There is a prevalent notion in international environmental organizations and intergovernmental bodies that indigenous authorities are democratic. In the realm of policy, the institution of traditional leadership is assumed to be legitimate and to hold true to principles of equality, participation, and representation. Nevertheless, they often share the values and norms of the wider political society in which their organizations and communities are embedded, and their political systems can be labeled as authoritarian, patriarchal, gender biased, and gerontocratic. Through reforms and projects, governments and international organizations choose to transfer power to a wide range of non-elected local institutions –user committees, indigenous organizations, and indigenous authorities – circumventing formally democratic institutions. Empowering and recognizing non-elected authorities weakens local democracy because these actors – who claim to represent local people– are not always accountable to them.
The Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program --a climate change mitigation financing mechanism for reducing deforestation in exchange for carbon offset credits— provided a global forum where indigenous groups became relevant and empowered to challenge top-down approaches to REDD+. They created Indigenous Amazon REDD+ (RIA). Closely aligned to customary values RIA consists of a private-public partnership that supports self-government, local development, and collective land titling. Proponents of RIA are choosing to recognize and empower indigenous authorities as the legitimate democratic interlocutors for local people at the same time that they bypass democratically elected local authorities.
This project seeks to understand the effects of supporting indigenous leaders on the political representation of both indigenous and non-indigenous people and institutions in the implementation of RIA. The study will focus on the following question: Are Indigenous authorities supported by RIA substantively democratic? To answer this question, I will use the case of the first RIA intervention taking place in the Amarakaeri Comunal Reserve in the Peruvian amazon.
