Can REDD+ projects deliver livelihood benefits in private tenure arrangements? Experiences from rural Zambia

This paper asks whether REDD+ Projects in private tenure arrangements can deliver livelihood benefits and development in rural communities. We draw on a conservancy under two private companies – a landowner and developer – alongside community zones in Zambia to explore how private capital converges in rural geographies, and what local communities make out of this ‘novel’ coordination arrangement. Based on a qualitative study design, we conducted household interviews, key informant interviews and group discussions to explore people centered accounts of people, lived REDD+ realities and experiences. Results show a national policy and legal context necessitates private capital convergence in rural spaces, but communities are poorly served. Private tenure arrangements heighten resource restrictions, unequal benefit sharing mechanism, and affects community agency. Selected infrastructure developments have taken place through carbon payments, but related REDD+ activities have been narrow as opposed to being broad-based, driving inequalities and gender differentiation. Continued deforestation and traditional charcoal production in project areas express community disempowerment and disinterest. Thus, even where REDD+ schemes are foisted in private tenure arrangements, they are likely to be more precarious, foreclosing political reactions from below and alternative livelihood possibilities that may be capable of resisting status quo logics of accumulation and commodification of forest carbon.