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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on how climate change mitigation policies and economic land and mining concessions in Prey Lang, Cambodia, accommodate and facilitate each other physically, discursively and economically. Maps and project descriptions reveal that climate-related policies and extraction coexist in the same landscape, even the same projects. Knowledge co-produced by the authors and affected individuals suggests that climate change mitigation initiatives are not only intimately linked to economic intensification in Prey Lang, but they also contribute to conflict and dispossession. We argue that by attending to the cumulative effects of multiple projects in the same landscape and co-producing knowledge with affected communities, researchers can contribute to more socially just environmental policies.
RÉSUMÉ
Cet article porte sur les politiques d’atténuation du changement climatique et les concessions économiques foncières et minières à Prey Lang, au Cambodge, et comment celles-ci s’accommodent et se favorisent mutuellement, et cela, physiquement, discursivement et économiquement. Les cartes et les descriptions de projets révèlent que les politiques liées au climat et à l’extraction coexistent dans le même paysage et dans les mêmes projets. La coproduction de savoir entre les auteurs et les individus touchés suggère que les initiatives d’atténuation du changement climatique ne sont pas uniquement liées à l’intensification économique à Prey Lang, mais contribuent aussi aux conflits et à la dépossession. L’analyse des effets cumulatifs de multiples projets dans un même paysage peut contribuer à des politiques environnementales plus justes sur le plan social au Cambodge.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the members of the Prey Lang Community Network for their collaboration in this project.
Notes on contributors
Courtney Work is a postdoctoral research fellow with a joint appointment at the Institute of Social Studies and the Regional Centre for Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University. She has conducted research in Cambodia since 2005 and is currently investigating the intersecting impacts of climate change mitigation policies and economic land grabs on rural communities. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University. Other research interests include the anthropology of religion, development and the environment.
Thuon Ratha is the Mekong Programme Officer at Inclusive Development International, specialising in participatory research on the human rights impacts of development projects. She was a member of the team that organised and trained affected communities to engage effectively in grievance redress processes at the International Finance Corporation’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman and the Asian Development Bank’s Accountability Mechanism. Ratha is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Social Studies.
Notes
1. On 28 April 2016 Prey Lang was signed into Protected Area status along with five other forest areas. Negotiations are still underway and the full impact of this move remains uncertain. The current changes do not alter our story, but will add to it in the coming year.
2. The acronyms REDD and REDD+ refer to the “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation” mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
3. The Ministry of Environment (MoE) is scheduled to draft two important legislations by 31 December 2016: an environmental code for all line ministries and all land and water development, and a co-management initiative to increase authority and responsibility of local citizens in forest protection. These initiatives ignite both hope and skepticism among stakeholders in Prey Lang.
4. The Mosaic project is one of seven projects funded through the CoCooN consortium (Conflict and Cooperation over Natural Resources in Developing Countries). See Hunsberger et al. (Citation2017).
5. Sugar cane is a flex crop that feeds into the global production of ethanol, an important climate change mitigation policy that we do not discuss in this article.
6. Although logging by local residents is technically illegal, because they are paid by company middlemen and are known to local authorities and to all other villagers, it is more accurate to call their work “freelance” rather than illegal logging.
7. We use the term Carbon Conservation to capture REDD+, reforestation and conservation initiatives in Prey Lang. We treat each separately as well, but they are intertwined in this landscape and exert similar pressure upon citizens.
8. Recently nullified by MoE, see note 3.
9. Prohibited activities include: processing non-timber forest products in handicraft bases; using kilns; prospecting minerals; taking lime, coal or salty soil; clearing natural forested land for agricultural crops (swidden cultivation); collection of timber and non-timber forestry products; and hunting activities that affect forest and all kinds of wildlife.
10. These CFs ranged in size from 550 to 3,000 ha; most CFs are 1,200–1,500 ha.
11. Here and throughout: FGD, focus group discussion.
13. A chaebol is a family-operated, government-supported business particular to Korea. These are very large and powerful companies; the best known is Samsung. Hanwha makes munitions and other defence products (as depicted on the webpage listed with the Cambodia Yellow Pages and Chamber of Commerce: http://www.hanwhacorp.co.kr/eng/index.jsp. Its new website has a greener, child-friendly appearance: http://www.hanwha.com/en.html).
14. In the Cambodian legal structure, a Prakas is a legal instrument issued or enforced at the ministry level.