Environmental globalization and tropical forests

The forest transition: Towards a more comprehensive theoretical framework

“…According to Hecht and Saatchi (2007), economic globalization has led indirectly to large-scale natural reforestation in El Salvador, enabling many households to cease farming and buy food using remittances from family members working in the USA. The parallel to economic globalization is the imposition of common environmental rules on all countries through environmental globalization (Grainger, 2005). This partly involves the voluntary participation of all states in the growth of global environmental governance, which environmentalist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can influence indirectly in various ways (Agrawal et al, 2008).…”

Organizing anarchy: The food security–biodiversity–climate crisis and the genesis of rural land use planning in the developing world

“…In many instances these statutes spread from nation to nation through processes of institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), so that national land use planning statutes in one state have closely resembled the laws adopted by neighboring nation states (Meyer et al, 1997). On the other hand, government officials frequently did not implement their land use plans (Grainger, 2005). The land use plans remained on paper for several reasons.…”

From Public to Private Standards for Tropical Commodities: A Century of Global Discourse on Land Governance on the Forest Frontier

“…These congresses also provided the fora for scientific condemnation of shifting agriculture that re-enforced state policies to discourage the practice [53]. Since 1980, the science of biodiversity and climate change has played a critical role in highlighting the global public goods provided by tropical forests and mobilizing civil society around the world in what Grainger [77] terms "environmental globalization".…”

“…Although they created a surge in activity by multilateral institutions, NGOs and national governments to reduce deforestation [78] their overall impact was initially limited [7,79]. In part, the new agreements were seen in some developing countries as a form of neo-imperialism from northern environmental advocates, leading to weakening of agreements and resistance to their enforcement [9,77]. The two conventions did not set specific targets on deforestation (although a zero deforestation target by 2030 is now under discussion for a new round of sustainable development goals) nor did they provide a mechanism to slow deforestation until the advent of REDD.…”

“…Periodic Empire Forest Congresses from 1920 were important in standardizing the scientific forestry approach at the global level within the British Empire [53,77] and there were equivalent conferences across Europe. These congresses also provided the fora for scientific condemnation of shifting agriculture that re-enforced state policies to discourage the practice [53].…”