The biopolitics of carbon accounting in Indonesia’s forests

Abstract

Across developing countries substantial effort and resources have been dedicated to setting up systems for the measurement, recording and verification of greenhouse gas emissions in the forestry and land-use sectors – a key initiative of the global climate programme Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. This paper approaches these systems through the lens of conservation biopolitics, identifying the calculative processes and spatial logics that attempt to regulate the life and death of the forest. It uses an example of the Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System to explore how a biopolitical apparatus of constant data accumulation and presentation integrates an infinitely complex set of ecological processes across highly differentiated spatial landscapes, and organises these into governable carbon domains. The Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System provides a visual and numeric representation of the various policy and socio-economic processes that drive and limit carbon emissions, and identifies where this occurs in the landscape. By understanding these forest–carbon–human dynamics, programmes can be designed that change how populations access, use and potentially restore the life of the forest. For state and non-state interests alike, the System was viewed as a critical tool for both developing and evaluating the performance of multiple forest carbon initiatives. It also offers a surveillance apparatus to regulate the carbon market and to discipline the actions of various agents that utilise forests and land. Critically, the biopolitical utility of these systems have been undermined by waning commitment within Indonesia to overhaul forest governance towards carbon outcomes.

Keywords

Carbon accounting conservation biopolitics forests Indonesia

Introduction

Many developing countries have dedicated substantial resources to build systems for the measurement, recording and verification (MRV) of greenhouse emissions in the agriculture, forestry and other land-use sectors (AFOLU). For these countries, robust MRV is essential for conducting national emissions inventories, a standard requirement for reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). MRV is also a key technical capability for countries engaged in the global climate programme Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). Such capacity is required for longer term financing of REDD+ initiatives and to shift to a performance based framework that was agreed to in early negotiations (Herold and Skutsch, 2011; Korhonen-Kurki et al., 2013). The success of REDD+ hinges on governments being able to prove that initiatives and projects have resulted in emissions removals, measured against a baseline or forest reference emissions level (FREL). But for many countries, MRV remains a complex and institutionally challenging undertaking. It requires the collection, aggregation and then processing of spatial data and information from multiple sources, followed by modelling using standardised methodologies and rules (Di Lallo et al., 2017).

Delving into the functions and potential applications of MRV suggests a significantly broader application than merely recording deforestation rates and accounting for emissions and removals. MRV allows countries to accurately map the ongoing and cyclical death and regeneration of the forest, identifying the locations where this occurs and the socio-economic and governance conditions that drive these changes. Once operational, these systems are also designed to shape national policy debates and decision making, such as advising on forest management practices and land-use planning, and supporting the in-country distribution of incentives or co-benefits to multiple recipients (Di Lallo et al., 2017; Korhonen-Kurki et al., 2013). In Indonesia, the central government and bilateral partners have expended considerable resources to set-up the Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS). REDD+ project developers are also designing and testing localised carbon MRV and FREL, with the data used to inform project development/operation and to feed into national and international monitoring systems (Ochieng et al., 2018). MRV and INCAS are viewed as potentially empowering for the Indonesian Government, informing the design of its REDD+ interventions and the broader sustainability of its land management sector (MoEF, 2015).

Mapping and modelling of forests is a powerful political tool for governments and other interests to exercise control over lands and peoples, creating spatial boundaries that enable state intervention, as well as privatising resources that facilitate commodification and extraction (Peluso and Lund, 2011). In Indonesia, a national moratorium on forest concessions and the associated OneMap initiative represented an attempt by government agencies to standardise and coordinate spatial knowledge on forests, ostensibly to reform maladministration and poor governance in the forest sector (Astuti and McGregor, 2015; Wibowo and Giessen, 2015). This article builds on these approaches by examining the ways MRV functions as a formative technology of REDD+ governance, using data intensive processes of mapping and modelling to transform forested landscapes into observable and manageable carbon domains. Reconfiguring the forest as a biome of carbon storage also instigates an array of governmental practices aimed to make forests more alive, and poses the challenge of containing and redirecting those human processes that cause forest death and the unwanted release of greenhouse gasses (GHGs).

By utilising theory around biopolitics and governmentality (Foucault, 2007, 2008) and the application to conservation initiatives (Biermann and Anderson, 2017; Biermann and Mansfield, 2014; Srinivasan, 2014, 2017) this article shows how MRV functions as a sophisticated information retrieval mechanism that potentially extends government into all forest areas. Underlying the biopolitical utility of INCAS is how it integrates an infinitely complex set of ecological and biophysical processes across a highly differentiated spatial landscape, and organises these into manageable and interpretable data sets and maps. This provides a visual and numeric representation of the competing political, social and economic processes that drive and limit carbon emissions, and more intimately identifying where this occurs in the landscape. Through understanding these forest–carbon–human dynamics, programmes can be designed that change how populations access, use and potentially restore the forest environment across multiple scales. MRV and specifically INCAS provide a tool to inform the design and operation of policy initiatives, and to calculate what parts of the forest estate, and by extension, which agents are delivering on emissions reductions. Further this bio-carbon surveillance system supports the functioning of the carbon market, but also enables government bureaucracies to observe and police whether local populations utilise forests inline with certain standards and regulations. Critically, the biopolitical utility of MRV has proven to be circumspect, dependent on the political will of government to implement REDD+ and overhaul forest management towards carbon ends.

The paper assesses the major technical and institutional components required to set-up MRV systems and INCAS, focussing on the critical ‘readiness’ period between 2009 and 2015. The first section of the paper develops a theoretical framework of conservation biopolitics and applies this to REDD+ and carbon accounting. The following sections apply this framework to the case study of INCAS, and then discuss the implications for governing REDD+.

The research uses a qualitative case study method (Yin, 2009). Indonesia was selected as the case because it provides a representative unit of analysis through which to critically engage the biopolitics frame to evaluate how MRV functions as a tool of forest governance. Data for this paper were sourced online from primary and secondary documents, such as programme reports, government strategies, reviews and research reports. Data were also collected through 30 semi-structured interviews with senior practitioners engaged directly in REDD+ and MRV in Indonesia – drawn from government, multilateral and bilateral organisations; national and international NGOs; private companies and researchers. The data were analysed using a combination of coding and thematic analysis, which provided a systematic method to collate and organise the data according to related concepts and themes, and to link the text to the theoretical framework (Saldana, 2013). The research was conducted according to ethical guidelines and for reasons of confidentially the names of interviewees are not provided (a list of interviewees and pseudonyms can be found in Appendix 1).

Biopolitics and nature conservation

Foucault (2007) outlined that biopower is a type of power over life and death, where the aim is to foster the life of the population, and to mitigate risks or harm. The derivative concept of biopolitics encapsulates a series of practices designed to govern human (and potentially non-human life), focussed on representing, explaining and then regulating the wellbeing of the population. The objects of biopolitics are the biological functions of living beings measured and aggregated across the population, such as processes characteristic of birth, death, production and illness (Foucault, 2003: 243). The aim of those who govern is to control and regulate life by subjugating physical bodies in ways that represent a microcosm of the wider population (Lemke, 2011). Biopolitics is thus associated with more universal techniques, which combine and aggregate individualised patterns of existence, and make this the basis of various political strategies (Lemke, 2011). This contrasts with Foucault’s (2003) theories around discipline and self-regulation over the body or individual (or anatamo politics). Discipline aims to normalise individual behaviour and functions through a series of technologies that emerge from complex networks of institutions, discourses and practices. However, Foucault (2008) views these diverse strategies as interlinked, part of a continuum of governing practices.

Biopolitics represents the dynamic process whereby modern human and natural sciences, and the normative concepts that emerge from them, structure political action and determine its goals (Lemke, 2011). It involves various methods for categorising and demarcating the population and the economy into problems that require government action. However, biopolitical strategies do not stand alone with other forms of governing, which Foucault (2007, 2008) conceptualised under the governmentality framework. Governmentality draws broad attention to certain types of political reasoning, to the application of particular knowledge and language, and the relationship with techniques for exercising rule and governing the state. Thought and knowledge are therefore closely tied to how power functions within the many techniques and actions of governing (Dean, 2010). Importantly, governing practices and their attendant knowledge systems are not uninform or linear, but subject to constant modification and realignment as new problems emerge and as governing practices are reformed or redeployed in new contexts.

Biopolitics is essentially a theory of state–human–population relationships, but these concepts have been readily applied to the interaction between state–humans and nature. The intense focus on understanding the life and wellbeing of the environment is a type of biopolitics, focussed on identifying, recording and modelling the statistical risks to nature, and then designing efforts to manage these threats (Rutherford, 2007). This is applicable to scientific techniques and practices applied to wildlife conservation, and particularly the care and nurturing of certain species and populations that has significant impacts on the life of individual organisms (Biermann and Mansfield, 2014; Srinivasan, 2014). These conservation measures adopt a racial-ised logic that places higher value on certain species of individuals, whilst devaluing others. Conservation biopolitics can encapsulate the logics, spatial and simulation driven practices that draw both material and discursive distinctions between species selected for recovery and survival versus those left largely to die (Biermann and Anderson, 2017). Through these calculative techniques nature is transformed into a governable domain, where certain threatened or iconic species can be protected and managed via a range of accepted regulatory norms and legal mechanisms.

The logics and practices of biodiversity conservation have traditionally demarcated forests into zones of protection and regulation, based on scientific assessments, and then detailed mapping and boundary marking of areas deemed suitable for state management. Forest ecosystems function as the material support for a whole raft of species populations, and sovereign type protection regimes provide the communal protection for the benefit of biotic life as a whole (Fletcher, 2018). In these state and/or private protected areas life is actively fostered by managing biodiversity and species, but also as economic opportunities, reflecting the complementarity of sovereign power and biopower (Biermann and Anderson, 2017). Outside these conservation zones, species and ecosystems can be terminated or reduced through a myriad of land-use developments, resource extraction (such as timber harvesting and mining) and industrial/urban development. In these development zones, death is regulated by transferring the impending loss of biotic populations into calculable judgements about the level of threats posed (such as impact assessment), and the measures required to stem or mitigate decline (such as recovery plans, offsets). Informing these decisions are the value judgements of the science processionals and decision makers that determine exactly where and what type of forests should be protected, but also what species or ecosystems are deemed worthy of care, and what measures are even possible (see Srinivasan, 2014).

Biopolitics, forests and REDD+

Climate change programmes such as REDD+ herald new concepts in the biopolitical management of forests and land that have profound implications on state–human–forest relationships. Climate change reconfigures these biopolitical conservation techniques, shifting the emphasis to a series of biochemical processes occurring within forested ecosystems (photosynthesis, soil decomposition and microbes), and their complex carbon cycling interactions with the global atmosphere. The relative importance of forests is reframed within new truth regimes about their immense value as repositories of carbon, and their function in sequestering and offsetting global greenhouse emissions (McDermott, 2014). The vitality of the living forest is thus linked to the health of the biosphere, and by extension nurturing and protecting forests becomes intimately related to mitigating the impending risks to humanity from climate change. Rather than the conservation hierarchy of bio-diversity and endangered wildlife, the value of forests is reconstructed and standardised towards their capacity for carbon mitigation (Gupta et al., 2012). The problem is similarly reconfigured towards an assessment of the anthropogenic drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, in order to make visible those social and economic practices and the attendant biochemical processes that release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (UNFCCC, 2013).

The biopolitics of forest carbon is underpinned by universal calculative processes, through which states and non-state interests transform forests into assessable and potentially controllable carbon spaces. Oels (2005) initially highlighted how the complex modelling of the atmosphere and climate science required by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) and the UNFCCC allowed the earth to be viewed as a global ecosystem that could be subject to certain management interventions. The episteme is likewise reshaped according to technical assessments and attendant rule systems that seek to accurately account for the carbon contained and released by forest ecosystems (Herold and Skutsch, 2011). The rules or modalities negotiated under the UNFCCC emphasise the use of sophisticated MRV systems, supported by the application of consistent and universalised methodologies for GHG accounting.¹ For REDD+, these standardised accounting systems create coherent systems of governing, by framing deforestation in ways that are amenable to policy options, and then integrating this within a global framework of incentives and financial transfers (Boyd, 2010; Gupta et al., 2012).

Carbon biopolitics extends international agreements and rules to state based behaviour via the application of a complex set of disciplinary and regulatory procedures. The policies and actions taken by governments are routinely scrutinised by a global administrative apparatus under the auspices of the UNFCCC secretariat (Oels, 2005). Although countries still retain authority over their mitigation programmes, the standardised use of MRV rules ensures increasing regulation and observation by international technical bodies over each jurisdiction’s efforts at forest and land-use management (Lövbrand and Stripple, 2011). International agencies can thus be linked to ground level activities, via a massive, routinised recording and processing mechanism, which transfers information retrieved from multiple public, private and community sources. Carbon biopolitics thus provides the normative frame and supportive technical apparatus through which governing agencies, private companies and individuals can actively discipline their activities to meet mutually agreed international rules and standards of forest management.

Reconfiguring the forest as a biome of carbon storage instigates a whole array of governmental practices aimed to make forests more alive, and poses the challenge of containing and redirecting those human processes that cause forest death and the release of unwanted gasses. Differentiation can be made between the collective death caused by wholesale removal of an entire ecosystem for conversion to another land-use (bulldozing or burning forest for agriculture for example) and the killing of selected individual species (logging and harvesting). Terms such as conversion, disturbance and degradation come to denote the level of harm inflicted on the forests and on individual species. Negotiations under the UNFCCC initially focussed on limiting forest death, caused by such activities as agricultural expansion, and tree death or forest degradation caused by industrial timber harvesting (den Besten et al., 2014). As REDD+ developed, however, and as trials and programmes commenced in many developing countries, the regime expanded to include those practices that encouraged the livingness of forests. Conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks, as well as the sustainable management of forests, provided scope for whole set of managerial, technical and economic practices designed to retain and increase carbon in nature (den Besten et al., 2014; McDermott, 2014).

REDD+ evolved rapidly into a broader biopolitical endeavour that aimed to integrate the life worlds of people and populations with the creation of new carbon commodities. The value of forests became synonymous with the economic potential of carbon markets, opening up entrepreneurial opportunities for communities and businesses, and providing a green development pathway to climate mitigation (Corbera, 2012). By fabricating an economic value to carbon stored and absorbed by living forests, REDD+ embraced the neo-liberal tactic of constructing markets from natural capital, and then promoting the financial opportunities to multiple forest users. As a form of neo-liberal biopolitics, the underlying aim is to ‘… incentivize a defense of natural capital through demonstrating the economic potential in harnessing capitalist markets as the basis of conservation payments’ (Fletcher et al., 2018: 23). REDD+ increasingly focussed on incentivising communities and households dependent on forests, through livelihood interventions designed to provide employment, economic benefits and an array of social services. These welfare co-benefits were framed as ‘green’ development opportunities, with governments offering a safety net and services to local communities in return for conservation and care of the forest (Boer, 2017).

Indonesia’s MRV system

Indonesia was an early leader on REDD+, initiating a number of national and sub-national initiatives and technical programmes to address the country’s very high rates of deforestation. In 2009, the Indonesian Government announced an ambitious and voluntary pledge to cut emissions between 26 and 41% by 2030, depending on the level of international funding (REDD+ Taskforce, 2012b). As a result, the Indonesian Government attracted significant finance and technical support from multilateral agencies, and negotiated a (US) billion dollar funding agreement with Norway. Between 2010 and 2014 the Indonesian Government released a National REDD+ Strategy, established a dedicated coordinating agency, introduced a moratorium on new forestry concessions and completed the OneMap initiative. Since 2015, most REDD+ activities have been administered via a directorate within the Ministry for Environment and Forestry (MoEF), and in the process losing much of the momentum and commitment of previous administrations.

A major initiative of the Indonesian Government and partner organisations was setting up a centralised MRV system to conduct emissions accounting in the AFOLU sector and to underpin REDD+ development and implementation (Krisnawati et al, 2015a; REDD+ Taskforce, 2012a). This was mandated through several key regulations and presidential decrees; principally the Presidential Decree No. 71 (2011) on Implementation of National Greenhouse Gas Inventories; and the MoEF Regulation No. P. 18 (2015) – designed to clarify the administrative responsibilities for MRV.² Steps to establish the MRV system commenced in 2009, and focussed on developing a countrywide (or wall to wall) infrastructure capable of assessing and reporting on all emissions and removals (Krisnawati et al., 2015a; REDD+ Taskforce, 2012a). The Government’s vision was a system compatible with IPCC Guidelines that is consistent, transparent, complete, accurate and participatory; adaptive to social and environmental conditions; and is able to support the sustainable management of forest resources and peatland (MoEF, 2015; REDD+ Taskforce, 2012b). In addition, MRV was required to assess social and environmental safeguards and to report on these to international agencies (MoF and UN-REDD, 2011). Indonesia subsequently developed a Safeguards Information System to screen and benchmark the performance of national policy and programme activities, as well as on-ground forestry and community development projects.

By developing a robust MRV system, Indonesia aimed to address a range of underlying technical and administrative challenges with accurately estimating changes in forest cover and condition. Problematising these components was part of making them visible, and then questioning their utility so that new governing solutions could be proposed (Dean, 2010). The problem with MRV can then be framed as fractured administrative coordination amongst public agencies and competing priories, coupled with data inconsistencies and incomparability (Sahide and Giessen, 2015). Estimates of deforestation varied widely, depending on which agency or organisation conducted the assessment, and the type of data and indices used (MoEF, 2015). A key issue related to the availability of suitable forest inventories, and how these data are aggregated and standardised across different government agencies (GE, GF, GG, EV, RCC, 2011, 2012; Kustiyo et al., 2015). A further challenge was the technical and human capacity to accurately monitor land cover change at local scales, a critical step towards developing a FREL and to conduct accurate reporting (GC, GD, 2012; Krisnawati et al, 2015b). As a director from the former Ministry of Forestry commented:

One of the biggest challenges is with the baseline forest mapping. The government has set up offices and related legislation that allows different agencies to create their own maps, or satellite images or whatever. This makes it difficult when the government wants to know the extent of standing forests in Indonesia, including the primary and secondary, as well as the extent of peatland. When you look for the information it overlaps and doesn’t correlate, and there are areas where one agency believes there is a standing forest and another one does not. This is primarily because the definition used in the legislation to specify what is a primary forest versus a secondary forest is different. Some agencies use an administrative definition and others use an ecological definition. (GF, 2012)

Constructing the problem as technical and administrative enabled the Indonesian Government and funding partners to dedicate substantial resources to establishing a new MRV institution. Important steps included the development of a national MRV Strategy and the formation of a sub-directorate focussed on GHG assessment within the forestry and land-use sectors (MoEF, 2015; Ochieng et al., 2018). This MRV directorate incorporates multiple functions. A primary task is collating and processing data on AFOLU and specific REDD+ programmes and demonstration activities and integrating this systematically into a national GHG inventory. The directorate also standardises carbon accounting methodologies across all agencies and regions, and is the focal point for reporting to the UNFCCC, and to international funding bodies and donor countries (GA, MI, 2012; IAFCP (Indonesia–Australia Forest Carbon Partnership), 2015). Further, it provides capacity building and technical training for agencies and other entities engaging in carbon accounting at national, provincial and project scales (MoEF, 2015; Sugardiman, 2012). This combination of strategy development, extensive coordination of data and information systems, and the engagement of multiple agencies suggests that Indonesia has achieved a ‘deep’ level of institutionalisation with its MRV process (Ochieng et al., 2018). As a director from a national forest agency explained:

MRV is the most technical of the REDD+ institutions. It reflects the need for central agencies to integrate the provinces and districts into a national data coordination framework. The MRV agency is responsible for integrating these isolated forest monitoring and mapping systems and approaches in existing ministries, and produce something that can be approved at the international level. The methodologies and protocols developed by these institutions are often different, producing inconsistent estimates and products. So we have to be able to reconcile these divergences at a technical level in order to create something that is integrated into all levels of government in order to make the correct decisions. (GC, 2012)

INCAS

Indonesia’s MRV system is primarily a technocratic apparatus that vests significant resources in technology and scientific information to collect and process data into visual and numeric displays. A key part of this data infrastructure is INCAS, which commenced development in 2009 with funding and technical assistance from the Australian Government under the IAFCP.³ INCAS has been operational since 2015, generating information on historic and current patterns of land cover change, as well as future projections of GHG emissions and removals from forests, peatlands and non-forested lands (Krisnawati et al., 2015b). INCAS collates and transforms spatial, biophysical and land management data into formats that can input into models, which are then used to calculate the impact of natural and human induced events on forest condition (IAFCP, 2015; ML, 2012). Emissions and removals can then be assessed and displayed at different scales or categories, including the province or district, UNFCCC land-use category, forest type and function, or for specified REDD+ activities.

INCAS utilises Land Cover Change Analysis, based on time-series satellite remote sensing imagery (LANDSAT) images to identify changes or disturbance to different forest types (LAPAN, 2014). These disturbances could include the conversion of forests to a completely different land-use, such as subsistence cropping or industrial scale plantations, harvesting from both legal and illegal logging, the extent of burning and fire regimes, in addition to reforestation or unmanaged restoration (IAFCP, 2015; Krisnawati et al., 2015b). Accurate classification of land cover change also incorporates detailed maps of the different types of forest and their location, as well as spatial data on tenure, and licensing and permits issued by different government agencies (GF, 2012; LAPAN, 2014; Roswintiarti et al., 2013). Emissions can then be estimated based on the net change in forest condition and the nature of the disturbance event that caused the forest to change (Kustiyo et al., 2015). The outputs are satellite based mosaic maps that show the year to year loss or gain of forests, displaying in vibrant colours the impacts of various drivers. An example is the map of Central Kalimantan provided in Kustiyo et al. (2015: 446), that shows the yearly disturbance caused by extensive logging and then clearing of forests and peatlands for palm oil and other uses.

Figure 1.

Map showing the district in Central Kalimantan. Source: From Roswintiarti et al. (2013).

The second major component is to model and then estimate the emissions from different land-use events by using a series of forest biomass measurements, carbon stock assessments and emissions estimations (Krisnawati et al., 2015b; MoEF, 2015). Across Indonesia, there are multiple research projects dedicated to measuring carbon fluxes of forests to determine net carbon stock change (Praputra et al., 2016). Measurement of forest biomass involves data collected from thousands of these sample plots, which are combined with models of forest and crop growth, soil and debris decay (Krisnawati et al., 2015b). GHG emissions and removals are then estimated using coefficients, algorithms and default values of carbon stock changes for different forest or cropping regimes. These data are then integrated with land-use change data to produce consistent outputs in formats required for reporting. This approach allows carbon flows to be tracked between the different carbon pools in the landscape, and ultimately to estimate the net release of GHG emissions to the atmosphere.

INCAS as a biopolitical technology

Underlying the biopolitical utility of the INCAS system is how it integrates an infinitely complex set of ecological and biophysical processes across a highly differentiated spatial landscape, and organises these into manageable and interpretable data sets and maps. Further, these data and maps provide visual and numeric representations of a whole raft of political, social and economic processes that intimately affect what occurs on forested land. Braverman (2014) has shown how conservation measures increasingly rely on the collection of data sets to translate individual bodies or animals and socio-material phenomena into condensed algorithmic relations that then inform the management of the viability of life. In the case of INCAS, applying various forms of carbon pool analysis though elaborate models and algorithms connects the actions of people and populations to biochemical cycles. The multiple regimes that cause deforestation, as well as actions that improve forest coverage and carbon sinks all become linked through these modelling processes. What comes into dynamic view is the complex interaction between biological processes and socio-economic and political practices, linking the carbon fluxes caused by earth based human activities upwards to changes in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is now linked though intricate new knowledge and data aggregation systems to populations occupying numerous places in the landscape.

Biopolitics helps set the field or parameters of what is possible and permissible in the management of the population, such as identifying trends and patterns, and then setting optimal ways to contain risk (Lemke, 2011). MRV and more specifically INCAS provides a number of these biopolitical functions, creating various statistical trends and projections about deforestation, and linking these with changes to policy settings, and with shifts in economic, demographic and governance conditions. At one level, INCAS enables a temporal assessment of forests, applying standardised methodologies and categories to analyse complex socio-economic changes that unfold in multiple locations over time. For instance, INCAS provides policy makers with historical trends in GHG emissions and their sources, over yearly and decadal timescales (Krisnawati et al., 2015b; MoEF, 2015). These trends, often represented by simplistic graphs, can be correlated with changes of land-use and management polices at national and provincial scales commencing in 1990 to the present (the Kyoto Protocol accounting period). Such trends can account for the effect of major policy reforms, such as tax and legislative support for timber concessionaires that triggered higher rates of logging and forest clearing. Similarly deforestation rates can be correlated with shifts in governance and politics. For example, the upheavals caused by authoritarian rule followed by democratic transition and greater regional autonomy, both correlated with higher post implementation rates of forest removal (Verchot et al., 2010).

In addition to modelling broad economic or governance shifts, INCAS can target dynamics occurring at the local scale, mapping out deforestation/reforestation events as they occur in various locales, by applying the same standardised disturbance regimes and carbon stock assessments. Central or sub-national agencies can view and map activities at the local, even sub-hectare resolution, monitoring closely changes such as expanding swidden agriculture or new road infrastructure. Details such as tenure, forest concession boundaries, the location of communities and infrastructure, as well as plans for new plantations and conservation areas can all contribute to localised assessments (MI, 2012). As a result, INCAS could pinpoint not only where forest cover change occurs, but identify those subjects who are responsible for these activities, and perhaps even what incentives may be informing these actors’ decisions. For example, in Central Kalimantan, clearing and burning of peatlands can be directly attributed to local communities expanding rubber or other agricultural crops (BQ, 2012; Hooijer et al., 2014). The detail is valuable, because it provides governments and project managers with information to assess socio-economic and demographic change at the village or REDD+ project scales. They can then identify particular drivers of deforestation, such as the effects of new resource markets and labour migration, or the impact of government programmes aimed at poverty alleviation and community development (IAFCP, 2015; REDD+ Taskforce, 2012a).

INCAS and the governance of forests and REDD+

If you’re able to measure your emissions, you’re best able to manage your emissions and develop appropriate policies to reduce your emissions. – Tom Harvey IAFCP.

As a biopolitical endeavour, INCAS provides the capabilities to assess those factors or drivers that contribute to the death of the forests, and by extension those factors that encourage life and let forests live. As Biermann and Mansfield (2014) have argued, science increasingly determines the way to make nature live, shifting emphasis from controlling and subduing nature to understanding its processes. The value placed on INCAS is how the data can be utilised to guide the governing of forests and land-use, informing solutions to control the now visually identified spectre of deforestation. One of the functions of INCAS is to demarcate the fields of interaction that will be subject to various policies and regulations. The intense processes required to aggregate data into usable maps and model outputs turn forests and carbon into a functional domain amenable to political intervention. MRV and INCAS thus constitute an important technology of government, a system of knowledge that informs the thinking and practices that constitute rule (Lemke, 2011). INCAS, however, is not an ontologically benign scientific assessment, but a political and value laden tool through which certain policy options and activities can be valued, and others problematised, devalued and potentially made redundant. Conducting science and then negotiating institutional rules and procedures, fuels the construction of new(ish) truth regimes (Srinivasan, 2014), that determine what exactly should be the focus of government efforts to regulate multiple human–forest–carbon interactions.

Delving into the functions of the MRV system and INCAS shows how governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies and supportive NGOs viewed them as comprehensive calculative instruments that could inform multiple governing processes (GA, GG, ML, BQ, BR, EV, 2012). Underlying this approach is the widely assessed view that sustainable forestry and land-use policy has been poorly developed and implemented, subject to competing interests and overlapping jurisdictions (GG, ML, EV, 2012; Sahide and Giessen, 2015). MRV similarly ‘…renders current practices of forest governance visible and problematises them, implicitly positioning current arrangements as irrational’ (Astuti and McGregor, 2015: 2278). INCAS data systems and knowledge outputs could be used to address some of these governance limitations and to potentially reform statutory activities related to land-use management across national and sub-national scales (GC, 2012; MoEF, 2015). For example, this information could inform low carbon economic development planning, the spatial planning process at district levels, as well as the roll-out and operation of forest management units (FMUs or KPHs).

In relation to REDD+, MRV was designed as a policy development and diagnostic tool through which governments could or can design initiatives to manage deforestation. It was to provide credible information to inform the development of national and provincial level emissions mitigation targets, and to track progress towards meeting these targets (GG, ML, EV, 2012). This detailed information could underpin REDD+ national policy formation and implementation, and inform a broad suite of policy and planning activities at provincial and district scales (Krisnawati et al., 2015a; MoEF, 2015). Provinces and districts have different forest cover trends and pressures, and the data provided by INCAS can guide the adoption of particular REDD+ actions, if any (ML, 2012; MoEF, 2015). Further, INCAS was designed to assist detailed planning of high priority areas that could support rehabilitation and reforestation efforts, based on carbon pool potential and the designated category of the forest; such as protection, production or conversion (IAFCP, 2015; Roswintiarti et al., 2013). INCAS and forest mapping thus provide a tool to demarcate, delineate and plan where certain land-use and carbon forestry activities are permissible, and the areas where they are potentially excluded due to competing production activities.

MRV and INCAS also function as a policy auditing or evaluation mechanism that can be used to assess the performance and appropriateness of government action and to determine which policy interventions are meeting particular goals and serving broader imperatives. The MRV Strategy released in 2012 indicated that the system would be used to evaluate the performance of REDD+ activities, and to help calculate what parts of the forest estate, and importantly which commercial or community interests are delivering on emissions reductions (REDD+ Taskforce, 2012b). Under this performative function, activities at the national or sub-national scale, as well as local project activities could be assessed for their progress in meeting national or sub-national targets (GA, GD, 2012). Local level information – such as cloud screened mosaic images – are invaluable for assessing the effect of reforestation/forest management actions on the ground and what these contribute to provincial and then national policy goals (Roswintiarti et al., 2013). More importantly this fine scale resolution can be used to assess the effects of various new policies and laws, such as implementation of spatial land-use planning, or increased regulation of new timber and agricultural developments (Roswintiarti et al., 2013). A project manager from an international NGO outlined:

It’s very obvious that INCAS should be providing really timely and accurate information about provinces and districts and whether they comply with their own spatial plans, and to assess if there was illegal forest clearing where there wasn’t supposed to be. The provinces and districts should be held accountable for any deforestation within their REDD+ plans. Or if the Ministry of Forestry plans to establish 500,000 hectares a year of plantations, then they will need to provide maps about where this is located, and provide accurate assessments every year to show growth rates of the trees. (EV, 2012)

For governments and supporting partners, MRV would underpin the distribution of potentially billions of dollars in funds from multiple sources. Incentives could then be disbursed through the nationally coordinated funds mechanism (called FREDDI), as well as provincial or project based instruments (MoEF, 2015). MRV performance indicators would determine budget and resourcing allocations to each province and/or district, assessed against their contribution to meeting REDD+ targets (GA, 2012). Projects such as the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnershi (KFCP) also used locally based MRV to determine which interventions were likely to limit emissions, and to direct incentive payments to eligible communities or landowners engaged in actions such as tree-planting (BO, BQ, 2012). Government policies and on-ground projects could be routinely evaluated, and those not meeting stated or agreed emissions reduction targets can be altered and potentially excluded from accessing future incentives and benefits (GF, MN, 2012). Public agencies would have the technical capacity to set the parameters for what is permissible in the forest estate, and then to reward or punish actors based on their level of compliance with existing policies, and the new REDD+ regime.

MRV as security apparatus

As the analysis above shows, MRV and INCAS can serve a more universal governmental function, potentially underpinning the entire reform programme envisaged under REDD+. In Foucault’s (2007) terminology, MRV is part of the security apparatus of the Indonesian state, by collecting layers of data to trace out territories of responsibility, identifying patterns and irregularities of deforestation and land-use, but also to scrutinise the actions of multiple actors. These technologies of security aim to establish and maintain equilibrium amongst the population, or to modify the biological destiny of the species, as a way to mitigate risks and dangers that are inherent within a population (Foucault, 2007; Lemke, 2011). Technologies of security take on many forms and are constantly expanding, such as surveillance conducted by a range of governing institutions as a mechanism to monitor and normalise patterns of behaviour. According to Gane (2012), surveillance systems provide a mechanism of social discipline and regulation within liberal and neo-liberal government. In the liberal context surveillance acts to discipline, or to keep people accountable to certain social norms; but in a post-disciplinary neo-liberal order surveillance is often conducted by external agents with the purpose of supporting market function, and mitigating uncertainty (Gane, 2012).

The scope of MRV points to its broader integration with the neo-liberalisation of conservation and land-use development in Indonesia. As an instrument of carbon biopolitics MRV monitors the macro and micro economies of forest and land-use activities, and thereby operates as a calculative regime of economic management. On a macro scale, MRV allows decision makers to value Indonesia’s forest carbon resources alongside other economically proven land-uses such as agriculture, timber production and mining (MoEF, 2015). The potential monetary returns of a REDD+ activity can be calculated by analysing the carbon value of forest areas, combined with an opportunity cost assessment of not converting the land to a competing economic use (Fletcher et al., 2016; McGregor et al., 2015). This knowledge forms a key guide for public and private investors seeking to develop carbon offsets, which types of projects or programmes are viable, and where they could be located. When carbon is combined with intimate information about the livelihoods and socio-economic conditions of forest communities, these people become elemental to the new resource commodity. Indeed, this calculation of life accords with neo-liberal rationalities by transforming complex phenomena into biological assets and costs that can be represented and manipulated within a monetised calculus (Nadesan, 2008).

Indonesia was initially designing the MRV system to support participation in global compliance market for REDD+, which could finance multiple projects and initiatives. Whilst this compliance market has failed to materialise, several projects in Indonesia have entered the speculative voluntary market, generating finance from single large investors and NGOs. In this relatively small voluntary market, MRV functions as a post-disciplinary instrument of surveillance, where the aim is to support the entire product chain and trading platforms, by limiting risks posed by the market itself (Gane, 2012). As an exemplar of the neo-liberal model, these MRV systems are often developed and operated by private carbon companies and then regulated through a series of thirty party standards, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard and Plan Vivo. MRV accounting systems are internal to the vigilance of the market, in terms generating volumes of data on how much carbon a project is delivering within a defined period. Carbon accounting also regulates and oversees the actions of private and public entities engaged in REDD+ projects, and underpins the implementation of contracts between the buyers and sellers of carbon credits (Boer, 2018). By demarcating the capacities and boundaries of government action, the MRV system is therefore instrumental to the production and consumption of forest carbon commodities.

By contrast, satellite based forest monitoring offers a disciplinary instrument of surveillance by enabling the observation and tracking of activities on the ground. Through observing and then understanding the relationships between people and forests, INCAS can be used as an instrument of control and interception in the everyday affairs of citizens. The instruments of security include processes to regulate, control and nullify reality, such as laws that prohibit certain actions, or to prescribe certain permissible activities (Foucault, 2007: 47). Discipline is about normalising behaviours, enacting prohibitions and laws to make citizens self regulate, with the threat of punishment if they deviate. MRV supports a disciplinary approach to governing forest–human dynamics, by ensuring companies and citizens are abiding by certain laws, standards and principles of behaviour (see McGregor et al., 2015). Satellite based monitoring supports the administrative branches of government to enforce land-use regulations and compliance with licenses and permits in the forest zone. This includes the monitoring of illegal activities, such as logging and palm-oil developments that contribute to unlawful deforestation across Indonesia (Luttrell et al., 2011). Recent public examples include arson in the forests and peat swamps of Sumatra, where the central government used satellite monitoring to track, identify and then prosecute those companies and individuals responsible for lighting the fires.

Monitoring, combined with law enforcement operates to uphold the interventions of government and encourages responsible companies and communities to utilise forests accordingly. Monitoring and enforcement therefore represent a control function focussed on supporting the moral responsibility of citizens, and isolating those who are deemed a risk to the social fabric, and to community order (Rose, 2000). This liberal security apparatus aims to support economic production in forests that meets laws and standards, protects property, and maintains access and harvesting rights for forest users. Conversely, it also functions as a device to penalise and exclude those interests from forests who are challenging or undermining the administrative programmes, those displaying a threat to a new regime of carbon and forest restoration. However, the mechanisms of security draw no absolute line between the permitted and the forbidden, but rather specify an optimal medium or norm within a range of variations (Foucault, 2007: 7). Increased enforcement is not aimed to prosecute all companies or corrupt politicians but to instil a common public ethic of legality, anti-criminal behaviour and norms of responsible forest management. The intention is to encourage a collectively regulated and disciplined population that manages the forest estate according to socially sanctioned and endorsed rules.

MRV operates alongside similar securitised processes, such as the forest moratorium and mapping initiative that have used knowledge and spatial information in an attempt to regulate how forested land is allocated to competing conservation and industrial uses (Astuti and McGregor, 2015). The moratorium commenced in 2011 and is designed as a series of restrictions on timber harvesting and new plantation development in primary old growth forests. As an instrument of limitation it aims to control practices by prohibiting activities according to defined spatial and temporal dimensions. The moratorium utilises a single national map of the forest estate to specify those areas subject to new government prohibitions on development (Wibowo and Giessen, 2015). This map delineates a territory or zone of forest security that is subject to restrictions on commercial activity, and increased policing and monitoring. The moratium map operates as a form of spatial regulation, subjecting certain designated lands to new codes of legal and also moral obligation. However, outside this securitised territory another series or complex of practices remain in action, the ongoing and largely unregulated exploitation of forest resources.

Limitations

MRV and INCAS are now operational, and there are plans to develop it further to provide more detailed and accurate assessments of forest carbon, as well as land-use change at multiple scales (MoEF, 2015). Part of developing MRV systems requires aggregation of nationwide carbon and non-carbon data, and to integrate sub-national information from forest managers and private operators into the national database (Praputra et al., 2016). Relying on this highly detailed and cost inhibitive data poses challenges in the diverse and highly contested forest landscapes found in Indonesia. REDD+ could be undermined as a legitimate and operable field of government activity, if the technical facilities are unable to deliver the required data and complex analysis, or provide the information required for governments to monitor and plan activities in multiple locations. The incapacity to generate specific types of biopolitical information means that the domain of carbon intervention is never fully or adequately identified or analysed, and thereby a field that can be subjected to governing authority. Demarcating areas of deforestation and reforestation, monitoring risks of reversal to carbon stocks, and delivering incentives and resources to legitimate constituencies could thus remain a speculative undertaking.

The power and utility of MRV and INCAS depends on the will of those government agencies charged with the authority to utilise it as a biopolitical instrument to drive state intervention and constant reform in the forest sector. Many interviewees saw it as essentially a technical or rational mechanism, and not necessarily a political embedded process subject to constant challenge and manipulation (GE, GF, GG, MI, EV, RCC, 2011–2012). By contrast some actors, including state agencies and NGOs, have used the information to support broader narratives that escalate the crisis of deforestation and the urgency to limit emissions (GA EU, 2012). However, the commitment to REDD+ has declined markedly in Indonesia, and the MRV system may serve limited function across multiple jurisdictions and locales. The collation, processing and presentation of this information remains immaterial and largely separated from forest management activities. There is currently limited use of the MRV system to inform a raft of land-use planning and management decisions, or to evaluate the performance of major government initiatives. Indeed, its techno-utility may be restricted to annual reporting to the UNFCCC, and by highlighting ongoing rates of forest loss or gain (Krisnawati et al., 2015a). The full scope of MRV and INCAS as a technology that drives government decisions may never be fully realised in the highly contested political environment in Indonesia.

Conclusions

The development of MRV capabilities, and INCAS in particular, is one significant achievement of Indonesia’s broad attempt to reform the forest sector and transition to a REDD+ type framework. This component was critical to viewing what exactly has occurred in forests and on land; the first and rationally technical part of the equation that could inform the construction and then evaluation of whole a set of interventions designed to incentivise actions for carbon mitigation. The information generated by INCAS acts as a biopolitical instrument that visualises problems, which in turn can be used to legitimise certain policies and practices. This is a complex process where biophysical information and modelling becomes the basis for policy interventions, but also informs the adjudication of where these interventions occur, who is affected, and how impacts and benefits are to be distributed. By helping to construct the domain of carbon forests and then formulating or directing programmes, INCAS offers a tool to potentially regulate, manage and energise populations and people. As a system of mass data aggregation it modulates and standardises multiple aspects of conduct, providing an instrument of control and interception in the everyday affairs of the population.

The biopolitical aspect of REDD+ shows how state efforts are focussed on managing the death and enhancing the aliveness of forests, by enriching those biological processes that store carbon from the atmosphere. One output of INCAS is that it assists in projecting a sophisticated and detailed understanding about how these biochemical cycles and human interactions with forests function at different localities and scales. Through these intense observations the life and death of the forest comes into full view. But it is also a process to understand the life worlds of populations and private entities, assessing how their actions impact or contribute to the wellbeing and health of the forest and its biological and climate functions. Through processes of scrutinising and observing, those conducting the activities, as well those in charge of observing these activities become mutually tied into consistent ways of assessing, viewing and then potentially regulating actions. It offers a unifying device, linking disparate and often oppositional components into a common theme or frame of governing.

MRV and INCAS are, however, part of more complicated set of power relations between various interests contesting the economic access and political jurisdiction to control land and nature. INCAS, as viewed by proponents in the development phase, was potentially a far reaching governmental instrument that could support a fundamental shift in these power relations. These instruments are therefore not benign, but are intimately part of competing truth narratives designed to reconfigure forests towards a utopian vision of carbon abatement and sustainable forest industries. But REDD+ and climate change programmes generally face formidable competition from the proponents and beneficiaries of forest development, those private companies, government agencies and local actors that exert significant pressure to intensify production. Various government agencies also compete for authority over the use and distribution of land, with production targets and employment often outweighing conservation goals or carbon mitigation programmes (Wibowo and Giessen, 2015).

The biggest challenge, however, is that many other REDD+ initiatives have not progressed substantially beyond the demonstration or conceptual phase. Finance has not flowed and markets have stalled, offering little incentive for governments, companies or communities whose livelihoods are dependent on forests (Fletcher et al., 2016). In this context, MRV remains simply a reporting mechanism that displays forest death, but one that can potentially support the narrative about how little has been achieved to stem deforestation. Without a longer term commitment to programmes such as REDD+, or to enforcement and regulation of the forest estate, INCAS could remain a largely superfluous data system that merely documents the problem, but is not integrated into all levels of government decision making. But even if REDD+ fades or is replaced, MRV will continue as an institution that monitors and reports on deforestation and emissions, highlighting those dynamics that continue to pose threats to the atmosphere.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for The biopolitics of carbon accounting in Indonesia’s forests

Supplemental Material for The biopolitics of carbon accounting in Indonesia’s forests by Henry J Boer in EPC: Politics and Space

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors received funding for the research component of this article from the Australian Government under the Prime Ministers’ Australia-Asia Award.

Notes

Henry J Boer has research interests in environmental politics and governance, with a current focus on the Asia Pacific region.

Appendix 1: Table of interviewees with pseudonyms

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