msc thesis_co2 compensation in practice_what makes actors cooperate

8/14/2019 MSC Thesis_CO2 Compensation in Practice_What Makes Actors Cooperate

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CO2

Compensation in Practice:

What Makes Actors Cooperate??

Assessing Stability and Dynamics in the Actors Cooperation andPolicy Processes Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF):

A Case Study of the UWA-FACE Project at Mount Elgon in Uganda

Muhammad Sohail


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CO2 Compensation in Practice:

What Makes Actors Cooperate??

Assessing Stability and Dynamics in the Actors

Cooperation and Policy Processes Using the

Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF):

A Case Study of the UWA-FACE Project at

Mount Elgon in Uganda

August 2008

Thesis supervision

Marielle van der Zouwen

Muhammad Sohail820312784070

Wageningen University and Research

M.Sc. Forest & Nature Conservation Policy

E-mail: [email protected]


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i

List of acronyms

ACF Advocacy Coalition FrameworkBoD Board of Directors

CDM Clean Development Mechanism

CER Certified Emission Reduction

CNG Climate Neutral Group

EM Emission Trading

ERU Emission Reduction Unit

FACE Forest Absorbing Carbon dioxide Emissions

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

FERN Forest and European Union Resource Network

FSC Forest Stewardship Council

JI Joint Implementation

KP Kyoto Protocol

MENP Mount Elgon National Park

MECDP Mount Elgon Conservation and Development Project

NGO Non Government Organization

PNA Policy Network Analysis

SEP Dutch Electricity Generation Board

SGS Socit Gnrale de Surveillance

UN United Nations

UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

UWA Uganda Wildlife Authority

VER Verifiable Emission ReductionWB World Bank

WRM World Rainforest Movement


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ii

Contents

Chapter 1

Introduction..............................................................................................................................1

1.1 The climate change and the Kyoto Protocol............................................................1

1.2 Background..............................................................................................................3

1.3 Problem Statement................................................................................................... 5

1.4 General objective and research questions................................................................6

Chapter 2

Theoretical Framework............................................................................................................7

2.1 The choice of theoretical perspective ...................................................................... 7

2.2 The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) ...........................................................7

2.3 The ACF premises ................................................................................................... 8

2.4 The key concepts of the ACF................................................................................. 10

2.5 Theoretical expectations ........................................................................................ 13

Chapter 3

Research Methodology ..........................................................................................................17

3.1 Character of the thesis work .................................................................................. 17

3.2 Data collection .......................................................................................................19

3.3 The arrangements prior to data collection .............................................................21

Chapter 4

The partnership in 1989-1999................................................................................................244.1 Events in 1989-1999 .............................................................................................. 24

4.2 Interpretation..........................................................................................................29

Chapter 5

The partnership in 2000-2008................................................................................................36

5.1 Events in 2000 and beyond.................................................................................... 36

5.2 Interpretation..........................................................................................................42


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iii

Chapter 6

Conclusion and Discussion.................................................................................................... 476.1 Conclusion .............................................................................................................47

6.2 Reflections on results............................................................................................. 53

6.3 Theoretical reflections ........................................................................................... 55

6.4 Discrepancies faced ............................................................................................... 56

6.5 Reflection on research method used ...................................................................... 57

References..............................................................................................................................60


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iv

List of tables

Table 4.1 32

Table 4.2.33

Table 6.1 47

Table 6.2 48

Table 6.3 50


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v

Acknowledgement

Above all, thanks to Almighty Allah for His blessings and for providing me the strength to

undertake this study. Besides, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the following

persons whose support made possible the completion of my masters thesis, a dream came

true!

First of all, countless thanks to Marielle van der Zouwen, my supervisor from the Forest and

Nature Conservation Policy Group for her endurance, guidance and the important

discussions in understanding of this specific case. Without her direction, I would probably

not be able to see the critical aspects of this study that interlinked the theory and the

empirical case. Thanks to Prof. Bas Arts for his warm welcoming in the Wageningen UR

and for his support and valuable discussion in choosing this interesting theme as a topic for

my thesis research.

I would also like to thank the European Commission, the University of Joensuu in Finland

and its staff whose beliefs in my capabilities enabled me to acquire this opportunity of

carrying out my masters in European Forestry.

My special thanks go to Haider, Tamara and Isabella whose facilitation in the lay out and

giving a final touch to this report was of enormous support. I wish to thank Martijn Snoep of

the Face foundation for his outstanding support and assistance in accessing valuable sources

of information without which this task would probably not be achievable.

My family and friends, who always wanted to see me touching the acme of success and

prosperity, also deserve exceptional appreciation. The company of Farrakh, Nadeem, Saad,

Nazir, Sabaz and all others made me feel at home. My colleagues from the EuropeanForestry, especially Albin, Efrian, Funso and Imole have shared with me the nicest moments

and have been a support in glum during the last two years.


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vi

Abstract

This case study deals with the core idea of interaction among two actors, the Face

foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). In light of the theoretical perspective

of the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), it attempts to describe how these two actors

form an advocacy coalition or partnership against the issue of climate change in order to

accomplish the goals and objectives of their respective organizations. Considerable attention

is paid to the policy processes of the actors involved, and to the factors that explain their

partnership. It further highlights the state of affairs where this partnership achieves the

heights of stability. Theoretically, the concept of the belief system premise of the ACF has

been particularly focused, which tries to understand the empirical phenomenon of actorscooperating with each other in a particular coalition.

This study also portrays the character of certain external factors that play an imperative

role in bringing changes in the stable cooperation or partnership of the Face foundation and

the Uganda Wildlife Authority. One of such important factors, in this case, is the report from

the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) that brought the attention of the media, the

international critics, the general public and other important actors to the stable cooperation

of the Face foundation and UWA bringing significant alterations in the strategic policies ofthe two actors. The WRM showed up as an organization that came up with its supporters

and partners as another advocacy coalition with entirely different ideas and perceptions

regarding the issue of the climate change. This study concludes that theses differences in

beliefs and the WRM report did not succeed in altering the partnership of UWA and the

Face foundation, it however, brought significant changes in the behavior of important actors,

and ultimately in the policies of UWA and the Face foundation.


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1

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 The climate change and the Kyoto Protocol

Environmental issues have increasingly become of global concern getting an extraordinary

focus during the recent past. The smouldering issue of climate change has forced many

global actors, including environmental NGOs, concerned about how to mitigate this change.

To tackle the issue, a wide range of international negotiations have taken place so far. The

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the

Earth Summit, was one of the major moves in this regard. Held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992

this conference, among others, resulted in an agreement called the Climate Change

Convention or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

This was an important achievement that led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, an international

agreement among countries aiming to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and presence of

the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (FAO, 2001). The countries that have signed the

convention are known as Parties to the Convention.

The Parties to the Climate Change Convention have acknowledged the global climate

change and called for the widest possible cooperation by all the countries and their

participation in an effective and appropriate international response (UNFCCC, 1992). On

the other hand, FAO (2005) recognized forests apart from performing many other

functions serving as carbon sink, hence improving the global climate. FAO (2006) has

also acknowledged the negative impact of deforestation and stated that 25-30 percent of the

greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere each year had caused by deforestation (FAO,

2006). Likewise the global forest figures show that about 13 million hectares of the world

forests are cut down every year (FAO, 2005), which further threatened the climate. These

facts have stimulated actors, especially those concerned with the climate change, to come

forward and play their role.

The Kyoto Protocol provides opportunity for actors (individuals, organizations, countries

etc) to take part in the carbon trade under the auspicious UNFCCC and to help mitigate the

climate change. The most important aspect of the Protocol, according to FAO (2001), is the


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Chapter 1: Introduction

CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? 2

binding commitment by the industrialized and developed countries (referred to as Annex-I

countries) to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% of 1990 levels

during the commitment period (2008-2012).

The Protocol has also approved the use of three flexibility mechanisms (described in the

next paragraph) to facilitate the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. This has given

rise to the carbon market where numerous actors are allowed to buy and sell carbon credits

or emission allowances, which is called Emission Trading (Grubb et al., 1999, p-xxix). The

ultimate objective of all these efforts is to reduce greenhouse gas emission to the

atmosphere, mainly from the fossil fuels. However, many, for instance Noble and Scholes

(2001) believe that forests and soils also play an important role in the Kyotos mechanism

by capturing and storing significant amounts of carbon. This has encouraged and attracted

numerous actors, especially the environmental NGOs that aver to sustain a clean

environment and to maintain the atmospheric carbon balance through forestry activities and

projects.

Although the Protocol urges the developed countries to reduce their emissions within their

national boundaries, yet it facilitates them with the flexibility mechanisms, i.e. Joint

Implementation (JI), the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Emission Trading

(ET). The JI refers to the projects carried out within the developed (Annex-I) countries with

the prime objective to reduce emission of greenhouse gases or by taking up and storing

them, e.g. planting forests (Stuart and Costa, 1998; Face foundation, 2008). This as stated

by the Kyoto Protocol delivers Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) which could be

credited to the investing country against its emission reduction target. In other words JI

allows the creation, acquisition and transfer of the ERUs (FAO, 2001). A CDM project on

the other hand, entails the developed countries to undertake projects in developing countrieswith the same aim as Joint Implementation. This however is different in terms that such

projects should contribute to the sustainable development of the host (non-Annex-I) country

and must be independently certified (Stuart and Costa, 1998; FAO 2001). The latter

requirement, according to FAO (2001), gave rise to the term Certified Emission Reduction

or CER describing the output of a CDM project, and which could be banked under the

article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol from the year 2000 onwards. The Emission Trading (ET),

as set out in article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows countries with spare emission units to


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sell their excess capacity to countries (or actors) that are over their targets (UNFCCC,

2008). Thus a new commodity was created in the form of removals or emission reductions.

Since the CO2 is the principal greenhouse gas, people speak simply of trading in carbon,

which is now tracked and traded like any other commodity, this is known as carbon market

(UNFCCC, 2008).

However, polemic prevails amongst various international conservation organizations

whether or not to include the forestry activities in these flexible mechanisms. For example

The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Winrock Foundation and Sierra Club

strongly favour to include forestry projects in the CDM while other NGOs like WWF

International, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are still quite uncertain and suspicious

(FAO, 2001). The grass-root organizations and local NGOs have some support for CDM as

they deem it as a potential source of funding; others see it as another threat to the rural poor

from the processes of globalization (FAO, 2001). Some organizations such as the World

Rainforest Movement (WRM), call it a temporary solution to a long term problem on the

others backyard depriving some people from their rights. In Short, there exist

disagreements among actors (policy makers, politicians, scientists, NGOs etc) regarding

inclusion (or non-inclusion) of forestry projects in the clean development mechanism of the

Kyoto Protocol. In spite of all these differences, however, there are forestry projects carried

out worldwide by actors that believe in the positive role of forests in mitigating the climate

change. One of such projects is the UWA-Face project that is jointly carried out by the

Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Face foundation at the Mount Elgon National Park

(MENP) in Uganda.

1.2 Background

The Face foundation is a non-government and not-for-profit organization based in the

Netherlands, which in 1990, started operating under the NV SEP, the state-owned electricity

generation board. The prime objective of the Face foundation was to partly offset the

atmospheric CO2, hence putting its efforts in mitigating the climate change through

afforestation programs. The Face foundation, since 2000, operates as an independent

organization. The foundation assumes that large scale afforestation and forest conservation

would make a major contribution to abate the greenhouse effect in the coming 100 years

(Face Foundation, 2007). As per its assumption, until recently, it has carried out forestry


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projects in countries like the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Malaysia, and Uganda (Mwima et

al., 2006). The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), on the other hand, is the government

institution responsible for managing the National Parks, Wildlife Reserves and Wildlife

Sanctuaries of the country. The mission of UWA is to conserve and sustainably manage the

wildlife and Protected areas of Uganda for the benefit of the people of Uganda and the

global community (UWA, 2008).

The Face foundation, in 1994, initiated a forest restoration project at Mount Elgon National

Park (MENP) in Uganda in partnership with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), and is

therefore referred to as the UWA-FACE project. The main objective of the Face foundation,

in this project, was to plant trees on 25,000 hectares of the park storing the atmospheric CO2

and contributing to abate the enhanced greenhouse effect. Hence the foundation owns the

carbon stored in the trees, while UWA, on the other hand, aims at restoring the parks

natural ecosystem that was heavily degraded in the past (Mwima et al., 2006). The forest

management operations at MENP, as the Face foundation claims, maintain the long term

social and economic well being of the local communities. Hence, the Face foundation

believes that the UWA-Face project, apart from providing environmental services, makes

available benefits to the local communities. The main goal of the foundation however

remains the same: abating CO2 from the atmosphere which is quite explicit from its logo

More forest, less CO2. The UWA-Face project is still under operation by the same two

partners, UWA and the Face foundation with the main objectives to rehabilitate the parks

natural vegetation and to partly offset the atmospheric CO2. The joint partnership between

the two actors has been continued for more than a decade. Interestingly, during the recent

past, this partnership has got a lot of media and public attention when the World Rainforest

Movement (WRM) published a report indicting the Face foundation and UWA for violating

the rights of the local people living in and around the Mount Elgon National Park. The

WRM, in its report, indicated that the UWA-Face project had deprived the local people form

their lands and land use rights. It therefore demands the withdrawal of the FSC certificate

from the UWA-Face project as it blames that the project is not in line with the principals of

the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).


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1.3 Problem Statement

This is clear that the Face foundation and Uganda Wildlife Authority have been undertaking

the UWA-Face project and cooperating with each other for a long time. Notably, the nature

of both the actors is quite different from each other in terms of their work and the concerned

objectives. The Uganda Wildlife Authority is a government institution responsible for the

conservation of wildlife and protected areas in Uganda. Face foundation, on the other hand,

is a non-government and non-for profit organization that strives for a cleaner environment

by carrying out forestry projects and mitigating the climate change. Moreover, the Face

foundation is based in the Netherlands while most of its projects are carried out in other

countries. Despite of the fact that the two actors are quite different from each other, the

cooperation between them seems very stable and remarkable. It is therefore assumed that

UWA and the Face foundation must have some kind of shared ideas concerning their

specific project at Mount Elgon, otherwise they would not work in partnership for such a

long time. Interestingly, in 2006 there had been a lot of commotion which came when the

WRM published its report about the Mount Elgon National Park. This has caught attention

of the media and the international conservation organizations, some of which have been

criticizing their work. Thus, I was keen to know how the WRM report has affected this

stable cooperation, which has been going on for such a long time among the two actors.

The focus of this study is, therefore, to look into the depth and explore how has this

partnership evolved and how can the seemingly stable cooperation between UWA and the

Face foundation be explained. Furthermore, how the WRM report, and the media attention

thereafter, has affected this stable cooperation.


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1.4 General objective and research questions

The general objective of the proposed case study is to understand and explain the

development of innovative partnership among the actors, the Face foundation and the

Uganda Wildlife Authority, and to discern the grounds that make their partnership stable.

The study further looks into this partnership of the two actors in terms of the CO2

sequestration as it remains a prominent aspect in their cooperation in the UWA-Face project.

Based on the said objective, the following research questions are proposed:

1. How has the cooperation between the Face foundation and UWA evolved since thelaunch of the UWA-FACE project until now?

2. How can the stability in partnership between the Face Foundation and UWA beexplained?

3. How has the World Rainforest Movement report affected the stable cooperationbetween the Face foundation and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)?


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7

Chapter 2

Theoretical Framework

2.1 The choice of theoretical perspective

In the field of policy, there exit a range of approaches; each of them might be used to

explain certain cases and/ or phenomena. Therefore, it was rather tricky to choose and apply

an appropriate approach that could explain properly the case of UWA-Face project in

Uganda. Actors and their relationships, rules of a specific system, networking among actors

and discourses etc. are such aspects of empirical cases that could be explained by theories

such as policy arrangement approach (PAA), policy discourse analysis (PDA) or policy net

work analysis (PNA) etc. Likewise, the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) developed by

Sabatier in 1988, has its notion of sharing the policy core beliefs which coerce actors to

form coalition and cooperate with each other. This concept has seemingly been observed

among the actors in this specific case. The Face foundation and UWA have their joint

project, the UWA-Face, operating at the Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda for a long

time. For this reason, it is assumed that they cooperate because of sharing some ideas or

goals concerning their specific project, which is precisely the core of the advocacy coalition

framework (ACF). Therefore, among other theoretical perspectives, the ACF gave the

impression of being the best as its premises seem to precisely fit into the empirical case.

Based on this fact, the theoretical perspective of advocacy coalition framework (ACF) was

chosen as a lens to describe this particular case of the UWA-Face project at Mount Elgon

National Park (MENP) in Uganda.

2.2 The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)As mentioned before, the theoretical framework for this case study is provided by the

Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) with particular emphasis on its belief systems.

This approach was developed as an alternative to the stages model of the policy process

(Elliot and Rodolphe, 2001). Furthermore, the main idea behind developing the ACF was to

study the complex public policy processes involving multiple actors. In this case, it is

applied to study and understand the cooperation, the stability and the dynamism in this

cooperation and policies of the Face foundation and its partner, the Uganda Wildlife


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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework


Authority (UWA). The ACF describes policy changes as a result of processes within the

subsystem in question, which is influenced by relatively stable parameters and external

events (Elliot and Rodolphe, 2001). Sabatier (1988) and Jenkins-Smith (1999) described

five basic premises of ACF based largely on the policy implementation in public policy.

2.3 The ACF premises

The very first premise of ACF reflects on the importance of technical information regarding

the magnitude and aspects of the problem in policy change. It further advocates considering

the impact of various solutions regarding the problem in question. In this case, I relate the

importance of technical information in policy change to the top managements and decision

makers of both organizations as they, inter alia, are supposed to be the main actors that have

enormous influence on the policies of their organizations. Moreover, they are deemed to be

erudite enough to consider the impact of various solutions while taking decision regarding

any problem.

The second premise of the framework argues to consider a time perspective of ten years or

more in order to understand a policy process or policy change. This assertion is based on the

Weisss (1977) argument who states that short term decision making will underestimate the

influence of policy analysis. Sabatier (1988; 1998) argues that utilizing the time frame of a

decade or more is important to complete, at least, a cycle of formulation, implementation

and re-formulation of a policy process. In this case, I consider a time frame of almost two

decades to assess the distinct changes in the cooperation and the relevant policy processes of

the Face foundation and UWA. I, therefore, focus on a period of 19 years starting from 1989

when the Dutch electricity generation board, the NV SEP, started setting up the Face

foundation until 2008, a stage where the Face foundation and UWA are considered to

have undergone changes in their partnership and the relevant policies. As per ACF, this time

perspective of 19 years is enough to assess the policy processes of the two actors involved in

the case under study.

Similarly the third basic premise argues about the unit of analysis to understand a policy

process. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1988, 1999) argue that this unit of analysis, in modern

industrial societies, is not any specific government or organization but the policy subsystem

(or domain). A subsystem consists of actors belonging to various public or private


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organizations who are actively concerned about a policy problem or issue, e.g. air pollution

control, and they regularly seek to influence the public policy in that domain. Sabatier and

Jenkins-Smith (1999) further explain that policy making, in any subsystem, is enough

complicated process and the actors must specialize in their field if they have to influence. In

my study, I narrate the subsystem to a series of debates such as the carbon sequestration,

biodiversity & wildlife conservation, and the afforestation debates that are directly or

indirectly related to the broader concept of the climate change. Furthermore, I consider that

actors from government and private organizations, including UWA and the Face foundation,

take part in such debates to influence the public policies, or to achieve their goals and

objectives.

The forth basic premise of ACF is regarding a common conception about the bordering of

a subsystem. It argues that a policy subsystem should be broadened to include two important

categories of actors instead of considering only the iron triangles, i.e. traditional state

settings of administration, legislation and interest groups. The two categories proposed by

Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) include: (1) journalists, researchers and policy analysts

which according to Sabatier (1988) play an important role in disseminating and evaluating

the policy ideas, and (2) actors at all levels of government that involve in policy formulation

and implementation. The rationale for latter is that policy innovation, very often in most of

the countries, initiate at the sub-national level which engross the involvement of mentioned

actors. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) argue about the influence of these actors in policy

making referring to two decades of empirical research. In this particular research, I take into

account the role of media and journalists; and included a TV documentary and reports from

the journalists concerning the UWA-Face project. Furthermore, the viewpoints of

professionals from various non-governmental organizations and free lance consultants

some of which worked for the government in the past are included in this research.

The fifth and important idea of ACF takes into account the conceptualization of belief

systems because most of the public policies implicitly incorporate theories to achieve their

objectives. This concept involves the value priorities, perceptions of important causal

relationships, perception of the world states and the assumptions regarding the effectiveness

of various policy instruments. In this particular case, I perceive different aspects of the

actors ideas (their goals and objectives etc), their value priorities and their preferences as


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their beliefs. This conception of the belief system is discussed further in details in the next

section.

2.4 The key concepts of the ACF

Apart from the aforementioned five premises, there are various concepts rooted deep into

the notion of the advocacy coalition framework. This section describes the core of these

concepts and their relevance to the specific case of the UWA-Face project.

The stable and dynamic parameters

The structure of ACF describes two exogenous factors to a subsystem; one relatively stable

and the other more dynamic. The latter parameter is more liable to significant fluctuations

over the course of years; hence act as major stimuli to the process of policy change. These

factors affect the constraints and opportunities of the subsystem actors (Sabatier, 1988). The

stable parameters include basic constitutional structure, socio-cultural values, and natural

resources of a political system. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) argue that these variables,

except in a very long term, are very resistant to change, hence seldom attacked by the

coalition strategies. The other exogenous parameters to the subsystem are more likely to

change over time. They include (1) major socio-economic changes such as the rise of socialmovements; (2) changes in the systematic governing coalitions and (3) policy decisions and

impacts from other subsystems.

In this case, I consider the stable parameters in terms of the basic characteristics of the

UWA-Face project which being stable cannot be changed, e.g. location of the project, access

of each actor to this location, and the rules and regulations of both the organizations etc.

Furthermore, I focus on the European and African cultural values that are literally quite

resistant to change and play an important role in the partnership of actors from diversebackgrounds. In the dynamic parameters, I consider the social and economic conditions of

the Face foundation and UWA as the major dynamic factors that might have influence on

their partnership. Likewise, changes in coalitions and certain events like the policy decisions

of other subsystems are taken into account and examined if they have any impact on the

mutual cooperation and policies of the two actors.


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The advocacy coalition

Sabatier (1988) argues that actors, in a policy subsystem, can be aggregated into a numberof advocacy coalitions each composed of people from various governmental and private

organizations (Sabatier, 1988; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). They further argue that

actors in each coalition share a set of normative and causal beliefs, and engage in

coordinated activities over time. In the case of UWA-Face project, I assume that both the

Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority share some ideas or beliefs concerning

their joint project, and therefore form an advocacy coalition to achieve their goals and

objectives. Thus, in this specific case, I deem the partnership or cooperation between the

Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority as the core of the advocacy coalition.

The beliefs system

The ACF explains the belief system of coalitions in a hierarchical structure that is composed

of three layers or levels. According to Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) the highest or

broadest level of the shared belief system is called deep core which includes the basic

ontological and normative beliefs. This type of belief describes the relative valuation of

thoughts, for instance the individual freedom versus social equality that operates across

virtually all policy domains. The defining characteristic of deep core beliefs, according to

the ACF, is that they are fundamentally normative in nature and are axioms, i.e. universally

recognized truths. Practically it is not possible to determine the deep core beliefs of actors or

organizations. Hence, it is not easy to determine and study the deep core beliefs of actors in

a subsystem. This aspect of the belief system, therefore, is not dealt with in this research,

however considerable attention is paid to the policy core beliefs and the secondary

aspects that are described by the ACF under the belief systems.

The next level of the belief system describes the basic normative commitments and causal

perceptions of a coalition across the entire subsystem, and is referred to as the policy core

beliefs. It includes as Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) illustrate the fundamental value

priorities and the basic policy instruments of a coalition. In this specific study, I consider the

organizational goals and objectives of UWA and the Face foundation as their policy core

beliefs since they serve as the guiding principles and determine their actions or behaviour

within the coalition. Another rationale for taking the goals and objectives of organizations as


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policy core beliefs in this case is that they serve as the glue between the actors within the

same coalition, which is in particular inline with the ACF. Hence, I assume that the actors

having more or less the same organizational or institutional goals and objectives cooperate

with each other.

The third level of a coalitions belief system, described by the ACF, is known as secondary

aspects comprising of larger set of narrower beliefs, which are assumed to easily adjust in

the new settings such as the emergence of new data, new concepts and experiences, and

changing strategic considerations (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). In my study, I take

those actions, activities or beliefs of UWA and the Face foundation as secondary aspects,

which are noticeably important for the respective actors but are given less priority compared

to their main goals and objectives, i.e. their policy core beliefs. However, certain conditions

are also taken into account for these actions, activities or beliefs that might influence the

choice of priority on the agenda of these actors.

Policy oriented learning

The ACF has a particular interest in understanding the policy-oriented learning in the

general process of policy change (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). Sabatier and Jenkins-

Smith (1999) have followed the Heclos (1974) approach in explaining the term policy

oriented learning. They defined it as the relatively lasting alterations of thoughts or

behavioural intentions that result from experiences or new information, and are concerned

with the attainment or revision of policy objectives (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999).

According to ACF, such learning is instrumental and is crucial for the members of various

coalitions to further their policy objectives. The ACF connects this approach of policy-

oriented learning with the socio-economic conditions and system-wide governing coalitions

which can dramatically alter the composition and resources of various coalitions within a

particular subsystem. Similarly, turnover in personnel of an organization or institution, as

ACF explains, can also substantially alter the political resources of various coalitions and

thus the policy decisions. The term policy-oriented learning and the mentioned factors are

essentially entrenched in this case study, as they are considered crucial to influence the

cooperation and policies of the actors involved. These, in fact, are the some of the major

features that constitute the basis for this case study as they determine the changes in


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behaviour, alteration in policies and ultimately the cooperation among the actors within a

coalition. Therefore, in this study, I regard certain external events and other important

factors as the major driving forces in terms of policy oriented learning. These factors, among

others, include the emergence of new research/ information and the changes in the socio-

economic conditions and changes in personnel of both UWA and the Face foundation etc.

2.5 Theoretical expectations

In the first chapter, I explained the background of the UWA-Face project and proposed three

research questions, while in the first part of this chapter, I explained the theoretical

viewpoints of the ACF and linked them to the real case of the UWA-Face project. Now in

this part, I pin down the expectations based on the research questions and the explained

theoretical perspective that I anticipate from this study. These theoretical expectations are

explained below according the proposed research questions and certain aspects of the

advocacy coalition framework described by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999).

Expectations from the 1st

research question

The first research question stated that how has the cooperation between the Face

foundation and UWA evolved since the launch of UWA-FACE project until now? Sabatierand Jenkins-Smith (1999) under the ACF hypothesize that the principle glue holding (the

actors within) coalition together is the agreement over policy core beliefs. Sabatier and

Jenkins-Smith (1999) further argue that since the policy core beliefs are very resistant to

change, the assemblage of co-operators and opponents in within a subsystem will remain

stable over periods of a decade or more. However, change can occur in the policy core

beliefs of coalitions if the experiences reveal serious anomalies. Based on this conception, I

expect from this case study research that the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife

Authority share the same policy core beliefs, i.e. they share (at least some of) their

organizational goals and objectives in terms of the UWA-Face project. The particular idea

both the actors share is the sequestration of the atmospheric CO2. Thus, the commonality in

their goals and objectives concerning the UWA-Face project induces the cooperation

between the two actors. Therefore, the following factors, according to my expectations, are

likely to contribute to the cooperation between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife

Authority.


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The commonality in policy goals and objectives regarding the UWA-Face project

The shared ideas about CO2 sequestration

Expectations from the 2nd

research questions

The second research question stated that how can the stability in partnership between the

Face Foundation and UWA be explained? This question is more focused on exploring the

grounds that contributed to the stability of cooperation or partnership between UWA and the

Face foundation. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) in the ACF apart from linking the

policy core beliefs to stable cooperation define certain stable and dynamic parameters

external to the subsystem that determine the resources or constraints of the actors. This

means that these parameters can either contribute to the stable cooperation or could prove

risky to the actors partnership or cooperation. The stable parameters defined by Sabatier

and Jenkins-Smith (1999) include the basic constitutional structure, socio-cultural values,

and the natural resources of a political system. What I expect from this research is that the

seemingly long term partnership between the Face foundation and UWA stabilized due to

their same policy core beliefs (common goals and objectives) concerning the UWA-Face

project and the enduring relationship between the two actors based on their social and

economic conditions. Consequently, the following factors are expected to explain the stable

cooperation between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

The common goals and objectives regarding the UWA-Face project The social and economic conditions of UWA and the Face foundation The enduring relationship of UWA and Face foundation for longer periods Mutual trust of the two actors

Expectations from the 3rd

research questions

Whereas the first two research questions were focused on evolving the cooperation and the

stability of this cooperation between the Face foundation and UWA, the third research

question pays more attention to the changes in stability of this cooperation. The proposed

third research question was, therefore, structured as how has the World Rainforest

Movement report affected the stable cooperation between the Face foundation and the


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Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)? The advocacy coalition framework, in its policy

change hypothesis states that the policy core beliefs of a coalition are unlikely to be changed

in the absence of significant perturbations or events external to the subsystem. The ACF

here refers to the external dynamic parameters of a subsystem, i.e. changes in the socio-

economic conditions, public opinions and system-wide governing coalitions etc. In this case,

I perceive the report published by the World Rainforest Movement in 2006 as an external

perturbation and expect that this report has negatively affected the stable cooperation

between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority as it has brought the media

and other critiques attentions to the UWA-Face project. The WRM, in this report accuses

UWA and the Face foundation that they have violated the rights of the local people living in

and around the Mount Elgon National Park that were recently evicted. This situation

triggered the criticism on both the partners, and various actors were pressuring them to

discontinue the project activities at MENP, which has threatened their partnership to break.

The research in this case, takes into account the particulars that marked impact on the stable

cooperation of Face foundation and UWA, and the facts that how this cooperation has been

affected. Accordingly, the following factors are expected as driving forces that stimulate

changes in the stable cooperation and the policies of the Face foundation and the Uganda

Wildlife Authority.

The report published by WRM in 2006 against the Face foundation and UWA Attention of media and other critiques towards the UWA-Face project The pressure from various international conservation organizations to halt the project

activities and provide the lands back to the local people at the MENP.


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16

Chapter 3

Research Methodology

3.1 Character of the thesis work

The case study approach was followed to analyze and interpret this research process. A

case study is the study of particularity and complexity of a single case coming to understand

its activity within important circumstances (Stake, 1995). In a case study, as Stake further

argues, we look for the details of interaction within its contexts. Erickson, according to

Stake (1995) puts emphasis on the interpretative characteristic (that focuses on the

interpretation aspect) of case study designs. This research however, is both interpretative as

well as descriptive in nature, and is based on single case study. De Vaus (2001) describes

another type of case study which is described as clinical in nature which means that it does

not deal with developing or testing new theory rather uses the existing one in order to

understand the case in terms of what has been going on and how?

De Vaus (2001) describes case study as the research process that deals with the whole case

but cannot possibly consists of everything. The author further argues that describing

everything, in a descriptive case study, is simply impossible and that there is must be a

focus. Description of a case study cannot be without a theory; therefore, things that are

supposed to be described should be selected and organized at first (e.g. selection and

application of the ACF in the second chapter). The description highlights the case in the

form ofinterpretation rather than mirror image (De Vaus, 2001). This interpretation can be

done using theories that highlight the events, which are relevant and important. In other

words, the use of theory filters outsome facts that are of particular importance to theresearcher. The use of theory describing importance of a particular aspect, however, depends

upon who is describing what and how certain categories are perceived as important. The

selection of fact, is supposed to be important as well as relevant to the theory applied. The

important aspects, for instance, relevant to the ACF, in this case study to be highlighted, are

the actors coalition formation, stability of these coalition and the external factors that affect

both the process of coalition formation and the stability therein.


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Chapter 3: Research Methodology


The investigation process, in this research focused on developing a full picture of the events

that occurred during a time period of 19 years (1989-2008). This will emphasize to

comprehend alteration in coalition formation and strategies of Face foundation as a result ofthe competing ideas of WRM that confronted those of the Face foundation regarding

sequestration of the atmospheric carbon. Particular attention will be paid to understand

specific phenomena as per each research question.

This research attempts to describe how certain actors in a subsystem perceive and frame

issues (e.g. climate change and CO2 sequestration etc), and how they tend to form advocacy

coalitions with others, what factors contribute to the stability in these coalitions and how

changes in polices and partnerships occur overtime. It further pays attention to actors that

are active to influence other strategies and coalitions in the context of their own beliefs and

ideas. This case study cannot necessarily be generalized to other projects; rather it would

attempt to represent a comprehensive picture of the UWA-FACE project at MENP Uganda

in terms of how the Face foundation tend to form coalition with UWA, how does this

coalition get stabilized and what factors attempt to bring changes in their partnership.

Furthermore, the position of the World Rainforest Movement, with its own beliefs and

ideas, is also described that endeavours to influence the coalition and strategies of the Face

foundation and UWA. This study can be used as a pattern describing how actors in a

specific advocacy coalition under certain international treaty, such as the Kyoto Protocol,

cooperate and how they make their partnership stable over time. Moreover, the scientific

relevance of this study is never denied, as it can contribute to the efforts in understanding

the complexity of policy processes and the actions of various actors that cooperate (or do not

cooperate) in the real world. It takes into account the application of a relevant scientific

theory, the advocacy coalition framework, to an empirical case, which has previously been

applied to many cases in the policy domains other than forest and nature conservation. The

study is obviously relevant to the policies and strategies of the actors involved, hence the

conclusion drawn at the end may also help them in formulating their organizational policies

in the future.


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Internal Validity

An idiographic explanation approach has been followed rather than a nomothetic one in

order to ensure the internal validity in this case study. The latter explanation is slightly a

narrower approach that only explains a class of cases rather than developing full picture of

a particular case study. It involves examination of fewer causal factors and a larger number

of cases identifying key factors that contribute to overall cases (De Vaus, 2001). The

idiographic explanation, on the other hand, focuses on particular events, or cases, and seeks

to develop a complete explanation of each case. The research in this case study adopts the

idiographic approach as a full and contextualized understanding of the case is required. To

further ensure the internal validity in this case, both the triangulation of methods and sourcesare also taken into account so as to avoid errors in the data collection. The idiographic

uniqueness of this case is to assess the evolving stability among actors coalitions, e.g. the

Face foundation and UWA on the one hand, while the effects of the certain external events

on their coalition, e.g. challenges posed by WRM, on the other. De Vaus (2001) argues that

by developing a full, well rounded casual account, case studies can achieve high internal

validity, which would be looked for in this case by following the idiographic explanation

approach.

While case studies may achieve excellent internal validity by providing profound

understanding of a case, they have been widely criticized as lacking external validity (De

Vaus, 2001). A profound understanding of a case, argued by De Vaus (2001) provides no

basis for generalization to a wider population beyond that case. A case is just a case and

cannot be representative of a larger universe of cases, as further stated by De Vaus (2001).

This notion is used here to argue about the external validity of this case study, i.e. this

cannot provide statistically valid generalization beyond its own.

3.2 Data collection

Apart from its above explained nature, this case study has retrospective character, which

literally means looking back on, or directed at the past. The retrospective design involves

collecting information to an extended period of time. It basically requires reconstruction of

history of the case to be studied. Due to the reason, it mainly requires the use of archival

records and documents, interviewing people presently working or those who have been

involved in the past in organizations. This design has the obvious problems associated with


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the loss of evidence that could help reconstruction of the past in the light of the present.

Furthermore, it may mistake the sequence in which the events occurred. In this case there is

a little choice to count on peoples ability to recall the past while interviewing. The multiplesources of information (triangulation method), however, can reduce the problem. Therefore,

in this research process both primary data such as in-depth-interviews and sources of

secondary data (policy documents, brochures, websites etc) have been used and analyzed

thoroughly.

In accordance to the first research question how the coalition between the Face foundation

and UWA developed the in-depth interviews were conducted from the key personals such

as the present and former directors of the Face foundation and the others identified by them.

Moreover, the key personnel from UWA and IUCN-Uganda were also contacted and were

sent questionnaires/ interviewed as appropriate. The aim was to obtain information from

sources that were involved in the decision making processes of these organizations. The

term key personnel in fact, describes those persons that are/ were involved in the decision

making and in choosing their partners to form their respective advocacy coalitions.

Furthermore, the policy documents of the Face foundation and some of those of UWA

provided good and reliable information regarding their strategies and policies.

The second research question deals with the underlying factors that led to the development

of stable cooperation between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

Taking in-depth-interviews from the key personals of the Face foundation and some free

lance consultants that previously worked with the foundation were again the main sources of

information in this regard. Furthermore, analyzing the documentary evidences such as

policy documents, annual reports and project reports as well the questionnaires sent to some

personnel of UWA and the IUCN-Uganda also proved fruitful.

The third and last research question mainly focuses on the WRM report and other external

factors that influenced the stability and induced changes in the partnership and policies of

the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority that lasted for years. The main

viewpoint of this research question is to find out how these (or other) factors have

influenced the cooperation and policies of the Face foundation and UWA. The major

sources of information included the reports and press releases from WRM, news reports and

media documentary that caught the public attention. Interviewing the author of the report


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funny place to store carbon, the present and former staff and directors of the Face

foundation and some of the policy documents of the Face foundation and UWA were crucial

and provided sufficient information.

3.3 The arrangements prior to data collection

Before the data collection was started, the foremost contact I made with the Face foundation

and the author of the report on behalf of the World Rainforest Movement. This facilitated

the access to the sources of information such as official letters exchanged between the Face

foundation & UWA, their policy documents and reports etc. Furthermore, the support from

the Face foundation and its staff proved to be incredibly helpful in identifying other

respondent that could be important and be interviewed. I therefore paid frequent visits to the

office of the Face foundation based in Utrecht and have been in touch with Martijn Snoep

who knew enough about the UWA-Face project and the persons involved therein during the

past. After getting enough information about the key persons from the Face foundation, I

formulated a list of these respondents (attached as annex-I) and contacted to each of them. I

took appointments from these respondents before hand; hence the interviewing process went

smooth initially. However, some of the respondents had their own engagements and busy

schedules, which rather slowed down the process of data collection.

Interview guide and the questionnaires

After identifying the relevant respondents, I formulated an interview guide (attached as

annex-II) based on the information obtained from the documents reviewed at the office of

the Face foundation. This guide remained useful for the first few interviews; however,

afterwards, I made some necessary changes and updated this guide based on the learning

from the very first interviews. These alterations in the interview guide were useful for the

rest of the interviews.

One of the problems I faced during the process of data collection was accessing some of the

identified respondents as many of them were quite internationally oriented and would travel

abroad very often, others such as staff of the Uganda Wildlife Authority were based outside

the Netherlands. This problem, however, was solved by developing questionnaires (attached

as annex-III and IV) that resembled the questions that be asked during the interviews and

were sent to the appropriate respondents. Though these questionnaires did not entirely come

up with the positive results as those of the interviews because of face to face


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conversation, probing and posing new questions to the respondents as they come along the

way this has however, made it possible to include the views of the important respondents

that were identified before starting the process.

Interviewing and transcription

As indicated before that initially the process of interviewing went quite smoothly as the

respondents themselves were more interested in it and cooperated wholeheartedly in this

process of data collection by providing with the information as well their own views.

However, after conducting the very first two interviews, there came a long break of several

weeks in interviewing the rest of the respondents because of their personal official

engagements. For instance, I could not interview the staff, the present and a former director

of the Face foundation. Nevertheless, I tried to compensate this time break by reviewing

new literature regarding qualitative research, transcribing the already held interviews and

sending the questionnaires to the respective respondents. During this period I had been in

constant contact with the respondents and have been trying to arrange new dates for the

interviews. Though this process took a bit longer time than the planned, still I tried to

complete it in an appropriate scientific way.

Triangulation of information

During transcription of the interviews, I have been reviewing some relevant documents to

this case study, where I came across certain questions, which I considered important to

confirm from the respondents in order to ensure the triangulation of information.

Therefore, I re-contacted some of the respondents and asked for the confirmation of the

information I had come across. After this process I proceeded further and started analyzing

the data collected.


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22

Chapter 4

The partnership in 1989-1999

The chapter presents the data analysis and describes various events in terms of the period

1989-1999. It encompasses the instances of origin, stabilizing and partnership of Face

foundation with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). The events have been described

based on the main findings illustrated followed by interpretations thereof. The next

chapter presents the events that took place in 2000 and beyond. These periods attempt to

highlight what has happened during the past and how it has strengthened the cooperationbetween the two actors or otherwise.

4.1 Events in 1989-1999

Emergence of Face foundation

In 1989 the electricity generation board in the Netherlands, called NV SEP,

commissioned the University of Utrecht to conduct a study on the most efficient ways to

compensate for CO2 emissions. SEP, in fact, had established a 600 MW power station in

the Netherlands operating mainly using fossil fuels. The result of generating electricity

from this power station, of course, inter alia, was the release of CO2. SEP therefore

wanted to partly fix the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Consequently it

came up with the scheme to commence a body that could carry out forestry projects

fixing the atmospheric CO2. Thus the foundation of FACE or Forests Absorbing Carbon

dioxide Emissions was laid down on October 18, 1990. The aim was to create a long

term stable resource that resemble natural forests and can capture CO2. The purpose of

the Face foundation thus became establishing and maintaining the forest cover around the

world with the prime objective to help mitigating climate change. The commencement of

the climate change debate in the early 1990s, of course, was an interesting but a complex

issue to discuss at time. The Kyoto Protocol adopted in December 1997 at the third

conference of parties was not in place yet, hence nobody had a clearer idea of the

subject. Still the Face foundation had the ambition to do something about mitigating

climate change and soon after its creation, started looking for partners that could joint

hands and help it achieving its goal. The foundation at time also had a strong back up


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Chapter 4: The partnership in 1989-1999


from all the important and prominent Ministries in the Netherlands because its board of

directors contained representatives from the respective ministries such as Ministry of

Housing, Spatial Planning & Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs etc.

Search for project partners

Before starting the projects in the early 1990s, representatives from the Face foundation

visited various countries including the United Nations in USA to sort out peoples

perception about their projects and to explain the details what the foundation intends to

do in the near future. The people from the Face foundation mostly the Director and

deputy director at that time travelled many countries and presented their vision to

various stakeholders. One of the pioneers that took part in founding the Face foundation

said, there were more meetings worldwide at that stage; I remember one in Prague, in

Czech Republic and one in New Delhi, India. (These meetings were carried out because)

no body exactly knew what to do, how we can standardize these projects, everybody

wanted to learn about it. The purpose of these visits was, undoubtedly, looking for

partners that can better understand the foundations goal and contribute to achieve it. At

that point there were two possibilities to find suitable partner(s) for Face foundation, i.e.

either the collaborator had the same objectives as Faces or the cooperation between them

complements to some of their objectives.

Face foundation, however took initiative with its first project (Leeuwarden) in the

Netherlands which was started in January 1991 followed by another one in the Czech

Republic by the end of the year. The same year (1992), it started a project in Ecuador

called Profafor with the local farmers, while in 1993 its collaboration was extended to

Malaysia where the foundation, with its contract partner Innoprise, established

partnership to restore a damaged tropical rainforest in the Sabah state of Malaysia.

Launching the UWA-Face project

The Face foundation, through IUCN-Uganda, got in touch with the Ugandan government

in 1993-94. A former director of Face foundation said when we decided to have a

project in Africa, we contacted IUCN and they gave us a few projects that could be of

interest for us, and we ended up in Uganda. The government of Uganda, in those days,

already had collaboration with IUCN via Mount Elgon Conservation and Development


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Project (MECDP) in Uganda. The MECDP started in 1988 in which IUCN provided

technical support while financial support was provided by NORAD, Norway. The Face

foundation had communication with the then Chief Technical Advisor (CTA) IUCN and

they finally visited Uganda to assess what kind of project IUCN is doing with UWA. The

former CTA-IUCN mentioned, The management of FACE visited Uganda after some e-

mail correspondence with me After the visit it was agreed between UWA and FACE

Foundation that FACE would fund and organize the large scale reforestation in both

Elgon and Mbale. Apart from development and conservation, the Ugandan government

was interested in restoration of its degraded lands, especially in Kibale and Mount Elgon

National Parks. The Uganda Wildlife Authority-UWA (then called Uganda NationalParks-UNP) showed its interest in the projects Face foundation was promoting to

compensate the atmospheric CO2. Hence Face foundation signed the Memorandum of

Understanding (MoU) with the Ugandan government on May 15th, 1994 and entered into

partnership with the Uganda National Parks (UNP) later on called the Uganda Wildlife

Authority (UWA) as it was the responsible authority at that time. Later on, the Face

foundation signed the contract with UWA to carry out two reforestation/ forest

rehabilitation projects in two of the national parks under its managerial control Kibale

and Mount Elgon National Park. These projects were termed as UNP-Face projects

(today called as UWA-Face projects).

Responding to a question regarding how this partnership initiated and what were the

mutual interests of the two collaborators, a former coordinator of the UWA-Face project

said: The national parks had lost their functions under the previous regimes of Idi Amin

and Obote, because the people had fled to the forests; they cut trees and established

agricultural plots and home states there. In the mid 80s when the new government (of

Museveni) came into power, at some point it decided to protect and rehabilitate the

national parks as they had other functions, e.g. income from tourism, water catchment

protection etc. According to the respondent, it was the national policy of the Ugandan

government to re-institute the national parks of the country, which was backed by many,

including IUCN-Uganda by technically supporting the Mount Elgon Conservation and

Development Project (MECDP). Later on it invited the Face foundation to help with

restoration of the park. The current director of Face foundation termed the Mount Elgon

as a hot spot for international conservation organizations. One of the respondents said,


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The Ugandan government was looking for a partner that could invest in the forest

restoration, and that was Face foundation. IUCN invited Face foundation to get involved.

The Face foundation went there and signed the contract with Uganda Wildlife Authority

(UWA) thats how the collaboration started. It was confirmed by an employee of the

Uganda Wildlife Authority; he mentioned, Recommendation by IUCN for FACE to

partner with UWA in restoration of the degraded areas of Kibale and Mount Elgon

National Parks is one of the factors that helped UWA to establish partnership with

FACE. This shows the importance of the role played by IUCN in bringing together

UWA and Face foundation.It is interesting that IUCN-Uganda had no interest in bringing

the two actors together. However, it did provide technical assistance and suggestions forFace foundation while it was starting the UWA-Face project. I remember that at a

certain moment we (in the project) received from IUCN (for which I was working at that

time in Uganda) a question whether we could advise any activity for the FACE

Foundation. Face at that time was looking for new projects in new countries and was

willing to bring its own funds. Well, as managers for the encroached Mt. Elgon area, I

thought that that would be great to have a self funded project aiming at restoration of the

degraded forests of Elgon said a former employee of IUCN-Uganda. When asked about

the interest of IUCN, he said that I assume it was pure on conservation efforts, nothing

else.

Objectives of UWA and the Face foundation

The Ugandan government had main objectives of conserving wildlife, securing revenue

from tourism, restoring the ecological functions and improving the livelihoods of the

communities therein. The strategy was to achieve partly the objectives by the

development and conservation program of the IUCN while some by inviting Facefoundation to reforest the portion of the park previously degraded due to encroachment.

The policy on strategic partnerships document of UWA revealed that the guiding

principles of its strategies are more centred towards wildlife protection & conservation

and generating revenue for it. UWA had developed 10 strategic program areas of

collaboration, none of which mentioned restoring forest for CO2 compensation which

is the main objective of Face foundation. In this document, it is noticeably mentioned that

UWA had limited funds and it cannot sustain itself, it therefore has to look for partners


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that can financially assist UWA achieving its objectives, the document states, there exist

partners that are able to contribute to UWAs commitments; such partners have to be

identified to finance the wildlife conservation.

A former employee of the Face foundation said that forests have many functions and the

participants in a forestry project may not have interests in all those functions. It was not

the interest of UWA to sequester carbon, but of course, they liked the idea if they could

do something against the climate change. According to him, though the objectives of

UWA and Face foundation were not exactly the same, they were complementary and

could serve achieving each others goals. For UWA, it was the ecosystem services,

restoration of the park, while for Face it was the carbon finance. Regarding the same

query, the former director of Face foundation stated that the general scope of the project

was to rehabilitate 25.000 ha of the park. We agreed on that. We paid for the activities

agreed in the plan of operation and its implementation. UWA, in return, was obliged to

include these areas in their management plan, and to manage them for a long time

period, 99 years. The Face foundation and UWA play a role that is focused at the

conservation of protected area ecosystem and biodiversity for the benefits of the global

community, stated an employee of UWA; but he further mentioned that Face foundationsupports the restoration of the formerly forested areas with the goal of fixing carbon

(offsets) thus compensating the global CO2 emissions. UWA on the other hand

complements the restoring activity by ensuring that the planted forests are protected for

99 years for the benefits of local, national and global communities world at large.

When a former employee of the IUCN was contacted to ask about the interests/

objectives of both partners from this collaboration, he mentioned, UWA was eager to

have the funded restoration activities while FACE wanted a safe area to invest in forest

restoration.

Non conformities among the two actors

It is observable that Face foundation kept cooperating with its partner as it had to keep

the carbon stored for a longer period and that it invested a huge budget in this project.

When the former director was asked about the interest of UWA in this partnership, he

replied, keep in mind the budget involved was huge for UWA, it was in millions of

Euros. It was more than the total budget of UWA. It was a good reason for UWA to stay


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friends with its foreign partner. Normally this partnership initially was levelled and all

the activities were being carried out jointly in a smooth way. This is also clear that the

cooperation between UWA and Face foundation was based on a written official

agreement, which had obliged UWA to include the area in its normal management plan

afforested by Face foundation under UWA-Face project. UWA had another obligation of

ensuring to protect these forests. However, after the project was initiated, there were

some minor events that had created confusion among the two partners. A former

employee of the Face foundation, for instance, was asked about any decisions or policies

of UWA that were non conforming to those of the Face foundation, It took quite a while

before a management plan for the park was made, including the Face project, he said.In response to another such question, he said, Once a Chief Warden in Elgon allowed

the people to make use of areas allocated for reforestation, but not yet planned for that

year. This caused a lot of confusion with local people; I guess this was in 1998. Taking

longer time than the normal, UWA finally prepared the management plans but it did not

mention Face foundation as a strategic partner. This was noticed by Face foundation as

its management deemed that this was not in line with what both the partners agreed

before. This, even so, was corrected when the Face foundation communicated with the

UWA directors and the Parks Chief Wardens. However, these were a few meagre non

conformities, later on in the beginning of the next year (2000); there were relatively

major differences in the approaches that amended the entire structure of UWA-Face

project. Some of them even resulted in alteration of the beliefs (i.e. from secondary

aspects to policy cores) of the two partners. This will be discussed in details in the next

period 2000-2008.

4.2 InterpretationFormation of advocacy coalition

The above details elucidate how the Face foundation came into being, started making

coalitions and finally how this coalition became stable (or unstable) overtime. In other

words, this explains the first two expectations put forward in the second chapter.

According to the first expectation, the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife

Authority share the same policy core beliefs, hence forms the advocacy coalition. Before

going into further details however, it is important to know how the subsystem has


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evolved in this case. The Advocacy Coalition Framework argues that the most likely

reason for emergence of a new subsystem is that a group of actors become dissatisfied

enough with the neglect of a particular problem by existing subsystems to form their own

(Sabatier, 1988). In this case however, neither the actors were dissatisfied nor was the

particular problem neglected to create an isolated subsystem. It is rather a part of a set of

the emerging debates that formed the subsystem and in which the NV SEP had already

been taking part by establishing the Face foundation. The foundation, in turn, became

quite active in this subsystem, the climate change, which has got tremendous attention

during the last few decades and resulted in the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997. The

Protocol entered into force on February 16, 2005.

Referring back to the first expectation the illustration pictures that the Face foundation

forms advocacy coalition with UWA. This is evident from the fact that it established two

mega projects in the two Ugandan National Parks that were (and still are) under the

managerial control of UWA. The very first visits of the management of Face foundation

to different countries were the efforts to look for partners that could contribute to achieve

its goal. This approach, the efforts to look for partners, is termed as seeking advocacy

coalition, by ACF. During these meetings while others were not yet clear of thestandards and position of afforestation projects the Ugandan government seemed

interested in the ideas of Face foundation and formed partnership with it. Starting projects

all over the world compensating atmospheric CO2, however, was a challenging

assignment for the newly emerged Face foundation. Its management, therefore, had to be

vigilant in choosing its partners to create, develop and strengthen its coalition. Due to the

reason, internationally known reliable stakeholders, such as IUCN, were also included in

these project promotion meetings. The Face foundations communication with IUCN

demonstrates its trust on it while looking for durable coalition partners. However this is

clear that the main link between Face foundation and UWA was established by a third

party, the IUCN that played a bridging role to bring the two actors together in

partnership and forming the advocacy coalition.

A way to strengthen the advocacy coalitionThe second expectation listed in the second chapter is more intrigued to know how this

partnership or the advocacy coalition became stable. This part of analysis is rather


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interesting because this expectation was listed assuming that UWA and Face foundation

share the same policy core beliefs. This assumption was based on the seemingly long

term partnership between the two actors. Nevertheless the interviews, the illustration

above and the review of (e.g. policy) documents uncover that Face foundation and UWA

did cooperate with each other. This cooperation however, contrary to the expectation,

was not much stable initially. The reason is the fact that UWA and Face foundation did

not share their policy core beliefs, i.e. they had no common goals and objectives. This

signifies that half of the expectation cooperation between Face foundation and UWA

evolved over time is true. The initiation of cooperation between the two partners was

based on a common activity restoration/ rehabilitation of the parks naturalvegetation but not on the common goal. UWA and the Face foundation had separate

objectives and beliefs at that time; both of them, initially, cooperated to achieve their own

objectives and not the common goal.

Although the preferred objectives of both the partners were not the same, still they shared

one activity, and that was restoration of the parks natural vegetation. This, in fact, was

the only shared policy core belief among the two partners based on which they started

cooperating with each other. Rehabilitation of MENP is a tool or instrument for both theparties, which the ACF describes as a regulation to reach their desired objectives. This

common basis in the policy core beliefs of both the partners, however, was not sufficient

to keep them cooperating for long time. Consequently, at certain stages of their

cooperation, the secondary aspects of their policies switched into theirpolicy corebeliefs

overtime. In fact, this was the main factor that strengthened cooperation between UWA

and Face foundation, hence their advocacy coalition overtime. The specific features of

the secondary aspects of the two actors that switched into policy cores are explained in

the coming section and are explained in table 4.1.

Beliefs of UWA and the Face foundation

Based on the information retrieved from various sources, it is perceived that sustainable

management & conservation of wildlife, and earning revenue from tourism & other

sources lie at the heart of UWAs policies. They are the guiding principles and the basic

normative commitments of Uganda Wildlife Authority, hence, according to ACF, are

included in itspolicy core beliefs. Apart from wildlife conservation and getting revenue,


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the general restoration of the park and ecological functions are also included in the policy

core of UWA. The ACF defines secondary aspects of an actor/ coalition as a set of

narrower beliefs concerning the relative importance of various causal factors in specific

locales and/ or the policy preferences regarding its budgetary allocations. According to

the former condition, CO2 sequestration being relatively less important in specific locality

of MENP because it was degraded in the past and was important to be rehabilitated

first comes under its

msc thesis_co2 compensation in practice_what makes actors cooperate

Documents