The Expanding Techniques of Progress: Agricultural Biotechnology and UN-REDD+

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative analysis of agricultural biotechnology and the United Nations program for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Despite the existing differences between the technical manipulation of biological systems and a conservation program aimed at reducing carbon and protecting forests, the two share commonalities in ideological origin, application, and values. Presented as positive developments, both seek to address large-scale issues such as global hunger and climate change, but while receiving national and international support they remain controversial issues. Both issues are critically assessed, beginning with a brief history, followed by the application of William Dugger's four invaluation processes: contamination, subordination, emulation, and mystification. This approach unravels the subtle social power of state and market forces that seek to control genetic material and forest frontiers as new outlets for growth and investment.

Keywords::

• neocolonialism
• four invaluation processes
• biotechnology
• REDD
• forests

Notes

¹ The UN-REDD Programme Strategy 2011–2012.

² Notable is how rents and taxes prevented people from rehabilitating the soil in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see Merchant 1983).

³ Or Veblinian counter-snobbery, see McCormick, Chapter 10.

⁴http://www.monsanto.com.

⁵http://www.redd-monitor.org/redd-an-introduction/.

⁶http://www.un-redd.org/Stakeholder_Engagement/History/tabid/55719/Default.aspx.

⁷ REDD+ for simplicity will be referred to as REDD.

⁸http://unfccc.int/files/methods_science/redd/application/pdf/tfd-redd-finance-background-paper.pdf.

⁹http://www.un-redd.org/UNREDDProgramme/InternationalSupport/MeasurementReportingandVerification/tabid/1050/language/en-US/Default.aspx.

¹⁰ Derivatives are financial instruments that promise payments derived from bets on the future value of something else (Sullivan 2013a: 207).

¹¹ It should be remember that the current mode and conception of work is not only bad for people (health, psychology, etc.), but also drives the degradation of the natural environment (see Devetter and Rousseau 2011).

¹² Militarized rural settlements that seek to observe, control, and strategically use populations in counterinsurgency warfare as well as integrate them into national political and economic systems. Deployed in Malaya during the British Colonial wars and coined strategic hamlets during the Vietnam War, and subsequently called development poles or model villages.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander Antony Dunlap

Alexander Antony Dunlap is currently a doctoral candidate and associate tutor in Social Anthropology, School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. His current research focus is on the effects of rural and urban sustainable development projects. This includes examining how these projects affect the livelihoods of people, if they contribute to migration either directly and/or indirectly as well as the long- and short-term ecological impacts on their respective environments. Recent publications include ‘Permanent War: Grids, Boomerangs, and Counterinsurgency’ in the Journal of Anarchist Studies and the, “The Militarization and Marketization of Nature: An Alternative Lens to ‘Climate-conflict’,” in the journal Geopolitics, special issue: Rethinking Climate Change, Conflict and Security. Global Studies, Arts C 162 University of Sussex Falmer Brighton BN1 9SJ. E-mail: [email protected]