The transboundary displacement of deforestation under REDD+: Problematic intersections between the trade of forest-risk commodities and land grabbing in the Mekong region

Ingalls, Micah; Meyfroidt, Patrick; To, Phuc Xuan; Kenney‐Lazar, Miles; Epprecht, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.04.003

Cited by 60 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…access to first-hand documents or testimonies from policy-makers, which are not available for Vietnam, this shows that policy-makers were aware that their policy goals could only be reached with leakage. The pattern appears similar in other industries such as rubber, where state-owned Vietnamese enterprises, supported by other branches of the government such as embassies, play a crucial role in facilitating leakage (Ingalls et al 2018).…”

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 52%

“…One relevant illustrative case is that of tropical forest conservation in Southeast Asia, which has received major international attention, including through policies such as REDD+ 2 . The fragmentary adoption of REDD+actions in Southeast Asian countries, however, can be considered an institutional misfit, as there is a spatial mismatch between the policies' national coverage and the increasing regional integration of those economies (Ingalls et al 2018). This has left room for the displacement of deforestation from early-adopters and countries with more rigorous carbon-related regulatory regimes to lateadopters of REDD+.…”

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Vietnam) rely on this as a way to achieve their domestic goals for environmental conservation, regional integration, and economic development, through the processing, exporting and consumption of commodities produced in land deforested in their neighbors. Countries that host deforestation, mainly through large-scale land acquisitions, in turn see these activities as core to their national economic development by providing an inflow of foreign capital, job creation and income prospects from natural resource extraction (Ingalls et al 2018). Such displacement is thus embedded in governance and political strategies, rather than being an unintentional outcome of myopic conservation policies.…”

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This strategy is, in fact, supported by Vietnamese policies such as the wood import quotas issued by Vietnamese provinces neighboring Cambodia, which are incoherent with Cambodia's log export ban (EIA 2018). Until 2016, all timber imported legally into Vietnam was considered to be legal regardless of the situation in the country of origin (Ingalls et al 2018). Although unequivocal evidence of intentionality would require 2 REDD+refers to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries, a results-based finance mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).…”

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The possibility to frame the situation as 'leakage' depends on which one of these two discourses is prominent. For example, the combination of very rapid economic growth with stringent policies on the protection of domestic forests has allowed Vietnam to simultaneously frame itself both as a leader in regional conservation policies and as a strategic partner for investments (Ingalls et al 2018). This supported the efforts of Vietnamese companies and authorities to play a growing role in forest and land-based activities in neighboring countries, and to frame these as supporting their neighbors' national development rather than as leakage of natural resource extraction.…”

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leakage and boosting effects in environmental governance: a framework for analysis

Lima

Persson

Meyfroidt

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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In an increasingly interconnected world, leakage-broadly understood as unintended displacement of impacts caused by an environmental policy intervention-has become a major governance concern. Yet, leakage remains both loosely conceptualized and poorly understood as a phenomenon in policy making. To fill this gap and broaden the leakage research agenda, we conduct a state-of-theart review of scientific assessments on leakage (particularly on land use) and combine it with conceptual and analytical frameworks from the environmental governance literature. We then propose a rigorous definition of leakage, discuss frequently overlooked political dimensions, and develop a typology of leakage pathways. Our analysis of leakage through a governance lens yields five core insights: (1) Leakage is not simply a mechanistic phenomenon, but a complex governance issue involving questions of institutional fit, interactions, and political agency.(2) Although the land use literature traditionally focuses on leakage through markets or activity displacement, a governance lens shows that it also occurs through information, motivation, or institutional channels. (3) As policymakers may act strategically, the unintentionally of leakage should not be assumed but rather become an object of research. (4) A phenomenon not initially regarded as leakage can come to be framed as such through the action of 'problem brokers' and changes in policy fields. (5) Policy-makers and researchers should broaden their focus from only avoiding leakage to seeking positive spillovers and institutional synergies. These insights are illustrated with examples from two cases relating to land use policy in Brazil and Southeast Asia.

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Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Forest Policy In Southeast Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Leakage and boosting effects in environmental governance: a framework for analysis

Lima

Persson

Meyfroidt

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Agricultural expansion and forest retreat in Mainland Southeast Asia since the late 1980s

Xiao,

Li,

Feng

2023

Land Degrad Dev

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Agrarian expansion and intensification in the tropical agricultural‐forest frontiers (TAFF) are continuously encroaching on forests, yet the magnitudes and processes of agricultural‐forest advances and retreats remain lacking investigation systematically and quantitatively. With over three‐decade (1987–2018) of land‐cover products, here, we revealed the spatiotemporal dynamic processes of agricultural advance and forest retreat and then quantified forest loss (FL) due to cropland and plantation expansion (PE) in Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA). First, the agricultural expansion and FL peaked in the late 1990s to early 2000s and decelerated afterward in MSEA. Meanwhile, the continuous decline in deforestation rates was accompanied by a decline in the patches of forest fragments, while cropland and plantations first decreased and then increased. Second, 85% of cropland expansion (CE) occurred in forest frontiers of Myanmar (37%) and Thailand (32%) in particular, compared with 72% of PE in plantation‐forest frontiers, for example, 24% in Thailand and 22% in Cambodia. Third, 51% and 37% of the forests that declined were converted into cropland and plantations, respectively, with obvious national variations. In the least developed countries, such as Myanmar and Cambodia, CE dominated (65%), while the proportion of PE in Thailand and Vietnam was up to 56%. Finally, over 10% of the advances and retreats (re‐)occurred in various protected areas, with the expansion ratio of cropland and plantations nearly 1:2, particularly the Cambodia‐Thailand border. We thus appeal for more effective efforts from governments, the scientific community, and international initiatives (e.g., the UN‐REDD and Sustainable Development Goals) to further study and solve the issues of forest retreat and agricultural advance across the entire TAFF. Our new findings and insights about agricultural‐forest advances and retreats in their frontiers can enrich existing pan‐regional research of forest conversion or FL and agricultural expansion and provide an encouraging basis for action to reduce environmental degradation in tropical forests, including protected areas.

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Sustainable development of carbon sinks? Lessons from three types of peatland partnerships in Indonesia

Miller

Tonoto

Taylor

2021

Sustainable Development

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Peatland conversion for agriculture is the leading cause of Indonesia's terrestrial carbon emissions that contribute substantially to global warming. Indonesia's peatlands contain 55-57 billion tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of almost 2 years of global carbon emissions at existing rates. This paper examines initiatives to retain soil-based carbon in Indonesia's province of Riau, where over half the surface area is composed of agriculturally productive peatlands. We qualitatively evaluate three types of partnership programmes (bilateral, co-governed and internationally funded local initiatives) in Riau aimed at the sustainable development of peatlands. The article finds that carbon loss is likely to persist in all case studies. Public, private and civil society actors in each partnership have exploited funding and political opportunities to advance agendas not directly related to the environment. The administrative category of the peatland hydrological unit as an ecologically meaningful scale of peatland governance is also under-utilised by the partnerships studied.

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The transboundary displacement of deforestation under REDD+: Problematic intersections between the trade of forest-risk commodities and land grabbing in the Mekong region

Cited by 60 publications

References 39 publications

Leakage and boosting effects in environmental governance: a framework for analysis

Leakage and boosting effects in environmental governance: a framework for analysis

Agricultural expansion and forest retreat in Mainland Southeast Asia since the late 1980s

Sustainable development of carbon sinks? Lessons from three types of peatland partnerships in Indonesia

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