From global policy to local politics: The social dynamics of REDD+ in Asia Pacific

If there is one message that emerges from this collection of essays exploring how REDD+ (the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks and conservation programme) is unfolding in the Asia Pacific region, it is that geography matters. The theme recurs again and again as authors examine how this global initiative being developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and various grant and market initiatives is being negotiated across scale and space. The case studies show that no amount of planning within the offices and boardrooms of international environmental agencies and among expert communities can predict what will happen when their initiatives become embedded in particular localities. Contemporary and historic place-based politics, cultures, economies, ecologies and societies inevitably become tangled within and ‘mess up’ the best laid plans. Anyone who thought REDD+ would be a quick, cheap and simple approach to climate change mitigation has been sorely mistaken