Presentation short abstract

A REDD+ project in Peru shows how global climate designs force states to override their own histories. After promoting agrarian development in "Alto Mayo" during the 1970s, the state partnered with an NGO to protect the same area decades later, criminalizing settlers and dividing local responses.

Presentation long abstract

This paper examines the contentious implementation of REDD+, a global climate design, in Peru’s protected area: "Alto Mayo Protected Forest" (AMPF). First, in the 1970s, the state declared these area as "empty" and ideal for agrarian colonization; the state built highways and granted settlers land deeds to settle there. Decades later, in partnership with an international NGO, the State deployed a REDD+ project that enforced a radical re-ordering of the same territory. Leveraging international carbon finance and its legal authority, the state re-categorized settlers from legitimate pioneers to “illegal occupants,” imposing a market-conservation logic over the prior developmentalist framework.

Local responses bifurcated. One group (“subscribers of the conservation agreement”) pragmatically adapted, trading historical land claims for conditional benefits. In contrast, the organized "Rondas Campesinas" (Peasant territorial defense groups) mounted rights-based resistance. Grounded in their own socio-legal legitimacy, they framed REDD+ not as conservation but as “carbon colonialism,” a dispossession where the protected value was financialized carbon credits, not the forest.

The case demonstrates that global climate designs land on historically layered political territories. Their implementation often requires states to invalidate their own prior legitimacies, forcing local actors into a constrained choice between co-optation and criminalization. True climate justice must address these foundational historical debts and contested sovereignties before layering on market solutions.

This paper is based on a mixed-method approach and fieldwork conducted in 2024 (cartographic analysis, interviews, and document review).

Keywords: REDD+, Climate Coloniality, State Territoriality, Carbon Markets, Adaptation, Resistance, Peru.