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Unravelling property relations around forest carbon
Author(s) -
Mahanty Sango,
Dressler Wolfram,
Milne Sarah,
Filer Colin
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
singapore journal of tropical geography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1467-9493
pISSN - 0129-7619
DOI - 10.1111/sjtg.12024
Subject(s) - deforestation (computer science) , property rights , negotiation , carbon accounting , business , carbon fibers , natural resource economics , reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation , property (philosophy) , environmental resource management , greenhouse gas , environmental science , carbon stock , economics , climate change , political science , ecology , law , computer science , biology , programming language , philosophy , epistemology , algorithm , composite number
Market‐based interventions to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation ( REDD +) enable the carbon stored in land and forests to be traded as a new and intangible form of property. Using examples from C ambodia, the P hilippines and P apua N ew G uinea, we examine the property negotiations underpinning this new forest carbon economy. We show that the institutions and land use negotiations needed to ‘produce’ forest carbon interact recursively with existing property claims over land and forests. Even where customary rights are formally recognized ( PNG , P hilippines), claims to forest carbon are still complicated by ambiguities and complexities surrounding rights to forested land. Meanwhile the new value attached to forest carbon can stimulate efforts to appropriate land and forest resources associated with it, creating new power relations and property dynamics. This interplay between forest carbon and underlying contested property claims in rural forest settings creates an unstable basis for forest carbon markets and raises questions about future access to forested land.