Short abstract:

Large-scale forestation is considered either a climate mitigation opportunity or a threat for grassy ecosystems. Various disciplinary approaches and related scientific gaze (distant or close) and a geopolitics of natural sciences shape different valuations of forest and non-forest ecosystems.

Long abstract:

Recent scientific publications, policy discussions and public outreach articles deal with large-scale forestation in Africa either as an opportunity for climate mitigation or as a threat for grassy ecosystems. In 2019, researchers mostly based in Europe published an article in the prestigious journal Science, featuring a map of the “global tree restoration potential”, suggesting that large areas of sub-Saharan Africa were available for “tree restoration” (Bastin et al. 2019). Against such calls for urgent and massive carbon-related afforestation policies, recent publications by natural scientists warn against the afforestation of peatlands, grassy ecosystems and savannas, deemed detrimental to biodiversity and even to carbon sequestration capacity. South African scientists published a comment to Bastin et al., arguing that savannas are not suitable sites for forestation (Veldman et al. 2019). Moreover one of the authors further added in a media interview that “the impacts on our natural ecosystems in Africa would be devastating”. Whereas remote sensing specialists tend to support massive deforestation in Africa, ecologists tend to warn against it. This suggests two hypotheses. First, the position for or against forestation is related to disciplinary approaches and the scientific gaze (distant or close) that they entail. Second, there is a geopolitics to forestation-related sciences that shapes the ways in which different scientific communities from different parts of the world value forest and non-forest ecosystems. This paper is based on document analysis and semi-directive interviews with scientists.

Long abstract:

The agri-food sector is poised for a profound transformation in the upcoming decade, driven by the increasing need and urgency to achieve net zero emissions and avoid exceeding planetary boundaries in food and farming. The market is often considered a key mechanism to address planetary changes, employing various market devices to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, agricultural industries are increasingly governed by market rules, a phenomenon called 'marketisation' by scholars like Callon and MacKenzie. Recent research on the marketisation of agricultural production places significant emphasis on the performative aspect of metrics, examining how different GHGs are standardized. Critical examinations of metrics have demonstrated their role in homogenizing diverse elements, transforming soil into something calculable, visible, and tradable. However, an exclusive focus on 'metric power' often neglects the challenges that arise when these metrics are implemented. Pragmatic economists, or ‘economists in the wild,’ have enlisted various sociotechnical actors and strategies to support the existence of economic discourses, including in relation to agri-carbon markets. Drawing on fieldwork in Taiwan and supplemented by research materials from reports and workshops in the UK and Europe, we have identified two dimensions characterizing these strategies: aligning economic interests and utilizing simplified natural-based geoengineering technologies. Thus, the marketization of soil carbon represents an anthropocentric approach to using life to manage life, aiming more at generating economic interest in the soil than addressing urgent planetary crises. The latter demands a more attuned approach to soil needs and conservation instead of a short-term, metric-based approach to soil care.

Short abstract:

This study examines South Korea’s recent research initiative to claim the nation’s tidal flat as a new form of carbon sink. We analyze how the state utilizes ecological science to transform disorderly tidal flats into uniform, quantifiable, and comparable containers of carbon.

Long abstract:

While the IPCC currently recognizes only three types of marine ecosystems—mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass beds—as effective carbon sinks, maritime nations are strategically generating evidence to claim other ecosystems as potential sources of carbon credit. In this study, we examine one such initiative by the South Korean government to cope with the rising pressure to reduce carbon emissions. South Korea’s recent research project on “blue carbon” proposes tidal flats as a promising part of its territory that can offset the nation’s carbon footprint. The research project highlights the carbon absorbed and stored by the marine ecosystem throughout Korea’s tidal flats, which will potentially serve as a useful carbon sink. By analyzing technical reports and interviewing stakeholders involved in this research, we show that the state utilizes ecological science to transform disorderly tidal flats into uniform, quantifiable, and comparable containers of carbon. In constructing an argument that Korean tidal flats do absorb carbon, the ecological scientists classify heterogeneous coastal spaces, sample representative tidal marshes, and circulate their scientific findings internationally. The work of the state-employed ecological scientists, however, is not purely scientific. As ecological scientists quantify the carbon cycle of coastal landscapes, they simultaneously reevaluate their cultural and economic significance. Tidal flats are considered worthy of preservation, not because of their ecological distinctiveness, but because of their ability to produce exchangeable carbon credit. Blue carbon counters reshape the physical and cultural landscape of tidal flats by prioritizing the number of carbon as the measure of coastal governance.

Short abstract:

Rewetting of degraded peatlands is increasingly pursued as a solution for net-zero transitions with hopes placed on private capital to rapidly scale-up peat restoration. This paper explores the politics of knowledge inherent in the creation of new peat-based carbon economies in the south of the UK.

Long abstract:

This paper explores the emergent practices of knowledge production directed towards the creation of a carbon-based economic model for peatland restoration. ​​Globally, peatlands hold more than twice as much carbon as all forests but, at the same time, emissions from historically-drained peatlands remain strikingly high. Against this backdrop, a diverse range of organisations are experimenting with rewetting degraded peatlands as a potentially powerful form of climate change mitigation and an essential component of ‘net zero’ transitions. In the UK, visions of scaled-up peatland restoration are increasingly placing hopes on voluntary carbon markets to bridge the funding gap between public finance and ambitious restoration goals.

This paper studies the politics of knowledge surrounding efforts to create new carbon-based peat economies drawing on research conducted on two sites in the south of the UK. More specifically, we explore how conservation organisations work to trial and showcase the technical and economic viability of carbon finance in the context of intensively managed agricultural land vulnerable to flooding. These trials involve a diverse range of monitoring techniques, deployed to demonstrate the success of restoration interventions, and thereby ostensibly validate the resulting carbon credits. The paper explores how the production of data on the ground and speculative carbon finance mechanisms are brought together to convince local farmers to commit their lands to rewetting. How is data generated, selected, obfuscated, and valorized in the making of new carbon-based peat economies?

Short abstract:

The paper proposes the concept of "counterfactual world-making" to explore alternative practices for valuing forest worlds. The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project in Indonesia is used to illustrate how counterfactual practices contribute to different modes of world-making.

Long abstract:

The uncertain and hypothetical nature of carbon credit calculations often involves the creation of counterfactuals to establish baselines, particularly in the context of forest loss rates and carbon sequestration. However, critics argue that counterfactual practices are inherently uncertain and vulnerable to questions about their integrity, potentially leading to the overestimation of deforestation and the creation of low-quality or invalid carbon credits. To address these concerns, recognising counterfactual plurality might give way to other practices for valuing and making more desirable forest worlds. In this regard, the concept of "counterfactual world-making" is proposed as a lens to investigate the multiplicity of counterfactual practices. This concept emphasises the collaborative and interconnected processes through which diverse entities contribute to constructing and assessing carbon sinks and the broader dynamics of carbon offsetting initiatives. By examining the case study of the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project in Indonesia, three pathways through which counterfactual practices contribute to different modes of world-making are identified: by rendering forests into legal entities, estimating hypothetical forest carbon, and valuing forests through carbon markets. This investigation sheds light on the complex and dynamic processes through which different entities contribute to the construction and assessment of carbon sinks and the broader dynamics of carbon offsetting initiatives, offering critical insights into the complexities of assessing and valuing carbon sequestration projects within the carbon market.

Short abstract:

Focusing on the aspect of durability, this paper explores the politics of knowledge of carbon sinks in the British carbon dioxide removal sector arguing for carbon sinking as a practice of climate change mitigation that configure the human-environmental relationship in different ways.

Long abstract:

The logic of net-zero climate targets demands not only emission reductions but also carbon sinking. Decarbonisation is expected to be complemented by systematic carbon dioxide removal compensating for those emissions that are considered hard to abate. Various methods – from planting new forests, soil carbon enhancement through biochar application and ocean fertilization, to enhanced rock weathering and direct air capture with carbon storage - promise to measurably remove carbon from the atmosphere and durably sink it in four forms: in biogenic material through photosynthesis, as solid minerals, dissolved in fluid or as a gas stored in geological formations underground. But what does durability mean? How is it measured, compared and evaluated? Based on expert interviews with professionals and scientists in the British carbon dioxide removal industry, in this paper I will explore the politics of knowledge of carbon sink temporalities. Tracing the production of imaginaries of durability carried by different carbon sink actors, I will show how an arbitrary framing of temporality becomes an instrument to legitimize some sinks over others. Using durability as a lens, the paper argues that studying the politics of carbon sinks needs to go beyond the dichotomy of environmental compartments and engineered technologies and instead explore all forms carbon sinking as practices of climate change mitigation that configure the human-environmental relationship in different ways.