Navigating the complexities of Community Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (CMRV) By Benjamin Palmer Fry A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London /Imperial College London April 2014 Centre for Environmental Policy Imperial College London South Kensington London SW7 2AZ 1 Abstract Under REDD+, the UNFCCC’s financial tool for the preservation of the world’s tropical forests, the necessity to monitor performance as well as involve local people is made clear in the policy documentation. Community Monitoring Reporting and Verification (CMRV) combines these two policy needs to create a concept that delegates the responsibility of ground-level monitoring to local communities. This is a deeply complicated model to implement, balancing local, national, and international needs, incorporating divergent stakeholder opinions, as well as livelihood issues, political dynamics, natural resource management and systemic change. Within this field, I identified three research areas, namely how CMRV fits into the REDD+ MRV policy context, how local people might engage with social, or ‘wellbeing’ monitoring, and the sustainability of CMRV as a local and national institution. There are only a handful of CMRV projects occurring throughout the world, building on the foundations created by locally-based monitoring, and I have been involved in facilitating CMRV in the North Rupununi region of Guyana with traditional Makushi Amerindian communities. This provides the study site for a number of the research chapters. The thesis starts by reviewing how CMRV might synergise with REDD+, particularly looking at the pros and cons of using local people instead of professional scientists for monitoring tasks. The majority opinions lean towards local people being well positioned and capable to fulfil this role, while the additional financial, cultural and empowerment benefits make this approach attractive rather than simply viable. It then moves on to looking more deeply at the previously unexplored area of locally-based social monitoring, or ‘wellbeing’ monitoring. In Guyana, I explored the similarities between external and local formulations of the wellbeing concept and its measurement, finding them to be not too dissimilar. However, when investigating how to implement wellbeing monitoring, practitioners face some complex trade-offs, such as subjective vs. objective measures, or internal vs. external validity, and need to be wary of simple quantification. The final analyses look more generally at CMRV, starting from the observation that after two years of operation, the project in Guyana can neither be said to be particularly empowering or sustainable. The barriers to local participation and associated power dynamics were explored, identifying why the devolution of responsibilities has been lower than expected. Lastly a Systems Thinking approach was taken to reveal counter-intuitive patterns and architectural flaws in the CMRV institutional framework that are leading to inherent unsustainability. The thesis concludes by looking at three cross-cutting themes: paternalism; hastiness in project work; and balancing different opinions. Drawing from my own journey, bringing personal values (such as of humility, patience and empathy) to bear in these institutional difficulties is a strong approach to navigating CMRV towards betterment. I finish by highlighting the most significant practical output from this work: a decision-making framework that proportions a project’s impact on stakeholder wellbeing with their decision-making power. 2 Acknowledgements I want to first and foremost acknowledge the almost Gandalf-like contributions that my supervisor EJ Milner-Gulland has made over the past few years. She began by pulling an unknown student out of the darkness of aimless wandering and led him wisely, powerfully and inspirationally towards the light of doctoral realisation. She also discerned my interests and style almost intuitively and encouraged me to wholeheartedly embrace them even though she didn’t always share them. I will be forever in her debt and will remember her light-hearted supervisions with real fondness. She is a great leader and an equally great academic-come-manager, a marvellous cocktail of headship that makes her a superb chief for the Imperial College Conservation Science tribe. It is the ICCS tribe that also made the daily routine of writing up into a real joy. From the hugs to the coffee to the companionship to the fish n’ chips, they have helped me finish a PhD thesis, navigate my way towards a new love, and potentially become a BBC wildlife presenter. In Silwood officialdom, CS Beard would like to thank Flipper, The Ship of the Desert, Saiga Brow the Enforcer, Hot Fisheries Girl, Ninja, Simon, Big Sam, Tim, Henry, Mutley, James, Siso, Juliet, Emilie and Emily for being wonderful jokers. My life in South Kensington was by all accounts less communal, but the United-Colours-of-Benetton office in the CEP has yielded its fair share of diamonds in the rough… starting with Lester, Scotty and Dan, continuing with Nick and Katrin, and finishing very strongly with Anthony, Ger, Suzanne, Lee and RhiRhi. We made a point of having lunch together every day and probably solved all the World’s problems along the way. Other academics that have been instrumental in this voyage of discovery were Zen Makuch, Clive Potter, Neil Burgess, Duncan Macqueen and Allister McGregor. Particular thanks must go to my colleague, friend and fellow tribesman Jerome Lewis for unknowingly changing the way I think. I am also deeply thankful to Karen Makuch for initially taking me on as an MSc/PhD candidate, to Isabelle Hanlon for making my doctorate function behind the scenes, and to the ESRC for their generous sponsorship. Having spent so much of the past four years away in Guyana, I am grateful to the Global Canopy Programme for taking me on as an advisor when I was still relatively green. Combining rufty-tufty Guyanese adventures with Mandar, Jon, Luis and Mary was wonderful and together with Charlotte, Claudia, Helen, and my favourite Dutchman Tjeerd, we cobbled together something quite remarkable called CMRV. But we’d be nothing without the CMRV team in Guyana. I miss them almost every day and have been taken in by so many and treated as kin over the years. Paulette, my mamai, has been my advocate, my companion, my councillor and my provider and continues to run her own version of Eden on ‘Allicock Hill’ in Surama, where the rest of my family live. Vitus and Bryan have been brothers in more ways than just in CMRV, while I wear the jaguar tooth Sam and Lakey gave me every day. Vanda and Raq, representing the coastlanders, also deserve some love here. Back on home turf, I can thank my quirky canal-boat community for making my apparently unstructured life seem very normal, and thank my family and friends for their undying support through many trials and tribulations. Finally I want to thank my love, Amy, whom I worship, for filling my life with laughter, light and true love, and to thank my Lord, God, for filling my life with glory. 3 Cause we need to fix out loose connections out in natural World Wide Web where humans evolved in three dimensions. We were tuned in by natural selection and we need to go online each day but inside we don't get no reception. So join the new revolution to free the battery human. We were born to be free range. Stornoway, from Beachcomber’s Windowsill, 2010. Love one another Jesus of Nazareth, from the Bible, ages ago. 4 Declaration of originality This thesis has been written by my own hand and was conceived in my own mind. Wherever necessary, the thoughts and actions of others have been appropriately referenced. Publication and joint authorship Chapter 3 was published as: Palmer Fry, B. (2011), Community forest monitoring in REDD+: the 'M' in MRV?, Environmental Science & Policy 14 (2), 181-7. Chapter 4 was the product of an interdisciplinary research group. It was conceived and written by Ben Palmer Fry with input from other group members and is currently under review for publication as: Palmer Fry, B; Agarwala, M; Atkinson, G; Clements, T; Homewood, K.; Mourato, S.; Rowcliffe, M.; Wallace, G.; Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2014), Monitoring local wellbeing in environmental interventions: a consideration of practical trade-offs, Oryx (under review). Copyright Declaration The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence. Researchers are free to copy, distribute or transmit the thesis on the condition that they attribute it, that they do not use it for commercial purposes and that they do not alter, transform or build upon it. For any reuse or redistribution, researchers must make clear to others the licence terms of this work. 5 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Declaration of originality ........................................................................................................................................ 5 List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................................