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Southeast Asia has long promoted social forestry (SF) in conservation areas, fallow forests, tree plantations, areas in timber concessions and locally managed agro-forest systems, with the engagement of diverse actors and objectives. SF has evolved from early aims of empowerment and devolution of rights advocated by global reform movements, and is now reframed in the market ideal as a win–win–win endeavor for sustainable forest management, climate change mitigation and robust entrepreneurial livelihoods. Southeast Asian states have formulated numerous standardized SF programs and policies that are often linked to broader development goals and priorities, but which have not always been a 'win' for local communities in falling short to provide full tenure rights. Civil society organizations that have provided grounded perspectives on environmental justice and rights have also converged with states on entrepreneurship and market-based solutions. Meanwhile, the private sector actor that is seen as key to these solutions is conspicuously absent within the SF policy space. Within this space of diverse and at times contradictory objectives, whose interests do SF policies serve? We examine the social forestry assemblage to investigate the different discourses, interests and agendas in the implementation of SF schemes in Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Malaysian state of Sabah. The formal SF schemes involve shifting or reinforcing old discourses around forest problems and possible solutions, territorialization processes that can lead to inequities in the exclusion of rights, participation and access, and risks exacerbating contestations and inequities in claims to forest land and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interventions to strengthen forest conservation in tropical biomes face multiple challenges. Insecure land tenure and unequal benefit sharing within forest user groups are two of the most important. Using original household-level survey data from 130 villages in six countries, we assess how current wealth inequality relates to tenure security and benefit flows from forest use. We find that villages with higher wealth inequality report lower tenure security and more unequal flows from forest income and externally sourced income. Furthermore, we find that wealthier individuals within villages capture a disproportionately larger share of the total amount of forest benefits available to each village, while external income often benefits poorer individuals more. These findings suggest that unless future forest conservation interventions actively work to mitigate inequalities linked to existing forest benefit flows, there is a risk that these interventions—including those associated with REDD+ activities—reproduce or even aggravate pre-existing socioeconomic inequalities within user groups, potentially undermining both their conservation and economic objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Trade displaces Chinese reforestation side-effects onto 15 SDGs in 4 case-studies • Distal deforestation and social impacts cancel out Chinese reforestation benefits. • Unequal distributions of trade benefits create unsustainable outcomes. Data aggregation masks displaced unsustainability • Our approach can aid the design of sustainable practices effective across-scales. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts of national policies and assumes that global-level progress is the sum of national, sector-specific gains. In this study, we investigate effects of reforestation programs in China on countries supplying forest and agricultural commodities to China. Using case studies of rubber and palm oil production in Southeast Asian countries, soy production in Brazil and logging in South Pacific Island states, we investigate cross-sector effects of production for and trade to China in these exporting countries. We use a three-step multi-method approach. 1) We identify distal trade flows and the narratives used to justify them, using a telecoupling framework; 2) we design causal loop diagrams to analyse social-ecological processes of change in our case studies driven by trade to China and 3) we link these processes of change to the SDG framework. We find that sustainability progress in China from reforestation is cancelled out by the deforestation and cross-sectoral impacts supporting this reforestation abroad. Narratives of economic development support commodity production abroad through unrealised aims of benefit distribution and assumptions of substitutability of socio-ecological forest systems. Across cases, we find the analysed trade supports unambiguous progress on few SDGs only, and we find many mixed effects – where processes that support the achievement of SDGs exist, but are overshadowed by counterproductive processes. Our study represents a useful approach for tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives and provides cross-scale and cross-sectoral lenses through which to identify drivers of unsustainability that can be addressed in the design of effective sustainability policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There is a disparity between what is perceived as drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and following proposed measures. • Swidden is seen as a political issue and different interpretations of the problem exist from national, provincial, district, commune to village level. • Actors associated to swidden might be marginalized in REDD+ and PES design and implementation. • REDD+ policies should consider divergent political interests on controversial land uses and their potential of ecosystem services. Swidden cultivation practices have been seen as a major driver of deforestation and forest degradation in Southeast Asia. Using two case studies from Vietnam, this paper examines discourses around swidden practices at multiple levels of governance. Our findings show diverse interpretations of swidden resulting in different policy preferences and policy translations when addressing the issue. At national level, swidden is blamed as a principal driver of deforestation and forest degradation, and as such is a practice to be eliminated. As a result of this national stance, provincial level authorities see the existence of swidden as a failure by which their political performance will be judged. Conversely, swidden communities are seen at district level as an innovative solution to help resource-limited police forces ensure national security in border areas. Local commune and village leaders view swidden as a traditional practice to be respected, so as to maintain harmonious relationships amongst social groups, and avoid ethnic groups protesting against the government. Such differences in discourses and political interests have led to swidden becoming an 'invisible' issue, with government authorities failing to collect and report on data. Not recognizing swidden also means that swidden actors are practically 'forgotten' in the design and implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). Their omission from forest conservation and management incentive programmes could lead to further social marginalization, and potentially result in deforestation and forest degradation in the area. Our findings suggest that REDD+ policies should take into account diverging political interests on controversial land uses such as swidden cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]