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Abstract
Indigenous peoples around the world and particularly in Latin America are struggling to strengthen their control over land and the territories they inhabit. The strengthening of rights has come as a result of multiple processes both at national and global levels, in which the role and responsibilities of states have been transformed. Transnational processes challenge the presumed association between nation-states, sovereignty and territoriality. One of these challenges comes from international initiatives such as Reducing emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD). Global REDD in its broadness and national REDD in its uncertain early phases represent opportunities for private actors to negotiate with holders of land rights. In the Amazon, indigenous peoples’ territories, given their wide extension and that they are mainly forested areas, become interesting for all sorts of REDD actors. However, despite legal and rhetoric recognition of indigenous land rights, effective recognition is still lacking. In this paper, I will focus on one particular type of actor, so-called carbon cowboys – a term coined by journalists to signify actors who are willing to push the limits of established negotiation mechanisms to gain control over forest areas. I will focus on carbon cowboys’ practices and the responses from indigenous peoples in Colombia to highlight a common claim across the region, namely better state presence and regulation. The response from indigenous peoples’ organizations indicates that although territorial control is an important achievement, some form of state intervention is required to protect their rights in an uncertain REDD terrain.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Desmond McNeil, Fredrik Söderbaum and Jan Aart Scholte for their comments to an earlier version of this paper. This paper was funded in part by the Research Council of Norway, project number 204058. Thanks to David Barton, Kristin Rosendal and Peter-Johan Schei as well as to Tami Okamoto for fruitful discussions during our project meetings in Norway and Colombia.
Notes on contributor
Mariel Aguilar-Støen is Associate Professor at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo. Her research interests focus on environmental governance, agrarian change, forests governance and socio-environmental conflicts. Geographically her work focus on Latin America, with an emphasis on Central America. Her most recent publications include among others the book Environmental politics in Latin America: elite dynamics, the left tide and sustainable development, co-edited with Benedicte Bull and published by Routledge Earthscan.
Notes
3 http://www.unutki.org/downloads/File/Events/2009-04_Climate_Change_Summit/Anchorage_Declaration.pd
4COICA (Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indigenas de la Cuenca Amazonica) is an umbrella organizaton composed of organizations of indigenous peoples from Peru (AIDESEF), Guyana (APA), Bolivia (CIDOB), Brazil (COIAB), Ecuador (CONFENIAE), ORPIA (Venezuela), French Guyana (FDAG), Suriname (OIS) and Colombia (OPIAC).