Political Ecology of REDD+ in Indonesia: Agrarian Conflicts and Forest Carbon

by Jonas I. Hein

Overview

Indonesia’s commitment to reducing land-based greenhouse gas emissions significantly includes the expansion of conservation areas, but these developments are not free of conflicts. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of agrarian conflicts in the context of the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and forest carbon offsetting in Indonesia, a country where deforestation is a major issue.

The author analyzes new kinds of transnational agrarian conflicts which have strong implications for global environmental justice in the REDD+ pilot province of Jambi on the island of Sumatra. The chapters cover: the rescaling of the governance of forests; privatization of conservation; and the transnational dimensions of agrarian conflicts and peasants' resistance in the context of REDD+. The book builds on an innovative conceptual approach linking political ecology, politics of scale and theories of power. It fills an important knowledge and research gap by focusing on the socially differentiated impacts of REDD+ and new forest carbon offsetting initiatives in Southeast Asia, providing a multi-scalar perspective.

It is aimed at scholars in the areas of political ecology, human geography, climate change mitigation, forest and natural resource management, as well as environmental justice and agrarian studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781351066020, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351066006
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/21/2018
Series:	Routledge Studies in Political Ecology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	220
Sales rank:	692,950
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jonas I. Hein is a Researcher at the Institute of Geography, Kiel University, Germany and Associate Researcher at the German Development Institute/ Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik in Bonn, Germany. He completed his PhD in Human Geography at the University of Goettingen, Germany.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Introducing the politics of REDD+ and peasant resistance

A guide through the book

2. Conceptual, theoretical and methodological underpinning for a political ecology of transnational agrarian conflicts

Political ecology

Linking social-spatial theory with conservation territories and property relations

Conceptualizing power and resistance

Key arguments

Multi-sited qualitative research

3. Rescaling of the governance of forests and land in Indonesia

The history of Indonesia’s forest and land tenure governance

Access to different types of de jure land and forest rights

Jambi’s contested landscapes: From dispossession and development to conservation

De Facto land tenure and the "making" of new property in the state forest territory

Counter territories and settlement schemes prior to the formation of the Harapan Rainforest project

Village-scale peat-swamp conversion and settlement schemes in the surroundings of the Berbak Carbon Initiative

Summary and preliminary conclusion

4. REDD+, Privatization and transnationalization of conservation in Indonesia

REDD+ governance and attempts to commodify forest carbon

Indonesian REDD+ governance

Privatization and transnationalization of conservation: conservation concessions and co-management

Summary and preliminary conclusion

5. Transnationalized agrarian conflicts in the REDD+

The formation of resistance movements and alternative scales of meaning and regulation

Agro-industrial expansion, land concentration and violence at Jambi’s oil palm frontier

Conservation vs. agrarian reform: conflict between SPI and the Harapan Rainforest

The conflict about Kunangan Jaya I: defending village expansion

We are here to stay: the conflicts in Camp Gunung and Tanjung Mandiri

Peasants migrants and the state: conflicts among state apparatuses concerning access to and control of the Berbak Carbon Initiative

Summary and preliminary conclusion

6. Conclusion: Towards a political ecology of transnational agrarian conflicts

Elements for a political ecology of transnational agrarian conflict

Final remarks: implications for REDD+, uneven development and future directions of research for political ecology