Forests of Refuge Decolonizing Environmental Governance in the Amazonian Guiana Shield

“Yolanda Ariadne Collins provocatively argues that historical colonial-capitalist injustices have come full circle in REDD+ and other market-based forest conservation mechanisms. Ethnographically grounded in Guyana and Surinam, Forests of Refuge fully integrates race and colonialism into the critique of neoliberal environmentalism and so makes vital space for other ways of being. A stunning book.”—Bram Büscher, author of The Truth about Nature: Environmentalism in the Era of Post-truth Politics and Platform Capitalism

“Understanding the place that forests, specifically the Guiana Shield, play in decolonization debates and modern conservation governance is critical not only to Caribbean peoples' sense of place, but also to resisting neocolonial power, overturning neoliberal environmental policies, and fomenting subaltern struggles that ultimately advance climate justice in the Caribbean. Forests of Refuge helps unearth a wealth of knowledge about these interconnected issues, which can inform alternative, emancipatory, and reparative pathways for a transformed world.”—Keston K. Perry, Assistant Professor, Department of African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

“Is it possible to decolonize a forest? Bringing attention to the histories of colonialism, race, and extraction, Forests of Refuge is a helpful primer for understanding climate mitigation projects in the Guiana Shield. In these forests we witness the clash between global capitalism and non-settler logics of survival. Collins’s comparison of Surinamese Maroons’ and Guyanese Amerindians’ engagements with REDD+ is a welcome addition to the field of environmental studies.”—Sarah E. Vaughn, author of Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation

“ Forests of Refuge is about layers, scales, interconnections, and contradictions of the past, the present, and futures. A brilliant yet complex visual rendition of market-based environmental policies (read REDD+) as they operate and are embodied by (de)colonized subjectivities. A significant contribution to global and local discussions around restoration, conservation, decolonization, and community participation. A must-read for academics and policy makers alike!"—Anwesha Dutta, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway

"Studying closely the REDD+ initiative in the Guiana Shield, Forests of Refuge demonstrates why decolonizing environmental governance is necessary in former colonized countries for opening up ways of relating to nature other than exploitative Western ones."—Mathew Bukhi Mabele, University of Dodoma, Tanzania

"A challenging, insightful, and uncompromising account. Collins turns a searing gaze on the colonized fantasies that sustain our climate chaos. She combines rigorous research, careful reading, and her intimate understanding of the places where she has worked, and of colonization and decolonization, to write a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why we need a completely different approach to tackling climate change."—Dan Brockington, Research Professor at Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

Forests of Refuge questions the effectiveness of market-based policies that govern forests in the interest of mitigating climate change. Yolanda Ariadne Collins interrogates the most ambitious global plan to incentivize people away from deforesting activities: the United Nations–endorsed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative. Forests of Refuge explores REDD+ in Guyana and neighboring Suriname, two highly forested countries in the Amazonian Guiana Shield with low deforestation rates. Yet REDD+ implementation there has been fraught with challenges. Adopting a multisited ethnographic approach, Forests of Refuge takes readers into the halls of policymaking, into conservation development organizations, and into forest-dependent communities most affected by environmental policies and exploitative colonial histories. This book situates these challenges in the inattentiveness of global environmental policies to roughly five hundred years of colonial histories that positioned the forests as places of refuge and resistance. It advocates that the fruits of these oppressive histories be reckoned with through processes of decolonization.