Global conservation discourses and practices increasingly rely on market-based solutions to fulfill the dual objective of forest conservation and economic development. Although varied, these interventions are premised on the assumption that natural resources are most effectively managed and preserved while benefiting livelihoods if the market-incentives of a liberalised economy are correctly in place. By examining three nationally supported payment for ecosystem service (PES) schemes in Vietnam we show how insecure land tenure, high transaction costs and high opportunity costs can undermine the long-term benefits of PES programmes for local households and, hence, potentially threaten their livelihood viability. In many cases, the income from PES programmes does not reach the poor because of political and economic constraints. Local elite capture of PES benefits through the monopolization of access to forestland and existing state forestry management are identified as key problems. We argue that as PES schemes create a market for ecosystem services, such markets must be understood not simply as bald economic exchanges between ‘rational actors’ but rather as exchanges embedded in particular socio-political and historical contexts to support the sustainable use of forest resources and local livelihoods in Vietnam.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

We are currently seeing a global escalation in social and environmental disruption, yet concepts like the Anthropocene do not fully capture the intensity and generative scope of this crisis. ‘Rupture’ is being used as a term for specific and intense episodes of change, such as wildfires or toxic pollution releases. This is a useful addition to our lexicon for nature-society change but needs to be more robustly theorized. Defining rupture as an intense and adverse episode of nature-society disruption that ripples across scales, we elaborate four dimensions that account for rupture's sources and uncertain effects. The first two dimensions consider how rupture emerges in space and time from: (i) synergistic spatial, material, and socio-natural changes across scales; and (ii) the accumulation of slow violence that builds towards and is exposed by punctuated shifts and crisis moments. The second two dimensions consider the outcomes of rupture, namely: (iii) heightened uncertainty, insecurity, and socio-material deprivation, which are experienced in unequal and deeply affective ways; and (iv) the scope to catalyze diverse forms of agency that play out in uncertain ways. To illustrate our discussion, we draw from our long history of research on hydropower landscapes in the Mekong region.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract