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Lost in translation? How project actors shape REDD+ policy and outcomes in
Cambodia
Pasgaard, Maya
Published in:
Asia Pacific Viewpoint
DOI:
10.1111/apv.12082
Publication date:
2015
Document Version
Preprint (usually an early version)
Citation for published version (APA):
Pasgaard, M. (2015). Lost in translation? How project actors shape REDD+ policy and outcomes in Cambodia.
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 56(1). 10.1111/apv.12082
Download date: 06. jul.. 2015
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Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 56, No. 1, April 2015
ISSN 1360-7456, pp111–127
Lost in translation? How project actors shape REDD+
policy and outcomes in Cambodia
Maya Pasgaard1
Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.
Email: [email protected]
Abstract: Forest protection policies to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation
(REDD+) are currently being implemented by international donors, governments and conservation
agencies across the developing world aiming for reduction of greenhouse gases while ensuring fair
distribution of benefits. This paper draws on a case study in northern Cambodia to analyse how
conservation practitioners and the local forest management committees engaged in implementing
REDD+ actively translate and influence the policy and its implementation in accordance with their
respective interests through particular communication strategies. When assessing project progress
and outcomes, the conservation practitioners involved in implementing projects show an interest in
emphasising positive project assessments by downplaying potential project complications, and by
primarily communicating with pro-REDD+ members of the local communities. Powerful actors in the
local forest management committees adopt the conservation rhetoric of these practitioners; at the
same time, they can interpret and control local access to resources to their own advantage. By doing
so, they can ensure continued support, while not necessarily representing all community members
or sharing benefits equally. The processes and consequences of this policy translation in a REDD+
arena are discussed and compared with existing dominant trends in environment and development
policies.
Keywords:
Cambodia, policy actors, pro-poor policy, REDD+, social assessments, translation
Introduction
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
forest Degradation (REDD+) is a multi-donor
climate mitigation programme which seeks to
create and trade the financial value of carbon
stored in forests as a means of reducing forest
emissions and mitigating climate change (UN,
2009a; World Bank, 2011). The United Nations
and the World Bank with their UN-REDD+
programme and Forest Carbon Partnership
Facility (FCPF), respectively, are the main international organisations promoting and supporting REDD+ activities, along with a wide range
of other institutions (Cerbu et al., 2011). Besides
the intended carbon offsets, proponents of
REDD+ promise social co-benefits in terms of
jobs, livelihoods, land tenure clarification,
enhanced participation in decision-making
1
Present address: Department of Geosciences and Natural
Resource Management.
and improved governance from REDD+ (UN,
2009b).
However, the social implications and potential co-benefits from REDD+ are of a complex
and multidimensional nature (Ghazoul et al.,
2010; Hirsch et al., 2011). REDD+ as a global
climate change and development policy faces
daunting challenges (e.g. Hansen et al., 2009;
Ghazoul et al., 2010; Dooley et al., 2011;
Hirsch et al., 2011; Thompson et al., 2011;
Pasgaard, 2013). Key concerns include insecure
tenure arrangements, inequitable distribution of
benefits (e.g. Hansen et al., 2009; Sunderlin
et al., 2009; Blom et al., 2010; Sikor et al.,
2010; Springate-Baginski and Wollenberg,
2010; Milne and Adams, 2012; Pasgaard and
Chea, 2013), the risk of policy failure due to the
involvement of multiple actors with diverse
interests (e.g. Di Gregorio et al., 2012), a failure
to acknowledge the inherent complexities at the
community level (e.g. Hirsch et al., 2011), inadequate assessment of socio-political challenges
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
doi: 10.1111/apv.12082
M. Pasgaard
(Pasgaard, 2013) and the risk of elite capture of
benefits from various forest protection programmes (e.g. Larson and Ribot, 2007;
Andersson and Agrawal, 2011). These are
serious concerns that could undermine the
prospects of reaching the anticipated social
and pro-poor benefits promoted in the REDD+
policies.
Because REDD+ is a relatively new programme, studies of how the policy objectives
compare with the practical achievements at the
project level are only beginning to emerge (e.g.
McCarthy et al., 2012; CIFOR, 2013). While
this emerging research consistently emphasises
how new relationships, intermediary actors and
novel alliances shape conservation schemes
such as REDD+ (see Di Gregorio et al., 2012;
Fairhead et al., 2012; Funder et al., 2013), no
studies have yet addressed policy translations
within these new (re)configurations. Policy
translation is developed in detail below, but
refers simply to the processes through which
policies are interpreted and communicated
through different actors and networks.
This paper draws on recent empirical
research in Cambodia to identify how REDD+
practices and impacts are translated through
policy processes. The paper primarily focuses
on the translational activities taking place
between the conservation practitioners responsible for the implementation of the REDD+
project, and the local forest management committees as the community representatives. The
emphasis on these two groups of actors is
chosen because their relations and activities
profoundly shape REDD+ on the ground, and
on the basis of access to informant networks
during data collection phase. Policy translation
is also taking place among other relevant
actors in the policy chain, such as local Nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and the
international donors. They are referred to in
order to provide a broader perspective on the
chains of actors involved in the translation of
the REDD+ policy from global to local levels
and back.
The Oddar Meanchey REDD+ project in
Cambodia was selected as a case study by the
author to investigate how REDD+ impacts and
practices are translated through project stages.
As other tropical developing countries throughout Southeast Asia and beyond engaged with
112
REDD+, the country faces massive deforestation
challenges and is undergoing dramatic changes
in land use and development (e.g. Hall et al.,
2011). The Oddar Meanchey province, which
has historically been densely forested, is suffering from a high demand for timber and agricultural and settlement land resulting in a high rate
of decline in forest cover (Bradley, 2009). The
REDD+ demonstration project is at a relatively
advanced stage, having been initiated in 2008
with carbon credits now on the market (Pact,
2012). This means that the project actors are
defined and established, and that several studies
and assessments of the project have been conducted, such as a recent household survey
(Blackburn, 2011) and studies of deforestation
drivers (e.g. Poffenberger, 2009; Pact, 2010).
This paper examines and goes beyond these
assessments to advance an understanding of
how particular groups of actors shape REDD+
through policy translation.
The paper is structured as follows. The second
section presents the theoretical framing of the
paper and its focus on policy translation in the
context of REDD+. The third section presents
the methods and case study including a brief
outline of the Oddar Meanchey REDD+ demonstration project. Drawing on empirical findings, this project is analysed in two ways in the
fourth section. First, in relation to the roles and
interests of a selection of the key actors engaged
in the REDD+ project; and second, by examining the mode in which the policy is translated
and circulated through this chain of actors. The
last section discusses and compares the findings
with existing research in conservation and
development policies.
Theoretical and conceptual frame
Various institutions and stakeholders operating
at local, regional and global scales are often
involved simultaneously in the same projects.
These actors are neither completely neutral nor
passive in the processes of shaping and implementing the policy. This paper centres primarily
on the actors engaged directly in the practical
implementation of a policy, namely the conservation agency and the local forest management
committee. Translation of REDD+ between
these policy actors, both with regard to the
policy implementation and its achievements, is
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Lost in translation?
the focal point of investigation within the theoretical and conceptual frame outlined below.
The idea of ‘translation’ provides an underlying
theoretical entry point for the subsequent analysis of the empirical data.
Translation, development brokers and friction
In his ‘model of translation’, Latour (1986)
describes how a chain of actors can actively
shape and change power – or any other ‘token’1
– in accordance with the actor’s own project
and interests. In that way, each of the people in
the chain shape the token according to their
different projects, rather than simply resisting it
or transmitting it in its entirety like in a diffusion
process. In the same line of thinking, Lewis and
Mosse (2006) unfold the translation model in
a development policy context. These authors
argue that an actor-oriented approach allows
for the study of intermediary actors or ‘brokers’,
who can be seen as intermediaries between
development institutions and local society.
Such brokers operate at the interfaces of different world views and knowledge systems, and
are important in negotiating roles, relationships
and representations. In turn, the translation or
meanings through development brokers produces project realities (Lewis and Mosse,
2006). Several other scholars have studied how
different actors can shape a policy and its
outcome, some emphasising the ‘frictions’
(Tsing, 2005) or ‘slippery spaces’ (Zink, 2013)
that occur when the diverging interests of actors
conflict or coexist, as the policy moves across
actor networks. For instance, Tsing (2005)
emphasises the unexpected and unstable
aspects of local/global interactions and
encounters in globe-crossing capital and commodity chains, such as development and conservation projects, which REDD+ arguably is a
part of. These heterogeneous and unequal
encounters can lead to new arrangements of
culture and power, she argues, and this ‘friction’ gets in the way of the smooth operation of
global power. In conservation programmes,
collaborations and unexpected alliances can
arise, creating new interests and identities, but
not to the benefit of all. For example, community leaders might intentionally misrepresent a
given situation to conservation experts and
learn the rhetoric of conservation in order to be
recognised and effective in their advocacy
(Tsing, 2005: 199). Thus, these kinds of translations or frictions through different actors or
brokers are essential in determining the practical outcome of a policy and how the policy
shapes and evolves.
Besides the introduced concepts of translation, brokers and friction, other metaphors and
examples are used to describe the way implementation of a policy is modified through
chains of actors. In a study on environmental
change in Kenya, Adams (1996) describe how
ideas ‘move from the planning room to field
project’ (Adams, 1996: 156, emphasis added)
by percolating down through the bureaucratic
system, and how ideas sediment down gradually and adapt themselves to precedent thinking. This paper will primarily use the term
‘translation’ from this point forward to describe
how a policy is shaped through a chain of
actors. Importantly, indicating a one-way and
downward direction of this translation from
policy to practical outcomes (Adams, 1996)
does not address how the policy itself can be
reshaped through actors’ translation. Including
influential actors at the local level as brokers or
a ‘conservation elite’ and not merely as beneficiaries or participants is also essential (Funder
et al., 2013). Taken together and exemplified
with the case from Cambodia, this paper examines the two-directional translation processes or
activities; the upward translation in which
policy practice and achievements are translated
by community representatives through conservation practitioners to reach donors, and the
downward translation of the policy rhetoric and
objectives resulting in unintended outcomes
(summarised in Fig. 2).
Environmental subjects and hidden transcripts
In order to enable a more detailed examination
of the specific translational activities which
occur between conservation practitioners and
local forest managers, two supplementary concepts are included in the theoretical frame of
this paper, namely environmentality (Agrawal,
2005) and transcripts (Scott, 1990). In his muchcited writings on ‘Environmentality’, Agrawal
(2005) describes the creation of ‘environmental
subjects’ – people who come to care about
the environment as a response to changes in
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
113
M. Pasgaard
ownership when a new policy is introduced. He
argues that villagers’ beliefs change when they
become involved in practices of environmental
regulation, such as monitoring in community
forestry. For instance, the rhetoric of these new
environmental subjects becomes resonant with
the prevailing conservation rhetoric, which
favours forest protection and matches policy
objectives. Agrawal (2005) emphasises the significant variation within villages in how individual villagers see forests and protect them.
Furthermore, subjects might not make themselves in ways desired by the ‘gaze of power’.
Arguably, conflicting desires for personal gain
and interests still matter, which is an important
aspect in the policy translation between these
new environmental subjects and the conservation practitioners. Thus, in a study of REDD+
policy translation, it is relevant to investigate the
use of certain conservation rhetoric oriented
towards the making of environmental subjects,
their interests and their relationships with other
powerful actors.
Agrawal (2005) refers to James Scott’s work
on domination and resistance, in particular on
how autonomous views in local communities
about the prevailing social order are invisible to
outsiders. Scott (1990) describes the public transcript as open interaction, as the roles played by
disguise and surveillance in power relations. In
contrast to the public transcripts are the hidden
transcripts, the off-stage performances specific
to a given social site and a particular set of
actors, which do not find public expression.
Scott (1990) describes and exemplifies the frontier between the public and the hidden transcripts as a class struggle, ‘a zone of constant
struggle between dominant and sub-ordinate’
(Scott, 1990: 14), and he argues that analysis
based exclusively on public transcript will likely
conclude that the subordinate groups are
willing, even enthusiastic, partners in that subordination and endorse the given terms. While
the relationship between conservation practitioners involved in REDD+ implementation and
a local forest management committee might not
constitute a classic class struggle between a
dominant and subordinate group, the concepts
of public and hidden transcripts are useful for
understanding the translation process in what is
still a power-laden context. Thus, the concepts
of environmentality and transcripts are relevant
114
for the examination of the upward translation of
policy achievements, which are to be assessed
by the conservation practitioners in order to
(dis-)continue or adapt policies. Specifically, it
is critical to establish not only the extent to
which new environmental subjects come to
actually care about the forest they are responsible for, but also to establish whether their rhetoric about conservation is a staged public
transcript to satisfy powerful visitors and match
policy objectives.
Financial aspects
As the last part of the theoretical frame, the
present paper emphasises the interplay between
policy translation and finance. Financial aspects
and incentives are omnipresent in the REDD+
policy arena and affect the interactions between
the actors, to whom the policy constitutes a
resource, a profession, a market, a stake or a
strategy (see de Sardan, 2005; see Goldman,
2005). The organisations involved in implementing a project, for example, have an incentive to portray project success over failure as a
means of securing continued funds and influence (Saito-Jensen and Pasgaard, in press). In a
process of actively not learning from experience, certain lessons from project evaluations
and assessments are readily recognised and
incorporated in future initiatives, while other
lessons are selectively avoided or even suppressed (Hulme, 1989). Finance, therefore,
shapes policy translation, with financial aspects
continuously surfacing along a policy chain
where actors communicate. The link between
the two is also expressed in the particular conservation rhetoric or project ‘language’ spoken
by local brokers in the presence of visitors (see
also Agrawal, 2005). For these brokers, who act
as accountable representatives for the target
population, the ability to speak the language
development institutions and donors expect is
an entry ticket into an international development network and with it the promise of funds
(de Sardan, 2005). The use of this language –
and other translational means and channels –
plays a central role in the reproduction of a
policy or a project, when it moves along a chain
of actors. Examination of this conservation
rhetoric, as well as of project assessments and
conflicts, is a key part of the empirical approach
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Lost in translation?
Table 1. Overview of the groups of actors included in the study of policy translation in REDD+
Actor
Local villagers
Forest Management
Committee
Local NGO
Conservation agency
Donor institution
Main interests
Data sources
Daily subsistence, mainly from agriculture
Access to benefits from forest protection
Benefits from forest protection, such as forest
products (legal or illegal), donor support
(employment or direct financial support) and
carbon funds
Influence over decision-making
Continued project funds for staff employment
Influence on project functioning and project
assessments
Successful project, i.e. reach policy objectives
Continued support from donors for staff
Build capacity and start new projects (more
funds)
Successful projects, i.e. reach environmental
and social policy objectives
Continued support and funding from donor
countries
Semi-structured interviews
Field observations
Semi-structured interviews
Key informant interviews
Observations at CF federation meeting
Document analysis
Observations at CF federation meeting
Interviews and conversations with conservation
agency staff
Document analysis
Interviews and informal conversations with
project staff
Observations at CF federation and project
validation meetings
Document analysis
Observations at international donor-attended
seminars, workshops and meetings
CF, community forestry; NGO, Non-governmental organisation.
to this study of policy translation among actors
in REDD+ as described below.
Empirical approach and study area
At the centre of this research are semi-structured
interviews and documentary analysis, coupled
with observations of the project site (summarised in Table 1). The paper primarily draws on a
field study in the Oddar Meanchey province
conducted in 2011 consisting of 114 semistructured interviews with local villagers covering five different community forestry (CF) sites
and eight villages in total. The CFs included in
the study are Chhouk Meas (one village
studied), Prey Srorng (two villages), Samaky
(two villages), Sangkrous Preychheu (one
village) and Sorng Rokavorn (two villages). The
respondents were mainly relatively poor
farmers, who worked their crop fields, ran a
small business at the roadside, produced charcoal or worked for hire. An equal number of
men and women were interviewed and more
than half of the respondents were members of
the CF their village belonged to. A few village
headmen, CF leaders and a Buddhist monk
were interviewed as well. The open-ended
questions in the interviews mainly concerned
the causes of deforestation and the challenges
encountered by CF/REDD. In addition to these
interviews, primary data consist of eight interviews with other stakeholders, namely government officials from the Forest Administration
and project staff from international aid agencies
involved with forest conservation and development programmes. Primary data also consist of
notes and minutes from meetings, including a
CF federation meeting with the presence of all
CF leaders and a REDD+ validation meeting
between the conservation agency and a thirdparty consultancy firm. Furthermore, data are
supplemented by field observations, observations at meetings and seminars, as well as
various secondary data sources (newspaper articles, reports, legal documents, scientific papers,
etc.).
As an analytical entry point, these data are
structured around two specific forms of translation between the actors in a policy chain. Firstly,
the conservation rhetoric or ‘project language’
is examined through the analysis of interviews,
written documents, project meetings, etc. (see
also de Sardan, 2005). Secondly, various project
assessments are examined, such as social
assessments and the third-party validation
meeting, in order to study the translation, reproduction and extension of the project through
such project evaluations (see Hulme, 1989;
Goldman, 2001, 2005; Mosse, 2001). Besides
the examination of the conservation rhetoric
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
115
M. Pasgaard
and project assessments, conflicts among
groups of actors are identified and studied, as a
way of revealing their strategies and logics (de
Sardan, 2005). Together, these three points are
examined by employing a range of methodological strategies and data sources (described
above). Overall, these methods are employed
with the aim of following the processes, practices, discourses, technologies or networks that
construct and deconstruct policy (see Peck and
Theodore, 2010). In practice, this means connecting ‘the places of policy invention not only
with spaces of circulation and centers of translation, but also with the netherworlds of policy
implementation’ (Peck and Theodore, 2012:
24). Penetrating below the official line and
staged performances to reveal the ‘hidden transcripts’ (Scott, 1990), and to expose actors’ economic incentives, personal strategies, failures
and contradictions (de Sardan, 2005) requires a
high level of trust. Also, access to the relevant
policy actors and networks is a necessity. This
access was gained and extended through existing networks, collaboration and exchange of
knowledge, personal follow-up interviews and
timing of data collection. For instance, observing at a validation meeting and REDD+ seminar
was only made feasible through mutual collaboration and by being present at the right time
and place. Empirical data, policy documents
and secondary sources were analysed using
QSR Nvivo 9 software QSR International Pty
Ltd., Doncaster (Victoria), Australia, Version 9,
2010 for qualitative analyses in order to identify
prevailing rhetoric, common narratives and
themes.
The case study area in Oddar Meanchey
Oddar Meanchey province is one of the country’s poorest and most remote, located at the
northern Thai-Cambodian border, where political and armed border conflicts have played
out over past years (Bradley, 2009). Multiple
complex factors at the local, national and
regional scale drive deforestation in the province, such as agricultural expansion, Economic
Land Concessions, forestland encroachment
and illegal logging, as well as land speculation
and firewood consumption (see Bradley, 2009;
Poffenberger, 2009). The influx of poor, landless
people to forest-rich resource frontiers, such as
116
Oddar Meanchey, also plays an important role
in competition for land and resources (see
USAID, 2004; Thul, 2011). Weak forest sector
governance with inadequate forest law enforcement and low institutional capacity (UN-REDD,
2010) underlies and aggravates the problem. For
instance, high levels of corruption and violence
in the forestry sector play a role (Le Billon, 2002;
Global Witness, 2007), reflected in land conflicts and continued granting of concessions in
Oddar Meanchey leading to disputes over land
(Roeun and Vrieze, 2011; Soenthrith, 2011).
The REDD+ project
In an attempt to protect the remaining forests in
Oddar Meanchey from a deforestation rate of
more than 2% decline in forest cover2 per year,
13 CFs have been established and supported by
international NGOs and by legal frameworks
provided by the Government of Cambodia
(RECOFTC, 2010). The CFs are managed by the
local communities as a response to increasing
levels of deforestation and insecure forest
tenure (Bradley, 2009). These CFs provide
the platform for the country’s first REDD+
demonstration project initiated in 2008, followed by the approval of Cambodia’s National
UN-REDD Program a few years later (UNREDD, 2010). The REDD+ project in Oddar
Meanchey CFs is expected to provide financing
and development to the communities through
carbon credits generated from forest protection
and regeneration. The 13 CFs currently participating in the Oddar Meanchey CF/REDD+
project comprise 58 villages and cover an area
of approximately 68 000 ha of forestland. An
international NGO, an international carbon
company, and two local NGOs facilitate the
preparation and implementation of the
CF/REDD+ project in partnership with the government (the Forestry Administration) (see
Fig. 1). Specifically, the Forestry Administration
is the seller of carbon on behalf of Royal Government of Cambodia. The Forest Administration participates in project design, and is
responsible for implementation and daily
administration of project activities. The conservation agency (international NGO) assists the
Forest Administration with coordination of
project actions, participates in project design,
and in the facilitation between various stake-
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Lost in translation?
Forest Administration
• Government agency
• Implementing organisation
Administration and design of project
activities, support forest protection,
seller of carbon
Conservation Agency
Carbon company
• International NGO
• Implementing partner
Project design, activities and
assessments
• Private organisation
• Technical implementing partner
Project design, carbon calculations and
marketing
Two local NGOs
• Implementing partners
Consultations, project actions and
assessments in the communities
Communities of Oddar Meanchey Province
• Community Forestry Federation
• Implementing partner
Daily management
Figure 1. Organisational diagram indicating roles and responsibility of the main project partners (based on Terra Global,
2012). Lines indicate the connections between the organisations: The FA, conservation agency and local NGOs work
directly with the communities (represented by the CF Federation of CF leaders and the management committees) during
field visits, project activities, meetings, etc. The carbon company supports the development of all carbon market
preparatory work and negotiations. The conservation agency and the community representatives are at the centre of
analysis in the study presented in this paper as indicated with bold outlines. NGO, non-government organisation
holders including training of local communities,
stakeholder consultation and integration, such
as designing and conducting social assessments
and forest inventories. The carbon company
also participates in the project design and provides technical assistance, as well as marketing
project carbon credits. One of the local NGOs
supports implementation project actions in the
field, such as training local communities, and
stakeholder consultation and integration (Terra
Global, 2012). For the practical everyday management of the CF, the Community Forestry
Management Committees (CFMCs) have the
main responsibilities and decision-making
power, including recruitment and fund management, and these committees are elected by CF
members for five-year terms (Royal Government
of Cambodia (RGC), 2003).
The objective of the project is to reduce emissions of approximately 8.3 million metric tons
of carbon dioxide over 30 years, earning more
than $50 million under an assumed price of $7
per ton carbon dioxide (Bradley, 2012). In order
to reach this objective, the project needs to
reduce the complex drivers of deforestation and
forest degradation previously outlined, which
threatens the forests protected under CF/REDD+
in the province. The main project activities
include reinforcement of forest tenure,
community-based forest protection, fire prevention, introduction of fuel-efficient cook stoves
and agricultural intensification (Terra Global,
2012). The Forestry Administration stipulates
that a minimum of 50% of net income from the
sale of carbon credits, after project costs are
covered, is expected to flow directly to local
communities (Bradley, 2009). Both monetary
and non-monetary benefits from the protection
of the forest (e.g. from carbon sales and in terms
of NTFPs, respectively) are to be shared among
the community members. One of the main
policy documents, the Project Design Document (see Terra Global, 2012: 163), calls for a
pro-poor approach to benefit sharing to specifically ensure that the poorest households receive
substantial benefits from the project.
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
117
M. Pasgaard
Actors shaping a policy through translation
The analysis of policy translation among
project actors in Oddar Meanchey REDD+ has
three components. Firstly, based on empirical
findings, I describe and categorise groups of
actors in the policy chain in terms of their
interests and strategies. Secondly, based on an
analysis of project language and assessments, a
conceptual model is suggested that illustrates
and explains the routes and forms of translation
between these actors in the policy chain. In
this model, the two-directional mode in which
such translation shapes policy outcomes and
feeds back into policy making is emphasized.
Thirdly, the actors and the suggested mode of
policy translation among them are discussed
and compared with existing dominant trends in
conservation and development policies. Taken
together, the analysis shows how project actors
shape and translate the REDD+ policy and its
outcomes according to their own interests,
exemplified by the strategic use of conservation
rhetoric and selective learning from project
assessments.
Actors engaged in Oddar Meanchey REDD+
demonstration project
Based on empirical findings, five groups of
actors in the Oddar Meanchey REDD+ policy
network are briefly described here (see also ‘The
REDD+ project’ section above). These five
groups – the local villagers, the forest management committees, a local NGO, the international conservation agency and the donor
institution – were selected for analysis due to
their project relevance and their levels of interactions. The following analysis mainly focuses
on the project level actors and in particular the
translation activities that take place between the
conservation agency and the local forest management authority (Community Forestry Management Committee (CFMC)).
The local villagers are mainly agriculturalists
who rely on agricultural land. Their main interest is their daily subsistence and survival. Only
a few households have land titles recognised by
the authorities and the risk of land grabbing by
commercial companies or influential elites is
high. Interviews show that many villagers are
recent migrants, who were displaced, landless
118
and living in poverty. Most villagers are
unaware that the REDD+ project exists and
what it is about. While some villagers engage in
CF/REDD+ activities, the empirical findings
reveal how others are excluded from enjoying
the benefits of forest protection due to various
constraints, such as poor health, lack of
resources, distance to the forest or due to deliberate exclusion by the CFMC, who controls
forest access and management decisions (see
also Pasgaard and Chea, 2013; see also Howson
and Kindon, 2015).
The local CFMCs are dominated by the
wealthier households in the communities and
by existing social relations. Broadly, their main
interests in the CF/REDD+ project are the
forest benefits, the expected ‘carbon cash’ for
income and development, and donor support
for monitoring activities. As explained by a CF
leader:
From what I experience about CF establishment, there are many benefits from forest management. The land and forest has been
managed and many people can access to products like mushroom, resin, rattan, wild vegetables, etc. From my point of view, because I’ve
participated in trainings, I expect to get benefits
in cash from carbon project to my CF development. Some of the villagers have limited education; therefore it was very hard for them to
understand about the project (pers. comm.,
2011, 13 July).
It appears that a common strategy to secure
and attract more financial support is related to
monitoring activities.
The biggest challenge is the lack of financial
support to the patrol team, because they have
some immediate needs and they spend a lot of
time on patrol and rotate regularly. Because if
we didn’t do like this, the forest area will be
lost and the project also going to fail (pers.
comm., 2011, 2 July, CF leader).
These are genuine concerns and the general
desire to support forest protection appears reasonable. However, according to some villagers,
their management committee and leaders are
involved in illegal harvesting of timber in the CF
they themselves manage (see Pasgaard and
Chea, 2013), while at the same time they
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Lost in translation?
require support for forest monitoring (see also
Funder et al., 2013).
A local NGO is involved in the dissemination
and assessment activities in Oddar Meanchey.
For instance, the NGO conducted a comprehensive household survey used as part of the
social assessment and to estimate secondary
emissions and ‘leakage’ from the project area
(Blackburn, 2011). The local NGO is tied by
strong kin relations and must have an interest in
continued employment from project funds in
order to maintain income and influence on
project implementation and monitoring.
The conservation agency is the main implementing partner together with the government
agency, and has a range of responsibilities (see
‘The REDD+ project’ section). The main interest
of the conservation agency is to ensure implementation of the project in order to secure continued funding for it (and future projects), and
for its own international and local staff. In order
to reach these goals, criteria for project validation and registration on the carbon market must
be fulfilled.
The large multilateral donor institution for
REDD+ support (together with the World Bank)
is UN-REDD+. The UN has an interest in a
successful REDD+ programme. The organisation wants to reach the ambitious environmental and social co-benefits expected from
REDD+, such as ‘equitable pro-poor outcomes’
(the United Nations REDD programme 2011–
2015: 13–14) in order to satisfy the individual
donor countries (decision-makers and the
public), whose support and funds they ultimately rely on.
The actors and their respective interests are
summarised in Table 1.
Translation of REDD+ policy
In this section, I explore the routes and processes of translation between the actors introduced above (Fig. 2 below). Two types of
translation activities are identified – those relating to conservation rhetoric and to those
relating to project assessments. These are supplemented with observations of how acts of
translation are related to benefit sharing and
conflicts within local communities.
The conservation rhetoric The use of a specific
conservation rhetoric or ‘project language’ was
evident among the most active CF members and
leaders: for instance, by referring to the concept
of leakage:
I am worried about the REDD project, if the
forest outside the CF area were cleared, it will
impact on REDD by causing the carbon
emitted to increase around my CF area (pers.
comm., 2011, 2 July, CF leader).
The project language is also reflected in the
technical terminology and common development phrases and objectives adopted by some
CF members:
[The carbon project] is helpful – when credits
come it will be shared among the CF and
support patrolling. Benefit sharing from credits
goes to all members, [this is] more transparent
and fair. We will use it for fish pond, pig and
chicken farm, school and hospital for the
whole village. It is hard to say when the benefits will be delivered. If no funding – [I am] not
satisfied, but will still conserve the forest for
future generations (pers. comm., patrol team
leader, 2011, 30 June, emphasis added).
A similar rhetoric is adopted by a CF leader,
when asked about the requirements and responsibilities of being a CF member:
Whoever loves and is willing to protect the
forest for their next generation. We didn’t force
them to become a member, it based on their
voluntariness. A person who is from 18 years
old up can be a CF member, without favoritism
and we do not mind about any [political] party
involvement (pers. comm., 2011, 13 July,
emphasis added).
Despite these promising statements resonating with REDD+ policy objectives, interviews
among community members showed how the
actual decisions and regulations concerning
sharing of forest and carbon benefits are interpreted and practised quite differently across the
individual CFs. Examples of collection of fees
from villagers to extract resources and be CF
members are common, along with several accusations of social exclusion of certain members
by the CFMC, leading to biased access to benefits among villagers, together with accusations
of illegal forest activities by these committees
and leaders:
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
119
120
Conservation agency
Donor level (UN)
Conservation rhetoric
Active members adopt and use project
language
The CFMC communicates directly with
conservation practitioners
Project assessment
Validation of the project
PERCEPTION of Cambodia as “leading country”
Conflict
Accusations of illegal activities among
CFMCs
Low representativeness
Figure 2. The figure summarises the forms and examples of translational activities shaping the policy through the chain of actors. As highlighted, the diagram emphasises the
contrast between the social objectives and the perceptions at donor level on the one hand, and the realities in the local communities on the other hand. CF, community forestry;
NGO, Non-governmental organization
OUTCOME: Inequitable distribution of benefits
Local community level (villagers)
Interpretation of policy
Inclusion/exclusion of members
Biased access to benefits
Community Forestry Management Committee (CFMC)
Project assessments
Selectively target active CF members
Conducted via local NGO (household survey)
Policy rhetoric
Win-win narratives
Social and pro-poor OBJECTIVES
M. Pasgaard
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Lost in translation?
[I] used to be active [in CF], but stopped being
called to patrols and other activities five
months ago . . .
A CF fee was collected by the CF team leader,
[it is] based on kindness, on what you can
spare . . . I paid 5000 riel per month – don’t
know the use [of the money] . . . [I] didn’t get
any benefits – other members do – [there is]
favoritism of a closed group of related patrollers who keep the information and benefits to
themselves (pers. comm., 2011, 5 July).
[I] used to be [CF member], but now I am not
allowed because I am old and can do no CF
activities . . . As a member I paid fee to the CF.
The amount of fee depend on the member, the
‘kindness of their heart’ – whatever they can
spare. Collected per month – the CF management asked village chief to collect [the
money].
These and other statements by different villagers tell strikingly similar stories about exclusions, apparently random and off-the-record
collection of fees, and illegal activities in the CF,
all quite contrary to statements about conservation, transparency, equity, membership requirements and non-favouritism expressed by higherlevel CF members echoing CF regulations (see
RGC, 2003) and REDD+ policy documents (see
Terra Global, 2012).
Assessment of the project Three specific
aspects of project assessment became apparent
from the case study, namely in relation to: (i)
social assessments in local communities, (ii)
validation of the REDD+ project for its registration on the carbon market; and (iii) the
accumulation of such assessments at donor
level.
Firstly, social assessments of the demonstration project in Oddar Meanchey are required as
prescribed in the project design document
(Terra Global, 2012). Besides a household
survey among project participants and nonparticipants, the periodic social assessments
include Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs)
and focus groups among a ‘targeted, purposive
sample of CFMC members and project participants’ (p. 138, emphasis added). This package
of so-called ‘community impact monitoring’ is
mainly the responsibility of the conservation
agency and it is an important criterion for the
validation of the project. In practice, however,
the household survey contained several
major flaws and lacked important questions
(Blackburn, 2011: 100 forward). For instance,
sections on attitudes and behaviours related to
the project, as well as on changes in land tenure
security, social capital and access to resources,
were not included in the survey. Also, questions
concerning patrolling and trading of timber
were also missing. Furthermore, the actual data
collection in the communities was outsourced
to the local NGO, which raised several concerns about the reliability and accuracy of the
survey (see Blackburn, 2011: 5–8). In sum, the
PRA and other impact monitoring activities,
such as field visits, workshops, training and
meetings, primarily target the community
members who engage actively in the carbon
project, while the non-members or less active
members seem to be included in assessments to
a lesser extent.
Secondly, a REDD+ meeting was held
between the conservation agency, representatives from the carbon trade company and the
government agency, and a third-party consultancy firm, with the purpose of validating the
project. At the meeting, the REDD+ proponents
(the conservation agency, the government
agency and the carbon company) addressed
specific challenges for REDD+ in Oddar
Meanchey in a particular way, making them
appear less critical and more manageable, as
described below. For example, potential conflicts within communities were disregarded
with reference to the participatory processes of
consultation, stakeholder engagement and conflict resolution (pers. comm., 2011, 16 August,
conservation agency representatives). Similarly,
the potential detrimental effects of Economic
Land Concessions on the project were
addressed as a ‘leakage problem beyond what
REDD+ can deal with, [it is] much more efficient to intensify agriculture’ (pers. comm.,
2011, 16 August, carbon company representative). This is in line with the main project activities suggested in the policy documents, which
explicitly excludes Economic Land Concessions from the carbon calculations (Terra
Global, 2012: 36).
A third aspect of project assessments concerns the donor level. Here the information
about the specific challenges and outcomes for
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
121
M. Pasgaard
REDD+ programme countries accumulates,
affects policy-making and is disseminated to the
wider public. For example, the head of the
UN-REDD secretariat was keynote speaker at a
REDD+ seminar in Copenhagen in autumn
2011. When questioned broadly about success
stories in REDD+, he mentioned Cambodia as a
‘leading country’ (pers. comm., 2011, 14 September). The donor level completes the circle of
translation from policy objectives to perceptions
of project success and will be further described
below.
A two-directional translation of the REDD+
policy? The actors, their rhetoric and project
assessments can be summarised as a twodirectional mode of translation, with examples
of how actors can shape the policy to their own
advantage (Fig. 1). In short, the analysis above
shows how the social objectives of the policy,
such as pro-poor benefit sharing, are disregarded in the project assessments, for which the
conservation agency is responsible. These
policy objectives and regulations are further
translated and interpreted by the local forest
management committees in their own favour, as
they control the everyday access to benefits and
decision-making in practice. Local villagers
thereby risk an inequitable distribution of benefits and they lack representation in the forest
management committees. These committees
instead communicate directly with the conservation agency using their powerful positions
and conservation rhetoric to influence project
assessments and decisions about funding.
Besides building their project evaluations on
communication with the management committees, the conservation agency communicates
project challenges and outcomes in a way that
eases project validation and continued funding.
In the end, this translation across actors of the
REDD+ policy could contribute to the donor
perception of Cambodia as ‘a leading country in
REDD+’ and sustain and confirm the policy
objectives.
Discussion
Multiple actors with diverse interests
The empirical findings from the REDD+ demonstration project in Oddar Meanchey show
122
how the rhetoric of local forest management
resonates with the prevailing conservation
rhetoric on forest protection for future generations and carbon emissions (e.g. leakage), and
matches REDD+ policy objectives of fair and
transparent distribution of benefits. On the
outside, the villagers actively engaged in forest
protection have become ‘environmental subjects’, who truly care about the forest (Agrawal,
2005). However, the research in Oddar
Meanchey shows how the public transcript
expressed rhetorically in official ‘staged’ interactions (Scott, 1990), such as an interview with
a foreign researcher, might not tell the whole
story. While the public transcript and the conservation rhetoric used by these environmental
subjects portray deference and consent, this is
possibly only a tactic (see Scott, 1990). A
hidden transcript appears to lie beneath with
resistance to REDD+ in terms of unequal
benefit sharing and illegal forest activities,
which take place beyond the eyes of visitors.
The ‘conservation elite’ is able to strengthen
monitoring practices to their own advantage,
and to some extent move them beyond the
reach of government agencies and conservation
and development practitioners (Funder et al.,
2013). As mentioned, these elites can selectively adopt specific environmental idioms and
turn them to their own advantage in struggles
over resource control, and they thereby affect
the implementation or outcome of an intervention (Leach and Mearns, 1996). Such a scenario
can play out if conservation fieldworkers
blindly accept the local accounts as indisputable in their assessments, because the power
relations shaping the encounters between
locals and conservation agency are invisible to
the latter (Leach and Mearns, 1996). A similar
situation arises if complicated struggles over
land and forest resources within the community
are simply ignored by the project staff (Milne
and Adams, 2012). Indeed, the everyday regulations in and decisions about forest management are influenced far more directly by the
local management committee networks than by
state officials or conservation agencies. The
social exclusion of peripheral members and the
low representativeness found in the case study,
as well as the lack of information and attention
to stakeholder processes reflected by the inadequate social assessments, emphasise the risk
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Lost in translation?
of procedural inequity in REDD+ (see
McDermott et al., 2013; Marion Suiseeya and
Caplow, 2013). Facilitated by contextual inequities in the form of existing underlying power
structures, these procedural equities surface in
the case study as a critical part of the distributional inequity within communities, where benefits are biased towards the certain wellconnected members, who are active in forest
patrols or are part of the committee network
(see also Pasgaard and Chea, 2013). While
these high-level community members do
protect the forest and control illegal practices,
they also calculate their own potential gains
and losses in a context of new institutional
arrangements (Agrawal, 2005). As development
brokers, this conservation elite negotiates the
terrain between the forest conservation agencies and other community members (Funder
et al., 2013). They have a rhetoric competence
in their ability to speak the language the conservation agency and donor experts expect; a
language which they never use in their everyday lives except in the presence of visitors seen
a priori as potential donors. This project language, in turn, is not only an entry ticket into an
international network and development funds;
it also plays a central role in the reproduction of
the project itself (de Sardan, 2005).
With regard to the interests of the local forest
management committees, who seek to maintain and expand their resources and influence,
the social assessments of the project can also
be to their advantage. In particular, an examination of social assessments in Oddar
Meanchey shows that the household survey
has several flaws and shortcomings, as it
ignores or misses out on information which is
important and relevant from an equity perspective. Other social assessment activities, including training and workshops, often selectively
target the more active members and management committees, so that other community
members cannot raise their voices with equal
strength. In addition, the validation of the
project through a third-party consultancy firm
is eased by making it appear more feasible and
equitable, portraying communities as homogenous units fighting external threats. According
to Li (2007), conservation agencies and other
NGOs ‘sell’ the term community in order to
access donor-funded projects, as their institu-
tional survival depends upon successful projects and further donor funds. They are part of
the development and conservation industry,
which is a time-consuming, and yet potentially
lucrative, business opportunity (Goldman,
2005), where funds funnel to Northern scientists, consultants and firms shuttling back and
forth between the developing country and their
home countries (Goldman, 2001). However,
this presents a twofold paradox for the conservation practitioners. They rely on external
funding and their campaigns must therefore
appeal to a wide public and donor audience;
this ironically often serves to reinforce the stereotyped images the very same institutions may
wish to challenge (see Leach and Mearns,
1996). At the same time, the conservation
agency relies on the engagement of local
power structures in the remote rural villages,
even at the risk of legitimising and becoming
reliant upon these networks (Hughes, 2001). In
turn, this can cause problematic connections
and encounters when a policy moves across
diverse actor networks in development and
conservation programmes (Tsing, 2005), as
exemplified with the REDD+ demonstration
project in Oddar Meanchey.
Lastly, at the donor level, policy objectives
are formulated and policy outcomes are synthesised and disseminated to the wider public
and the scientific community. Open to speculation is whether UN-REDD’s perception of
Cambodia as a ‘leading country’ in REDD+ is
partly a result of the upward translational
activities across other actors during validation
meetings and the selective learning from community assessments, facilitated by the conservation rhetoric mastered by the community
members active in forest management. If the
direction of the argument is reversed, then the
failure to respect social standards can also be
the result of the combined pressure from
REDD+ countries resisting stringent environmental and social standards, and key donors
wanting quick disbursement of funds (Dooley
et al., 2011: 32). Donors need to distribute
funding in order to secure next year’s budget
(Zink, 2013), and thus the development industry can be accused of creating its own demand
(Goldman, 2005). These two lines of arguments
are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually
reinforcing.
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
123
M. Pasgaard
Translation among actors shaping
REDD+ policy
This paper summarises how various actors contribute to the overall translation of the REDD+
policy from the donor level to local villagers
and back (Fig. 2). The translation across the
chain of actors occurs in a two-directional
mode, or in an ‘orbital manner’, where local
traces are fed back into policy audits and negotiations at the international level (Zink, 2013:
172). As such, the art of eco-governance circulates and expands through multiple sites of
encounter, leading to new modalities of power
and knowledge, while the modern eco-rational
subject and the environmental state are being
mutually constituted (Goldman, 2001). This
globally circulating knowledge also creates new
gaps, even as it grows through the frictions of
encounters (Tsing, 2005: 13). A gap in REDD+
between policy objectives and procedural and
distributional injustices on the ground is exemplified with the Oddar Meanchey REDD+
project in Cambodia. These empirical findings
also show how policies rarely travel as complete packages; rather, they move in bits and
pieces, and arrive as policies already-intransformation instead of replicas (Peck and
Theodore, 2010). This is shown with regard to
the social objectives of pro-poor benefit
sharing, which are re-shaped and interpreted at
the local level by the CFMC. With examples of
selective project assessments and rhetorical
adaptations, the case study exemplifies how
such policy objectives and regulations can
mutate and morph as they are shaped by multidirectional forms of cross-scalar and inter-local
policy mobility (Peck and Theodore, 2010).
Concluding remarks
In more general terms, there seems to be a major
gap between concepts and forest policy initiatives developed and promoted at international
and national levels on the one hand, and their
application at the regional and local levels on the
other hand (Rametsteiner, 2009). This paper
argues that such policies do not reach their
well-meaning intentions because various project
actors with diverse interests translate the policies
and the practical achievements of the policies in
a self-reinforcing manner. And as shown, the
124
responsibility for conducting social assessments
intended to identify the gaps between policies
and their practical achievements, including
potential community impacts, lies with the conservation agency, who rely on project success.
The conservation agency outsources project
surveys to the local NGO, who is also interested
in continued project funds, and targets project
assessments towards the forest management
committee. This same committee is also the
authority in control of forest monitoring activities
and decisions. In sum, the conservation agency
and these local partners are not impartial in the
process; rather, stakes and interests are high, and
these actors depend on the success of and funds
from the project they monitor and assess. The
inclusion of an external and neutral body that
would assist with developing and conducting
project assessments, and who is financially independent of project success, might be required to
minimise the translation of the policy objectives
by influential actors. The essential first step,
however, is to acknowledge the complex social
networks and communication patterns within
and between a community and conservation
practitioners, and to avoid uniform project
approaches that do not take into account these
networks and practices (see Hoang et al., 2006).
As suggested by Funder et al. (2013: 218): ‘we
need to move beyond simplistic assumptions of
community strategies and incentives in participatory conservation and allow for more adaptive
and politically explicit governance spaces in
protected area management’. Overall, a more
nuanced perspective with increased emphasis
on the various actors engaged in REDD+, their
interests and rhetoric, as well as their roles in
project assessments, is needed to prevent the
well-intentioned objectives of REDD+ being lost
in translation.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Lily Chea, Christina Ender and Phat Phanna for their valuable
support and company during the fieldwork in
Oddar Meanchey, and thanks also to the residents of the study sites for their help in participating in interviews. A special thank you goes to
the Community Forestry Program staff of Pact
Cambodia, and in particular Amanda Bradley
for her collaboration and constructive feedback.
© 2015 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
Lost in translation?
Finally, the author gratefully acknowledges the
comments provided by the issue editors, and
the financial assistance from WWF/Novozymes
that made the research fieldwork possible. This
research is part of the project entitled Impacts
of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation and Enhancing Carbon
Stocks (I-REDD+), and also contributes to the
Global Land Project (GLP).
Notes
1 Besides power, a token can also be a claim, an order, an
artefact (Latour, 1986) or a policy, as examined here.
2 Refer to data where forest is defined as land spanning
more than 0.5 ha, with trees higher than 5 m and a
canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach
these thresholds in situ (GRAS A/S, 2010).
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