Grounding REDD+ as Democratization of Environmental Policy? Insights and Lessons from the Philippines

Abstract

This article interrogates how Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) as a global policy instrument interacts with local realities. It examines the process of crafting a national REDD+ strategy and conclusion of a REDD+ readiness project in the Philippines. It characterizes REDD+ adoption in the country by introducing and using the concept of policy translation as contentious politics. I show that REDD+ mobilized a “coalition of the willing,” comprising different sociopolitical actors that attempted to (re)define and stake their claims over this green policy. I argue that the one-directional process of top-down and bottom-up policy translation was blurred because of the multi-actor interactions in REDD+ schemes. The process can be described as dynamic, which indicates that policy or project objectives rarely travel as complete and fixed packages, but rather as pieces that can be changed in multidirectional ways. To illustrate this, I then outline how indigenous peoples have used spaces of participation as mechanisms for negotiating their autonomy while acknowledging that there are limits to their capacities to rework REDD+. These limitations are tackled by underscoring the discursive struggles on the framing of REDD+ and its objectives, and the state's political resistance to community forest rights. Ultimately, REDD+ became another externally induced technical intervention that relied on international development finance. It lacked a clear political and economic commitment to continuity on the part of the state and left mobilized communities hanging. In view of this, I provide lessons that serve as guideposts for foregrounding indigenous rights and democratizing environmental policies.