http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9316-0238
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ABSTRACT
This article provides a case study of a project in Kondoa, Tanzania under the programme Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). It demonstrates how a success narrative came to dominate presentations about the project as a multi-win involving not only climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, but also benefits for local people and poverty reduction. Based on repeated fieldwork using qualitative methods, we find that there is lack of evidence to substantiate the success claims. These claims are in particular based on the assertion that a component of ‘conservation agriculture’ was successfully implemented as compensation for forest enclosure. Gaps between claims and evidence are often exhibited in the scholarship on political ecologies of conservation in Africa, as well as by observers of development aid projects. But how can such gaps be explained? We suggest taking the interests of the actors behind the project as a point of departure, including how individuals as well as organisations have stakes in marketing a success narrative. Furthermore, we argue that an unsubstantiated success narrative of an aid project can be maintained only when there is a lack of structures to ensure independent and adequate examinations of the project by evaluators and researchers. In this case, Norway was the funder of the project, and as the dominant funder of REDD, the Norwegian government has a particular interest in reproducing REDD success narratives, since the credibility of the country’s climate mitigation policy depends on REDD being a success. In addition, the case study demonstrates how ‘success projects’ emerge in the wake of new development fads.
Acknowledgements
First of all, we would like to thank all the villagers in Kondoa as well as other stakeholders in Kondoa, Arusha and Dar es Salaam who kindly agreed to be interviewed, in some cases repeatedly. We are also grateful to Nelson Faustin and Faustin Maganga for participating in some of the field work, and we thank the following for comments on various earlier versions of the manuscript: Connor Cavanagh, Eirik Jansen, Jens Friis Lund, Wille Östberg, three anonymous reviewers and the editors of JEAS as well as members of the research group in Development Studies at HiOA.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Hanne Svarstad http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9316-0238
Tor A. Benjaminsen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0192-833X
Notes
1. Later on a “+” has been added (REDD+) in order to emphasise the addition of other goals, such as biodiversity conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (http://www.un-redd.org/aboutredd). It is, however, unclear what goals have been added in each case. Because of this uncertainty, we prefer to use REDD without a +.
2. These countries are Brazil, Indonesia, Guyana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mexico and Vietnam.
3. Forest Trends, Tanzania – Mapping REDD+.
4. Speech by Stoltenberg at Bali Conference, 13.12.2007, available at https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/Tale-til-FNs-klimakonferanse-pa-Bali/id493899/.
5. Asdal, “From Climate Issue.”
6. Angelsen, Katemansimba Shitindi, and Aarrestad, “Why Do Farmers.”
7. Hofstad, “Woodland Deforestation”; Mwampapa, “Has the Woodfuel Crisis Returned?”
8. Milledge, Gelvas, and Ahrends, Forestry, Governance.
9. URT, National Strategy – REDD+.
10. E.g. Fisher et al., “Implementation and Opportunity Costs”; Khatun et al., “When Participatory Forest Management”; Katani et al., “Participatory Forest Carbon Assessment.”
11. Rantala and Di Gregorio, “Multistakeholder”; Mustalahti et al., “Can REDD+ Reconcile”; Mustalahti and Rokotonarivo, “REDD+ and Empowered Deliberative Democracy.”
12. Veit, Vhugen, and Miner, “Threats to Village Land”; Dokken et al., “Tenur Issues”; Sunderlin et al., “How Are REDD+ Proponents Addressing.”
13. Beymer-Farris and Bassett, “The REDD Menace.”
14. Koch, “International Influences.”
15. URT, National Strategy.
16. URT, National Framework.
17. UN-REDD Programme, Social and Environmental Principles and Criteria.
18. Peskett and Todd, “Putting REDD+ Safeguards,” 2.
19. In this particular project, AWF calls these forests Kolo Hills. The project name is Advancing REDD in the Kolo Hills Forests (ARKFor).
20. African Wildlife Foundation, “Advancing REDD.”
21. Plan Vivo, http://www.planvivo.org/project-network/project-pipeline/, accessed 2 May 2016.
22. AWF, “Advancing REDD in the Kolo Hills – A Proposal”; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the AWF, Contract.
23. Eckstein, “Case Studies,” 118.
24. Jansen, “Don’t Rock the Boat.”
25. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness; Brockington, Fortress Conservation; Igoe and Croucher, “Conservation Commerce”; Benjaminsen and Bryceson, “Conservation, Green/Blue Grabbing”; Benjaminsen et al., “Wildlife Management”; Mariki, Svarstad, and Benjaminsen, “Elephants over the Cliff.”
26. Benjaminsen and Svarstad, “The Death of an Elephant.”
27. In total, the fieldwork amounted to at least 15 weeks.
28. Mosse, Cultivating Development.
29. Chapin, “A Challenge to Conservationists.”
30. Büscher, “Selling Success.”
31. Lund et al., “Promising Change.”
32. In leading discourses on environment and development, narratives of cases tend to be used as manifestations of central arguments of the discourses (Svarstad, “Analysing Conservation,” “Narrativitetens Sosiologi”).
33. Jansen, “Don’t Rock the Boat,” 192.
34. These are Isabe Forest Reserve (of 4249 ha established in 1954 and managed by the district) and Salanga Forest Reserve (of 8336 ha established in 1941 and managed by the state).
35. Matilya, “Advancing REDD.”
36. Mung’ong’o, “Social Processes and Ecology.”
37. For instance, the World Bank started in 2015 to consider people earning less than USD 1.9 per day as poor.
38. “Establishing Baseline Conditions.”
39. Östberg, The Kondoa Transformation; Lane, “Environmental Narratives.”
40. Christiansson, Mbegu, and Yrgård, “The Hand of Man.”
41. Östberg, The Kondoa Transformation; Lane, “Environmental Narratives.”
42. Lane, “Environmental Narratives.”
43. Östberg, The Kondoa Transformation.
44. Lane, “Environmental Narratives,” 459, also concludes that erosion is not a recent phenomenon in Kondoa, but that severe soil erosion has been a feature of the area for at least 12,500 years.
45. Östberg, The Kondoa Transformation; Lane, “Environmental Narratives.”
46. Östberg, The Kondoa Transformation.
47. Mung’ong’o, “Social Processes”; Östberg, “Eroded Consensus.”
48. Östberg, The Kondoa Transformation, 15.
49. Östberg, “Eroded Consensus.”
50. Östberg, The Kondoa Transformation; Christiansson, Mbegu, and Yrgård, The Hand of Man.
51. Mung’ong’o, “Social Processes.”
52. Hall et al., “Resistance, Acquiescence or Incorporation?”
53. Cavanagh and Benjaminsen, “Guerrilla Agriculture?”
54. Halmashauri ya Wilaya ya Kondoa & JUHIBEKO, Sheria Ndogo. Two villages sharing boundaries with the forests resisted being part of the setup.
55. Specifically to examine the agricultural component, we selected three JUHIBEKO villages that belong to each of the three groups of villages implementing the agricultural component in three different years. Some of the people we interviewed could have been easily recognised if we revealed village names. We therefore anonymise villages and name them Kijiji 1–3.
56. Interview at SARI, 18.02.2016.
57. FAO, Conservation Agriculture.
58. FAO, Climate Smart.
59. Interview at SARI, 18.02.2016.
60. Bergius, Benjaminsen, and Widgren, “Green Economy.”
61. Royal Norwegian Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Norway and Tanzania.
62. Royal Norwegian Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Payment for Preservation.
63. Interview at the Norwegian Embassy in Dar es Salaam, 23.02.2015.
64. Interview at the AWF office in Kondoa, 24.02.2014.
65. Ibid., 15.07.2014.
66. Interview with Country Director of AWF, John Salehe, 13.02.2015.
67. African Wildlife Foundation, Advancing REDD.
68. Interview at SARI, 18.02.2016.
69. Interview at the AWF office in Kondoa, 07.03.2014.
70. African Wildlife Foundation, Advancing REDD – Final Report.
71. Chairman of the Village, “Kijiji 1,” March 2014.
72. Deloitte, 2, Mid-term Review Report.
73. Deloitte, Ibid.
74. NIRAS, v, Final review.
75. NIRAS, 11, ibid.
76. NIRAS, 12, ibid.
77. These training days were organised by SARI and involved trainers from SARI as well as from the District Forest Office and Agricultural Extension Officers at the wards. Based on farmers’ suggestions and SARI's evaluations of soil conditions, rainfall patterns, etc., SARI put together a package of agricultural inputs for each village.
78. There is usually only one farming season in the year in most of the area.
79. Hepelwa, Selejio, and Mduma, “The Voucher System.”
80. World Bank, Tanzania Public Expenditure Review.
81. USAID, Performance Evaluation.
82. Interview at AWF in Kondoa, 07.03.2014.
83. European Union, Grant Application Form.
84. Interview at AWF Kondoa, 24.02.2014.
85. Interview at EU office in Dar es Salaam, 24.02.2015.
86. Mosse, Cultivating Development.
87. Chapin, “A Challenge to Conservationists.”
88. Büsher, “Selling Success.”
89. Chapin, “A Challenge to Conservationists.”
90. Jansen, “Don’t Rock the Boat,” 192.
91. From his experiences from the inside, Jansen, “Don’t Rock the Boat,” points at two other mechanisms used to avoid that consultants may threaten the good reputation of a development aid project: the first is to avoid consultants who have criticised other aid projects, and the second to be careful about the way the mandates are written.
92. This opportunity was contrary to the general situation in Norway, where there have been large cuts in the budget for development research.
93. Lund et al., “Promising Change,” 125. Lund et al. here follows Redford, Padoch, and Sunderland, “Fads, Funding and Forgetting” and Fletcher et al., “Questioning REDD+.”
94. See also Koch, “International Influence.”
95. Lund et al., “Promising Change.”