TY - JOUR
T1 - The legitimacy of incentive-based conservation and a critical account of social safeguards.
AU - Krause, Torsten
AU - Nielsen, Tobias
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Incentive-based conservation has become a significant part of how tropical forests are being governed. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a mechanism to mitigate climate change that many countries have started to implement. REDD+, however, is criticized for its potential negative impacts on local populations and Indigenous people. To prevent and mitigate the negative impacts, safeguards are increasingly being used to prevent and shift the focus toward 'non-carbon' elements of forest conservation. We discuss the legitimacy of these types of projects from a stakeholder perspective. Using a normative framework, we assess the Ecuadorian Socio Bosque conservation program, concentrating more specifically on the level of input and output legitimacy. Results show that Socio Bosque in its current form has shortcomings in both input and output legitimacy. We argue that an encompassing conception of legitimacy, including input and output criteria, particularly from a local stakeholder perspective, is essential for the future success of incentive-based conservation and particularly for REDD+ projects. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AB - Incentive-based conservation has become a significant part of how tropical forests are being governed. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a mechanism to mitigate climate change that many countries have started to implement. REDD+, however, is criticized for its potential negative impacts on local populations and Indigenous people. To prevent and mitigate the negative impacts, safeguards are increasingly being used to prevent and shift the focus toward 'non-carbon' elements of forest conservation. We discuss the legitimacy of these types of projects from a stakeholder perspective. Using a normative framework, we assess the Ecuadorian Socio Bosque conservation program, concentrating more specifically on the level of input and output legitimacy. Results show that Socio Bosque in its current form has shortcomings in both input and output legitimacy. We argue that an encompassing conception of legitimacy, including input and output criteria, particularly from a local stakeholder perspective, is essential for the future success of incentive-based conservation and particularly for REDD+ projects. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
KW - Global Environmental Governance
KW - Legitimacy
KW - Local stakeholder
KW - Ecuador
KW - Socio Bosque program
KW - REDD
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2014.04.015
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2014.04.015
M3 - Article
SN - 1462-9011
VL - 41
SP - 44
EP - 51
JO - Environmental Science and Policy
JF - Environmental Science and Policy
ER -