Presentation short abstract

REDD+ transforms forests into the immaterial commodity of carbon credits. Corporations and states to extract benefits from local communities by creating dependency and shifting socioecological burdens along power asymmetries that intersect with neocolonialism, racism, class, and patriarchy.

Presentation long abstract

Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) aims to mitigate emissions through conservation, transforming forests into sites of commodified carbon storage. Unlike traditional commodities, is an immaterial commodity, quantified and traded as carbon to offset emissions elsewhere. This allows corporations and states to extract benefits from local communities and shift socioecological burdens along power asymmetries that intersect with neocolonialism, racism, class inequalities, and patriarchy.

Critics argue that REDD+ reinforces neoliberal conservation and deepens injustices by restricting local communities' access to forests and vital resources, often leading to land dispossession, while failing to deliver meaningful climate mitigation or economic benefits for local populations. Indigenous movements denounce REDD+ as a form of green colonialism, imposing external conservation models that disregard traditional land governance and customary rights.

We investigate how REDD+ creates ‘green sacrifice zones’ and the ways in which local communities resist or align with these projects. The examination of case studies reveals systemic drivers, narratives of affected communities, and opposition strategies. We also analyze barriers for resisting projects: lack of information, the need for basic services and economic opportunities, and the lack of land tenure rights that allow for legal recourse.

Dependency on economic benefits from REDD+ forces communities to align with a fossil system that harms their biocultural landscapes and erodes traditional ontologies and epistemologies, creating an impossible conundrum between climate stability and income. These struggles reveal the limitations of market-based climate solutions and point towards the necessity of decolonial and justice-oriented approaches to environmental governance.