Carbon Conflicts and Forest Landscapes in Africa

251 Pages·2015·1.861 MB·English

by  Melissa Leach (editor), Ian Scoones (editor)

CARBON CONFLICTS AND
FOREST LANDSCAPES IN AFRICA
Amidst the pressing challenges of global climate change, the last decade has seen a
wave of forest carbon projects across the world, designed to conserve and enhance
forest carbon stocks in order to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and
offset emissions elsewhere. Exploring a set of new empirical case studies, Carbon
Conflicts and Forest Landscapes in Africa examines how these projects are unfolding,
their effects and who is gaining and losing. Situating forest carbon approaches as
part of more general moves to address environmental problems by attaching market
values to nature and ecosystems, it examines how new projects interact with forest
landscapes and their longer histories of intervention. The book asks: what difference
does carbon make? What political and ecological dynamics are unleashed by these
new commodified, marketized approaches, and how are local forest users
experiencing and responding to them?
The book’s case studies cover a wide range of African ecologies, project types and
national political–economic contexts. By examining these cases in a comparative
framework and within an understanding of the national, regional and global
institutional arrangements shaping forest carbon commoditisation, the book provides
a rich and compelling account of how and why carbon conflicts are emerging, and
how they might be avoided in future.
This book will be of interest to students of development studies, environmental
sciences, geography, economics, development studies and anthropology, as well as
practitioners and policy makers.
Melissa Leach is Director of the Institute of Development Studies, University of
Sussex, UK.
Ian Scoones is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies,
University of Sussex, UK, and co-directs the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological
and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre, UK.
Carbon forestry is privatizing, commodifying and financializing the world’s forests,
recasting relations between state and market in forest landscapes. This book
illuminates the fraught political economy of this transformative moment – through
lived experience within place-based histories. As the first comparative political
ecology of carbon forestry politics, this book is essential reading for scholars and
practitioners wishing to transform carbon forestry for the better.
Jesse Ribot,
University of Illinois, USA
This book not only synthesizes what we know about carbon forestry and illustrates
how it has unfolded in Africa, it also critically reflects on the material, social and
cultural life of carbon and how the latter features amidst dynamic ecologies and the
development needs and aspirations of states and people. This is a brilliant book: a
must read for scholars and activists interested in the commodification of environ-
mental services and their likely consequences.
Esteve Corbera,
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
This book will help readers to better understand why it is important to incorporate
livelihood considerations and a landscape approach into the design and imple-
mentation of forest carbon projects.
Gretchen Walters,
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Switzerland
Pathways to Sustainability Series
This book series addresses core challenges around linking science and technology
and environmental sustainability with poverty reduction and social justice. It is
based on the work of the Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to
Sustainability (STEPS) Centre, a major investment of the UK Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC). The STEPS Centre brings together researchers at the
Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and SPRU (Science and Technology
Policy Research) at the University of Sussex with a set of partner institutions in
Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Series Editors:
Ian Scoones and Andy Stirling
STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex
Editorial Advisory Board:
Steve Bass, Wiebe E. Bijker, Victor Galaz, Wenzel Geissler, Katherine Homewood,
Sheila Jasanoff, Melissa Leach, Colin McInnes, Suman Sahai, Andrew Scott
Titles in this series include:
Dynamic Sustainabilities
Technology, environment, social justice
Melissa Leach, Ian Scoones and Andy Stirling
Avian Influenza
Science, policy and politics
Edited by Ian Scoones
Rice Biofortification
Lessons for global science and development
Sally Brooks
Epidemics
Science, governance and social justice
Edited by Sarah Dry and Melissa Leach
Regulating Technology
International Harmonization and Local Realities
Patrick van Zwanenberg, Adrian Ely, Adrian Smith
The Politics of Asbestos
Understandings of Risk, Disease and Protest
Linda Waldman
Contested Agronomy
Agricultural research in a changing world
James Sumberg and John Thompson
Transforming Health Markets in Asia and Africa
Improving quality and access for the poor
Edited by Gerald Bloom, Barun Kanjilal, Henry Lucas and David H. Peters
Pastoralism and Development in Africa
Dynamic change at the margins
Edited by Ian Scoones, Andy Catley and Jeremy Lind
The Politics of Green Transformations
Ian Scoones, Melissa Leach and Peter Newell
Carbon Conflicts and Forest Landscapes in Africa
Edited by Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones
CARBON CONFLICTS
AND FOREST
LANDSCAPES IN AFRICA
Edited by
Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-82482-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-82483-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-74041-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
CONTENTS
List of figures and tables ix
List of acronyms and abbreviations xi
Author biographies xv
Preface and acknowledgements xix
1 Political ecologies of carbon in Africa 1
Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones
2 Forest carbon projects and policies in Africa 43
Albert Arhin and Joanes Atela
3 Climate emergency, carbon capture and coercive
conservation on Mt. Kilimanjaro 58
Martin Kijazi
4 Carbon in Africa’s agricultural landscapes: a Kenyan case 79
Joanes Atela
5 ‘Zones of awkward engagement’ in Ugandan carbon forestry 94
Adrian Nel
6 Implementing REDD+: evidence from Kenya 108
Joanes Atela
viii Contents
7 Carbon projects and communities: dynamic encounters
in Zambia 124
Guni Mickels-Kokwe and Misael Kokwe
8 Struggles over carbon in the Zambezi Valley: the case of
Kariba REDD in Hurungwe, Zimbabwe 142
Vupenyu Dzingirai and Lindiwe Mangwanya
9 Farming carbon in Ghana’s transition zone:
rhetoric versus reality 163
Ishmael Hashmiu
10 Old reserve, new carbon interests: the case of the Western
Area Peninsula forest (WAPFoR), Sierra Leone 180
Thomas Winnebah and Melissa Leach
References 196
Index 217
FIGURES AND TABLES
List of figures (titles and sources – where sources are not given they are original,
and developed by the author)
4.1 The organization and implementation process of the KACP 84
4.2 Ranking of the most important assets for the adoption of
project practices 91
6.1 The organization of the Kasigau REDD+ project 116
List of tables (titles and sources – where sources are not given they are original,
and developed by the author)
1.1 The case studies – project features 8
2.1 Main features of CDM, VCM and REDD+. Source: Adapted from
Fong-Cisneros (2012) 49
3.1 A survey of impacts of forestry regulations on villagers’ priority
forest needs 74
3.2 A survey of villagers’ problems with forest resource management,
access and use 74
4.1 Membership composition of the groups working with the KACP 89
6.1 Household livelihood characteristics 110
6.2 Perceived and actual impacts of the Kasigau Project on livelihoods;
(-) negative impact, (+) positive impact, (0) no impact 120