Beyond Rewards and Punishments in the Brazilian  Amazon: Practical Implications of the REDD+  Discourse

Abstract

Abstract:Through different policies and measures reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation and enhancing conservation (REDD+) has grown into a way to induce behavior change of forest managers and landowners in tropical countries. We argue that debates around REDD+ in Brazil have typically highlighted rewards and punishments, obscuring other core interventions and strategies that are also critically important to reach the goal of reducing deforestation, supporting livelihoods, and promoting conservation (i.e., technology transfer and capacity building). We adopt Foucault's concepts of governmentality and technologies of governance to provide a reading of the REDD+ discourse in Brazil and to offer an historical genealogy of the rewards and punishments approach. By analyzing practical elements from REDD+ implementation in the Brazilian Amazon, our research provides insights on the different dimensions in which smallholders react to rewards and punishments. In doing so, we add to the debate on governmentality, supplementing its focus on rationalities of governance with attention to the social practices in which such rationalities are embedded. Our research also suggests that the techniques of remuneration and coercion on which a rewards and punishments approach relies are only supporting limited behavioral changes on the ground, generating negative adaptations of deforestation practices, reducing positive feedbacks and, perhaps as importantly, producing only short-term outcomes at the expense of positive long-term land use changes. Furthermore, the approach ignores local heterogeneities and the differences between the agents engaging in forest clearing in the Amazon. The practical elements of the REDD+ discourse in Brazil suggest the rewards and punishments approach profoundly limits our understanding of human behavior by reducing the complex and multi-dimensional to a linear and rational simplicity. Such simplification leads to an underestimation of smallholders' capacity to play a key role in climate mitigation and adaptation. We conclude by highlighting the importance of looking at local heterogeneities and capacities and the need to promote trust, altruism and responsibility towards others and future generations.

Norm Entrepreneurs Sidestep REDD+ in Pursuit of Just and Sustainable Forest Governance

“…Our findings raise questions as to why opportunities to advance land tenure, human rights and cultural respect (and their potential contribution to environmental sustainability) do not avail in climate governance. The balance of institutional power leans towards economic and ecological objectives, precluding not only consideration of aspects of local community wellbeing and experiences, but of alternative forms of governance or debates about them, and forecloses the potential for empowering transformation, including rebuilding of trust with local communities, support for customary practices and enhanced local stewardship [99]. Programmes formed as part of global climate governance are consequently perceived as threats rather than opportunities by vulnerable and marginal groups and civil society working on their behalf.…”

What drives policy change for REDD+? A qualitative comparative analysis of the interplay between institutional and policy arena factors

“…voluntary markets) or public (i.e. bilateral agreements) has been limited to areas with low levels of deforestation, and local interventions have not yet proven to be sufficient for changing forest actors' behaviour (Gebara & Agrawal, 2017;Sills et al, 2014). Although Brazil has been 'learning by doing' from its different REDD+ experiences, there is still very little evidence of the potential of subnational initiatives to reduce deforestation, and little coordination among all of these initiatives.…”

Experimentalist governance in climate finance: the case of REDD+ in Brazil

“…articles. It is interesting to note that most of these articles have a large number of co-authors, except for the works of Gebara and Agrawal (2017), Roessing Neto (2015), and Cronkleton, Bray, and Medina (2011). This leads us to the conclusion that studies in the REDD+ governance field involving Brazilian scholars have been conducted by research groups.…”