What does autonomy mean for forest communities? The politics of transnational community forestry networks in Mesoamerica and the Congo Basin

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Research paper

What does autonomy mean for forest communities? The politics of transnational community forestry networks in Mesoamerica and the Congo Basin ⁎

Emilie Dupuitsa, , Symphorien Ongolob,c a

Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Visiting Fellow at Universidad Central del Ecuador - Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y HumanasCiudadela Universitaria, Quito, Ecuador b Chair of Forest and Nature Conservation Policy, University of Göttingen Germany, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Büsgenweg 3, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany c African Forest Policies & Politics (AFORPOLIS), B.P. 16388 Yaoundé, Cameroon

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Community forestry Transnational grassroots networks Politics of autonomy Mesoamerica Central Africa

Since the 1990s, forest-dependent communities in tropical regions have created national and transnational grassroots networks. While in Latin America, their main goal is to promote community forestry and claim territorial rights, forest-dependent communities in the Congo Basin are more focused on improving participatory inclusion in forest policies. These diverging trends are rooted in the historical social movements’ struggles in Latin America and in the international actors’ push for more inclusion of local communities by governments in Central Africa. Given that the emergence of transnational community forestry networks is linked to different claims of autonomy based on regional context, how do the politics of autonomy driven by transnational grassroots networks influence community forest governance? This paper aims to examine how the different types of autonomy claimed by transnational grassroots networks, – vis-à-vis state bureaucracies, international partners and community organisations, – affect the multi-scale governance of community forestry in tropical regions. Our analysis draws on a political sociology and comparative politics approaches, through the case studies of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB) and the Network of Indigenous and Local Communities for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC).

1. Introduction State bureaucracies in tropical regions have been expected to govern forestlands in collaboration with non-state actors including local communities since the 1987 Brundtland Report (Our Common Future) on sustainable development (Cronkleton, Bray, & Medina, 2011). However, community forestry1 organisations face competition for forestland use at multiple levels. Since the adoption of the 1992 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), developing countries have been pressured to create strict conservation areas to protect biodiversity and reduce deforestation (Hufty, 2001). On the ground, these conservation areas often overlapped with indigenous peoples’ territories, leading to the marginalisation of forest-dependent communities (Rodary, Castellanet, & Rossi, 2003). Similarly, these communities deal with encroachments from industrial companies (mining, agro-industrial concessions, etc.)

(White & Martin, 2002). Over the last few decades, community forests and their carbon stocks have also become central because of their positive role in climate change mitigation. However, several authors pointed out the risk of “green grabbing” of community forestlands by states seeking to benefit from the international financial incentives of climate mitigation (Fairhead, Leach, & Scoones, 2012; Göbel, Gongora-Mera, & Ulloa, 2014). This is particularly the case with the United Nations Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation program (REDD +) initiative (Aguilar-Støen, Toni, & Hirsch, 2015). In parallel, other global initiatives have been developed in support of indigenous peoples and their rights for more autonomy (self-determination) e.g. the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Similarly, the adoption of the 2015 Paris Agreement provided new prospects for forest-dependent communities seeking to secure their customary, forest tenure and land rights.

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Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (E. Dupuits), [email protected] (S. Ongolo). 1 Community forestry is defined as “the exercise by local people of power or influence over decisions regarding management of forests, including the rules of access and the disposition of products” (McDermott & Schreckenberg, 2009: 158). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2020.100169 Received 13 September 2018; Received in revised form 12 November 2019; Accepted 2 January 2020 2452-2929/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Emilie Dupuits and Symphorien Ongolo, World Development Perspectives, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2020.100169

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for self-determination, organisational self-management and independent social and economic practices vis-à-vis the state and capital.” The authors suggest three types of autonomy relative to: the capital (self-management value outside the global capitalist system), the state (differentiation to state structures and institutionalised spaces), and development (claims of local knowledge and opposition to colonial domination). However, there is no consensus on a single definition of the concept of autonomy. Those that co-exist in the literature overlap with similar notions such as self-determination, self-management, emancipation, recognition or inclusion (Dinerstein, 2015). Based on an extensive literature review and empirical research, we identify three main forms of autonomy that characterise transnational community forestry networks. First, self-management refers to the need of not depending on external actors, the development of an internal system of reciprocity inside the community and the claim of self-determination. Second, co-management refers to the possibility to frame community autonomy under certain principles locally agreed, giving up some management responsibilities in favour of state-related bureaucracies, while agreeing with these bureaucracies to reinforce communities’ autonomy. Third, self-development refers to the capability of a local community to choose a convenient model of development through partnerships with other actor groups such as private firms and transnational NGOs, and to the strengthening of productive capacities. Regarding the notion of ‘politics' which is fundamental in this paper, some scholars Hoogesteger and Verzjil (2015: 15) define ‘grassroots scalar politics’ as “the strategies by which local actors pursue their interests through engagements and alliances with differently scaled actors and networks.” Moreover, as pointed out by Leftwich (2015), there is no way in which we can conclude rigorously on a single definition of what is politics. However, one of the fundamental criterion we do consider for a comprehensive understanding of politics is the explicit or implicit use of (or resistance to) ‘force’, by government or any other non-government entities, in order to pursue their interests in society. In the field of community forestry, several studies highlight the centrality of autonomy in the claims of secondary-level networks. Some research focuses on the mutual learning between organisations and their impact at the national level (Cronkleton et al., 2011). Other authors emphasize issues of legitimacy and authority between community organisations and state bureaucracies for large-scale indigenous territories (Foyer & Dumoulin, 2009; Larson, 2010; Taylor, 2010; Bray, Duran, & Molina-Gonzales, 2012). Some authors also highlight the emergence of internal disputes among inter-communities forestry networks negotiating their autonomy (Garcia-Lopez, 2013). Finally, the politics of autonomy driven by community forestry networks is highly dependent on the existing forest and land tenure rights regimes. According to Larson, Brockhaus, Sunderlin, and 2012. Tenure matters in REDD+: Lessons from the field. In: Angelsen, A., Brockhaus, M., Sunderlin, W. Verchot, L. (2012), forest tenure is related to access and use of forest resources. It determines who owns, uses, manages, and makes decisions about these resources. Moreover, the bundle of rights approach distinguishes between access and withdrawal, management, exclusion and alienation as different levels of property rights on the land (Schlager & Ostrom, 1992). In this paper, we pay particular attention to the formalisation processes of territorial or customary rights on the one hand, and to actorś initiatives seeking to secure their existing customary rights in forest domains.

Community forestry networks emerged under different regimes in Mesoamerica and the Congo Basin depending on the regions’ social and political contexts. In the former, local and indigenous communities took the lead, while in the latter, state bureaucracies and international organizations drove the process.2 Community forestry governance at the local level has been widely analysed in literature on ownership and/or participation (Larson, Barry, Dahal, & Colfer, 2010; Doherty & Schroeder, 2011). While institutional forms such as co-management structures with public authorities or intercommunity networks have also received attention in the literature (Armitage, 2008; Brondizio, Ostrom, & Young, 2009). However, there is no rigorous comparative analysis providing empirical evidence of the transnational processes of community forest governance in the tropics. How do the different politics of autonomy adopted by transnational community forestry or grassroots networks affect the multi-scale governance of community forestry and influence power relationships between the actors involved? The notion of politics of autonomy in this paper refers to “the strategies by which local actors pursue their interests through engagements and alliances with differently scaled actors and networks” (Hoogesteger & Verzjil, 2015: 15). We further develop a typology of the politics of autonomy including various modalities of struggling for autonomy in community forestlands: self-management, co-management and self-development (Böhm, Dinerstein, & Spicer, 2010). The analysis developed in this article is based on a comparative case study of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB) and the Network of Indigenous and Local Communities for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC). Based on this comparative analysis, we argue that though the issue of autonomy stands as one of the main claims of both indigenous and local communities’ networks, they reveal significant variation in terms of comanagement with State authorities, self-determination demands and productive capacity-building at the local scale. 2. Historical and conceptual framework 2.1. Transnational grassroots networks and the politics of autonomy Transnational grassroots networks are composed of local and marginalised actors who seek to gain control of global issues directly affecting them, through the awareness of a common cause (McMicheal, 2004). Their modus operandi is based on the principles of self-management and self-membership of member organisations. The major goal of these networks is to provide assistance and collective services to their members (Batliwala, 2002). The involvement of grassroots movements in transnational dynamics occurs through different scalar configurations in which multiple scales are overlapping or connecting to each other (Nicholls, Miller, & Beaumont, 2013). From empirical perspective, multi-scale governance in forest policy domain includes “all levels and geographic scales of national and international government authority, local community governance regimes, and civil society institutional partnerships or networks which have decision making power or influence over forest management” (Cronkleton et al., 2011: 453). Therefore, the transnationalisation of community forestry organisations induces new power relations between grassroots movements, external partners and authorities. The transfer of autonomy in forest management from local community organisations to transnational networks remains a challenge in tropical regions. Böhm et al. (2010: 17) define autonomy as “a struggle

2.2. The weight of social struggles in Latin America The Latin American region has experienced a proliferation of transnational social movements claiming their autonomy and territorial rights on forestlands (Cronkleton, Taylor, Barry, Stone-Jovicich, & Schmink, 2008; Dupuits, 2015). In 2015, the region had the highest rate of community and indigenous titled lands in tropical regions, with 23% of the areas owned by or designated to forest communities (RRI, 2015). This increasing recognition of community rights is linked to historical

2 ‘Congo basin’ in this paper refers to the Central African region whose countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Democratic Republic of Congo) share about 180 million hectares (approximatively 80% of carbon storage) of the African rainforests.

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social mobilisation in the region and processes of decentralisation (Larson et al., 2012). One example is the creation in 1984 of the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). This transnational network, which consists of nine national indigenous federations, is supported by international conservation NGOs (Wallbott, 2014; Claeys & Delgado, 2016). Other transnational movements have emerged in Mesoamerica to increase the visibility of forest issues and to challenge COICA in environmental fundraising. The Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB), for instance, was created in 2010 in the wake of the 16th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP16) in Cancun, Mexico. Its main goal is to strengthen local and indigenous communities’ territorial rights and autonomy vis-à-vis central states and international actors. AMPB is composed of an Executive Commission, with one elected leader from each of the six member countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama) and a General Assembly composed of four representatives for each organisation. AMPB has two categories of actors: community forestry organisations and indigenous organisations. The heterogeneity of the AMPB membership makes it difficult to build up common claims regarding autonomy. Since the two categories of actors fall under different levels of tenure rights, they involve different forms of autonomy or co-management institutions with state bureaucracies. On the one hand, the state often grants temporary forest management concessions to community forestry organisations that have no formal title to the forestlands. On the other hand, an increasing number of indigenous communities are demanding greater autonomy and resources to manage their forests and territories, and not merely formal rights. AMPB’s international partners, include a constellation of private organisations such as Ford Foundation, the Inter-church Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), have played an important role in its emergence and positioning at the regional and international scale. The Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) in Guatemala, an AMPB member, is a significant example of the autonomy challenges that community organisations may face. This sub-national network is composed of 23 community organisations (13 concessions and 10 cooperatives), and works on timber exploitation and non-timber forest resources management. ACOFOP was the outcome of a successful agreement with the Guatemalan authorities in the context of the peace resolution process in 1996. Despite the dissemination of ‘best practices’ in forest management and conservation in the Petén region, our research shows that community rights to forestlands are still threatened by poorly secured concessions granted by the state authorities. Furthermore, community concessions in Petén have management rights but no formal collective property rights to their lands. Through AMPB’s transnational advocacy, expertise-building and funding, ACOFOP is seeking autonomy from the national government and external partners, and the authority to decide on local development strategies.

carbon management in community forests (Minang, Bressers, Skutsch, & McCall, 2007; Karsenty, Vogel, & Castell, 2014). Literature identifies the local communities’ lack of property rights to forestlands as one of the main weaknesses of local forest governance in Central Africa (Wily, 2002; Assembe-Mvondo, 2013). Until 2015, SubSaharan Africa was the tropical region with the lowest rate (3%) of land ownership by indigenous peoples and local communities (RRI, 2015). This low land ownership rate can be traced mainly to the colonial heritage of state-centred systems that governs postcolonial forest and land policies as well as related bureaucracies in the region (Movuh & Mbolo, 2012). However, these erratic customary tenure rights in Africa should not overshadow the progressive improvements in the legal position of state bureaucracies towards the issue of customary rights. As highlighted by Wily (2011), an increasing number of new land laws in Sub-Saharan Africa are based on a pluralistic legal system that integrates the modern legal system and customary tenure. Although the implementation of this new paradigm is still marginal, these changes are already becoming a reality – at least from the legal angle – in countries like Mozambique (since 1997), Uganda (1998), Tanzania (1999) and South Sudan (2009). Similar changes in favour of pluralism that integrates legal and customary norms were incorporated in forest laws in the Congo Basin region, e.g. the Republic of the Congo (2000) and DRC (2002). However, the literature does not sufficiently examine the importance of community forestry networks’ institutional arrangements as well as their roles in regional forest governance systems in the Congo Basin. Empirical evidence related to the influence of transnational community forestry networks in the Congo Basin is illustrated by the member networks of the Conference on Dense and Humid Forests Ecosystems of Central Africa (CEFDHAC). This organisation was created in 1996 on the initiative of local communities and IUCN mainly to provide a space for interactions and dialogue aimed at improving the participation of civil society organisations at the Central Africa level. The CEFDHAC initiative inspired the creation of the Commission of Central African Forests (COMIFAC), a regional forest governance body established in 1999 by the heads of state of the Congo Basin countries. Then, the Network of Indigenous and Local Communities for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC) was created in Rwanda in 2003, as one of five transnational grassroots organisations member of the CEFDHAC consortium network. REPALEAC is composed of a constellation of indigenous and local communities’ national networks of Chad, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic (CAR), Burundi, Gabon and Rwanda. The spread of community forestry in these countries has led to experience-sharing between national REPALEAC members. REPALEAC aims at increasing the participation of indigenous and local communities in the management of forest ecosystems in the Congo Basin level. Although REPALEAC claims to be an independent civil society organisation, it is heavily influenced by its external funders, such as IUCN and GIZ as detailed in subsection 4.2.

2.3. Weak empowerment in the Congo Basin

3. Methods

Since the early 1990s, biodiversity conservation and the participation of local communities in the governance of forestlands have been on the agendas of international development agencies in Africa. The World Bank’s Environmental Conditionality under Official Development Assistance (ODA) programs is an example of how these agencies have pressured state bureaucracies in sub-Saharan Africa to include local communities in forest governance (Sharpe, 1998; Ribot, 2002). Research on community forestry in the Congo Basin has mainly focused on the design of policy reforms related to community participation in forest management (Egbe, 2001), the inefficiency of local management and elite capture by politicians (Oyono, 2004), fragmentation and social conflicts inside communities (Ezzine de Blas et al., 2011), and

3.1. Countries selected For the Congo Basin, our research was carried out in Cameroon, the country most representative of the region in terms of policy reform initiatives and long-term governance processes in the forest sector (Silva et al., 2002; Topa, Karsenty, Megevand, & Debroux, 2009; Dkamela, Brockhaus, Kengoum Djiegni, Schure, & Assembe Mvondo, 2014). Up to now, Cameroon has been considered as the pioneer country of forest policy reforms in the region, because of its proactive uptake of international legal frameworks and because the majority of Central African forest governance institutions, including COMIFAC, are based in Yaoundé and also because of the cultural and economic 3

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Table 1 Main characteristics and relations to forest governance arenas of AMPB and REPALEAC (source: authors).

Geographical region Membership Land tenure rights Financial and strategic partners Political arenas

AMPB

REPALEAC

Mesoamerican forests Community forestry and indigenous organisations Indigenous rights, community concessions Grassroots organisation (PRISMA), transnational foundation (ICCO, Ford Foundation) international organization (IUCN) National (forest and environmental state bureaucracies)

Congo Basin forests Local and indigenous communities Property rights, overlapping of modern & customary law International organizations (IUCN, GIZ) National (forest and environmental state bureaucracies), Regional (COMIFAC, CEFDHAC)

3.3. Comparative analysis approach

influence of Cameroon in the Congo Basin region, and the relative political stability of the country in a region that faces recurrent political and military crises. Regarding Mesoamerica, although research was carried out in several countries, most data were collected in Guatemala. The selection of Guatemala was motivated by the emergence in the Petén region of a consolidated sub-national community forestry network, called ACOFOP. Since its creation in 1995, ACOFOP has received wide international attention and is considered now as a regional model of community forestry for other grassroots movements (Taylor, 2010; Monterroso & Barry, 2012). Moreover, the AMPB leaders identified ACOFOP as the main priority at the regional scale because the national government will soon be renewing community forest concessions in that region and because of the insecurity facing ACOFOP during the process. This paper focuses on ACOFOP initiatives to claim and secure rights in the Petén forest.

The two case studies in this paper are compared by considering the similarities and differences of five key elements that are summarised in Table 1. First, AMPB and REPALEAC aim to represent transboundary forest basins, respectively the Mesoamerican forests and the Congo Basin. Both constitute relevant examples of the new forms of regional environmental governance that need to be further analysed using a comparative approach. Second, AMPB and REPALEAC are composed of both community forestry organisations or local communities, and indigenous organisations or communities3. This distinguishes them from other transnational grassroots networks we identified that are only composed of indigenous actors, such as the Coordinator of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), or community forestry organisations, such as the Global Alliance of Community Forestry (GACF). While AMPB is composed of national and sub-national organisations in the Mesoamerican countries, REPALEAC works through national focal points directly linked to its central secretariat. This distinction reveals important issues of scale that will be discussed in section 4 of this paper. Third, tenure rights regimes differ in the two regions. In Mesoamerica, e.g. Honduras and Nicaragua, the state has formally recognised the collective rights of many indigenous communities but these communities are incapable of exercising effective control over their territories. At the same time, there are community forestry organisations in the region, e.g. Guatemala, that are still demanding the formalisation of their property rights to secure forest management practices they are already implementing. In the Congo Basin, indigenous communities’ organisations mainly claim the effective formalisation of customary forestland rights to obtain formal recognition of their rights to access, use, own and legally transfer these resources. At present, the majority of rural communities in the Congo Basin region operate outside policy arenas and settle for the daily use of ‘their’ forestlands based on the assumption that these territories are intrinsically part of their ancestral heritages. This point is crucial when comparing the networks’ strategies to defend a certain type of autonomy. Fourth, although AMPB and REPALEAC share some financial and strategic partners, such as IUCN, AMPB benefits from the support of different organisations including strong grassroots organizations, transnational private foundations and international organisations while REPALEAC mainly depends on international organisations. From a domestic politics perspective, AMPB seeks to pressure and challenge national state bureaucracies, while REPALEAC struggles for more involvement in national and regional forest policy arenas.

3.2. Data collection The core timeframe of this research covers the period from early 1990s (the first period) to 2015–2016 (the second period). The choice of the first period was motivated by the dynamics of policy change for forest decentralization that emerged from the Rio Earth Summit on environment and development. The second period fits in with the date of the Paris climate change Agreement, the most recent major international environmental initiative promoting communities’ rights in forest and environmental governance. First-hand data collection concerning the Mesoamerica region includes semi-direct interviews with transnational AMPB community leaders, local and national Guatemalan community leaders, and external partners such as Ford Foundation and ICCO (see Annex 1). It also includes direct observation of several regional events (Mesoamerican Congress of Community Forestry in Petén, Guatemala, 2015), AMPB’s internal assemblies (Mexico 2014, Guatemala 2015) and AMPB leaders’ participation in international climate conferences (COP20 Lima and COP21 Paris), as well as discourse analysis of scientific studies coproduced by AMPB in collaboration with its external partners. As regards the Congo Basin region, data from face to face interviews come from REPALEAC leaders, interviews with Cameroonian officials of the Ministry of Forestry, COMIFAC and REPALEAC funding bodies, including the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the IUCN regional office in Cameroon (see Annex 1). Additionally, observations of regional meetings, workshops and informal conversations with stakeholders took place in Cameroon in 2015 and 2016. Our in-depth field observations included informal group meetings and two regional community forestry seminars. One was organised by REPALEAC on the issue of land tenure, forest conservation and climate change governance by indigenous peoples (Douala, August 2015). The second was organised by CEFDHAC and addressed the issue of climate change mitigation and sustainable development in the Congo Basin region (Douala, May 2016).

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We knowingly use different terms for the two case studies to reflect the empirical realities. In Mesoamerica, community or indigenous actors are more or less formally structured into organisations, while in the Congo Basin, actors are structured more around the idea of communities without necessarily having a formal organisation to represent them. 4

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4. Results and discussion

4.1.2. Toward a partial self-development from international partners The AMPB Executive Commission seeks to strengthen the community organisations’ local capacities as to strengthen self-development. This strategy is part of a ‘post-2015 agenda’, referring to the end of an advocacy cycle focused on international climate conferences. The AMPB Coordinator explained that “the strategy is to provide the ten organisations with the same level of organisational and institutional capacity to manage international funds as ACOFOP.”9 ACOFOP represents the organisation with the most consolidated administrative and financial capacities. This efficiency level has been a great motivation for other leaders, such as the president of the Mayangna Nation in Nicaragua, who observed that “for its richer experience and better technical capacities, ACOFOP receives more resources than we do.”10 One of the specific objectives of AMPB is to play a role as a connecting platform between international donors and local members, and it rejects formalisation as a NGO. The regional coordinator of the Ford Foundation for Mesoamerica recognises that international funds that are managed by national organisations are obtained thanks to AMPB’s lobbying. He also highlights how “the Alliance is raising visibility at the international scale on REDD+ issues that not one individual organisation alone could have done and even less so one territory.”11 AMPB’s external partners have played an important role in advocating for the capacity-building of new transnational leaders. The coordinator of the Ford Foundation explained that “almost all the organisations that are part of AMPB have a better relationship with their bases now than in the early stages of this Alliance. This is notably due to AMPB’s strategy to create a new generation of leaders who can attend international meetings as a school of leadership.”12 The capacitybuilding of young leaders is part of the strategy to catalyse a ‘generational shift’ in AMPB, to reduce the dependency on a few leaders. Despite the substantial funding received from international partners, AMPB struggles to maintain its autonomy. The AMPB Coordinator criticises the lack of flexibility of some international partners vis-à-vis the Alliance’s demands and priorities. In response, the coordinator of the Ford Foundation explained that the main funds come from powerful donors, such as the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA), ClimateWorks Foundation, Porticus Foundation and Global Green Grants, whose requirements must be met. At the national level, AMPB’s governance is criticised by some member organisations for its lack of transparency in managing international funds. In the Mayangna territory, for instance, tension rose over an AMPB/ICCO-led land security project meant to be implemented in two Miskitos communities. The communities regretted their lack of knowledge on the project objectives and lack of communication with AMPB. In another field, some AMPB members felt that AMPB overemphasised fund management, rather than territorial advocacy.13 In sum, the capacity-building process of community organisations reveals both strong local empowerment and a remaining relative dependence on AMPB and its international partners.

4.1. Transnational grassroots politics from self-management to selfdevelopment in Mesoamerica 4.1.1. Regaining self-management through transnational grassroots expertise-building One of the main objectives of AMPB is regaining self-management for forest and indigenous communities in Mesoamerica. The related strategies used by AMPB consists of the production of a new type of grassroots expertise that could directly respond to the needs of community organisations at the local scale. Toward this goal, AMPB actively participates in coproducing knowledge related to the use of forestlands, in partnership with the Regional Program on Development and the Environment (PRISMA). PRISMA is a Salvadoran NGO created in 1992 that specialises in the production of accessible and grounded scientific studies in the Mesoamerican region. This partnership provides scientific empowerment to community organisations by publishing reports on key environmental and social issues in the region, such as the influence of narco-trafficking on deforestation rates in Mesoamerica.4 This new form of grassroots-scientific partnership increases AMPB’s influence and global media attention by drawing attention to the key role of these communities in protecting forest resources. The publication of the report on narco-trafficking, for instance, coincided with the Mesoamerican Pre-Congress of Protected Areas by Indigenous Peoples held in Costa Rica in 2014. The results reinforced the scientific evidence behind AMPB’s arguments on the dynamics of deforestation and the solutions provided by community organisations. In the same vein, AMPB contributed to launching a global coalition called 'Guardians of the Forest' to enhance the visibility of indigenous and community forestry networks in international climate conferences. This coalition is composed of AMPB for Mesoamerica, COICA for the Amazon basin, REPALEAC for the Congo Basin, and the Indonesian Indigenous Peoples Alliance (AMAN)5. The coalition is strongly supported by AMPB’s external partners including the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and the Ford Foundation. Guardians of the Forest published a scientific report revealing that about 20% of the carbon stock in tropical forests is located in indigenous territories represented by this coalition6. The emergence of grassroots expertise is part of an international trend for a more demand-oriented approach focused on beneficiaries and leading to a new balance of power. The AMPB Executive Secretary explained the changing role of external partners “from facilitating meetings and fundraising for flight tickets and hotels to positioning the Alliance in the global agenda on forests and territorial rights.”7 However, some strategic partners criticise AMPB for over-emphasising territorial rights struggles to the detriment of productive issues related to forestland management. The ICCO Regional Program Officer explained that his team “is trying to incentivise the productive component, for example markets, research or financial products for the forest sector, but”, he added, “it is a slow process whereas the political component dominates the AMPB agenda.”8

4.1.3. Promoting self-development practices against co-management in national arenas To what extent does the AMPB-led strategy at the regional scale enhance or not the autonomy of its member organisations at the national and local levels? The case of the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) provides insights into this question by revealing how the organisation fosters self-development practices instead of co-management with the state in Guatemala. ACOFOP is mainly composed of communities that partly own

4 “Pueblos Indígenas y Comunidades Rurales Defendiendo Derechos Territoriales. Estudios de Caso sobre Experiencias de Prevención y Defensa ante el Narcotráfico y Crimen Organizado en Mesoamérica”, AMPB/Prisma, April 2014, 56p. 5 “Desde los Pueblos-Territorios hacia un Acuerdo Climático Global”, COICA, AIDESEP, Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, REPALEAC, AMPB, 2014. 6 “Toward a Global Baseline of Carbon Storage in Collective Lands. An Updated Analysis of Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Contributions to Climate Change Mitigation”, RRI, Woods Hole Research Centre, LandMark, November 2016. 7 Interview in Mexico DF, Mexico, 13/07/2014. 8 Interview in Puebla, Mexico, 15/07/2014.

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Interview in Puebla, Mexico, 15/07/2014. Interview in Santa Elena, Guatemala, 18/11/2015. 11 Interview via Skype, 24/07/2014. 12 Idem. 13 Idem. 10

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hegemonic or authoritarian state bureaucracies. In this situation, the degree of local communities’ self-determination vis-à-vis the state and economic capital remains weak. In the case of societies recently emerging from imperialism and colonisation, the tendency is to be governed by what Mbembe (1992: 3) calls “a distinctive style of political improvisation.” In southern Cameroon for example, forest-dependent communities, including pygmies such as the Baka tribes, should benefit from user rights to collect non-timber forest products (NTFP) and animal proteins for their survival in forests, even in industrial forest concessions and protected areas, according to the 1994–1995 Cameroonian forest law and its implementation decrees. Instead of implementing these regulations, state authorities and private companies (acting as the potentates) often marginalize forest communities (the subordinates).17 In many cases, forest-dependent communities’ aspiration to use the forestlands under state or private management for daily survival needs, like subsistence farming or NTFP, are perceived as a threat to forests. For this reason, the related practices are deemed illegal. Despite the existence and the preliminary recognitions of customary rights on rural forestlands in the Congo Basin, the issuing of overlapping forest permits or agro-industrial concessions in rural forest landscapes appears to be commonplace. In the Congo Basin region, even third parties such as transnational NGOs and external cooperation bodies seem to consider forest-dependent communities and their transnational grassroots networks as marginal entities instead of full partners in co-management structures. Therefore, part of a community’s autonomy in the Congo Basin is transferred or captured by transnational NGOs or elites in community forestry co-management processes, while the decentralisation of forest management from the state to local communities is largely embedded in (re)centralised processes. The issue of self-determination by forest-dependent communities in the Congo Basin is closely connected to the issue of forest and land tenure rights regimes. As highlighted before, central governments are the formal owners of forestlands in Central Africa. In the majority of cases, local peoples and their representative bodies are marginalised while their claims for self-management of forestlands are neglected or rebuffed by state bureaucracies. Since the colonial period, the domination of state bureaucracies over land and forest management has become banal in Central Africa because of the repeated violence in expropriating forestlands to create protected areas and the extremely coercive methods used in land grabbing processes to implement agroindustrial or extractive exploitation projects. Besides state domination of formal forestland management in the national arena, the forestlands in the Congo Basin are characterised by the overlapping of formal and customary rights. The former are imposed by state bureaucracies, while local communities skilfully foster the latter. The daily outcome of this situation is that each category of rights tends to assume its legitimacy in governing forestlands by completely ignoring the others.

forestland concessions for an average period of 25 years. The concessions are awarded by the National Council for Protected Areas (CONAP) to ensure forest conservation and sustainable forest management in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. ACOFOP is vulnerable to changes induced by or within governments and public policies. The ACOFOP Director laments the absence of a strong institutional framework that can protect community forestry in the long term. Moreover, community forest concessions suffer from a negative image in Guatemala, because of the idea that small peasants are the main drivers of forest degradation. This stigmatisation is due to slashand-burn agriculture blamed on these peasants who ignore positive ecological impacts of their forest conservation. To support ACOFOP’s advocacy in favour of autonomy and tenure rights, AMPB organised its Third Mesoamerican Congress of Community Forestry in Petén. The main goal was to pressure governmental authorities involved in forest policies and to convince them of the positive contributions of community forest concessions, and the justification for renewing the concessions. ACOFOP has been engaged in the coproduction of scientific reports – as AMPB – aimed at demonstrating the ecological contribution of their forest concessions. In this regard, ACOFOP conducted research projects with the academic institutions such as Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE).14 Local partners describe similar dynamics of changing powers, as in the case of AMPB. The progressive professionalisation of ACOFOP increased the autonomy of communities vis-à-vis local NGOs. The director of the administrative department of ACOFOP highlighted that “at the beginning, communities were forced to have a partner NGO which did everything for them, including selling timber or managing funds. The community was only the legal figurehead.”15 Beyond the advocacy strategy starting at the national level, ACOFOP also claims its autonomy on the basis of its capacity to manage international funds. The ACOFOP Director said “we try to have a transparent administration of resources with an annual external auditor selected by the donors. We try to maintain this good reputation in order to keep receiving resources from the donors.”16 The advocacy work led by ACOFOP to gain greater autonomy at the national level targets the production of local expertise, demonstration of technical and organisational capacity, and affiliation with local and international partners. ACOFOP’s empowerment is broadly aligned with the AMPB strategy at the transnational level to increase the autonomy of community organisations. However, at both levels, there is still high dependency on international cooperation and continued territorial insecurity vis-à-vis national governments. Therefore, the analysis reveals that the politics of autonomy sought by AMPB for ACOFOP is oriented toward self-development, which implies less dependency on the state and development partners and closer relations between community organisations through productive development practices.

4.2. From weak self-management toward regional co-management of forestlands in the Congo Basin

4.2.2. The promises of transnational self-development beyond fragmented local communities REPALEAC is an example of an African civil society organisation externally recognised for its advocacy campaigns, but bogged down in internal political improvisations because of its weak capacity and its lack of sufficient resources to pressure state bureaucracies into an effective co-management process that includes forest decentralisation. Since the 1990s and the wave of democratisation imposed on African governments by international cooperation agencies, including the World Bank, it has become commonplace for grassroots organisations to be stakeholders in forest governance structures. The resulting top-down principle of co-management that landed in the Congo Basin in the

4.2.1. A weak self-management under postcolonial era The issue of autonomy in Central African societies cannot be understood without taking into account the postcolonial context in SubSaharan Africa. The impact of colonial violence and hegemony both on minds and leadership legitimacy remains central in many African countries where governance processes are still dominated by 14 Grogan James, Free Christopher, Pinelo Morales Gustavo, Johnson Andrea, Alegría Rubí, “Estado de conservación de las poblaciones de cinco especies maderables en concesiones forestales de la Reserva de la Biosfera Maya, Guatemala”, CATIE, 2016. 15 Idem. 16 Idem.

17 See Krott et al. (2014) for a detailed conceptual framework of actor-centred power in community forestry.

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increasing prominence given to indigenous and territorial rights. REPALEAC, through its international partners and along with AMPB, COICA, and AMAN, has become involved in the Guardians of the Forest campaign created during COP20 in Lima. AMPB, the main campaign coordinator, has provided significant funding for the REPALEAC General Coordinator to represent Africa at international events and meetings, mainly through the Ford Foundation. This alliance is aimed to promote experience sharing and visibility from the grassroots level. REPALEAC’s general coordinator mentions how “through UN forums, we succeeded in establishing contact with AMPB and COICA, and we realized that we share the same issues, so they could help us by sharing their experiences. Unlike Africa, in Latin America there are territories granted to indigenous peoples by public authorities so they can manage them directly.”19 REPALEAC has gained significant power through this global alliance, and thus was able to organise two major regional events in Cameroon: the Sub-regional Colloquium of Indigenous Peoples of Central Africa on Tenure Security, Conservation and Climate issues in 2015, and the Sub-regional Dialogue of the Indigenous Peoples of Central Africa on National REDD + and Climate Adaptation Strategies and Plans, prior to COP22 in Morocco in 2016. REPALEAC has also benefitted from an international cinema campaign, called If not us then who? in partnership with Handcrafted Films. The aim was to show the indigenous communities’ struggles for land tenure security. Similarly, REPALEAC actively contributed to the production of an advocacy movie on illegal logging and human rights abuses.20 Therefore, the analysis reveals that the politics of autonomy sought by REPALEAC is oriented toward a relative co-management, which implies a renewed political backing by state bureaucracies at the national and regional scale, through consolidated community forestry networks and transnational NGOs support.

1990s has engendered the creation of community forestry networks aimed at promoting more participation of local and indigenous communities in forest policies. The local organisations affiliated with the REPALEAC network succeeded in obtaining local participation but most of them failed to achieve participation at the national level. One of the main reasons is that forest-dependent communities in most of the Congo Basin countries form a complex patchwork of ethnic groups, which are more likely to fight with each other over rents from donors than to work together for a strong coalition. This evidence supports a previous study (Oyono, 2005) explaining that the relationship between the Bantu (one of the most important tribes in Central Africa) and the neighbouring pygmies – historically persecuted – is often conflictual because of the domineering behaviour of the Bantu in a kind of ‘master–slave relationship’, which marginalises the pygmies for example. The creation of REPALEAC soon led to an abundance of community forestry principles flowing from pioneer countries, such as Cameroon, to other countries where the idea of community forest governance was still a dream at the end of 1990s. In the same vein, the existence of REPALEAC led to the introduction of indigenous peoples’ claims in the agenda-setting of regional forest governance institutions like COMIFAC. The recognition of customary rights in modern law has also become a reality in countries like Congo and DRC thanks to REPALEAC advocacy. Policy reforms to increase the participation of indigenous peoples are also reinforced by community outreach, e.g. regional forums such as the International Forum on Indigenous Peoples in Central Africa (FIPAC). Regarding resources, REPALEAC depends heavily on external contributions from its financial and strategic partners. REPALEAC is run by external actor groups including international NGOs and bilateral western development cooperation agencies. Until 2016, for example, the REPALEAC office was located at the IUCN head office for Central Africa in Yaoundé. According to one REPALEAC leader, “REPALEAC’s activities mainly depend on what GIZ is willing to pay for. For example, they like funding political processes including meetings and workshops while we need money to implement operational activities requested by REPALEAC members such as capacity-building for forest management in villages, provision of materials needed for the sustainable exploitation of community forests, etc.”18 In addition to lacking its own resources, REPALEAC also suffers from the internal fragmentation of its own bureaucracy. For most REPALEAC leaders, the network is perceived as a springboard for the advancement of their own associations or as a good opportunity for networking to advance their individual careers. During our fieldwork in Cameroon, all the REPALEAC management team members we interviewed were more concerned with promoting their individual forest or indigenous association than with providing information on REPALEAC.

5. Conclusion This paper aimed to examine how the different types of autonomy that transnational grassroots networks demand of the states, international partners and community organisations affect the multi-scale governance of community forestry in tropical regions. We based our analysis on a typology of three politics of autonomy, namely selfmanagement, co-management and self-development. The comparative analysis of AMPB and REPALEAC revealed a contrasting approach to the politics of autonomy sought by transnational networks, depending on the scales and actors involved (see Table 2). Regarding the first dynamic of autonomy referring to self-management, AMPB and REPALEAC are engaged in different strategies to regain autonomy from international partners by capturing opportunities ranging from expertise-building to political backing. On the one hand, AMPB leaders succeeded in regaining power from external partners through the coproduction of scientific research and grassroots expertise. On the other hand, REPALEAC is still highly dependent on its external partners for funding and basic organisational issues. Regarding the redefinition of autonomy from states through comanagement, the transnational networks in our study have made quite different claims related to forestland governance structures. While AMPB is seeking to confront national governments’ domination through local empowerment and transnational expertise and funding, REPALEAC is mainly driven by national networks and pro-governmental logics in regional and international land tenure and community forestry management. Regarding the search for self-development, in both cases, the community organisations criticise transnational grassroots networks for

4.2.3. Co-management and political backing at the regional level To adapt to its limits and deal with its systematic dependency on donors, REPALEAC solicits political backing from state bureaucracies. At the regional scale, REPALEAC seeks to optimise the limited conditional resources provided by external partners, by e.g. relying on a small, temporary workplace within the IUCN office instead of renting an independent office and limiting its activities to meetings and workshops pending independent funding that could allow it to support the implementation of activities requested by the local and indigenous communities. REPALEAC is expected to represent, and push for more participation in community forestry pending mobilisation of sufficient resources to pressure state bureaucracies for more devolution and decentralisation of forest governance in the Congo Basin. Moreover, REPALEAC has been increasingly involved in international climate conferences, to benefit from new political and financial opportunities provided by programmes such as REDD+, and the

19

Interview in Lima, Peru, 01/12/2014. “Sanctuary. Illegal logging and human rights abuses”: ifnotusthenwho.me/films/illegal-logging-human-rights-abuses/ 20

18

Interview held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, 07/2015. 7

http://

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Table 2 Main patterns of the politics of autonomy observed in community forestry networks in Mesoamerica and the Congo Basin (source: authors).

Self-management Co-management Self-development Impacts on community Forest governance

AMPB

REPALEAC

Integrated territorial management, strong empowerment Increasing autonomy vis-à vis State bureaucracies, relative dependency on donors Strong capacity-building on productive practices and coproduction of knowledge Down-scaling inputs in community territories

Fragmented communities, weak empowerment Poor co-management, high degree of path dependency and lack of autonomy vis-à-vis donors Weak capacity-building, lack of skills in knowledge production Up-scaling struggle for political backing in regional arenas

gain autonomy from the state through secure land titles while strengthening its partnerships with AMPB and international allies. On the other hand, the politics of co-management claimed by REPALEAC is more oriented toward advocacy actions in regional and international arenas in order to obtain and secure customary rights. By developing co-management, REPALEAC intends to increase the recognition and inclusion of indigenous and local communities by state authorities. Comanagement is perceived as the best way to obtain resources for the exercise of customary rights and access to forest management and related climate change mitigation projects. More broadly, this paper demonstrates how autonomy stands as a major claim or strategy of community forestry networks to achieve territorial security and/or political inclusion. Indeed, autonomy is crucial at the moment of negotiating permanent rights over forestlands with central states. Autonomy is also central when negotiating recognition by the national government and access to decision-making arenas related to forest governance. Community forestry networks have to deal with trade-offs for autonomy, which depend on the actors they aim to strengthen or the actors from whom they seek emancipation. Further transnational comparative analyses are needed to better elucidate the politics of autonomy related to grassroots and/or community forestry networks.

their lack of political support and their overinvestment in international arenas. In response, AMPB has developed a post-2015 Paris Agreement on climate change agenda focusing on domestic challenges such as managing international projects and funds in recipient countries, while REPALEAC has been seeking to improve the regional coordination of its national member organisations by trying to empower them on global issues such as climate negotiations. Reinforcing local legitimacy remains one of the major challenges for both AMPB and REPALEAC. Finally, the transnational involvement of community forestry organisations in Mesoamerica and the Congo Basin and their distinct politics of autonomy highlight the emergence of new forms and scales of community forest governance, as highlighted in the ‘grassroots scalar politics’ approach (Hoogesteger & Verzjil, 2015). ACOFOP demonstrates the complex interactions among scales in community forest governance. We have seen that the Petén sub-national claim to selfdevelopment is strengthened by the support received from AMPB in the form of technical capacity-building, international funding and grassroots expertise, and the subsequent lower dependency on international partners. In the case of REPALEAC, the continued dependence on international donors and NGOs may be a strategy to increase the participation of member groups in governmental and supra-governmental arenas, and put the indigenous and community forest issues on the decision-makers’ agendas. While AMPB contributes to down-scaling community forest governance issues at the Mesoamerica territorial scale, REPALEAC contributes to up-scaling them at the Congo Basin regional scale. The politics of autonomy not only influences the scales of community forest governance but also tenure rights regimes in both tropical regions. Our analysis illustrates the erratic nature of forestland tenure rights in both Mesoamerica and the Congo Basin. On the one hand, the politics of self-development claimed by AMPB aims at securing community and indigenous rights at the local and national scale. In the particular case of ACOFOP, community concessions already have temporary rights to manage forest resources but lack the official collective property rights needed to ensure the sustainability of their community forestry practices. By claiming self-development, ACOFOP intends to

Acknowledgements This research was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, Project Ref: P2GEP1-174966), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Project Ref: 3.4-CMR-1189288-GF-P). The authors would like to thank the researchers who motivated the writing of this paper, especially those who provided guidance and advice on the earlier versions of this article during the 13th Congress of the French Political Science Association (AFSP) held in Aix-en-Provence (22-24 June 2015). The many discussions and the comments received at this symposium greatly improved the manuscript. The authors are also grateful to Laura Sauls for editing this paper.

Appendix A

Interviewee

Case study of Mesoamerica: AMPB Technical secretary

Institutional affiliation

Date and method

Place and Interviewer

AMPB

13/07/2014, face to face interview 15/07/2014, face to face interview 15/07/2014, face to face interview 15/07/2014, face to face interview 24/07/2014, Skype interview 14/08/2014, face to face interview

Mexico DF/Mexico, co-author 1. Puebla/Mexico, coauthor 1. Puebla/Mexico, coauthor 1. Puebla/Mexico, coauthor 1.

Regional Cacique,

Embera Comarca of Panama

Program officer

Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO)

Coordinator of the executive commission, and technical coordinator Regional director

AMPB, Bribri Cabecar Indigenous Network (RIBCA)

President

Department of natural resources and climate change of Ford Foundation National Alliance of Community Forest Organisations of Guatemala (ANOFCG)

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Quetzaltenango/ Guatemala, author 1.

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Community El Esfuerzo

18/08/2014, face face interview Head of social management depart- ACOFOP 20/08/2014, face ment face interview President of the directive commission Community La Técnica 21/08/2014, face face interview Head of the Program Guatecarbon ACOFOP 25/08/2014, face face interview Sub-director ACOFOP 25/08/2014, face face interview Head of women department ACOFOP 25/08/2014, face face interview Head of communication department ACOFOP 25/08/2014, face face interview Head of productive activities depart- ACOFOP 25/08/2014, face ment face interview Head of administrative and financial ACOFOP 25/08/2014, face department face interview Consultant Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) 29/08/2014, face face interview Director ACOFOP 29/08/2014, face face interview Coordinator for the Petén region Rainforest Alliance 29/08/2014, face face interview General coordinator, and general ca- National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples of Panama (COONAPIP), 06/12/2014, face cique Embera-Wounaan comarca, AMPB’s executive commission face interview President Mayangna Nation 18/11/2015, face face interview

to to to to to to to to to to to to to to

Petén/Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Petén/Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1. Lima/Peru, author 1. Santa Elena/ Guatemala, author 1.

Case study of the Congo basin: REPALEAC Grassroots organization leader, DRC

REPALEAC

Forest officer in charge of community Ministry of forestry forestry Chief of the community forestry unit Ministry of forestry Regional forest officer

COMIFAC

Forest project officer

IUCN

Project coordinator

IUCN

Woman leader of a national indigenous people group Grassroots organization member, Cameroon Grassroot organization financial officer, Cameroon Leader of a grassroots organization for youth Regional grassroots organization leader Regional project coordinator

ROSCEVAC REPALEAC REPALEAC REJEFAC REPALEAC GIZ

Community forestry project officer

GIZ

Forest policy researcher

CIFOR, central Africa office

Forest policy officer

CIFOR, central Africa office

Forest management lecturer

University of Dschang

Regional project research assistant

CIFOR, central Africa office

Forest governance lecturer

University of Yaoundé 1

Independent consultant

–

Forest economics lecturer

University of Yaoundé 2-SOA

National NGO project officer

CED

REDD + project officer

Ministry of environment

National REDD + Project coordinator

Ministry of environment

9

December 1. 2014, face to face interview July 16. 2015, Skype interview July 16. 2015, face to face interview July 17. 2015, face to face interview July 20. 2015, face to face interview July 20. 2015, face to face interview July 24. 2015, telephone interview July 24. 2015, face to face interview July 24. 2015, face to face interview July 26. 2015, telephone interview July 29. 2015, telephone interview August 1. 2015, face to face interview August 4, face to face interview January 29. 2016, face to face interview January 29. 2016, face to face interview February 01. 2016, face to face interview February 5. 2016, face to face interview February 7. 2016, face to face interview July 5. 2016, telephone interview July 8. 2016, face to face interview July 11. 2016, telephone interview July 12. 2016, telephone interview July 12. 2016, telephone interview

Lima/Peru, co-author 1. Yaoundé/Cameroon, Co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Douala/Cameroon, co-author 2. Douala/Cameroon, co-author 2. Douala/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, Co-author 2. Bertoua/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Dschang/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2. Yaoundé/Cameroon, Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2 Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2 Yaoundé/Cameroon, co-author 2

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Appendix B: List of Acronyms

ACOFOP AMAN AMPB CATIE CBD CEFDHAC CLUA COICA COMIFAC CONAP COONAPIP FIPAC GACF GIZ ICCO IUCN ODA PRISMA REDD+ REPALEAC RRI UNDRIP UNFCCC

Association of Forest Communities of Petén (Guatemala) Indonesian Indigenous Peoples Alliance Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Conference on Dense and Humid Forests Ecosystems of Central Africa Climate and Land Use Alliance Coordinator/Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin Commission of Central African Forests National Council for Protected Areas National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples of Panama International Forum on Indigenous Peoples in Central Africa Global Alliance of Community Forestry German Development Cooperation Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation International Union for the Conservation of Nature Official Development Assistance Regional Program on Development and the Environment (San Salvador) Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation Network of Indigenous and Local Communities for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa Rights and Resources Initiative United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Appendix C. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2020.100169.

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