This study was presented during the conference “Production and Carbon Dynamics in Sustainable Agricultural and Forest Systems in Africa ” held in September, 2010.

1. Geographies of Evasion and the Prospects for REDD
Robin Biddulph (robin.biddulph@geography.gu.se)
ABSTRACT
Recent research in Cambodia focusing on property rights interventions in the form of community forestry and
systematic land titling has generated a “Geographies of Evasion” hypothesis. The suggestion here is that when
the development industry attempts to extend rights that host governments are unwilling to enforce the result
will not be a rejection of development industry overtures. Rather host nation elites will cooperate with the
sponsors of the development industry interventions using performance indicators to create a facade of success.
However, behind this facade, the interventions will be resisted by the simple expedient of ensuring that they are
only implemented in places where they will not make a substantial difference.
Much of the analysis of the Cambodia case is built on theoretical insights from African experience. The key
ingredients for the Geographies of Evasion identified in Cambodia are readily found throughout the World, and
certainly in countries which are undergoing processes of deforestation. These include: Shadow State
governance; landscapes dichotomised into resource rich and resource poor areas; a development industry with
ambitions that exceed those of the host country political elite; transparent, results-based management.
In the context of REDD the Geographies of Evasion thesis suggests that a long capacity building and policy reform
process may provide the means by which rational host governments are able over a period of years or even
decades to sponsor REDD in some places and continued deforestation in others. If the Geographies of Evasion
thesis is to be believed, REDD will prove ineffective, but this ineffectiveness will be concealed and downplayed
for many years before an inevitable descent into scandal and blame.
If there is a key to preventing this outcome, it lies in ceasing to promote REDD on the basis of claims that avoided
deforestation and degradation is cheap and easy relative to other forms of climate intervention. Achieving REDD
would not be cheap and it would not be easy politically or technically.

3. Overview
• Introduction: ”good policy” and academic
critique
• Geographies of Evasion in Cambodia
• The relevance for REDD in Africa and globally

4. Context
• Shadow state governance (formal leadership
grounded in the informal economy)
• Resource-rich/resource-poor landscape (more
or less resource cursed)

5. ”Good Policy is Unimplementable”
• Interventions need to be (over-) sold to get
supported and financed;
• Resistance gets under-played,
• Difficulties get under-played, and
• Potential benefits get exaggerated

6. Behind the policy facade
• Smart operators get worthwhile things done
(even if not exactly what was on the packet),
or
• Disastrous misconceived interventions end in
failure
• (Failure now may prevent success later so
worth preventing)

7. Geographies of Evasion: Origins in
Cambodia

8. Cambodia Case I Land Titling
• Tenure insecurity described as a national
problem which is ”everywhere”
• Tenure insecure in forests, former conflict
areas
• Tenure in smallholder rice landscapes rather
secure
• Land titling only implemented in smallholder
rice landscapes

9. Cambodia Case II Community Forestry
• Promoted as restoring ’traditional’ and
’historical’ forest-based livelihoods
• Those livelihoods centred around hard-wood
resin-producing trees
• Community forestry only implemented in
areas where the trees have already been cut
• So again, the policy solution avoids the places
where the problem it addresses is found

10. Geography of Evasion
• Western Development industry programme
does not have genuine host nation political
support
• (often = Development Industry seeks to
extend rights that host nation leadership are
not prepared to enforce)
• Host nation channels interventions to places
where those rights already exist de facto or
where they do not matter

11. Geographies of Evasion theory
explains:
• How things might go wrong
• Why things might go wrong
• How problems might be identified early
• ’might’ = patterns, tendencies not universal
laws

12. Ingredients for a Geography of Evasion
• An ambitious rights-based international
development agenda (”overreach”)
• Shadow-state governance
• A more or less dichotomized landscape
(resource rich areas and resource poor areas)
• Policy facade represents host government as a
progressive ’development partner’ and the
landscape as fairly homogenous

13. Relevance to REDD
• A Western political project (climate fear)
attempting to use carrot and stick to achieve
change
• Rational for host nation governments to resist
(support deforestation in one place and
avoided deforestation in another)
• A phased approach provides a window of
opportunity for a geography of evasion...

14. First phase of REDD
• National Dialogue
• Capacity Building
• Demonstration Activities
Perfect for a prolonged Geography of Evasion

15. Geography of Evasion predicts:
• Policy dialogue, capacity building etc will provide
the rationale for a slow start and small scale
• Deforestation will continue in places where it is
lucrative
• Pilots and demonstration activities will take place
where forest is already degraded or where
deforestation is not a threat
• Facade of achievement will be maintained using
indicators that conceal this state of affairs

16. Empirical questions
• Where is deforestation occurring most
rapidly? (Which countries, which parts of
countries)
• Where are REDD activities taking place?

17. Indications thus far?
• Guyana – REDD support to a country without
deforestation (0.45% baseline) (Helmers,
2010)
• Odtar Meanchey province, Cambodia- pilot
activities in province with high deforestation,
but in part of province with low deforestation
(Bradley 2009)

18. The right question?
• For a geographer, ’where’ is always the right
question.
• Does the ”Geographies of Evasion” hypothesis
help us to ask the right questions to identify
when REDD is being derailed?
• Or am I barking up the wrong tree?