Transforming Justice in REDD+ through a Politics of Difference Approach

Abstract

Since Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation "Plus" (REDD+) starting gaining traction in the UN climate negotiations in 2007, its architects and scholars have grappled with its community-level justice implications. On the one hand, supporters argue that REDD+ will help the environment and forest-dependent communities by generating payments for forest carbon services from industrialized countries seeking lower cost emissions reductions. Critics, by contrast, increasingly argue that REDD+ is a new form of colonization through capitalism, producing injustice by stripping forest communities of their rights, denying them capabilities for wellbeing, and rendering forest peoples voiceless in forest governance. This paper argues that current REDD+ debates are too focused on relatively simple visions of either distributive or procedural justice, and pay too little attention to the core recognitional justice concerns of REDD+ critics, namely questions of what values, worldviews, rights, and identities are privileged or displaced in the emergence, design, and implementation of REDD+ and with what effects. This paper examines the tensions that emerge when designing institutions to promote multi-scalar, multivalent justice in REDD+ to ask: what are the justice demands that REDD+ architects face when designing REDD+ institutions? Complexifying the concepts of justice as deployed in the debates on REDD+ can illuminate the possibilities for a diversity of alternative perspectives to generate new institutional design ideas for REDD+.

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

“…Technocratic arguments and approaches to delivering equity through fulfilling safeguard principles tend to overshadow attempts to make global forest governance more inclusive, and the knowledge, values and practices of marginal groups remain unrealised [61][62][63][64]. Accordingly , social safeguards associated with climate-related governance represent weak interpretations of recognition-based norms, representing a "do no harm" principle rather than facilitating specific debate about the nuances and different perspectives on these disaggregated impacts and how to promote progressive realisation of human rights [65], and may fail to address injustice in practice [66]. Rather than addressing a range of costs and benefits linked to local values and practices, including loss of cultural and place attachments, distribution issues themselves tend to be reduced to technical exercises for distribution of monetary benefits [67].…”

REDD+ Crossroads Post Paris: Politics, Lessons and Interplays

“…The findings challenge the assumption that REDD+ is a cheap mitigation option and they shed light on the importance of delivering conservation incentives paying attention to the diversity of farming strategies and livelihood needs. Finally, Marion Suiseeya's [25] offers a comprehensive review of justice-related REDD+ debates and demonstrates how these have been generally grounded in simplistic visions of either distributive or procedural justice, ignoring the importance of recognition as the third pillar of justice. According to her, embracing the recognition principle would make of REDD+ a less technocratic endeavour, more sensitive to the "values, identities, lifeways, and voices" that might be displaced as a result of REDD+ activities.…”