REDD+ in the making: Orders of knowledge in the climate–deforestation nexus

• I approach the REDD+ programme hosts as co-producers of global REDD+ discourse.
• Programme hosts are represented as facilitators of transformed tropical forest use.
• Forest dependent communities are represented as subjects of necessary change.
• Distant drivers of tropical deforestation and GHG emissions are obscured.
• The narrative produced resembles 1980s discourse on tropical deforestation.

In this paper REDD+ is understood as a global forest governance arrangement in the making. Through the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD) the production of REDD+ discourse in four REDD+ programmes is explored by means of 14 documents. The programme texts are regarded as influential discursive practices performed by the programme hosts who draw on existing discourses and institutional–organisational infrastructures, while simultaneously producing subjects, objects and activities with different rights, responsibilities and values. The results demonstrate a process of discursive ordering of knowledge, forest use and forest dependence where the programme hosts form a common understanding of the interrelationships between climate mitigation, adaptation, poverty reduction, and tropical deforestation. As a consequence, the programmes bias action towards transformation of forest sectors as a step towards greening economies in tropical forested developing countries. The analysis demonstrates how the programme hosts produces a narrative where they themselves become key agents facilitating change, while forest dependent local communities are classified as subjects of necessary change. The focus on local dependent communities in effect obscures more distant causes that are not associated with local livelihoods. This narrative resembles the 1980s narrative on tropical deforestation, where farmers and slash and burn practices were considered the main cause of deforestation.