Locating the subject of REDD+: between “improving” and safeguarding forest inhabitants’ conduct

Abstract

REDD+ is a forest conservation and carbon trading scheme seeking to incentivise a reduction in emissions through payments. This article draws on Foucault’s governmentality concept and Dean’s analytics of government framework to analyse the REDD+ negotiations under the UNFCCC. It argues that negotiators perceived forest inhabitants as malleable subjects whose conduct can and should be “improved” through disciplinary techniques instantiated in forest monitoring practices. Forest inhabitants are not powerless or passive recipients of discipline, but these techniques foster a conduct that only values carbon at the expense of other ecological and cultural values and, further, encourage conservation purely based on cost-benefit reasoning. The article also interrogates the negotiations of safeguards meant to ensure that REDD+ does no social or ecological harm. It argues that the safeguards appear to allow forest inhabitants to decide on REDD+ implementation and governance, and protect their existing forest governance practices should they elect to do so. However, the safeguards are formulated in a voluntary manner, casting doubts on their ability to offer suitable protection. The article concludes by reflecting on the current demand for carbon credits from REDD+ projects and the implications this has for the disciplinary techniques and the conduct they foster.

Keywords:

• REDD+
• UNFCCC
• Indigenous Peoples
• governmentality
• analytics of government

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my thanks to the participants of the May 2019 Human-Forest Relations: Equity and Inclusion in Law, Culture and Ecology workshop at the National Arboretum, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK. Thanks in particular to Helen Dancer for organising the workshop, this special issue, and for very helpful comments and assistance with this article. Thanks are also due to the Chief Editor, Dik Roth, and the two anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This is not to say that the cited authors subscribe to the simplistic assumption that participation unproblematically creates ownership.