Inverting the moral economy: the case of land acquisitions for forest plantations in Tanzania

Governments, donors and investors often promote land acquisitions for forest plantations as global climate change mitigation via carbon sequestration. Investors' forestry thereby becomes part of a global moral economy imaginary. Using examples from Tanzania we critically examine the global mora...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Third world quarterly 2015-12, Vol.36 (12), p.2316-2336
Main Authors: Olwig, M.F., Noe, C., Kangalawe, R., Luoga, E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
carbon forestry
Climate change
Environmental policy
Ethics
Forestry
idle land
Investors
Land
land acquisitions
Land titles
moral economy
Morality
Plantations
sustainable investments
Tanzania
Trees
Underclass
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Summary:Governments, donors and investors often promote land acquisitions for forest plantations as global climate change mitigation via carbon sequestration. Investors' forestry thereby becomes part of a global moral economy imaginary. Using examples from Tanzania we critically examine the global moral economy's narrative foundation, which presents trees as axiomatically 'green', 'idle' land as waste and economic investments as benefiting the relevant communities. In this way the traditional supposition of the moral economy as invoked by the economic underclass to maintain the basis of their subsistence is inverted and subverted, at a potentially serious cost to the subjects of such land acquisition.
ISSN:0143-6597
1360-2241
DOI:10.1080/01436597.2015.1078231