ABSTRACT
Forest carbon is increasingly becoming a resource of global, indeed planetary, importance. The increased sequestration of carbon in trees promises not just to reduce emissions from land use change but is also meant to offset continued fossil fuel emissions in the Global North. In this chapter, we explore the kinds of world-making that occur on the back of this climate change mitigation strategy. Using two examples of carbon offsetting projects in Uganda, we show how the political construction of forest carbon as a global resource is altering local livelihoods and landscapes in the Global South. Our cases illustrate two different ways in which these world-(re)making processes are taking place, namely through carbon sequestration “sacrifice zones” and the establishment of “zones of recruitment.” While these two strategies represent qualitatively distinct ways in which communities are excluded/included in the production of forest carbon, our cases also highlight important commonalities. Most importantly, they show how existing political economies of resource extraction (fossil fuels and timber) are being justified and remade in tandem with the creation of forest carbon as a mitigation resource.
