REDD+ and the Climate rent: the reorganization of value relations through forest conservation in Colombia

This study aims to understand the ways in which projects for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) are redefining social relations of value in the context of climate changing capitalism. REDD+ has progressively grown in importance as a climate change mitigation strategy for its cost efficiency and its capacity to direct finance to forest conservation through the creation of carbon credits. This study focus on the way in which Colombia has adopted it as a pivotal strategy to protect forests and reduce emissions and pay attention to the way in which this deployment transform relations of value. The main research question is how are REDD+ projects reshaping value relations and transforming social relations in Colombia? The questions are addressed through an analysis of 20 REDD+ projects developed with the objective of producing carbon credits for the voluntary carbon market. The configuration of property rights over the credits are analysed as a process of creation of a climate rent, through which value is not produced as result of a commodification of nature, but rather grabbed and distributed. The analysis of the 20 projects results in a typology of the diverse arrangements in which REDD+ is taking place in the country, and in a theorization of the conditions through which the distributive arrangements of the climate rent are established. Here, the main finding is that in the structure of REDD+ projects operate a process of hierarchisation of costs where those associated with the development of tasks that require managerial, and bureaucratic capabilities are valued as essential for the project and others, such as everyday practices of care performed by the land-owning communities, are deemed as natural characteristics of ‘environmentally friendly communities’ and thus, not worthy of the same kind of compensation.