Global Comparative Study on REDD+: Multilevel governance
Led Indonesia case study, co-ordinated research teams, produced reports, policy briefs and academic papers both on Indonesia and global comparative work related to multi-level governance and land use change.
Background
Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) was originally conceived to address the global problem of climate change by reducing deforestation and forest degradation at national and subnational levels in developing countries. The CIFOR GCS REDD+ project built on 21 years of CIFOR efforts to understand the causes of deforestation and forest degradation as well as to elaborate what could be done to reverse those trends in tropical countries. The study focused on analysing policy processes and the actions of REDD+ policies and measures to inform and facilitate transformational change. Dala worked on multilevel governance, which addressed the challenges of multilevel and multi-sector governance and carbon management in Indonesia, Peru, Tanzania, Mexico, and Vietnam. Previous work in 2013 and 2014 by Dala people involved leading 10 case study sites in Indonesia.
Approach
Data from 742 semi-structured interviews from 54 cases of land use and land use change in Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Tanzania and Vietnam with actors from local communities, governments from local to national, companies, NGOs and indigenous peoples' organisations were collected from 2013 to 2015. The purpose of the research was to understand how land use change occurred and the role and influence of initiatives to control deforestation and forest degradation. The dataset was derived from interviews regarding authority, benefit sharing, legitimacy, 'fairness', drivers of deforestation and relationships among actors from a multi-level governance perspective in land use changes. Interview questions (see Burga et al., 2015) were informed by a detailed literature review (see Saito-Jensen, 2015) and crafted into key informant and case study instruments specifically tailored for government officials, village leaders, corporate project proponents, and civil society. Interviewers were then trained and had access to a field research training guide. In each country, two to three sub-national jurisdictions (provinces, states, or districts) that key informants identified as having a mix of activities driving deforestation as well as initiatives aimed at conservation and/or decreasing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation were selected.
Results
Overall, Dala people authored seven policy briefs and peer-reviewed articles. This project highlighted that conservation projects tended to favour technical distributive approaches to justice over recognition and representation; the omission of recognition and representation justices was often for pragmatic reasons; anti-politics, the failure to address recognition and representation justices, led to illegitimacies and to 'messiness'; and messiness meant something needed to be corrected, which was often addressed using technical fixes, perpetuating the root problem of anti-politics.