD mechanism identifies at what geopolitical level emissions reductions will be measured. The GCP has recognized three: sub‐ national, national and regional. A sub‐national scale will allow forest conservation efforts within a country’s borders to be eligible for REDD funding at a project level, such as the “nested approach” advocated by the Tropical Agricultural Research and

Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica. Greenhouse gas accounting takes place at the national level but credits are awarded to the local projects engaging in 42 approved activities.71 National and regional scales will attempt to coordinate emissions reductions activities over a larger area and may be more appropriate to implement in areas prone to leakage.

Distribution

By simply focusing on countries with high rates of tropical deforestation as potential players in a REDD system, concern has increased in regions where forest cover is vast yet deforestation pressures are low. Guyana, Suriname, Belize and

Gabon are among the nations fitting these criteria that are actively searching their place in this forming international system.72 Discussions over distribution aim to address this structural deficiency by offering suggestions for financial mechanisms that will channel money to countries with large standing forests and therefore provide financial incentives to avoid deforestation in the future. If ignored, these countries may have the economic incentives to convert the forests to more lucrative land uses or even begin deforesting to qualify for REDD funding.

A “redistribution mechanism” would, through a variety of different processes, withhold a certain amount of REDD payments earned by the countries with high deforestation rates and redistribute them to nations who avoided deforestation or degrading practices. While this would eliminate the need for an additional external funding source by generating payments from within the system, redistribution has the potential of creating disincentives for those countries which are in a sense, forced to share. The alternative distribution design is an “additional

71 (The Little REDD+ Book, 2009) 72 (The Little REDD+ Book, 2009) 43 fund”, where money would have to come from either donations or market‐based sources.

Financing

Of extreme importance to a functional REDD mechanism, and indeed to the larger goal of global emissions reduction and climate stability, is identifying the appropriate source of money to fund such initiatives. One approach would be to create a voluntary fund from which countries would receive benefits according to their level of REDD‐approved emissions reductions efforts. Overseas Development

Assistance (ODA) would be one form of financial contribution. A second approach would follow a variety of market‐linked designs where emissions reductions or allowances could be bought and sold to generate REDD‐funds. Flexibility exists concerning whether or not these emissions reductions would apply towards Annex‐

1 country commitments. The third suggested approach is that of a direct market, where REDD credits are traded directly alongside of Certified Emissions Reductions

(CERs) and can be used to meet national targets.

Interestingly, the majority of proposals reviewed by the GCP publication have not specified a financing scheme to accompany its vision on an operable REDD mechanism. This can be attributed to the fact that creating a funding system in the face of such extreme variability between countries looking to participate in REDD is practically impossible. Additionally, carbon markets are for the most part undeveloped and must be accompanied by global political commitments before they will be operational at such a large scale. For this reason, a “phased approach” for 44 financing has gained credibility. This would entail assessing each participating country’s “REDD‐readiness” in terms of institutional support and capacity for monitoring, reporting and verifying changes in emissions. Financial assistance from a voluntary fund may be more appropriate to establish baseline preparedness to take part in a long‐term REDD agreement. Market‐linked funding would have the potential to accelerate a REDD program and direct market mechanisms could provide the sustained flow of financial resources necessary for longevity.

2.1.3 Introducing the Players

To better understand the complexity of the international governance structure in which forest loss and its ramifications are being addressed, one must acknowledge the increasingly influential roles that many actors are beginning to assume. As noted throughout the above discussion concerning the evolution of the conservation and development discourses, the supranational bodies have maintained and solidified their powerful position in this debate as the overseeing bodies on the development of REDD architecture. This comes as no surprise with the increasingly transnational nature of environmental concerns, such as greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Such issues cannot be solved solely at the national nor regional level, and require global coordination and cooperation.

Launched in September 2008 with support from the 13TH COP Bali Action

Plan, the United Nations Collaborative Programme on the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries brings together the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment 45

Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a large scale concerted effort to design and implement a global initiative that quickly and effectively mitigates against climate change through a mechanism targeting emissions from forest loss. By combing the established technical knowledge, institutional networks, political relations and social capital of these three large intergovernmental bodies, the UN‐REDD Programme’s initiators aimed to quickly establish a functional structure to help nations prepare for participation in a REDD mechanism following the end of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, also called “REDD‐ readiness,” as noted earlier. Joint Programmes are created between the UN‐REDD

Programme and the country of implementation, engaging the state in assessing at what stage it stands for inclusion in a REDD process, what institutional support and capacity building still need to develop and the type of payment structure that would be most appropriate.73 “Quick start” early action programs began in June 2008 where nine pilot countries throughout Latin America, tropical Africa and Southeast

Asia were chosen for REDD preparation, focusing on the needs and priorities of each nation as an experiential learning process on how REDD should be designed and implemented.74 “Country Actions” concentrate on identifying country‐specific capabilities and limitations, while “International Support Functions” allow each UN agency to develop and refine its own role as an integral coordinating body.75

73 (UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN­REDD), 2008) 74 Bolivia, Panama, Paraguay, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Zambia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam 75 (Quick Start Actions and Establishment of the Multi­Donor Trust Fund, May 2008) 46

The collaborative approach taken within the United Nations extends as well to the partnerships being formed amongst other multinational bodies. The World

Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) was created specifically to assist countries in their efforts to participate in REDD mitigation efforts through two mechanisms: Readiness and Carbon Finance. As of October 2009, the Readiness

Mechanism has accepted US$ 107 million of its target US$ 185 million from 11 donor countries and US $51 million has already been pledged for the Carbon

Finance Mechanism, with a goal of operating from US$ 200 million. 37 countries had their “Readiness Plan” approved for entry into the Readiness Mechanism by

March 2009, indicating the immense size and influence this intergovernmental body has achieved.76 In addition to the FCPF, various national initiatives have been created in order to fund and support REDD‐readiness activities across the globe.

The Norwegian Climate and Forest Initiative has pledged just over US$ 50 million,

Australia’s International Forest Carbon Initiative has allocated AUD$ 200 million to activities related to REDD development and monitoring and both the German

International Climate Initiative and Japanese Cool Earth Partnership have earmarked large amounts of funding for climate change mitigation activities, including forest conservation.77

To add even more complexity to the picture, an exploding community of private companies, research organizations, think tanks and NGOs have staked their claim in the shaping of REDD processes and funding mechanisms. From North to

76 (Bank, 2009) 77 ("Climate Funds Update,") 47

South, large‐scale to locally‐based, more and more institutions are creating ways to become involved. However, in the midst of all of this multi‐sector growth and exchange, one question begs to be asked; what is the role and authority of the state?

SECTION 2.2: POSITIONING REDD IN INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE AND THE CURRENT POLITICAL ECONOMY

2.2.1 Creating A New Model of Conservation and Governance, or Redefining What Once Was?

The last 20 years of the conservation and development discourses have seen the steady replacement of central state control with supranational development agencies, intergovernmental bodies, multinational enterprises, local private businesses and community‐driven NGOs. Authority has been effectively split and reallocated both above and below the nation‐state. This is not to say that the state has become impotent in both national and international affairs, nor that this applies unequivocally to all nations on this planet. Simply, conservation and development initiatives have shifted away from involvement and oversight by state authorities and toward supranational regimes and substate citizens’ groups. This reality reflects what has become known as “’World Society Theory’, which posits that transnational intergovernmental, non‐governmental and civil society organizations have fostered norms of state responsibility for environmental protection, through the creation of international conventions and by grooming state actors in developing countries to become champions of conservation.”78 National governance, in effect, is increasingly coming from sources external to the state.

78 (Igoe & Brockington, 2007, p. p. 433) 48

With the advent of the REDD concept, this governance structure is coming into question. Although the many actors involved represent what Igoe and

Brockington term a form of “hybrid” environmental governance,79 the REDD mechanism being crafted by the UN Collaborative Programme has the potential to return significant authority back to the state. As described above, all of the Quick

Start early action plans begin with the state body as the main driver for REDD‐ readiness. An overwhelming majority of the state and non‐governmental bodies that submitted design proposals to the Global Canopy Project advocate for REDD to operate at the national scale. Readiness plans for the FCPF and dialogue with other bilateral funding sources assess participation potential through the central state infrastructure. National REDD Secretariats will be established in each country and work in conjunction with governmental agencies. International action related to global environmental challenges may indeed require stronger, more active state players.

On the other hand, one may argue that a return of centralized authority under a new REDD regime reflects no significant shift from past ideologies in global environmental governance and development practice. While indeed national governments are required for REDD implementation, they are still driven and controlled by outside forces. Approval of financial resources as a function of specific land use and development agendas must be made by non‐state actors, which have the potential to significantly restrict the legitimate control of a government over its

79 (Igoe & Brockington, 2007) 49

REDD participation. Indigenous communities around the world have taken this potential cooptation extremely seriously, viewing it as a likely extension of World

Bank policies and private interests notorious for threatening and dismantling traditional land rights, ownership and access to natural resources. The confederation of indigenous peoples from the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) issued a statement on August 3, 2009 that directly spoke to this concern.

That all these policies and extractive activities and negotiations on the forests and biodiversity in our Ancestral Territories will have unfathomable consequences, including the extinction of our identity as Ancestral Nations, [our] loss of the control and management of our territories, which would subsequently be managed by the State, foreign countries, multinationals, REDD negotiators or Carbon Traders… [italics added]80

The extent to which national governments retain their position of authority and autonomy in the creation and implementation of REDD national action plans within such a globalized “World Society” remains to be seen as the official REDD mechanism is crafted within the parameters of the Copenhagen Accord and future

UNFCCC guidelines.

2.2.2 A Twist on Neoliberalism?

Positioning the developing REDD structure within the current neoliberal international political economy is not a straightforward task. The basic tenet of neoliberal thought, which is facilitating the spread of and access to free markets, can be found in the theoretical formulation of a global REDD mechanism. Carbon, and hence the forest in which it is held, has been commoditized in such a way as to accommodate the creation of markets open to its voluntary trade according to

80 ("CONFENIAE", August 3, 2009, p. (italics added)) 50 supply and demand. Valuation techniques for forest carbon sequestration and standing carbon stocks will presumably improve, allowing for more accurate market prices that all consumers value similarly.

Indeed, REDD by nature is a capitalistic approach to forest conservation and climate change mitigation. Emissions reductions will be available for purchase per ton of carbon saved through avoided deforestation and degradation, and as the demand for emissions allowances increases according to national and international target limits, so will the price paid within the international carbon markets.

However, REDD does not seek to decentralize nor privatize, two other fundamental characteristics of neoliberal doctrine. On the contrary, the possibility strongly exists for a redefinition of the state’s role as a very central governing component, as noted above. Consolidation of decision making within a state‐controlled body would allow for more effective information sharing, project implementation and reporting and verifying of emissions reductions necessary for funding qualification. If a REDD national strategy develops a system that operates on a sub‐national scale, a central governing body must be able to coordinate the various projects and report collective reductions to the funding agencies. There must also be national oversight in order to monitor and prevent leakage of deforestation pressures either from one location to another within a state’s borders or transnationally.

Privatization of major REDD components does not fit with its developing infrastructure either. Multilateral partnerships and intergovernmental initiatives will undoubtedly include private interests, yet do not constitute the level of 51 privatization traditionally called for by neoliberals. As Igoe and Brockington suggest, perhaps neoliberalisation does not promote deregulation per se so much as reregulation, defined as “the use of states to transform previously untradeable things into tradable commodities.”81 In the case of REDD, this process of reregulation is transferring increasing levels of governance authority of these new commodities to the plethora of partnerships described above while ensuring the position of the state as a central partner. As such, while REDD jostles to find its exact place within a structure both heavily influenced by central state control and private global entities, its ultimate expression of a neoliberal conservation strategy is undeniable. Given this ideological framework, the following chapter will explore the danger this poses to REDD’s success and the critical role of the Sustainable

Forest Management paradigm in redefining REDD’s theoretical and operational foundation.

81 (Igoe & Brockington, 2007, p. p. 437) 52

CHAPTER 3: BLOWING DOWN THE HOUSE OF CARDS‐ REDD’S FUTURE FAILURE AND THE CALL FOR A POST‐DEVELOMENT PERSPECTIVE

Now that the theoretical framework of REDD has been situated within a merged conservation and development paradigm that increasingly aligns itself with new expressions of neoliberal free market doctrine, it is of utmost importance to step back and ask two critically important questions: “Upon which fundamental principles has the REDD mechanism been constructed? Furthermore, are they sustainable?” The first question may seem basic and straightforward, meaning that

REDD has come into existence as a theoretically fast‐acting, effective and efficient way of trading money for the protection of the earth’s forests, emphasizing the immense global carbon reservoir while also including the multiple socio‐ecological

“co‐benefits” at stake. The Kyoto Protocol introduced the concept of market‐based carbon trading for climate change mitigation, and REDD, in the eyes of its supporters, represents a robust extension of that approach applied to a sector of significant carbon emissions largely ignored by the initial flexibility mechanisms.

REDD, therefore, complements the original Kyoto Protocol’s overall agenda of reducing global carbon emissions through the most cost‐effective avenues and fits well within the original institutional mission and structure.

The second question, however, has yet to be adequately addressed by those in charge of REDD’s design and functionality, even though the Objective of the

UNFCCC states that the purpose of any “legal instrument that the Conference of the

Parties may adopt is to achieve … stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere that would enable … economic development to proceed in a 53 sustainable manner.”82 It is in the context of this question that I apply post‐ development theory as a tool for comprehensively deconstructing REDD down to its basic flawed components and seek to extract core elements that may be used to build not a new discourse of development, but rather its multiple alternatives.

I employ a post‐development critique within this analysis for two reasons.

Firstly, it succinctly identifies the discursive elements that have generated development’s global discontents. And secondly, it creates the theoretical platform from which I am able to demonstrate that these elements form the structure of a mechanism (i.e. REDD) charged with the responsibility of saving the earth’s forests and mitigating the greatest threat which human civilization currently faces. The individuals engaged in articulating post‐development thought and practice are crafting a new paradigm with true potential for sustaining the earth and its people.

Hence, this theoretical framework must play a central role in both preventing the repetition of failed global initiatives and in shaping a altogether new conceptualization of people, ecosystems and development.

3.1­ Introducing the Post­Development Concept

The end of the twentieth century witnessed the growth of an active and vocal group from a diversity of disciplines that forcefully denounced both the methods of the international development project and the institutions that oversaw its implementation. The insatiable drive for material consumption, the dominance of capitalist economic forces, the loss of both socio‐cultural and biological diversity

82 (UNFCCC, 1992, p. 4) 54 and the nation‐state’s role in perpetuating the singular march towards modernity that guides each of these processes stand as evidence that as a global mission, development has favored the few and failed the many. From this perspective, the next logical step has been to reevaluate the terms of development, to identify how it can be improved and to create a new development approach. As Arturo Escobar, a founding father of the post‐development genre writes, “the dialectic here tends to push for another round of solutions, even if conceived through more radical categories‐ cultural, ecological, politicoeconomic, and so on.”83 Examples of this shift can be clearly seen with the international fixation on the Millennium

Development Goals (MDG), the concept of Sustainable Development, the Human

Development Indicators and the popularity of referring to development strategies as “pro‐poor,” attempting to indicate that a major restructuring of the development machine has taken place and progress will be made.84 However, the lack of significant progress in these domains and the failure to achieve the MDGs in a timeframe deemed necessary by their designers only reaffirms Escobar’s statement that “this [dialectic] will not do.”85

In this regard, the end of the twentieth century also saw the formation of an eclectic community of scholars, development practitioners and global citizens that directly questioned the concept of development itself. The correct form of development was not debated, but rather the forces which created the metric of

83 (Escobar, 1995, p. 217) 84 (Latouche, 1997) 85 (Escobar, 1995, p. 217) 55

“development” and maintained its dominance as a global organizing principle.86

These individuals did not offer suggestions on how to improve the development industry, but sought instead to identify its structural components that enabled the creation of a post‐World War II reality that literally divided the world into two categories: developed and underdeveloped. Through this deconstruction, post‐ development thinkers do not offer a revised vision of development. Rather, they create a theoretical space which acknowledges the need for multiple discourses and embraces “an awareness that reality can be redefined in terms other than those of development and that, consequently, people and social groups can act otherwise on the basis of those different definitions.”87

3.2 Post­Development­ What does it mean, exactly?

In order to understand the position post‐development theory holds in the current international development debate and its applicability to the nascent REDD climate change mitigation mechanism, a brief overview of its origins and fundamental tenets must be provided. Although the post‐development community appears to be small in comparison to that of traditional development thinkers and practitioners, scholar Aram Ziai refers to it as a manifestation of “the most significant shift in development theory in the last decade of the twentieth century.”88

Culminating in a few principal volumes,89 those engaged in articulating the multiple

86 (Escobar, 2005; Nakano, 2005; Parfitt, 2002; Sachs, 1992; Ziai, 2007) 87 (Escobar, 2005, p. 21) 88 (Ziai, 2007, p. 3) 89 The Development Dictionary edited and contributed to by Wolfgang Sachs in 1992, Encountering Development written by Arturo Escobar in 1995 and The Post­Development Reader edited and contributed to by Majid Rahnema and Victoria Bawtree in 1997 are the three main volumes of published post‐development theory and practice. 56 voices of post‐development thinking brought together an enormous diversity of essays and experiences from both the global South and North, not only with sharp critiques of the development apparatus but also with examples of what became known as “alternatives” to development.90

As mentioned above, their main objective was not to produce a new and improved version of development practice, but to illuminate the discourse of power and knowledge that created the development complex in the first place and to open space for the conceptualization of a “post‐development” era. Originating from a post‐structuralist perspective heavily influenced by the work of French philosopher

Michel Foucault, these scholars, practitioners and development subjects argue that the possession of power, whether political, economic, socio‐cultural or a combination thereof, allows certain forms of knowledge to generate truth and reality. As one account of reality assumes hegemonic status, all other conceptualizations of truth and knowledge‐ all other worldviews outside of that which has become dominant‐ become irrelevant. The post‐structuralist school of thought forcefully points to the inherent and undeniable nature of exclusion as the development discourse’s most insidious flaw, criticizing it for marginalizing the very people, societies and cultures which it purports to serve. While operating under the guise of progress and prosperity, the development discourse produced an entirely new class of people, the “subaltern,”91 generically characterized by manufactured

90 (Escobar, 1995, p. 222) 91 (Agrawal, 2005, p. 165) 57 forms of “non‐existence,” defined by what they lack in comparison to the hegemonic standards of being developed.92

Additionally, the production of this discourse was accompanied by the growth of an immense and permanent institutional structure responsible for the implementation and propagation of the knowledge structure to which it owes its existence. As certain forms of knowledge became viewed as inadequate and wrong, the need for experts and professionals capable of replacing them with modern expressions of efficient and productive knowledge increased dramatically. The combination of creating both development institutions and its professionals produced answers to the problems they alone had manufactured, and which ensured their permanence. In light of this analysis, the very notion of development, with its obvious correlate of being “underdeveloped”, can no longer be seen as a natural component in the evolution of human civilization. Instead, it is an artifact of an imposed value system of fact and truth produced by a particular community that identifies itself according to these organizing principles. As such, according to critics, it can and must be dismantled and removed from its position of dominance in order to make room for the expression of alternative narratives which had been heretofore excluded.

From this epistemological perspective, the post‐structuralist thinkers identified the specific elements which form the bedrock of the development discourse and thus began the post‐development movement to challenge its

92 (Santos, 2004 as cited in Gibson‐Graham, J.K. 2005.) 58 hegemony and embrace the alternative: plurality. Acknowledging that post‐ development literature indeed has its staunch critics, as does the concept of

Sustainable Forest Management that was discussed earlier and will be of further interest towards the conclusion of this paper, the post‐development perspective rests on two organizing principles that have remained largely unchallenged: “the traditional concept of development is Eurocentric… and has authoritarian and technocratic implications.”93 Although the roots of development extend beyond colonial times, United States President Harry S. Truman’s 1949 inauguration speech gave tangible legitimacy to the Western conceptualization of the world as either developed or underdeveloped.94 It therefore established the dominant form of knowledge‐ the one true worldview‐ that has dictated in which way all of human society develops up until the present day.

Post‐development practitioners proceed to point out that, in order to facilitate this singular procession, three main tools have been employed. “Market, state and science have been the great universalizing powers…[to] reinforce the

Occidental worldview.”95 It is these three concepts to which I now turn in this analysis, demonstrating that REDD, as presently conceived and constructed, undeniably positions the market, state and science as its three principle pillars of support. The consequences of this structural arrangement are twofold. Firstly, this will cause the multi‐billion dollar climate change mitigation strategy to fall far short of its intended goals, which include climate stabilization, biodiversity preservation,

93 (Ziai, 2007, p. 8) 94 (Esteva, 1992) 95 (Sachs, 1992, pp. 4‐5) 59 ecological services protection and sustainable development for human communities, as it has similarly lead to development’s widespread failure. Secondly, it will significantly jeopardize the opportunity for Sustainable Forest Management to explore its potential as a viable solution to the aforementioned challenges and a truly sustainable expression of post‐development principles in practice.

3.3 Market, State and Science: The defunct pillars of a global REDD initiative

MARKET

Growth through free‐market enterprise has been the guiding mantra for the international development paradigm from its inception. Stated as poignantly and succinctly as possible, “the idea of growth is essential to our modern way of viewing human life.”96 The silver bullet answer to poverty and all of its associated woes, whether having their origins in supposed dysfunctional political systems, inefficient production methods or “backward” socio‐cultural practices and beliefs, has always been economic growth. However, only an economy based upon market capitalism as crafted and controlled by Western powers was considered capable of eradicating global poverty. And hence, all other conceptualizations of Economy fell by the wayside. The economics of market capitalism, which emphasize increasing production and consumption of material goods through the private control of resources, control the measures of a society’s level of “development”. Privatization, efficiency and productivity are the signature elements of an economic model forged by the Eurocentric development discourse against which all societies are judged and subsequently, adjusted.

96 (Berthoud, 1992, p. 72) 60

The dominance of the Western market doctrine and its complete hegemony within the development agenda is exactly what post‐development theorists and practitioners reject. As expressed by French scholar Serge Latouche, “the economization of the world enables Western economic criteria to function.”97 In its quest to create boundless wealth and the perfectly competitive, homogenous individual, free‐market enterprise has concentrated prosperity for only those select few who have the ability to engage in market exchanges to which the majority does not have access. Indeed, the inadequacies of this manufactured conviction that free market capitalism and its ability to generate growth is the universal answer to the concept of underdevelopment, which it helped create, have been widely acknowledged. The New Economics Foundation (nef) released a publication in

November 2009 that places this failure in the context of poverty alleviation and environmental damage:

Recent research shows that, ‘global economic growth is an extremely inefficient way of achieving poverty reduction.’ In the 1990s… to achieve a single dollar of poverty reduction for those living on less than $1 per day; it took an extra $166 of extra global production and consumption, generating enormous environmental impacts which counter‐productively hurt the poorest most.98

Similarly, economist Herman E. Daly directly states that “it is impossible for the world economy to grow its way out of poverty and environmental degradation.”99 However, this artificially constructed universal truth of the free market’s ability to lift everyone out of poverty and into a singular state of wellbeing, created and perpetuated by the development apparatus, has

97 (Latouche, 1997, p. 136) 98 (Development and Climate Change, 2009, p. 12) 99 (Daly, 1998, p. 285) 61 proven extremely resistant to criticism and change. “The market still appears the only possible path to development despite innumerable difficulties and setbacks.”100

Upon this fundamental organizing principle is the REDD mechanism currently being constructed. REDD is undeniably a global initiative based squarely upon the problematic economic ideologies discussed above, directed towards ecological systems. In this instance, carbon has assumed the role of the unifying resource. And according to its supporters, if addressed properly through various international structures, REDD and its carbon focus may be able to ensure the protection of the world’s forests and its biodiversity while creating the institutional capacity to alleviate poverty and shape a sustainable future. However, through our post‐development analysis, it has become clear that this is an impossibility. The development paradigm’s insistence on economic commoditization is now attempting to monetize entire forest ecosystems of extreme complexity into a single tradable unit. This process of “abstraction” not only has infinite logistical challenges but also seeks to expand significantly the “development as integration into global capital markets” principle that underpins current development hegemony.101

Generating another form of exclusion to which many post‐development scholars speak, this approach destroys all meaning, value and purpose of an ecological system and its dependent human communities that cannot be represented through price and utility. In this sense, REDD will only reinforce the pattern of wealth

100 (Berthoud, 1992, p. 70) 101 (Bumpus & Liverman, 2008, p. 137) 62 accumulation for a small minority of those who can participate in market transactions at the expense of the world’s poor majority, the stability of global climatic processes and the forest ecosystems it aims to protect.

In current practice and policy negotiations, the activities surrounding REDD‐ readiness and forest carbon market‐based transactions could not demonstrate this point more clearly. The concepts of “permanence” and “leakage” have dominated discussions surrounding REDD’s (in)ability, under its current form, to mitigate against climate change and protect the world’s forests. Permanence refers to the uncertainty that forest carbon will not be released into the atmosphere, either due to anthropogenic or natural causes, after it has been bought and traded.102 Leakage speaks to the perverse incentive of receiving financial benefits by reducing deforestation in one location while displacing the forest carbon loss to another region.103 Non‐governmental organizations, private think tanks, scientific agencies, academia and national governments have consistently pointed to these elements of

REDD that are irreconcilable within free market practice and ideology. They literally generate carbon externalities that are unaccounted for in the developing institutional structure, and hence are fundamentally counter‐productive and unsuccessful.

REDD‐readiness projects have been fraught with corruption, as seen in the

“carbon cowboy” scandals that paralyzed Papua New Guinea’s Office of Climate

Change and the significant shortcomings of the Noel Kempf Mercado Climate Action

102 (Ashton & Clairs, 2009; VCS, 2008) 103 (Ashton, 2008; Streck, Gomez‐Echeverri, Gutman, Loisel, & Werksman, 2009) 63

Project in Bolivia. The Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol has experienced these same procedural shortcomings and testifies to the inadequacies of this economic strategy, where transaction processes are convoluted and monitoring and reporting is weak.104

Of notable concern is the assessment of Indonesia’s Ulu Masen Project, initiated in August of 2007 with a goal of reducing deforestation by 85%, avoiding the emission of an estimated 3.3 million tones of carbon and creating sustainable development opportunities for the nation’s poor and timber resource‐dependent communities.105 Since extremely high rates of deforestation make Indonesia the third largest carbon emitter in the word, a successful REDD demonstration project in this country would prove the mechanism’s capacity to achieve results globally, giving the Ulu Masen Project great importance. Yet efforts to avoid deforestation outside of the Project’s boundaries have been largely absent, posing serious risks of displacing forest loss‐related carbon emissions to another location while getting paid to do so. The project simply “cannot address the widespread deforestation for oil palm plantations in other areas.”106

However, the most crucially flawed component of the Ulu Masen Project, which speaks to the larger concern of forming REDD around free‐market principles, is the concept of carbon property rights. For a commodity to be traded, someone or entity must own it. When it comes to carbon in soils, dead wood, trees, leaves and detritus, proof of ownership becomes extremely difficult, and naturally so, for it has

104 (Eliasch, 2008; Karsenty, 2009) 105 (Clarke, 2010) 106 (Clarke, 2010, p. 47) 64 never been done before.107 And consequently, the inherent inequalities built into free enterprise market practices that favor the wealthy few to the disadvantage of the money‐poor majority clearly have manifested in the Ulu Masen rainforest. The international forest carbon market has been created and controlled by large financial market giants, such as Merrill Lynch and Macquerie Bank which have great investment ownership over this Indonesian forest. This “economic growth” will continue to generate more revenue for the wealthiest international firms while usurping the rights to a commodity which they themselves have created and which exists on the land of the poor communities they claim to be benefiting, all in the name of low‐cost market efficiency. Indeed, local communities have yet to see any of the proceeds. The clearly flawed REDD design is, unfortunately, of small consequence. “Uncertainty over carbon property rights creates significant obstacles for the economic viability of any REDD project. Without clear and secure rights to sell REDD carbon credits to third parties, significant risk is unavoidable.”108

STATE

The vehicle of development as a Eurocentric epistemological construct that has both generated the concept of poverty and crafted its economic growth‐ centered solutions has largely been the modern nation‐state. Referred to as “the most prominent actor in development”109 and “the harbinger and main instrument of social change,”110 post‐development scholars view the state as a homogenizing entity that reinforces the discourse of the powerful to the exclusion of its

107 (Lang, 2008) 108 (Clarke, 2010, p. 48) 109 (Agrawal, 1995, p. 4) 110 (Nandy, 1992, p. 265) 65 alternatives. The state has always been seen as the guarantor of modernized living, well‐being and progress, without which society will fail to advance and be under constant threat from foreign forces. However, as discussed at length throughout this chapter, the broken promises of the state‐sponsored development paradigm and its frequently damaging results clearly identify the shortcomings of this discourse. In fact, “in a number of cases, the development of the state has been the best predictor of the underdevelopment of society.”111

Yet despite this crippling deficiency, the state stands to assume central importance in the REDD mechanism without measures to address these inadequacies. In truth, the criticism that a national government consumes the resources made available through the development agenda without equitable distribution or access makes this reality unsurprising.112 As mentioned in chapter 2,

REDD currently relies on significantly enhancing the state’s institutional capacity in order to provide a bridge between the realized ground‐level emissions reductions and their required financial revenues, whether as direct payments or as tradable carbon credits. REDD‐related activities must fit within the national vision of development as dictated in large part by the state. From the post‐development perspective, this perpetuates the institutionalized culture of knowledge that placed the state as the arbiter of progress and modernity in the first place, driving the need to develop at all costs. Hence, it can no more serve the well‐being of its citizens in

111 (Nandy, 1992, p. 270) 112 (Nandy, 1992) 66 its current form of forest conservation than it did in the past with its failed efforts at poverty alleviation.

Additionally, the state’s facilitative role of market‐led growth strategies only compounds the consequences this structural arrangement presents to the new

REDD apparatus. Instead of signaling a distancing from free‐market enterprise, the undeniable collaboration between market and state is simply being reaffirmed and expressed under the guise of forest resource conservation. “The state does not work against the market. Rather, it is a complementary institutional device which promotes the extension of the market.”113 And with this association comes the powerful influences of global market players, outlined in detail in chapter 2. The relationship between government and private industry has become completely symbiotic, where legislative support requires international capital and vice versa.

The fact that this institutional arrangement, reinforced by capital and political power, offers promise to REDD supporters because it has yet to be applied to forest ecosystems must not distract international attention away from its well‐known history of being completely unsustainable. Accordingly, alternatives should be explored immediately.

SCIENCE

The technocratic underpinnings of the international development agenda represent the third major element to which post‐development thinkers direct their analysis in both explaining the epistemological basis of this global discourse and

113 (Berthoud, 1992, p. 73) 67 exploring the theoretical and practical space for the expression of its many alternatives. As development was and continues to be a project based on the ideologies of progress, advancement and modernity, science was the answer capable of delivering the results. Supported by the state through social, cultural and economic initiatives, modern science offered the practical tools needed to lift a country out of poverty and into the developed age of wealth, health and material consumption.114

The reason given as to why the newly defined “underdeveloped” nations still had not achieved this on their own, in the dominant development discourse, was that this science, and the technical experts which espoused its philosophies and practices, were absent. This line of reasoning reinforces a global division between those who “have”, which in this case refers to a specific form of technical knowledge, and those who do not. In identifying entire social networks as “not having”, modern science completely ignores the enormous diversity of what they do indeed possess in terms of skills, experience and practices. In response, the development apparatus produced its own army of development soldiers to spread its system of thinking to the exclusion of knowledge forms embedded in cultures around the world.

Practices and philosophies from a non‐professional, non‐scientific background are perceived as flawed, deficient and a hindrance to progress and development.

Operating symbiotically, the development paradigm relied on the promises of efficiency and industrial strength offered by modern science just as the Western scientific worldview depended on a successful development institution for global

114 (de Senarclens, 1988) 68 hegemony.115 However, instead of achieving its purported beneficent global mission, many of the people intended as targets of the development agenda vigorously reject such a claim and interpret its impact completely as the opposite.

As expressed by international activist Vandana Shiva, “scientific knowledge, on which the development process is based, is itself a source of violence.”116

And once again, the success of the future REDD mechanism, as currently constructed, depends entirely on technocratic principles. For large sums of money to continue to flow towards developing countries with carbon‐rich forests, the wealthy industrialized nations require rigorous methodologies, scientific practices and reports to guarantee the emissions reductions for which they are paying. REDD is crafted around the advice and oversight of international scientific experts, as seen in the various bodies in charge of its development, such as the Subsidiary Body for

Scientific and Technological Advice, the Consultative Group of Experts on National

Communications from Parties and of course, the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change. Yet in relation to the communities that represent non‐scientific expertise, namely the indigenous social networks found throughout the world’s forestlands, the Copenhagen Draft Decision outlining REDD’s methodological guidance only recognizes the “potential contribution of their knowledge [italics added]” to the process.117 Again, knowledge‐rich communities have been marginalized in the name of the efficient, foolproof scientific ethic. Ironically, they are casted once again as direct beneficiaries.

115 (Alvares, 1992) 116 (Shiva, 1989, p. 162) 117 (UNFCCC, 2009b) 69

And yet, gaining access to and participating in this technocratic structure will become increasingly less and less possible for the world’s poor majority. The new breed of carbon experts has begun filling a niche within various fields of already established advanced scientific disciplines. The instruments deemed essential to global forest carbon monitoring are becoming increasingly cost‐intensive and remote. Planes, satellites, and computers drive the methodologies for establishing country emissions baselines, forest carbon inventorying, carbon flux and long‐term emissions trends. As the practice of global forest carbon science becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of a select community of technical international experts, the viability of alternative perspectives for carbon management and sustainable land use that are more locally identified and culturally situated declines. In the unquestioning belief in modern science’s ability to generate solutions to all problems lies its hubris, along with the impending failure of the

REDD mechanism if not critically addressed. Under this arrangement of market, state and science, REDD stands on the verge of becoming the most complete expression of traditional development ideology in the 21st century.

3.4 Sustainable Forest Management in REDD: Daring for a Post­Development Approach

Throughout this analysis I have consistently qualified the critiques of the current REDD mechanism with an acknowledgement that its structure is still taking shape, and as such, its significant shortcomings have not been guaranteed. Much work remains as the UNFCCC negotiations continue to carve out a post‐2012 Kyoto

Protocol arrangement for addressing climate change within the broader goal of 70 promoting global sustainable development. In this regard, it becomes even more imperative to not only recognize the criticisms but move beyond by envisioning alternative solutions and possibilities for comprehensive and diverse modes of reducing threats to tropical forests and financially poor human communities.

The Sustainable Forest Management ideology advances many components of an inclusive, flexible and diverse conceptualization of natural resource use and community engagement that qualify it as an expression of post‐development theory and practice. Without promoting a formula of discrete resource uses, values and meanings, Sustainable Forest Management operates according to the exact language of post‐development practitioners who espouse notions of “plurality” and “multiple narratives.” It seeks to build frameworks for forest resource use out of culturally‐ based systems of knowledge that have the ability to incorporate values beyond the market, ownership beyond the state and experiences beyond those of foreign technical experts. With that being said, operating from an understanding of traditional knowledge as being static and idealizing its non‐Western nature must be avoided. Just as traditional forms of knowledge have proven to be extremely responsive to the practices and ideologies of the dominant development discourse, the SFM concept must be able to develop from the socio‐cultural characteristics of the locality in which it seeks to operate. Through this approach will SFM have the potential to explore what Escobar calls its “cultural productivity.”118

118 (Escobar, 1994, p. 51) 71

This is not to suppose that various elements of the dominant development apparatus cannot compliment the paradigm shift that SFM represents. Indeed, much of the criticism directed at the post‐development community focuses on its essentialist arguments that everything under the development sun is flawed. Post‐ development scholars have been charged with themselves being victims of their own critique by failing to recognize the heterogeneity of the traditional development agenda. In this context, the growing field of what has become known as Endogenous Development offers a wealth of potential. “Endogenous development is based on local peoples’ own criteria of development, and takes into account the material, social and spiritual well‐being of peoples.”119 Spanning both the global North and South, endogenous development practitioners base their initiatives on the requirement for local control in the entire development process, building upon cultural strengths and forms of knowledge that make “peoples’ worldviews and livelihood strategies the starting point for development.”120 This approach signals a very coherent and clear alternative to the hegemonic knowledge system that created and guides conventional development interventions. Even further, it does not operate to the exclusion of Western epistemologies. Endogenous development promoters embrace the elements of Western knowledge that strengthens and compliments the revitalization of ancestral and local narratives.

In this context, the main weaknesses of SFM can be identified and avoided.

By seeking to make SFM more economically attractive through price‐valuation

119 (COMPAS, 2010) 120 (COMPAS, 2010) 72 strategies, this paradigm of natural resource management will assume the market‐ dominant structure to which it is able to present an alternative. SFM will lose its potential to represent post‐development thinking if all resources must be quantifiable and commoditized according to prices that the market recognizes.

Additionally, the metric of “sustainable” must shift away from a definition dependent on foreign scientific terms and towards one that complements the understanding of sustainability within the social networks directly responsible or affected by forest management. Sustainability can no longer seek to operate according to one definition. The enormous diversity of worldviews and epistemologies must be actively engaged if Sustainable Forest Management is to constructively guide the REDD mechanism in a direction that helps protect the earth’s climatic balance, safeguard forest ecosystems and strengthen human communities.

73

CONCLUSION

One decade into the new millennium, the planet finds itself facing an increasingly ominous set of contradictions. Despite advancements in the science of biotechnology and the ever‐broadened globalized food system, the world saw a 12% increase in global chronic hunger from 2008 to 2009.121 Along with record levels of corporate profits and the same set of international growth‐oriented economic initiatives, income inequalities between developed and developing nations continue to widen.122 And in the face of international climate change negotiations, mounting scientific evidence of anthropogenic warming trends and their impacts on human and natural systems, multilateral monetary institutions carry on funding new mega‐ capacity, fossil fuel‐based energy projects around the world. It is within this increasingly complex global paradox that REDD must find its place, purporting to address the loss of extremely diverse biological systems, mitigate the effects of a rapidly changing climate and provide incentives for the sustainable development of participating nations.

This paper has investigated the multiple reasons behind the rapid rise of the

REDD concept to international prominence. A synthesis of conservation and development ideologies, REDD represents the newest brainchild of the international community which seeks continually to find ways to blend the needs of human communities and ecological systems in the pursuit of sustainable development. The proliferation of regional Criteria and Indicator standards for sustainable forest

121 (Pappas, 2010) 122 (Broad & Cavanagh, 2009) 74 management and their international support from UN agencies surrounding the

1992 Earth Summit marks the beginning of the association between forests and development. However, the multiple causes of global deforestation and degradation prevented a coherent approach to solving the problem and protecting increasingly threatened forest ecosystems. Carbon, therefore, quickly became the unifying focal point of these two discourses, serving as the organizing principle for both conservation and international development activities. Further, it has continued to demonstrate its central position in global environment and development dialogues through the rising number of nations formulating their own low‐carbon development strategies.

With the 2007 13th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC firmly establishing the international community’s commitment to creating a REDD mechanism, negotiations have sought to refine and come to an agreement on its scope, funding arrangements, distribution mechanisms and reference scenarios.

Although REDD’s role as a future climate mitigation tool has been confirmed by the

2009 Copenhagen Accord, its functionality remains to be designed. To further this goal, REDD‐readiness programs are well underway in over nine countries to serve as pilot projects from which REDD professionals can learn what indeed is successful and what elements need to be improved. Institutions and organizations at all levels of governance, from the World Bank to indigenous communities, have been involved in various capacities. However, very clear trends exist in regards to the form REDD will assume. These include the preparation of REDD to integrate into international markets via carbon trading, the reinvestment of significant authority back into state 75 institutions and the positioning of a small community of technical experts as the main implementers of REDD initiatives. As this paper argues, such trends signal less of a novel approach to conservation and sustainable development than merely a rearrangement of the dominant neoliberal development ideology that has led to widespread international failure.

In response, this paper emphasizes that REDD’s contribution to this global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be seriously undermined if its architecture mirrors the traditional development model of an approach based heavily on free markets, guided by state‐centered interests and reinforced by

Western scientific hegemony. The post‐development perspective offers alternative discourses and power relationships that dismantle the standardized development model and engender space for marginalized worldviews. It is through this lens that

I investigate the capacity for Sustainable Forest Management to operate according to post‐development principles and guide the process of shaping REDD’s various components. This approach to forest resource use, which has been included in the

REDD mechanism as a mitigation option, has begun to shift away from the traditional timber‐dominant perspective to one that engages in forestland management at the landscape level. It considers the forest as a multi‐resource asset with both price‐valued products and values incompatible with traditional economic metrics. Additionally, SFM expands beyond private ownership and operates according to multiple stakeholder management that is influenced by a diversity of worldviews, experiences and forms of knowledge. While defining and implementing 76

SFM continues to face many challenges, its adaptable and inclusive ideology must be emphasized within global REDD initiatives.

As this paper explores the potential for Sustainable Forest Management to operate according to post‐development principles and therefore successfully influence the larger REDD mechanism, it must be recognized that SFM represents only a component of the institutional structure that has yet to be finalized. An expanded scope of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, REDD‐ plus incorporates the “conservation of forest carbon stocks” and “enhancement of forest carbon stocks” as two activities that qualify for financial support under the

UNFCCC.123 These two land use practices also must be actively interpreted and expressed through a post‐development lens to avoid being defined and implemented according to the singular epistemology of traditional international development. As such, more research must focus on the ideologies underpinning these structural elements as the UNFCCC continues its international negotiations to establish a climate regime and situate REDD as a prominent tool.

I hope that this paper will inspire similar scholarship that seeks to challenge the hegemonic architectural forces of the REDD apparatus and promote a dialogue responsive to a multitude of narratives from across the globe. Various REDD‐ readiness projects already underway have begun to at least acknowledge the need to engage the skills and perspectives of community‐level citizens. The readiness initiative taking place in the Oddar Meanchey Province of Cambodia is currently

123 (UNFCCC, 2009c, p. 3) 77 being constructed principally around the activities of Community Forestry

Management Committees (CFMC), led by local stakeholders and forest resource users.124 As such projects are still in their infancy, the relationship between the dominant development discourse and alternative epistemologies that forms their institutional structure must be continually assessed as it evolves. Such an arrangement may be the stepping‐stone within a longer process of conceptualizing and creating a post‐development approach to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The optimism inherent in this pursuit is reinforced by scholar Majid Rahnema when he states, “the end of development should not be seen as an end to the search for new possibilities of change… it should only mean that the binary, the mechanistic, the reductionist, the inhumane and the ultimately self‐destructive approach to change is over.”125 Only through a constructive critique of principles and practices which have proven unsuccessful can alternatives for a sustainable future be envisioned and articulated.

124 (Poffenberger, De Gryze, & Durschinger, 2009) 125 (Rahnema, 1997, p. 391) 78

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