Avoided Land Degradation and Enhanced Soil Carbon Storage: Is There a Role for Carbon Markets? - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 374

On the other hand, Corbera (2012) cri-
tiqued the current REDD+ policy framework
and its commodification of ecosystems' car-
bon storage and sequestration functions on
a global scale, as part of a 'neoliberalization
of nature'. It eases a transition from an eth-
ically informed conservation ethos to a
utilitarian one that simplifies nature and
undermines socioecological resilience. This
approach relies on a single valuation lan-
guage that may crowd out conservation mo-
tivations in the short and long term; while it
is sustained on a 'multiple-win' discourse
that in practice lacks procedural legitimacy
in many developing countries and repro-
duces existing inequities and forms of so-
cial exclusion.
In the contrast between these two per-
spectives on market-based mechanisms to
reduce emissions from forest conversion to
other use, generally including changes in
soil C stocks, we can see recognition that
there are multiple levels of motivation in-
volved. This occurs on both ends of the

value chain, and the interaction between
them can be negative as well as positive.
Elsewhere (van Noordwijk et al ., 2013),
we proposed a motivational pyramid for
governments' concerns in developing and
developed countries ( Fig. 31.6) that leads to
three entry points in the current debate:
(i) (i) REDD+ and similar market instruments
offering rents that exceed those for a busi-
ness as the usual scenario; (ii) concerns about
branding and maintenance of market share
in international markets; and (iii) genuine
interest in global emission reduction.
van Noordwijk et al . (2012a) and Minang
and van Noordwijk (2013) argue that along a
carbon value chain a combination of PES
paradigms (discussed above) can be used:
(ia) commodification of verifiable carbon
emission credits at national scale; (ii) com-
pensation in the interaction between national
governments and sectors or subnational en-
tities; and (iii) co-investment in the inter-
action with land users. This perspective
may address the concerns expressed by

I. Awareness II. Readiness III. Implementation at scale

UNFCCC negotiations of rules of the game

Core
identity

Self-articulated
NAMA

Environmental
quality, health

Knowledge,
awareness

Branding as basis for
market share

EET

Global trade and investment
relations

Rent-
seeking
elites

REDD+

Economic growth with acceptable
distributional effects

Nested
approaches:
fairness and
efficiency,
MRV

Food sufficiency as prerequisite for political
stability in cities and supportive electorates

Territorial integrity and security of the state, international
independence, domestic bounded local autonomy

Fig. 31.6. Motivational pyramid of governance decisions and the multiple entry points of market-based
interests in reducing C emissions. (From van Noordwijk et al ., 2013.)