completed · Livelihoods

Thinking beyond REDD: analysing smallholder´s motivation and actions for ecosystem service management

Large efforts are made internationally to control deforestation as an approach to climate mitigation; one example of this is the implementation of the UN-backed program REDD. However, so far REDD has been unable to curb the drivers of deforestation when facing complex realities of expanding agricultural frontiers, large-scale infrastructure projects and irrepressible markets. Smallholders´ multiple land uses play a central role in fighting climate change and as an important provider of ecosystem services (ES). This research therefore proposes to rethink how ES management and climate mitigation measures can be achieved. While approaching ES from a landscape perspective, this research seeks to investigate smallholders´ motivations and actions for ES management and how these might promote forest cover maintenance, and other forms of ES provision at the same time as it meet the smallholders´ livelihood needs. This will be investigated by using ethnographic and PRA methods in two contrasting country case studies, Brazil and Nepal. These findings will feed into a larger local discussion on motivations for ES management and potential incentive structures for collective action. Finally, the bureaucratic structures, processes and assemblages affecting such actions will be explored. This project engages with the timely and important issue of maintenance of ES, highlighting smallholders´ potential as contributors in ES management and climate change mitigation.