Moving from abstract policy rhetoric and broad conceptualizations of community

forest governance to practical implementation and practice through local adaptations and processes of reinvention

Kristina A. Van Dexter

Dept. Environmental Science & Policy, George Mason University

Global Forest & Climate Programme, WWF

Local Practices and Perceptions of REDD+

• Unpack and analyze shifting and complex conceptions of community forest governance among local and indigenous peoples in tropical forest landscapes

• Discursive unity around the notion of community forest governance within REDD+ debates and more broadly has been employed by indigenous groups, civil society and some governments alike, based in part on recognition of the essential linkages between biological diversity and local knowledge and practices and on indigenous rights’ movements

• In everyday local realities diverse complex, contradictory and multifaceted perceptions and practices emerge that diverge from assumptions found in global policy rhetoric and conceptualizations of REDD+ and CFM to practical implementation and practice

• How do local actors experience, interpret and give meaning to REDD+ through adaptations and processes of reinvention within local contexts?

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework

• Draws on multi-level/landscape governance frameworks to address broader connectivity across resource governance systems

• Critical institutional perspective to better understand how these institutions are influenced by complex social identities, power relationships and wider political and geographical factors that shape resource management arrangements and outcomes

• Concept of institutional bricolage applied to investigate how global policy rhetoric and conceptualizations of REDD+ and CFM translate to practical implementation and practice and how local actors experience, interpret and give meaning to REDD+ through adaptations and processes of reinvention within everyday local practices

Methodology • Cases studies in the DRC and Peru were chosen to represent a spectrum of

community forest governance regimes; sites selected are under REDD+ program development

• Literature review and document analysis

• Participatory observation in workshops and focus group discussions and informal interviews with local communities, civil society, local and national governments during field visits 2013-2015

• Comparative case studies collaborative forest governance in REDD+ context DRC and Peru (Indonesia, Colombia forthcoming)

• Collect governance and forest use data on formal and informal institutional arrangements, perceptions and practices of local communities, broader social and political processes, e.g. cultural norms and tenure regimes

Collaborative Approaches to Forest Governance

• Widespread adoption of decentralization and tenure reforms devolve rights and management of forests to local communities

• Community forest management approaches potential to reduce emissions from DD, conserve forest biodiversity, whilst contributing to positive livelihoods outcomes

• Understanding the relationship between dynamics of decentralized governance models for community or collaborative management and forest conservation outcomes has important implications for REDD+

Evolving Conceptual Approaches to REDD+

• REDD+ has evolved over the years, reframed and re-conceptualized through interpretations among different actors across contrasting cultural and political contexts

• Under dominant discourse, REDD+ is increasingly aligned with sustainable development goals and has been reframed to incorporate values beyond carbon including biodiversity conservation and support for local livelihoods

• Widely agreed that the rights and participation of local and forest-dependent communities are key enabling conditions for realizing REDD+ multiple benefits

• Indigenous peoples and local communities have played an important role in agenda setting and political debates around REDD+ in recent years, challenging the authority of the state and questioning both the processes and meanings of conservation and development

• Holistic and alternative approaches raise issues associated with livelihoods and food security and promote greater appreciation for “other” orientations and values associated with forest landscapes.

Conceptualization of CFM obscures reality

• Evidence suggests that, under the right conditions, community forest management can lead to “win-win” scenarios under which multiple conservation and development goals can be achieved

• Assumes, among other conditions, community homogeneity and secure rights

• Underlying assumptions obscure differences in motivations for conservation and livelihoods strategies and how these evolve

• Results vary significantly according to the local sociocultural, political and geographic contexts

Co-management of biocultural landscapes

• Community forest governance encompasses diversity of overlapping and shifting institutions (formal and informal, modern and traditional) that shape local practices and perceptions

• Local institutions shaped by historical, political, cultural, social processes at multiple levels

• Broader connectivity: Continuum of overlapping practices and values within a forest landscape; no clear boundaries, socially and culturally constructed entities reconstructed and restored through inhabitants’ livelihoods

• Landscapes are shared by diverse social actors with unique histories and ways of relating to their environments and consequently forms of knowing

• Cultures attribute meaning to natural systems and processes in various ways, including livelihoods, cosmologies, worldviews and spiritual beliefs

• Cultural understandings fundamentally govern both individual and collective actions which, in turn, shape the nature and composition of landscape

Case studies: DRC and Peru• Comparative case studies of decentralized forest

governance in the DRC and Peru (Indonesia, Colombia forthcoming)

• Examine shifting dynamics of local institutional architecture entwined in local realities and practices, historical formation and interplay with broader economic and political processes

• With reference to the assumptions underpinning REDD+ and practices REDD+ seeks to motivate at local level, focus on the interplay between exercise of agency and the moderating effects of social relationships and rules

• Insights for how REDD+ initiatives can embed local level institutions for forest management within broader state institutions to promote more positive local livelihoods and forest conservation outcomes

CFM, tenurial bricolage and REDD+ Mai Ndombe, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

• CFM and how the processes of tenurial bricolage are unfolding in DRC’s Mai Ndombeprovince within the context of a landscape-scale REDD+ initiative

• Local and global importance of these forests have attracted large scale international involvement in the process towards community forestry; influence is reflected in conservation interventions and recent tenure reforms.

• Actors’ interactions in the course of the REDD+ readiness phase provided important insights into the tenure conflicts invoked by attribution of forest carbon results

• Negotiating space opened by REDD+ allowed for communication between the state and the local levels at which REDD+ activities will be implemented

• Visions for forest management promoted through REDD+ involved the strengthening of formal state institutions and establishment of community forest areas, which will inevitably overlay and modify indigenous practices and regimes such as swiddenagriculture

• REDD+ process will have social and resource consequences for local indigenous people, but with uncertain outcomes for livelihoods and landscapes

• Despite being marginalized in their formal roles, the women used the project intervention to increase their bargaining power, and to gain visibility and status in the community

Power Sharing, Forest Governance and REDD+ Processes Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (ACR) Madre de Dios, Peru

• Role of different actors involved in setting priorities for REDD+ in Peru and the power dynamics associated with community forest management that are intertwined within this process

• Governance of ACR of corresponds to the interaction between structures, processes, traditions and knowledge systems at multiple levels, which determines how power and responsibility are exerted and how decisions are made

• Management of the reserve based on ‘traditional’ indigenous practices and local knowledge must be adapted to achieve conservation goals

• Conflicting, and at times, mutually beneficial, interests among diverse actors translates into the political strategies and discourses surrounding community conservation approaches

• REDD+ viewed by both the government and some indigenous groups as an important opportunity to leverage climate finance to support this model of community conservation.

• RCA site of Amazon Indigenous REDD+ pilot; actively contributes to REDD+ at a global level, based on indigenous rights and traditional use and knowledge of their territories

Preliminary conclusions can be drawn• A closer look at the ‘win-win’ approach to REDD+ thus requires who actually

benefits from establishing a participatory conservation project

• For conservationists, this is evidence that the territorial management model that must be established is a modern model that takes account of local culture, but under state rules.

• This model assumes a democratic system, where social groups are ideally organized, manage knowledge, and have access to power, and where there are many open markets and a state that is economically involved

• However values often described as “traditional” are non-static and overlapping in some contexts

• We suggest a practice oriented and dynamic approach to collaborative or co-management processes that are based on these ‘ways of knowing’

• “Traditional knowledge as generated in the practices of locality” promotes a greater appreciation of ‘other’ orientations towards forest resources, and opportunities for local community leadership to apply local knowledge situated in shifting local practices and perceptions

Further research

• How can local knowledge and practices be more effectively incorporated into governance of tropical forest landscapes?

• Comparative studies of institutions across spatial and temporal scales that looksat how forest conservation policies (including REDD+) can effectively andequitably incorporate multiple benefits and how this introduced institution willbe interpreted, translated and recreated at the local/landscape level.

• An in-depth longitudinal study will aim to capture the shifting and overlappingnature of institutions

• Challenge in variation in potentially confounding biophysical and socio-economicfactors and their interface with differences in institutional arrangements ongovernance and conservation outcomes

• Further research will focus on the intricate links between the biophysicaldynamics of a landscape and cultural factors and how these interact over time asinstitutions governing resource management

• CFM involves complex interactions among a diverse set of actors and shifting and overlapping institutions operating at multiple levels imbued with social identities and power relationships and embedded within broader political and geographical factors shape resource management arrangements and outcomes.