REDDy? Agency in Protected Area Governance along Peru’s Amazonian Frontier

Mechanisms to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) have emerged as cost effective strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions which can contribute to the sustainable development of tropical developing countries. One of the central challenges facing REDD is the development of appropriate governance institutions. Taking an agency-centred political ecology approach, this paper elucidates the differential identities, roles and agencies of state and non-state actors governing land use in two national parks and their buffer zones in the Peruvian Amazon. This research adopts a comparative approach, taking the case studies of Yanachaga-Chemillen and Manu National Parks and their buffer zones. The focus on agency facilitates an understanding of how local-scale forms of governance are driving land use outcomes, and identifies institutional and organisational strengths and weaknesses which could be and targeted through REDD mechanisms. Geographical, social and economic factors are found to have created parallels, disparities and nuances in the local-level agencies of state and non-state actors at the two sites. The centralised nature of the country has led to a lack of knowledge of Amazonia, while disorganised decentralisation efforts have reduced the agencies of regional governments. Pressing social and economic issues have largely sidelined land use concerns, while the underfunding and understaffing of protected areas authorities, as well as their lack of long-term leadership and legal agency means that they are unable to achieve their institutional objectives. Severely debilitated forestry and agrarian authorities are overwhelmed with responsibilities and minimally staffed. NGOs are found to be out of touch with local needs and realities, creating to a jaded feeling towards NGOs in YChNP, but a much stronger feeling of resentment among the population around MNP. High-agency ecotourism operators in Manu have ensured the conservation of forests on the western flank of the Alto Madre de Dios River; while the settlements surrounding YChNP attract a cultural tourism from Lima. Market-driven extractive actors are found to have high agencies. Ten policy recommendations are given for REDD actions at the two sites; however the local-scale nuances illustrate the need for individualised approaches to addressing land use governance under REDD. 1 This paper was first presented at the 2009 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, under the theme ‘Agency in Earth System Governance’. This research was made possible by an ESRC/NERC joint interdisciplinary studentship.