Deforestation and land use intensification in the tropical frontiers of Central Africa and Southeast Asia are rapidly transforming landscapes, livelihoods, and local well-being. This is both a global environmental problem and a local social-ecological crisis. This project carries out critical policy analyses and case study research to identify the conditions for how development and transformation of forest-agriculture frontiers can enable more equitable and sustainable development.

Forest-agriculture frontiers of diverse swidden and smallholder practices are rapidly being converted to homogenous landscapes of commodity agriculture across the tropical Global South. These frontiers of agriculture, fallow and forest mosaics provide multiple ecosystem services, support social, cultural and livelihood needs, and are areas where indigenous communities and local people have traditional rights to land and resources. Land use intensification is often pursued as ‘sustainable development’ and progress, but has often not led to expected win-win social and ecological outcomes. Indigenous groups and smallholders in these landscapes have simultaneously engaged with, adapted to, and resisted against different development, and yet regularly find themselves and their customary rights marginalized at the expense of interests of local elites, State and external investors, reflecting the complexities of underlying politics, institutions and power structures around forests and land-use. FairFrontiers applies inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to ask: Whose interests drive the transformations of forest-agriculture frontiers, who benefits and who is made precarious? What are possible policy options that can deliver ecologically sustainable and socially equitable outcomes?

To address these research questions, the project carries out five interlinked strands of research (see Figure 1) and carries out research in Southeast Asia (Malaysia (Sabah, Sarawak), Laos and Indonesia) and Central Africa (Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo). The first research module delves into the historical (and colonial) constructs of policies for forest and land and their contemporary pathways, and carry out critical discursive analyses of how policies frame and problematize development in forest-agriculture frontiers. The second and third modules examine how ecosystem services and well-being bundles are changing in frontiers, using a set of mixed methods and participatory approaches. The fourth module applies transdisciplinary approaches in the co-production of knowledge on and inclusion of diverse and local narratives of sustainable futures. The fifth module carries out integrative and comparative analyses across modules, scales and countries through structured qualitative and quantitative analyses. All research is carried out collaboratively with country partners and involve researchers, civil society activists, conservation practitioners, villagers and students.

The case study regions provide unique contexts along different ecological, social and institutional gradients such as forest cover, ecosystem diversity, inequality and human wellbeing, institutional/political control, and democracy and civil society engagement in policy processes. Together, these approaches support the advancement of theory and novel methods for assessing equity, ecosystem services and well-being, and identification of the enabling and hindering conditions for more equitable and sustainable development pathways for the millions of people who still depend on these diverse landscapes for their livelihoods and well-being.

What we know so far

Under Module 1, we carried out media-based discourse analyses to examine different coalitions advocating for, and resisting against, a forest carbon offset policy in Sabah, Malaysia (Kan et al., in review), and a new palm oil plantation in Kribi, Cameroon. This work enables us to understand the discursive power underlying how decisions and practices of development in forest frontiers exclude, yet disproportionately affect, indigenous peoples and local communities who live and work in these spaces. We are also examining the diverse ways in how civil society and local people express resistance (Brockhaus et al., in progress).

Another strand of critical research in Module 1 examines the roles that distal flows of commodities, finance and discourses play in shaping land and forest policies in local landscapes. Our analyses highlight how interests and financialization of frontiers drive inequalities and reinforce power structures in DR Congo (Pietarinen et al. 2023) and Sabah (Ali and Varkkey, 2023).  

We are currently carrying out field research activities in all research sites (see Photo 1 and 2). Analyses of data collected by local partners and M.Sc. students in Campo Ma’an, Cameroon highlight perceptions of well-being and justice of local and indigenous communities, squeezed between the creation of Campo Ma’an National Park and expanding large-scale oil palm and rubber plantations (Dhiaulhaq et al. 2024). Results were shared with the communities in the area and their feedback was critical to improving our understanding of the social-cultural contexts underlying the well-being and ecosystem service linkages.

Noteworthy items

The project’s analytical framework is built on theories of power and everyday politics, social and environmental justice, and ecosystem service science. We are carrying out critical policy analyses in collaboration with in-country partners (2022 Law on Protection of Indigenous Pygmy Rights in DR Congo and 2022 Omnibus Law in Indonesia) to examine their potential for changing business-as-usual practices in frontiers.

The project has created a Research Brief series to share new and emerging research findings, conceptual papers or opinion pieces by researchers, partners and students. The series are peer-reviewed and two briefs were published in 2023.

Assembe-Mvondo, S., Tieguhong, C.J., Wong, G., Brockhaus, M. Crises, complexities and claims in protected areas: Landscapes of (in) coherent biodiversity governance and social-environmental injustice in Southwest Cameroon. In, Ongolo, S., Krott, M (eds.), Power Dynamics and Biodiversity Crisis in African Forests. Routledge Studies in African Politics and International Relations; peer reviewed, in press.

Ali, S. and Varkkey, H. (2023) When distal flows meet local realities: A history of Acacia and Eucalyptus plantations in Sabah, FairFrontiers Research Brief no. 1/2023. Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan. peer reviewed.

Pietarinen, N., Koh, NS., Ville, A., Brockhaus, M., Wong, G. (2023). Can REDD+ finance compete with established and emerging land investments? The case of Mai-Ndombe, Democratic Republic of Congo. CIFOR-ICRAF Info Brief no. 395. peer reviewed.

Wong, G.Y., Holm, M., Pietarinen, N., Ville, A., Brockhaus, M. (2022). The making of resource frontier spaces in the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia: A critical analysis of narratives, actors and drivers in the scientific literature. World Development Perspectives, 27(4): 100451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2022.100451; peer reviewed.