ABSTRACT
When Rousseau ([1754] 2005, 33) warned, “you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody,” he could have been presaging the chorus of critiques leveled by the opponents of the program mechanism known as REDD. 1 With its particular focus on the commoditization of carbon, REDD, and the latest iteration REDD+, raises an intriguing question: should and can carbon as it occurs in tropical forests with all its complexity become a tradable market asset?
