Abstract
This paper analyses the design and implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, conserving and enhancing forest carbon stocks, and sustainably managing forests (REDD+) in the West African region, an important global biodiversity area. Drawing on in-depth interviews, analysis of policy documents and observation of everyday activities, we sought to understand how REDD+ has been designed and implemented in Nigeria and Ghana. We draw on political ecology to examine how, and why REDD+ takes the form it does in these countries. We structure our discussion around three key dimensions that emerged as strong areas of common emphasis in our case studies—capacity building, carbon visibility, and property rights. First, we show that while REDD+ design generally foregrounds an ostensible inclusionary politics, its implementation is driven through various forms of exclusion. This contradictory inclusion–exclusion politics, which is partly emblematic of the neoliberal provenance of the REDD+ policy, is also a contingent reality and a strategy for navigating complexities and pursuing certain interests. Second, we show that though the emergent foci of REDD+ implementation in our case studies align with global REDD+ expectations, they still manifest as historically and geographically contingent processes that reflect negotiated and contested relations among actors that constitute the specific national circumstance of each country. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of our findings for understanding REDD+ projects in other tropical countries.
Highlights
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus sustainable forest management, conservation and carbon stock enhancement (REDD+) has continued to inspire climate policy optimism over the last decade
Political ecology emphasises questions of interests and power as actors engage in unequal relations over the environment [10,16,17,18]. We find this perspective useful to foreground the politics in REDD+ design and implementation by scrutinising the convergence of actors, the interplay of multiple interests, and the interactions of power, histories and geographies that underpin the framing and the implementation of REDD+ [19]
We discuss the results of our study under two broad headings: Politics of REDD+
Summary
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus sustainable forest management, conservation and carbon stock enhancement (REDD+) has continued to inspire climate policy optimism over the last decade. Growing evidence from the implementation of this scheme across tropical countries reveals inherent complexities that warrant close scrutiny. This is crucial to understand the extent to which REDD+ does or does not deliver on its promises and to provide insights and lessons from the very processes of designing and implementing such an ambitious scheme. Such insights and the promises of REDD+ are even more important in the wake of the newly agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which aim to, among other things, urgently combat climate change, while sustainably managing forests and halting land degradation and biodiversity loss [1].
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