Global Governance Networks

¶ … REDD+ Threaten to Recentralize Forest Governance" by Phelps and colleagues examines the phenomenon of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) movement and how this trend might lead to a disturbing tendency of decentralized forest management. Ultimately Phelps and associates argue that in order for the proper balance to be achieved, communities need to have the ultimate control over the design of REDD+ and the exact manner in which it is implemented.

Keeping control at the local level will ensure that the integrity of the environment is maintained in the present and in the years to come. Furthermore, Phelps and company are pushing for the optimization of REDD+ policies through more intensified research. Finding a sense of harmony is the ultimate option. "There is a tension between the urgency to reduce emissions and science-based REDD+ governance that could benefit millions of forest-dependent people and could reduce forest carbon emissions" (Phelps et al., 2010).

Community involvement may help to thwart the elements which could lead to decentralization of this trend. Discovering the proper balance is something which is the order of the day when it comes to a range of environmental issue.

For example, as Khan explains in his article, "What role for network governance in urban low carbon emissions?" By Jamil Khan is an article which describes how while many cities have been proactive about addressing climate change, the multi-level governance which occurs within major metropolitan centers can restrict real change and necessary changes from occurring (2012).

Khan explores how network governance is a possibility in helping to find a greater level of balance with cities trying to implement a greater amount of necessary climate agenda as network governance can act more like a necessary facilitator. However, network governance is not a perfect solution in this regard, and is actually something which can offer mixed consequences in regards to results and democratic legitimacy (Khan, 2012).

As Khan found, "On the implications of network governance for urban low carbon transitions it is argued that while network governance can contribute to niche developments and innovation at the urban level, the elitist character of networks risks maintaining existing unsustainable patterns and defining possible urban futures in too narrow terms" (2012). Essentially this underscores the findings of Phelps and colleagues: when it comes to discovering the proper balance within this governance so that real changes are created, it takes a certain degree of give and take.

In fact, the paper, "Frontiers of Network Governance by Huppe and colleagues is essentially all about that type of governance when it comes to the environment and the necessary equilibrium that needs to be struck after all. All challenges present within network governance generally stem from issues related to complexity and to social capital (2012). As Huppe and colleagues explain, "Social capital is the fabric of trust, shared values and understanding that allows diverse participants to work together towards collective outcomes and common goals" (2012).

Thus, challenges which are more complex mean that they need a higher level of social capital to engage in collaborative processes that work and that this can be done with a certain level of poise struck between stakeholder analysis and social network analysis (Huppe, 2012).

The problems caused from a dearth of balance is something that Betsill and Bulkeley are able to demonstrate as they focus on the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program, that local governments are more successful within a network when they are mobilized more and more by financial and political resources (2004). Essentially, the researchers find that transnational networks work more harmoniously when there is a proactive effort to achieve balance with global environmental governance (Betsill & Bulkeley, 2004).

This is highly evocative of all that Bushely discovers in his article, "Seeing the Communities for the Carbon": he finds that a lack of balance is undermining all efforts, just as so many researchers before him had discovered.

Busheley finds that REDD readiness and policy formulation is being conducted in a top-down manner, with not enough involvement and impact by local communities in the organization process or in the decision-making method: rather, it's been found that a more adaptive, bottom-up method is necessary for REDD to become economically beneficial, socially equitable and sustainable for the environment (2013).

Similarly the article, "Social Networks and Community-Based Management by Lauber and colleagues also underscore the sheer necessity of this process as a whole: social networks have a necessity for specific characteristics within the varying needs of community-based management (2008). The.