The bricolage of REDD+ in Zanzibar: from global environmental policy framework to community forest management

Grete Benjaminsen

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2017, vol. 11, issue 3, 506-525

Abstract: The policy framework known as Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is based on the underlying idea of creating economic incentives for forest conservation and CO2 emission reductions. This article explores what happens when REDD+, as a globally conceived environmental policy framework, is translated into practice in Zanzibar. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among actors involved in the policy translation process, the article investigates how these actors receive, interpret and give meaning to the introduction of REDD+. With the concept of institutional bricolage as an overarching perspective, the article engages in a discussion of what factors provide legitimacy to REDD+ at policy level in Zanzibar, and moreover, why certain elements of the REDD+ policy framework are incorporated into practice while others are discarded. The article demonstrates how actors make creative use of the resources available, but only within a spectrum that allows for reinvention of established practices and acceptable ways of doing. The article concludes that although the process of carbon accounting represents a ‘technical necessity’ of the REDD+ policy framework, it lack the legitimacy necessary to become durable. REDD+ in Zanzibar is thus at risk of becoming yet another example of a ‘conservation fad’ – an approach that initially invoked a widely shared enthusiasm, but later was dubbed a failure and abandoned.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17531055.2017.1357103 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rjeaxx:v:11:y:2017:i:3:p:506-525

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjea20

DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2017.1357103

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Eastern African Studies is currently edited by Jim Robert Brennan

More articles in Journal of Eastern African Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().