Grounding REDD+ as Democratization of Environmental Policy? Insights and Lessons from the Philippines

INTRODUCTION

Reducing Emissions from Forest Degradation and Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD+) interventions are increasingly promoted as global policy solutions to environmental and development problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and community livelihood improvement. ¹ REDD+ is a mechanism developed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and adopted at the 21st Conference of Parties in 2015. It stresses the importance of forests as carbon sinks, which perform a vital role in mitigating climate change. ² Its guiding logic rests on the idea that financially incentivizing developing countries and forest owners can induce changes in local attitudes and practices toward sustainable forest management, thereby increasing global carbon stocks. ³ Originally envisioned as a voluntary, market-based payment for ecosystem services, REDD+ promises not only to increase the economic value of forest resources but also to address poverty and inequity in indigenous communities that are hosts to the world's remaining tropical forests. ⁴

Critical scholars and activists have already raised concerns about the misgovernance and human rights abuses associated with REDD+. ⁵ Empirical studies show that forest carbon projects such as REDD+ tend to exacerbate existing land and resource disputes, particularly in countries with unclear land tenure regimes and where governments allocate carbon rights that clash with indigenous and forest-dependent communities. ⁶ Such conflicts have induced land grabbing and displacement of these communities. ⁷ In certain cases, states introduced restrictions on forest access and use that led to loss of livelihood. ⁸

Other scholars further argue that REDD+ as a market-friendly mechanism has “turned emission reductions from forests into an abstract commodity” ⁹ to be traded and sold in volatile carbon markets. REDD+ linked to carbon markets then exposes local communities to the vagaries of the global financial system, that is, if the price of carbon plunges, financing for REDD+ activities will likely disappear and therefore stop what could have been a predictable income stream for them. ¹⁰

Beyond the critique, the dynamics of REDD+ schemes are (re)shaped by their interactions with local realities. ¹¹ This claim builds on a rich body of literature that has illustrated how global environmental and climate policy models rarely travel unobstructed from the global to the local. ¹² Such movements of policy models constitute messy processes marked by variegated claim making, competing collective actions, and unexpected outcomes from new knowledge in human rights. These processes constitute what political scientists Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow call as contentious politics. ¹³ They often entail mediation, wherein global policy models are assimilated, rejected, or reworked into concrete interventions at the microlevel of society by various sociopolitical actors with their interests, incentives, and routines. ¹⁴

In this sense, local community actors are not seen as mere victims of top-down structural, global arrangements ¹⁵ or as disciplined neoliberal “green” subjects that lose their political consciousness, aspiration, and capacity for resistance. ¹⁶ Rather, they are political players capable of assessing the constraints and opportunities in policy translation across multiple governance levels. ¹⁷ They deploy “hidden” or “tactical” protocols to (re)shape interventions, thus questioning the “hegemonic” power of the state and international donors in environmental and climate policy making. ¹⁸

Building on this work on policy translation, I interrogate how REDD+ as a global policy instrument interacted with local realities in the Philippines, via crafting a national REDD+ strategy framework and a concluded EU-REDD Community Carbon Pool project. I introduce the concept of policy translation as contentious politics. It refers to the travel, interpretation, and communication of ideas through networks and actors as a highly political process that involves competing claims, scripts, and interests, and that is characterized by a multidirectional feedback loop. I emphasize how REDD+'s policy translation generated societal interfaces characterized by collective action, contentions, and spaces for indigenous peoples to negotiate their agenda.

I show that REDD+ mobilized a “coalition of the willing,” comprising different sociopolitical actors who attempted to (re)define this climate and forest governance policy. I argue that the one-directional process of top-down and bottom-up policy translation was largely blurred owing to the multi-actor interactions in REDD+ schemes. Some indigenous actors used the invited spaces of participation to stake their claims. However, their capacities to (re)shape REDD+ must not be overestimated as they still negotiated their agenda within its confines. I tackle these limitations by underscoring the discursive struggles on the framing of REDD+ and the state's political resistance to community forest rights. Finally, I provide insights on the necessity of foregrounding indigenous peoples' rights and practices in environmental policies and empowering them in policy translation processes.

RESEARCH METHODS AND FRAMEWORK

The research used multiple qualitative methods such as semistructured key informant interviews (KIIs), policy document analysis, participant observation, fieldwork journaling, and a case study of a concluded REDD-readiness project. Primary data were gathered from five development actors involved in REDD+ in the Philippines: state agencies, bilateral aid/development partners, civil society, project contractors/consultants, and local community actors. These informants are also the key policy translators of REDD+ in the country that crafted the strategy and designed pilot projects.

Fieldwork was conducted in the Philippine capital and case study site from June to July 2016. A feedback session was conducted among key informants in November 2016. A total of 18 KIIs, two focus group discussions (FGDs) with indigenous peoples, participant observation of multiple briefings, and a site visit were carried out. The FGDs involved 5 chieftains and 12 members of an indigenous peoples' organization. These were supplemented by secondary data from online articles, government policy documents, donor and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) reports, minutes of meetings, legal documents, and scientific articles. I then used a narrative analysis using MS Excel to process the collected data.

In unpacking the narratives, the concepts of policy translation as contentious politics offered epistemological and methodological entryways. Policy translation refers to the “processes through which policies are interpreted and communicated through different actors and networks” ¹⁹ in multidirectional ways. These processes are marked by contentious politics or state–society interfaces where sociopolitical actors formulate claims that have effects on other peoples' interests. The process of claim making involves collective actions conducted under shared or diverging interests, slogans, and programs that target state institutions. ²⁰

In the case of REDD+ as a global policy instrument, state and nonstate actors translate it based on often competing interests. For example, civil society and indigenous peoples pushed for a rights-based approach to REDD+, advocating for the centrality of recognizing and upholding local community rights and tenure security. They were able to rework elements of a global policy instrument. However, as policy translation is a highly political process, while the state formally legitimated their claims on paper, government agencies used their authority to act selectively on elements proposed by civil society. In doing so, they ultimately shaped how REDD+ is implemented on the ground.

CONTENTIOUS POLITICS OF REDD+ IN THE PHILIPPINES

The Philippines is regarded as one of the most mega-biodiverse countries in the world. It also has the second fastest deforestation rate in Southeast Asia. ²¹ The problem becomes worse because forest and upland resources directly support 30% of the Philippine population and the survival of >100 diverse indigenous cultures, and >2 million plants and wildlife. ²² Rehabilitation and reforestation efforts such as centralized state-led massive tree planting and enactment of regulations to ban illegal logging have fallen short of their intended goals. ²³ To augment the gap, forest rights have been devolved to communities that have historically managed forests under customary institutions. ²⁴

Forest rights pertain to the bundle of rights and responsibilities associated with the access, management, and control of forest resources. ²⁵ Significant laws and policies such as the National Integrated Protected Area System Act and Indigenous Peoples Rights Act were enacted in the 1990s that involved various mechanisms for the state to transfer management rights and responsibilities to local communities as well as tenure security over forestlands. ²⁶ State-initiated forest devolution took various forms, but the most significant types are (1) forestlands devolved to upland communities such as those in community-based forest management agreements, (2) protected areas decentralized to local protected area management boards that include indigenous communities, and (3) forests devolved to indigenous peoples such as those covered by certificates of ancestral domain or land titles. ²⁷

However, deforestation persists owing to elite capture of resources, weak forest governance, and disconnect between policy and practice. ²⁸ With new climate change-related threats, Philippine policy-makers turned to REDD+ as a panacea to help address multiple environmental, climate-related, and development challenges. ²⁹ In the country's bid to join the REDD+ bandwagon, two significant developments ensued: the crafting of a national REDD+ strategy framework and implementation of REDD+ readiness projects. The Philippine National REDD-Plus Strategy (PNRPS) of 2010–2022 guided the roll-out of REDD+ readiness projects toward sustainable and equitable management of forests with enhanced carbon stock and reduced greenhouse gases emission, poverty alleviation, and biodiversity conservation. ³⁰ With the goal of preparing for carbon trading by 2020, the policy adopted a nested, scaled-up approach investing in a substantial readiness phase and scalable subnational initiatives such as empowering forest managers.

This nested approach is the PNRPS, a product of a multilevel collaboration among government agencies, academe, bilateral and multilateral donors, indigenous peoples, forest-dependent communities, local government units, local and international conservation organizations, and Philippine NGOs. ³¹ From 2009 to 2010, the government's environmental agency through its Forest Management Bureau ³² and the civil society-led coalition called CoDE REDD Philippines ³³ drafted the PNRPS, through multiple workshops, studies, and consultations. ³⁴

CoDE REDD facilitated the participation of indigenous and forest-dependent communities in the REDD+ activities. These increased the community of REDD+ practitioners, gathered support from local communities, and built expectations. The process engendered ample sociopolitical capital that led to the mainstreaming of REDD+ at the national level: buy-in of the Climate Change Commission (the country's principal policy-making body on climate change issues), enactment of several policies to institutionalize REDD+, and incorporation of REDD+ into the 2011–2016 national development plan.

Although the processes outlined in the previous paragraph were ongoing, REDD+ subsequent contentions over its framing and objectives gave rise to debates within this fragile coalition. Three diverging scripts undergirded contentions on the purpose and benefits of the scheme. First, state agencies ³⁵ stressed that REDD+ offers an additional financing stream from bilateral and multilateral development partners or the international carbon market, which can help fulfill their ambitious pledge of a 70% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. ³⁶ Second, bilateral development partners ³⁷ and international conservation NGOs ³⁸ argued that REDD+ must entice local communities through incentives that are relevant to them such as livelihood projects and strengthened forest governance. These actors emphasized the state's obligations to fulfill the scientific requirements in designing REDD+ projects. ³⁹

Finally, national and local NGOs, as well as their partner indigenous organizations underscored the potential of REDD+ as political leverage for securing forest tenure, improving forest-based livelihoods, and protecting forests. Toward this end, they championed a rights-based approach to REDD+ centered on the respect for indigenous peoples' rights to their ancestral domains and their meaningful participation in co-shaping REDD+ policy and projects.

The centrality of forest tenure and community rights as fundamental to REDD+ effectiveness was a polemical issue as this would have entailed serious resolution of longstanding issues of overlapping tenurial instruments governing the country's forests, ⁴⁰ particularly regarding the issue of (de)centralization and devolution of power. Despite the passage of multiple laws that confer power to local communities, in practice, forest occupants such as indigenous peoples are often treated as encroachers in forestlands, and their access and use rights withheld and revoked by government agencies. ⁴¹ In 2003, the former secretary of the environment department canceled community-based forest management agreements that covered 13 of the 17 administrative regions in the country, and adversely affected forest protection efforts. ⁴²

Consequently, the creation of carbon rights as a new right under the REDD+ scheme raised complex questions ranging from who should own the carbon and whether it should be attached to or divorced from forest tenure/rights, to benefits from its future sale. Indigenous leaders and NGOs within CoDE REDD pushed for the partial or full inclusion of forest tenure issues in REDD+ policy and practice, the earmarking of public funds for ancestral domain planning, and open dialogs with relevant government agencies. Under the slogan of “No Rights, No REDD,” forest dwellers and their advocates argued that actual land-based relations rather than formal tenure status must guide the determination of carbon rights and benefit sharing in relation to carbon sales.

State forest agencies, on the contrary, maintained their position as the owner of all lands in the public domain, and therefore the arbiter of issues related to carbon rights, trading, and benefit sharing. ⁴³ Bilateral development partners ⁴⁴ were divided on the issue, traipsing between partial and full inclusion of forest tenure to outright evasion.

The final REDD+ strategy document carried proposals from civil society, containing strong human rights language on (1) upholding indigenous peoples' and forest-dependent communities' rights, (2) benefit sharing on future carbon offset sales, (3) socioeconomic safeguards such as protection against loss of livelihoods and displacement owing to REDD+ activities, and (4) clarifying tenure and associated carbon rights. Despite including these elements in the REDD+ strategy, in practice, government agencies chose to disregard them and prioritized more conventional tree planting programs. ⁴⁵

For example, the environment department favored the National Greening Program (NGP), a state-funded reforestation project that sought to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5. million hectares from 2011 to 2016, covering all forestlands, protected areas, and indigenous peoples' ancestral domains. This was also identified as a climate mitigation strategy that aimed to increase the country's carbon stock and reduce poverty through alternative livelihood provisions. The NGP was the preferred intervention by the leadership of the environment department because it was more familiar and less complicated than REDD+. ⁴⁶

I contend, however, that the gap between rhetoric and practice is primarily rooted in the state's framing of REDD+ as an additional source of finance. Its political resistance to the full devolution of power and the decentralization of forest and associated carbon rights to indigenous peoples reflects what Sandbrook et al. (2010) calls the “REDD+ paradox”. The paradox refers to how potential revenues from carbon trading under REDD+ increase incentives for the state to maintain or return to centralized models of forest governance, and in the process, undermine forest protection and equity goals. ⁴⁷ Furthermore, the government's lack of political commitment was aggravated by the absence of financial support. It left the funding of REDD+'s initial phase including its government-led National REDD+ Systems to international development partners (close to USD 12 million) and civil society-led initiatives (>USD 4 million). ⁴⁸

Thus, the possibility of (re)shaping such global policies must not be overestimated. Differentiated power relations fueled the tactical state–society–donor coalition forged for REDD+ at the national level. The proof is that REDD+ seemed to have died a “natural death,” as most pilot projects concluded with no follow through.

REWORKING AND SUBVERTING REDD+?

The struggle for the inclusion of community forest rights into REDD+ pilot projects occurred in place-specific dynamics marked by competing forest tenure systems and land rights conflicts. These pilot projects were the primary vehicles to implement the REDD+ strategy on the ground. The EU-REDD Carbon Community Pool Project was one of the 14 REDD+ readiness projects rolled out in various parts of the country. ⁴⁹

The EU-REDD project ⁵⁰ was implemented in General Nakar, a contested forest frontier, home to the Agta-Dumagat and Remontado tribes in the Southern Sierra Madre mountain range of the island of Luzon. With an estimated 161,640 hectares of land, it is one of the largest ancestral domains in the country and a key biodiversity hotspot. The crux of the contention is the site's land classification—is it (1) an ancestral domain with precious resources, (2) a state-owned protected area and watershed reserve, or (3) a jurisdictional boundary governed by elected officials?

This contention was partially resolved through legal victories ⁵¹ of the indigenous peoples that secured land titling and formal recognition of their historical rights of possession of a portion of their ancestral domains. ⁵² However, their claims are still being disputed by the local government because the ancestral domain now covers almost the entire municipality's land area. The local government further points to other existing forest and land tenurial instruments, such as land reform titles issued to migrant farmers (who were not members of the indigenous group) and community-based forest management agreements between the state and a local cooperative (also not affiliated with the indigenous groups). ⁵³

Against this backdrop, the multiyear project (2011–2015) covered the entirety of the ancestral domains of the Agta-Dumagat and Remontado tribes, while omitting the question of tenure in the project's objectives. Instead, the project aimed to contribute to national REDD+ policies by strengthening local forest governance, establishing community carbon pools with benefit-sharing mechanisms, and protecting high-value conservation forests. ⁵⁴

Mirroring the multi-actor interactions in the PNRPS process, the project was implemented through a collaboration between the international conservation group Flora and Fauna International (FFI) as the lead agency and the Non-Timber Forest Product-Exchange Programme (NTFP-EP) as the Philippine NGO partner. Through a memorandum of agreement, they gathered the NTFP-EP's long-time community partners, namely the Association of Agta-Dumagat-Remontado Tribes Defending their Ancestral Domains (SAGIBIN-LN) and the Tribal Center for Development (TDC), and brought in a corporate foundation, Team Energy Foundation, Inc., ⁵⁵ whose mother company operates coal power plants in the Quezon province.

The project's design involved hiring community leaders from SAGIBIN-LN and TDC as facilitators that conducted information drives as part of “social preparation” for future carbon trading. Community leaders that participated were chosen through the advice of the council of elders called gemot. The council of elders, comprised respected leaders, assisted in identifying representatives from the 32 pigtaanan or hamlets. Most of these representatives were chieftains, who wield the necessary influence to cascade the messages to their communities. With forest carbon accounting as a key project component, FFI conducted workshops on local forest carbon assessment training with these selected representatives.

The inclusion of indigenous peoples' demands into the project design depended on the capacity and power of indigenous leaders/spokespersons to renegotiate such projects and maximize the available, although limited spaces of participation. Tapping into their established social relations with the NTFP-EP, they “requested for the formulation of (our) ancestral domain management plan in the project (…) since they (referring to NTFP-EP) already implemented similar projects before.” ⁵⁶ After a series of negotiations, the project partially financed their planning process for the management of their territories. The NTFP-EP also organized a multisectoral forum that gathered key land tenure government agencies, General Nakar's local government, and indigenous peoples organizations to discuss the overlapping tenure issues. ⁵⁷ However, the forum's significance is undermined by the lack of clear commitments from the local government.

On the contrary, the indigenous peoples' engagement with REDD+ can be seen as bricolage and strategic opportunism. Apart from local livelihood projects, their interests centered on using REDD+ as a counter-strategy against destructive projects such as the construction of mega dams ⁵⁸ and land grabbing by a real estate company. They argued that emphasizing forests as carbon sinks under REDD+ entailed measuring how much carbon can trees potentially sequester. This they can then deploy to demonstrate to state authorities that the dam construction will increase emissions and contribute to global warming. The scheme, thus, served to secure their rights to their territories. ⁵⁹ As an indigenous leader argued, “It is important that we both have our tenure security and management plan to define what we will do with the carbon stock… until these two mechanisms are not in place, the indigenous peoples cannot exercise their right to self-determination…”. ⁶⁰

This statement reflects not only similar scripts by CoDE REDD members on the framing of REDD+ from a rights-based approach, but also attempts to draw “the state into local fields of power and networks of exchange.” ⁶¹ Indigenous leaders tactically developed allies, particularly in the environment department at the national level, to support their struggles against destructive projects and help toward resolving longstanding conflicts with the local government.

Other contentions within the indigenous communities plagued the REDD+ project. These were well stated by the following individuals during the research interviews. “Two indigenous peoples' groups representing the tribes were not included in the consultations when we brought the issue down to the communities.” ⁶²

According to the anonymous informants, the exclusion of these two groups centered on competing views about benefit sharing: who stands to gain from the project, and self-determination: how REDD+ can curtail indigenous peoples' autonomy by drawing them into its logic. Several leaders stated, “There are two competing views on REDD+ in the community: one view says that there are benefits that can be gained from the project because there's a budget (…) The second view says that it might be a mechanism for ownership without control, meaning you will be bounded by REDD+ mandates which curtail your freedom to decide on how to develop the ancestral domains. Another question, where will the benefits flow—to the community or local government?” ⁶³ These views reflect the importance of self-determination to certain indigenous groups, despite the assimilation of many others. With repeated education on human rights from both state and nonstate actors, it is only natural to demand that these be upheld.

Amid the indigenous peoples' division over REDD+, another conservation project, the U.S. Agency for International Development's B+WISER entered the community when the EU-REDD project ended. Indigenous leaders then asked, “Why is there B+WISER? We already conducted an information and education campaign… the community leaders and village officials noticed that they are both the same… It's duplication. I asked (FFI), (FFI) said it's the same REDD+ component but different implementer.” ⁶⁴

It turns out that FFI, which has been rebranded as Center for Conservation, Inc., was also the project contractor of B+WISER. The duplication refers to the similarities between EU-REDD's and B+WISER's objectives, design, and activities, which implies a convergence of externally induced environmental projects that the community did not ask for.

Overall, the EU-REDD Project had mixed results. The project implementers and partner communities claimed that the project created practical benefits such as increased knowledge on REDD+, climate change, and the role of forests as carbon sinks, financed plans on sustainably managing indigenous territories, and provided livelihood opportunities. ⁶⁵ However, the project built up their expectations, particularly on future carbon payments.

One chieftain remarked, “I asked who will pay for the carbon credits, them (project implementers) or the other countries? They (project implementers) answered, other countries. The reason we asked is because if there's already money, we will advance the payment. I was just joking so we can be incentivized to measure the carbon.” ⁶⁶ The chieftain's comment pertains to a much larger problem induced by REDD+ projects, that is, equating carbon accounting with forest protection.

But the project ended without addressing questions about the process of determining carbon payments, benefit sharing, and the project's next phase. Community leaders who were part of the project lamented that “we are waiting for FFI to come back here. They didn't return anymore.” ⁶⁷

This poignant account points to the limits of renegotiating REDD+ practice by indigenous peoples who are at the receiving end of such intervention. Rather than contesting REDD+'s logic, the indigenous peoples sought its interstices to make space within it for their agenda and demands. However, their claim-making was bounded by the project's established frames and life cycle and the power asymmetries involved in REDD+ practice. The unequal power relations surfaced when the REDD+ project ran out of money and a new forest conservation project entered the community.

The conservation NGO's subsequent neglect of the community led to the residents cutting down the trees that were originally measured for carbon accounting and used them for charcoal making. The indigenous peoples who engaged in the project ultimately had no say about REDD+'s future. This case study illustrates the constraints of technocratic solutions, and how they were plagued by political–economic interests of the state and other sociopolitical actors, opportunism by international conservation NGOs, and how they instigated or exacerbated conflicts among local communities.

CONCLUSION: LESSONS LEARNED

Contentions, competing scripts, and (re)working punctuated REDD+ policy and practice in the Philippines. The political process of global-to-local policy translation generated collective actions performed by constellations of sociopolitical actors that have variegated claims and motivations. REDD+ governance spread out through manifold sites of interactions and decision-making processes, marked by concessions to civil society's rights-based approach to REDD+ praxis. However, the democratization of REDD+ policy through the inclusion of indigenous peoples in its formulation and practice in the country must be considered against the political resistance of the state to genuine devolution of forest governance. Grassroots populations who were at the receiving end of policy translation were locked into REDD+'s logic, established frames, and project cycle that limited their claim making toward the state, international, and national conservation NGOs, and bilateral development agencies.

The gaps I observed in the adoption of REDD+ engendered two important guideposts for future conversations. First, giving indigenous communities more power over policy translation processes entails not only inviting them into multi-actor spaces but also dismantling the power asymmetries within these spaces. It involves establishing mechanisms that allow them to become major players in managing conservation projects from conceptualization to monitoring and evaluation. This means strengthening local indigenous institutions and political capacities to develop and enforce their decisions, legally or in other sociopolitical spaces available to them. Furthermore, the design of environmental and climate-related projects must be turned on its head: local decisions and management efforts become primary, whereas state, civil society, and other actors must only act as partners.

Second, REDD+ cannot be substituted for broader reforms that center on the recognition of forest-dependent and indigenous communities' rights. Although the national REDD+ strategy envisioned REDD+ to act as a catalyst for tenure reforms, in reality, these issues were skirted around or tackled superficially. Future forest conservation efforts must place primacy on local forest governance regimes, and indigenous practices that have sustained flora and fauna for centuries. These practices include designating sanctuaries for wildlife, restricting entry into sacred areas, and limiting farm size for food production, among others. Indigenous peoples have continuously defended their territories against commercial and small-scale illegal logging, forest clearing, and wildlife poaching. ⁶⁸

Rather than investing in externally induced global solutions such as REDD+, which has failed as a climate mitigation scheme in the country, public support for indigenous communities' forest conservation practices must be provided through enabling policy, legal frameworks, and financing. This public support must entail strong advocacy to change how climate and environment policies are constructed in the Philippines: by radically transforming/informing them with indigenous praxes undergirded by sustaining forests as territories of life.