10.1 Introduction

SDG 10 calls for reducing inequalities in income as well as those based on age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status within a country. The Goal also addresses inequalities among countries, including those related to representation, migration and development assistance (UN 2018). This is an ambitious goal with many overlapping and distinct targets, as is reflected in Table 10.1. Inequality is understood in this chapter as ‘the state of not being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities’ (UN DESA 2015: 1). The goal recognises the importance of combating economic, social and cultural dimensions of inequalities at the individual, group and societal levels (Kabeer and Santos Reference Kabeer and Santos2017). Proponents argue that SDG 10 closely reflects one of the core agendas of Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development – ‘leave no one behind’ – and shows clear signs of lessons learned from fundamental criticisms levelled against the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), predecessor to the SDGs (Kabeer Reference Kabeer2015, Stuart and Woodroofe Reference Stuart and Woodroffe2016, Willis Reference Willis2016). The MDGs were criticised for focusing narrowly on halving extreme poverty rather than addressing the underlying inequalities that generate poverty in the first place. Hence, SDG 10 is a reaction to growing disparities in income and socio-economic well-being despite overall increases in gross domestic product (GDP), with roots in inclusive-growth approaches (UNDP 2013).

Likewise, the targets and associated indicators pertaining to inequalities among countries recognise that the dominant economic system exacerbates inequalities within countries through rules that reinforce the current global distribution of wealth (IIED 2016). As demonstrated in Table 10.1, SDG 10 focuses on enhancing representation of developing countries in global markets, managing migration and increasing the flow of funds to poor countries through foreign direct investment and official development flows. In this way, addressing inequalities among countries is both an end in itself as well as a means to reducing inequalities within countries. SDG 10 acknowledges the role that migration and remittances can play in furthering the global development agenda by contributing to the reduction of inequalities at the country and cross-country levels. However, critics point out that SDG 10’s emphasis on managing migration reflects growing anxieties over the migrant crisis in Europe, North America and Australia rather than leveraging migration and development for socially just, environmentally responsive development (Nijenhuis and Leung Reference Nijenhuis and Leung2017).

This chapter evaluates the potential effects of addressing SDG 10 on forest outcomes using an ‘environmental justice lens’ (Forsyth Reference Forsyth2014, Forsyth and Sikor Reference Forsyth and Sikor2013, Fraser Reference Fraser1995, Reference Fraser2009; Martin Reference Martin2017, Sikor and Newell Reference Sikor and Newell2014). We focus on three principles of environmental justice, which relate to ‘distribution’, ‘representation’ and ‘recognition’. This perspective shows considerable synergies and complementarities between SDG 10 and environmental justice goals; it also exposes pitfalls, contradictions and trade-offs.

First, we show that because SDG 10 narrowly translates its aspirational goals into easily measurable indicators, addressing SDG 10 may risk undermining representative, distributive and recognition notions of justice. Second, the disjuncture between SDG 10 and the other SDGs may mean that resource distribution, recognition and representation could be sidelined. Third, a key gap in SDG 10 is the absence of trade despite an intensification of markets for forest products driving forest resource extraction while exacerbating distributive justice between upstream and downstream actors in production networks (Myers and Muhajir Reference Myers and Muhajir2015, Myers et al. Reference Myers, Intarini, Sirait and Maryudi2017, Myers et al. Reference Myers, McDermott and Ruttforthcoming).

We combine an overall evaluation of SDG 10 with a more detailed focus on two clusters of targets and indicators related to inequalities within countries (SDG Targets 10.1–10.4) and migration and remittances (10.7 and 10C), and we draw on existing literature on these topics in forestry. The scholarship concerned with inequalities in forestry has long recognised that there is no direct causal relationship between inequalities and forest outcomes (Agrawal and Benson Reference Agrawal and Benson2011, Agrawal and Gibson Reference Agrawal and Gibson1999, Agrawal and Ostrom Reference Agrawal and Ostrom2001, Johnson Reference Johnson2004, Poteete and Ostrom Reference Poteete and Ostrom2004). Institutions, or formal and informal rules and norms that govern how forests are managed, mediate the effects of inequalities on forests and people. We will show that this literature remains divided between those concerned with inequalities to the extent that they influence environmental outcomes and those who view pre-existing social relations as fundamentally constituting institutions. The latter suggests that for institutions to properly promote environmental justice requires addressing the socio-economic, cultural and symbolic inequalities (re)produced in institutions. From this perspective, if SDG 10 successfully reduces broad-based inequalities, as outlined in Targets 10.1–10.4, this will in turn reduce environmental injustices on marginalised individuals and groups in forests. But this hinges on whether, to what extent and how SDG 10 will amount to such substantive reductions in inequalities.

We will point out that addressing the migration-related targets and indicators in SDG 10 may contribute to elevating the importance of focusing on these issues in the forestry literature too. Most forestry research either ignores the role that migration, mobility and remittances play in current forest transitions or makes far-fetched conclusions about its effects on forests (Hecht et al. Reference Hecht, Yang, Sijapati Basnett, Padoch and Peluso2015). However, it is unclear whether SDG 10, in the way it is framed, opens room for promoting environmental justice for poor and marginalised groups through well-managed migration and remittances.

In what follows, we outline the conceptual framework that informs our analyses (Section 10.2). We then provide an overall evaluation of the gaps and openings in SDG 10 and dive deeper into two clusters of issues – inequalities within countries (Section 10.3) and migration and remittances (Section 10.4). Section 10.5 offers a summary and concluding remarks about potential trade-offs, shortcomings and new openings.

10.2 Principles of Environmental Justice: An Approach to Evaluating SDG 10

Environmental outcomes include forest productivity, availability of natural resources, biological diversity and carbon sequestration (World Bank 2009). Human well-being encompasses economic, social and political dimensions. We focus on the human well-being outcomes related to inequality, which encompass economic, social and political dimensions. An environmental justice perspective is particularly well-suited as it acknowledges the inherent synergies, tensions and trade-offs of equality and environmental goals and the need to find a balance between the two, rather than assume win–win outcomes.

Justice is broadly defined as fairness (Rawls Reference Rawls1999), yet what fairness means is contested (Sen Reference Sen2009). Environmental justice, as a theory and a practice, has a long, rich history in the Global North, particularly in the USA (Agyeman Reference Agyeman2005, Bullard Reference Bullard2005, Cole and Foster Reference Cole and Foster2001). More recently, social movements, international organisations and businesses in the Global South widely use the language of justice to lend credibility to their struggles. Examples include local communities and environmental activists resisting dispossession from customary land, opposing polluting industries and struggling for fair distribution of natural-resource revenues. These also include international donors and governments seeking to promote a rights-based approach, and/or rectify past injustices (Newell Reference Newell2006, Sikor Reference Sikor2010, Sikor and Stahl Reference Sikor, Stahl, Sikor and Stahl2011, Walker Reference Walker2009).

Different actors bring different notions of (in)justice in environmental struggles depending on the historical circumstances they inherit and the contemporary political economy they must navigate (Forsyth Reference Forsyth2014, Forsyth and Sikor Reference Forsyth and Sikor2013, Martin Reference Martin2013). Certain assertions about justice find public support; others are rejected outright as illegitimate concerns (Kumar Reference Kumar2014, Mulvaney Reference Mulvaney2014, Sikor and Newell Reference Sikor and Newell2014). There is often a gulf between justice principles and implementation efforts, with national and local political and economic factors often subverting original intentions (Mehta et al. Reference Metha, Allouche, Nicol and Walnycki2014). The challenge, as Sikor and Newell point out (Reference Sikor and Newell2014: 153), is to ask ‘what kinds of justice are being asserted, by whom and for whom’.

Notwithstanding the plurality of conceptions and practices of justice, as Schlosberg (Reference Schlosberg2004, Reference Schlosberg2007) points out, everyday struggles and mobilisations around justice are about distribution of environmental goods and bads, recognition of particular group identities and histories, and participation in decision-making. Within this, three notions of justice are apparent: distribution, recognition and representation. These principles build on Fraser’s (Reference Fraser1995, Reference Fraser2009) understanding of justice.

Distribution notions of justice emerge from socio-economic injustice in the form of exploitation (having the fruits of one’s labour appropriated by others); economic marginalisation (being confined to poorly paid work or dearth of income-generating opportunities); and/or deprivation (being denied basic living conditions).The remedies to distributive injustices call for political-economic restructuring, which might involve redistributing income, altering division of labour and/or transforming other economic structures.

Recognition justice aims to remedy symbolic-cultural injustices: revaluing identities against cultural domination, valorising socio-cultural diversity against non-recognition or transforming society against disrespect. Such injustices take many forms, but some are ascribed from birth and hence harder to shed (Fraser Reference Fraser1995, Reference Fraser2009). The remedies may involve cultural and symbolic change such as upwardly revaluing certain identities, recognising and publicly valorising socio-cultural diversity, and/or wholesale transformation of societal representation in ways that would change everyone’s sense of self.

Representation justice is about parity of participation in processes: society is fair to the extent that it makes participation possible for all members in institutionalised values and norms, in deliberation processes about distribution rules and in social interactions. These parity principles apply to all spheres of life: from family, market, and informal and formal politics to various civil society associations (Fraser Reference Fraser2009).

All three justice notions are intertwined. Cultural norms biased against marginalised social groups are underpinned by material support from the state or market. For instance, the caste system in Nepal, introduced in the eighteenth century by the ruling elite, resulted in the subjugation of a diverse population, with systematic political favours to some and marginalisation to others (Guneratne Reference Guneratne2002, Hoffer Reference Hoffer1979, Levine Reference Levine1987). Meanwhile, economic disadvantage impedes parity of participation in cultural and social life. Continuing with the example from Nepal, a major reason why low-caste members and minorities are under-represented in natural-resource management derives from high opportunity costs to participating meaningfully in such processes (Agarwal Reference Agarwal2016, Bennett et al. Reference Bennett, Sijapati and Thapa2013). While the three justice notions reinforce one another, some distinctions are important as one notion is not a precondition for another. Accepting some notions of justice by powerful actors can mean jeopardising others. For instance, Myers and Mujhair’s (Reference Myers and Muhajir2015) research in Indonesia found that while Indigenous peoples living in or adjacent to the national park decry the lack of material benefit from the park, they have resisted the state’s offers for material benefits on the grounds that consenting to such offers would constitute acceptance of state authority over their customary land and its continued non-recognition of their rights. A justice understanding of inequality highlights the importance of how (in)equalities are framed and by whom.

We use these three notions of environmental justice to evaluate the effects of SDG 10 on marginalised individuals and social groups in forests. We provide an overall evaluation of SDG 10 and then focus in-depth on two clusters of targets and indicators dealing with inequalities and migration.

10.3 An Overview of Complementarities and Gaps between SDG 10 and Environmental Justice

SDG 10 Targets 10.1–4 are articulated in ways that recognise how a wide range of economic, social and political variables are distributed among individuals, between social groups, and across multiple and intersecting groups (Kabeer and Santos Reference Kabeer and Santos2017). Target 10.1 recognises income disparities within a country and Target 10.3 recognises opportunity distribution; both share considerable complementarities with distributive notions of justice. Target 10.2 calls for empowering and promoting the social, economic and political inclusion of all (irrespective of age, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, region or economic or other social status), which is compatible with recognition and representation notions of justice. Target 10.4 acknowledges policies to address diverse social, economic and political inequalities in line with all three notions of environmental justice.

Despite this, there is a disjunction between the way SDG 10 targets are articulated and the indicators selected for measuring target progress. While Target 10.2 aims for social, economic and political inclusion for all ‘irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status’, Indicator 10.2.1 measures progress in economic terms only and in regards to ‘age, sex and persons of disabilities’. The indicator is arguably easier to measure because countries likely collect statistics on income, which in turn can be disaggregated by age, gender and perhaps by disability. Social and political inclusion of all is difficult to translate into a measurable indicator. Many countries do not collect adequate data on race, ethnicity and/or religion, especially if these relations are highly politicised and/or a narrow subset is officially recognised (Sijapati Basnett Reference Sijapati Basnett2018, UN Women 2018).

The extent to which representative and recognition notions of justice can be addressed through SDG 10 will be restricted if countries are only held accountable for progress against the very narrow Indicator 10.2.1. An environmental justice perspective would prompt attention to a broader array of potential reforms related to recognition of who the marginalised are and what sustains their marginalisation; distribution of broader social, economic and political resources beyond income; and parity of participation of marginalised social groups in decision-making.

SDG 10 is disconnected from SDGs pertaining to environmental sustainability (such as SDGs 12–15). The potential tensions, trade-offs and synergies between SDG 10 and these environmental SDGs remains unacknowledged. Such a disjuncture is problematic because environmental justice scholarship is increasingly concerned with the effects environmental solutions spurred by global environmental challenges have on localised struggles (Sikor and Newell Reference Sikor and Newell2014). For instance, SDG 15 (Life on Land) – the SDG that deals directly with forests – only alludes to distributive justice once, in Target 15.6, and specifically in the context of access and utilisation of genetic resources. Meanwhile, Target 15.A calls to ‘mobilise and significantly increase financial resources from all sources to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and ecosystems’. In this regard, the environmental justice and political ecology literature (Li Reference Li2017, Peluso and Lund Reference Peluso and Lund2011, Ribot and Peluso Reference Ribot and Peluso2003, Schoenberger et al. Reference Schoenberger, Hall and Vandergeest2017, White et al. Reference White, Borras, Hall, Scoones and Wolford2012) points to the very unequal distributions of access to, and control over, natural resources that such pursuits generate, and the ways in which they create and exacerbate place-based conflicts related to cultural recognition and political self-determination (Newell Reference Newell2005, Reference Newell2007). The ensuing conflicts are then as much about whose notions of justice and framings of environmental problems are privileged as about competition over access to and control over material resources (Fraser Reference Fraser2009, Jasanoff and Martello Reference Jasanoff and Martello2004, Sikor Reference Sikor2013).

10.4 Inequalities within Countries and Forests –Targets 10.1–10.4

Unlike many topics covered in SDG 10 that have received less attention in forestry/environment scholarship (such as migration and remittances, global financial markets, global institutions), the relationship between inequality within countries (Targets 10.1 and 10.4) and environmental outcomes have long been a matter of debate (Martin Reference Martin2017). Environmental degradation, including forest loss and degradation, can reinforce socio-economic and cultural inequalities, and inequalities influence environmental and forest management (Islam Reference Islam2015). In what follows, we draw from two schools of thought – ‘commons’ and ‘entitlement’ scholarship (Johnson Reference Johnson2004) – concerned with this relationship. They differ with regard to their normative commitments, interpretation of institutions and conceptual and methodological approaches. We will demonstrate that the ‘entitlement’ school of thought offers more insights on whether and under what conditions reducing inequalities, as outlined in SDG 10, contributes to environmental justice.

A first school of thought, which Johnson (Reference Johnson2004) refers to as ‘commons scholars’, is concerned with the influence of inequality on the efficiency and environmental health of the commons. It largely consists of modelling individual behaviour based on rational choice theories to explore how institutions can keep users from overexploiting or degrading the commons. Within this literature, authors offer different views of the relationship between socio-economic inequality or heterogeneity, collective action or local governance institutions, and environmental outcomes. Their research is largely informed by theory and case studies, and, in many of the works cited, positive ecological outcomes from collective action and/or well-functioning forest-governance institutions are assumed rather than empirically demonstrated (Andersson and Agrawal Reference Andersson and Agrawal2011).

Within ‘commons’ scholarship, a large body of research demonstrates a positive relationship between socio-economic equality, largely assessed on the basis of wealth holdings and forest condition (Budhathoki Reference Budhathoki2004, Trawick Reference Trawick2001). Its authors argue that socio-economic inequality leads to exclusionary decision-making (representative injustice) (Neupane Reference Neupane2003), distrust (Seabright Reference Seabright1993) and an unequal distribution of benefits from commonly managed resources (distributive injustice) (Moore Reference Moore1993). Lack of social cohesion and disincentives for the rich – who can benefit from private resources – to contribute to collective action can hinder collective action and lead to inefficient resource governance (Chatterton and Chatterton Reference Chatterton and Chatterton2001, Corbera et al. Reference Corbera, Kosoy and Martinez Tuna2007, Mukhopadhyay Reference Mukhopadhyay2004, Smith Reference Smith2004), perverse resource-use strategies and less ecologically sustainable governance outcomes. One of the few multi-locality, cross-country comparative studies of forest-user groups (n=228) empirically demonstrates that economic inequalities within and across these groups consistently lead to negative forest outcomes (Andersson and Agarwal Reference Andersson and Agrawal2011).Footnote ¹

Other commons scholars posit the contrary: that socio-economic inequality (linked to notions of distributive justice) can be positively related to environmental outcomes. This literature builds on Olson’s (Reference Olson1965) influential work on privileged groups, which sees group heterogeneity as supporting collective action assuming that rich individuals bring benefits to the rest of the group (Sandler Reference Sandler2015). As the argument goes, there can be high costs to initiating and maintaining collective action, which may more readily be borne by better-resourced individuals than in a decentralised manner among a homogenous group (Hardin Reference Hardin1982). Wealthier individuals may bear these costs either for the sake of a well-functioning institution or for a greater share of benefits from common pool resources (Baland and Platteau Reference Baland and Platteau1999). In this view, complementarities amid socio-economically differentiated groups can promote cooperative resource management (Quiggin Reference Quiggin1982), and social exclusions can encourage collective action among the disenfranchised (Jodha Reference Jodha1985), leading to more favourable resource management outcomes.

Finally, some commons scholars demonstrate a non-linear, U-shaped relationship between equality, local governance and ecological outcomes (Baker Reference Baker1998, Dayton-Johnson and Bardhan Reference Dayton-Johnson and Bardhan2002, Molinas Reference Molinas1998, Zapata et al. Reference Zapata-Ríos, Vadez and Godoy2014). In a comparative study of 104 local peasant cooperative institutions in Paraguay, Molinas (Reference Molinas1998) identifies lower levels of cooperation among both the least and the most unequal (based on endowments) organisations. In the low inequality cases, the capacity to bear the costs of collective action was low, whereas resentment and out-migration occurred in highly unequal contexts and impeded cooperation. Similarly, Baker (Reference Baker1998) notes that some inequality can allow certain individuals to carry a bigger share of the organising costs of collective action, but too much inequality can diminish shared interests in the collective good. Zapata et al. (Reference Zapata-Ríos, Vadez and Godoy2014) underscore that any such analysis must consider how power is distributed within communities, as well as the interests of the more powerful actors. Using panel data from the Bolivian Amazon, they find a negative correlation between income inequality at the village level and deforestation at the household level, which they claim supports the idea that ‘unilateral conservation’ can occur when wealthier actors perceive more benefits than costs from environmental conservation, and vice versa.

In one of the few studies explicitly and empirically examining the three-way relationship between heterogeneity, collective action and forest outcomes, Varughese and Ostrom (Reference Varughese and Ostrom2001) find that spatial, caste and ethnic, and wealth inequalities – linked to recognition and distributive notions of justice, respectively – among forest-user-group members in Nepal pose challenges but do not in themselves determine the success of collective action. When groups have autonomy to make their own rules, they can overcome stressful heterogeneities through institutional arrangements adapted to their local circumstances. In Nepal, Adhikari and Lovett (Reference Adhikari and Lovett2006) echo that the effects of heterogeneity on collective action can vary widely and recommend flexible systems of governance that can allow management regimes to be adapted to local conditions. Poteete and Ostrom (Reference Poteete and Ostrom2004), in turn, based on a multi-country review of IFRI studies, note that heterogeneity and the size of user groups affect collective action in contextually specific ways. The authors argue that the importance of group characteristics may depend on other attributes of the resource and resource users, and that interaction effects and contingent relations play a role in explaining divergent findings. Inequality thus interacts with forest market conditions, management rights and rules, for example, to shape forest outcomes.

Influenced by the literature on entitlements (Sen Reference Sen1981, Leach et al. Reference Leach, Mearns and Scoones1999), ‘entitlements scholars’ (Johnson Reference Johnson2004) bring a different focus to these analyses. They elucidate that positive forest outcomes will rarely equally benefit all users, including poor and marginalised social groups that rely most on the forest and have the least voice and influence in decision-making processes. Hence, while recognising that environmental outcomes are critical, they argue for local institutions that enable poor and marginalised groups to access and use the commons to their benefit, thereby furthering distributive, representative and recognition notions of justice in their own right (Agarwal Reference Agarwal2001, Reference Agarwal, Heyer, Stewart and Thorp2002, Reference Agarwal2010, Bandiaky Reference Bandiaky2008, Cleaver Reference Cleaver2002, Moore Reference Moore1993, Peluso Reference Peluso1994, Sikor and Lund Reference Sikor and Lund2010).

Taking a historical perspective, entitlement scholars focus on the structures operating across scales (micro to macro) that shape social relations and reinforce (in)equalities in the commons. They underscore the complex, uncertain and dynamic processes and relations underpinning access to and control over resources, environmental management and social and ecological change (Scoones Reference Scoones1999). In this perspective, policies and multi-scalar socio-political processes, as well as historical and path-dependent patterns of resource use, non-place-based relations (e.g. markets) and the presence and power of different state and non-state actors and authorities, contribute to shaping forest outcomes (Coomes et al. Reference Coomes, Takasaki and Rhemtulla2016, Mearns Reference Mearns1996, Rangan and Kull Reference Rangan and Kull2009, Robbins Reference Robbins2004, Zimmerer and Bassett Reference Zimmerer and Basset2003).

This scholarship begins with the recognition that power relations, and thus inequalities, are embedded in formal or bureaucratic institutions (introduced through organisations and legal structures) as well as informal or socially embedded institutions (based on culture, social organisation and everyday practices) that govern common property resources (Cleaver Reference Cleaver2002). Because institutional processes of formation, maintenance and change are inherently power laden and asymmetrical, institutional arrangements do not affect nor are they affected by inequalities; rather, they are constituted by them, as inequalities are at the very heart of institutional building and change (Agrawal and Gibson Reference Agrawal and Gibson1999). Ideologically embedded inequalities linked to gender and/or ethnicity or caste (recognition notions of justice), as well as those linked to political participation (representative justice) and access to and distribution of resources (distributive justice), are thus reproduced and reinforced in forest-governance institutions (Agarwal Reference Agarwal, Heyer, Stewart and Thorp2002, Reference Agarwal2010, Cleaver Reference Cleaver2002). These constituent inequalities problematise assumptions that local institutions are rooted in moral economies based on equity, social welfare and security (Li Reference Li1996, Mosse Reference Mosse1997).

Studies across regional contexts show that collective resource management institutions and initiatives often reinforce representative injustices, excluding poorer households and groups marginalised on the basis of gender, caste or landlessness (recognition justice), thereby reinforcing existing power disparities and hierarchies (Agarwal Reference Agarwal2001, Reference Agarwal2010, Astuti and McGregor Reference Astuti and McGregor2016, Beck and Nesmith Reference Beck and Nesmith2001, Hébert and Rosen Reference Hébert and Rosen2007, Taylor Reference Taylor2000). Even when such groups are formally represented in committees of forest-user groups, skewed power relations and their lack of recognition in these spaces typically result in limited participation and influence over decision-making processes and related outcomes (Agarwal Reference Agarwal2001). For example, Sunam and McCarthy’s (Reference Sunam and McCarthy2010) work on community-forest-user groups in Nepal shows that procedures for electing committee members favour better off, male, upper caste residents, and the interests of powerful elites rather than marginalised forest-dependent groups. Still in Nepal, Chaudhary et al. (Reference Chaudhary, McGregor, Houston and Chettri2018) demonstrate that such exclusions in participation and representation result in an inequitable distribution of benefits from the forest.

Likewise, in Tanzania the framing of the community-based forest-management policy in technical and procedural terms reproduced intra-village inequalities, as it called for local expertise and required literacy and administrative skills to respond to the system’s bureaucratic obligations. As only wealthy and powerful villagers were considered ‘experts’, this village elite dominated local decision-making processes and conservation narratives as well as distributive benefits from forest-related income (Green and Lund Reference Green and Lund2014; see also Khatun et al. Reference Khatun, Gross-Camp, Corbera, Martin and Glory Massao2015 on elite control in REDD+ Tanzania, and Kopnina Reference Kopnina2017 on elite capture of commodified natural resources and forest ecosystem services). In other contexts, women and less-powerful men have been systematically excluded from collective management institutions (Mosse Reference Mosse1997, Taylor Reference Taylor2000), or have participated only nominally, without real voice or influence (Baynes et al. Reference Baynes, Herbohn, Smith, Fisher and Bray2015).

Of concern from an environmental justice perspective is not only how inequality affects access to and influence in governance processes (representative justice), but also whether or how processes of institutional formation and change create and sustain resource access for vulnerable groups (distributive justice). For instance, Agarwal (Reference Agarwal2001, Reference Agarwal2010) points out that in India and Nepal, rules of entry in forest-user committees, participation in decision-making and principles of distribution of resources reproduce inequalities on the basis of gender and caste in seemingly participatory community-forestry user groups. In Kenya, the distribution of REDD+ benefits accrued first and disproportionately to larger landowners, with patterns of land ownership reflecting land dispossession processes rooted in colonial times (Chomba et al. Reference Chomba, Kariuki, Lund and Sinclair2015). A review of the social impacts of neoliberal conservation underscores that the ‘commodification and marketisation of nature creates new rents and incomes for formal or informal appropriation by elites and patron-client networks’ (Holmes and Cavanaugh Reference Holmes and Cavanagh2016: 205). Li (2018, personal communication) argues that the current forest-tenure reform championed in Indonesia (Siscawati Reference Siscawati, Banjade and Liswanti2017) only favours social groups that can conform to state-sanctioned definitions of indigeneity (recognition justice), which may not easily correspond to complex social realities, thereby creating new forms of contestations and exclusions. Similarly, a comparative assessment of forest-tenure reforms in 30 countries across Asia and Africa shows that new statutory rights do not automatically translate into rights in practice, and that institutional weaknesses and policy distortions thwart environmental justice (Larson et al. Reference Larson, Barry, Dahal and Colfer2010). Additionally, the justice that is to be translated through international and national programmes such as REDD+ is typically framed in global narratives that focus on participation (representative justice) or material concerns (e.g. benefit-sharing from REDD+) (distributive justice), overlooking local understandings of justice and the experiences of dispossession of identity (recognition justice) tied to nature and land (Suiseeya Reference Suiseeya2017).

10.5 Migration and Remittances – Targets 10.7, 10.C and 17.3

Many observers hail the SDGs for explicitly recognising migration for the first time in the global development agenda. By devoting two indicators to migration and remittance out of a total of nine indicators in SDG 10, it is clear that migration and remittance are being framed in the SDGs as a way of addressing inequalities within and between countries. Target 17.3 further views remittances as ‘mobilising additional financing resources for developing countries from multiple sources’. The SDG framework, therefore, recognises that migration and remittances potentially contribute to the GDP of poor countries and help reduce income inequalities within and between countries (Appave and Sinha Reference Appave and Sinha2017).Target 10.7 emphasises ‘planned and well-managed migration policies’ (orderly, safe, regulated and responsible migration and mobility), even as the corresponding Indicator (10.7.1) only mentions number of countries that have implemented well-managed migration policies but does not define what this means.

Forestry policies and academic scholarship have been slow to catch up despite the prominence of migration in the global development agenda and the fact that enhanced mobility and the remittances generated by mobility are key elements of current transitions in forested landscapes of developed countries. As Hecht et al. (Reference Hecht, Yang, Sijapati Basnett, Padoch and Peluso2015) found through a review of existing literature, much forest-based research assumes that rural households and communities are largely static and spatially bounded, while issues of migration, mobility and remittances lie outside the attention of most natural-resource-governance policymakers. Where forestry and environmental policy do acknowledge migration, it is often seen as disruptive or a sign of livelihood failure. The scholarship that does exist remains premised on simplistic and dichotomous assumptions that view in-migration into forested areas as a cause of tropical deforestation and out-migration as leading to forest regeneration and growth (Carr Reference Carr2009a, Reference Carr2009b, Hecht et al. Reference Hecht, Kandel and Morales2012, Reference Hecht, Morrison and Padoch2014, Wunder et al. Reference Wunder, Angelsen and Belcher2014a, Reference Wunder, Borner, Shively and Wyman2014b). Each of these potential impacts of migration on forests is possible, but there has been limited research on the many mediating factors that influence these outcomes. These may include a wide variety of social, economic, political and environmental factors playing a role in determining outcomes for forests and peoples, including from an environmental justice perspective. These include time and type of incorporation, feedback loops of economic development and technological change, changing tenure systems, differences in cultural norms and different forms of migration. Instead of these simplistic views, Black et al. (Reference Black, Adger and Arnell2011) rightly point to the importance of examining the multiple drivers and net effects of migration/environmental change.

The literature on forests and migration in Indonesia is a case in point. Based on an extensive review of literature, Thung and Juniwaty (Reference Thung and Juniwaty2018) find that in the 1980s and 1990s, deforestation and forest degradation were often blamed on environmentally destructive migrants, with Secrett’s Reference Secrett1986 article in The Ecologist often credited with initiating such a discursive trend. Since the decline of the state-sponsored transmigration programme, through which poor Javanese were resettled in the forest frontiers of Indonesia’s remoter islands, attention has mostly shifted towards spontaneous migration (see, for instance, Potter Reference Potter2012), with many researchers drawing conclusions similar to previous studies and perpetuating negative images about migrants. A number of scholars have also sought to quantify the effects of in-migration on forest cover change through various GIS and statistical analyses. For instance, coupling satellite imagery on forest cover change between 2000 and 2007 with results of the housing and population censuses of 2000 and 2010, Darmawan et al. (Reference Darmawan, Klasen and Nuryartono2016) found a strong correlation between deforestation and migration in Indonesia. Similar conclusions were drawn from another longitudinal case study in Sulawesi, which concludes that a 1 per cent increase in population due to in-migration leads to a 0.93 per cent increase in forest encroachment for agricultural purposes (Maertens et al. Reference Maertens, Zeller and Birner2002).

In comparison, others who have looked more carefully at the relationship between in-migration and forest change in the Indonesian context point out that correlations do not necessarily imply causation. Even where there is evidence that in-migration has coincided with a corresponding rise in deforestation and forest degradation, the role of a wide range of mediating factors is more important than migration per se. Examples include factors that drive people to migrate to forest frontiers (such as commodity booms, infrastructure projects, government policies) and customary/local institutions that are in place to govern forests (see Thung and Juniwaty Reference Thung and Juniwaty2018 for an extensive review of this literature). Abe’s (Reference Abe, de Jong, Ken-ichi and Tuck-Po2006) research on land-use practices among migrant communities in Sumatra’s peat swamp forests found that migrant communities for generations have prioritised short-term cultivation of coconut without much regard for long-term sustainability. This is because migrants remain frontier communities, or strangers, because of the difficult biophysical environment of the forest frontier, the cultural and social features of migrants and of receiving communities, and the wider social-economic-political conditions under which migrants operate. For Abe (Reference Abe, de Jong, Ken-ichi and Tuck-Po2006) the wider policy environment is a key determining factor – government policies incentivise migrants to move spontaneously to peat swamp forests but do not address their needs for education or healthcare that would enable them to settle and cultivate over a longer time. Eghenter’s (Reference Eghenter, de Jong, Tuck-Po and Ken-Ichi2006) ethnography of new movements of people into the interior of Borneo for large-scale exploitation of particular forest products (gaharu, or aloeswood) also serves as an illustration of the interplay between local institutions and new migration trends in determining environmental outcomes. Eghenter found that the growing movement of outsiders and return migrants in search of quick and lucrative returns from gaharu stretched the ability of the Apo Kayan’s customary institutions to physically monitor the arrival of more collectors, and jeopardised internal abilities to develop equitable solutions in the management of gaharu and other forest resources.

Similar studies focusing on effects of other types of migration – out-migration, circular migration and multi-local livelihoods – point to potential synergies and trade-offs between migration and forest outcomes and the role of interacting factors in mediating the relationship between the two (Hecht et al. Reference Hecht, Morrison and Padoch2014). Robson and Berkes (Reference Robson and Berkes2011) found that rural out-migration in Oaxaca, Mexico, had contributed to extensive forest resurgence, but also a gradual loss of the forest-agriculture mosaic, resulting in a decline in biodiversity. In this instance, forest resurgence did not automatically translate into biodiversity gain. Parry et al.’s (Reference Parry, Day, Amaral and Peres2010) study in the state of Amazonas in Brazil found that the effect of depopulation of remote areas improved forest cover, but this was largely offset by new threats from logging, gold mining and resource extraction. Padoch et al. (Reference Padoch, Brondizio, Costa, Pinedo-Vasquez, Sears and Siqueira2008) showed that in Amazonia most rural communities have established homes in urban centres, and the movement between rural and urban areas is frequent and commonplace. These households maintain their consumption patterns of forest products even when they move to cities, and they continue to play a role in rural forest-use decisions. In this sense, just as the definition of households is getting fuzzy as they stretch between rural and urban areas, so are patterns of land- and forest-use change.

A subset of literature on the links between remittances (financial and social) and forests mirrors the findings outlined above in the wider scholarship on migration and forests. While some attribute remittances to positive change in forests, others argue that remittances in fact contribute to deforestation and/or forest degradation (Hecht et al. Reference Hecht, Morrison and Padoch2014). In Latin America, migration from rural areas and receipt of remittances has led, in some cases, to an increase in cash incomes and agricultural retraction that has produced forest resurgence. In comparison, Montefrio et al.’s (Reference Montefrio, Ortiga and Josol2014) research among Filipino oil palm workers in Malaysia found that the flow of ideas on land-use decisions from migrants to their family members back in the Philippines influenced farmers’ decisions to engage with the oil palm industry in the migrants’ home countries. This resulted in a switch from smallholder agricultural practices to large-scale, monocultural plantations. Still others, such as Gray and Bilsborrow (Reference Gray and Bilsborrow2014), point out that remittances and out-migration had mixed, countervailing and weak effects on agricultural and forestry activities.

From an environmental justice perspective, however, even the more careful and nuanced studies do not provide much insights on implications of migration and remittances for distributive, representative and recognition justice. One recent exception is Peluso and Purwanto’s (Reference Peluso and Purwanto2018) research in Java, Indonesia, which explored the effects of remittances sent by poor and landless women (who were previously presiding illegally in government monopolised forestlands in Java) on state–society power dynamics in forest governance. The study finds that an increasing number of these women are migrating to Hong Kong and other prosperous Asian cities to work as maids and domestic labourers; they send remittances back to their husbands, who remain as formal forest labourers. The remittances pay for everyday household expenses and are eventually invested in agrarian resources that generate income. This has led to an unprecedented increase in investment in cows, with a subsequent surge in planting of elephant grass as fodder for the cows in light gaps in the forest understory. Slowly and unintentionally, these women are redressing historical injustices in access to forest resources by making inroads into the control of state monopolised forestlands.

Meanwhile, research on the effects of male out-migration on those left behind in forested landscapes in Nepal is less optimistic and more ambiguous. There are comparatively more studies emanating from Nepal because of the recent surge in large-scale male out-migration for employment purposes in Malaysia and the Gulf countries since the early 2000s (Shrestha Reference Shrestha2017), Nepal’s reputation as a global leader in innovative participatory environmental governance (Baynes et al. Reference Baynes, Herbohn, Smith, Fisher and Bray2015, Fox Reference Fox2018) and well-established movements for greater social, economic and political justice following the Maoist movement and ensuing civil conflict in the country (Bennett et al. Reference Bennett, Sijapati and Thapa2013, Sijapati Basnett Reference Sijapati Basnett2011).

In Nepal, scholars have inquired whether and to what extent male out-migration contributes to environmental justice for marginalised women who are left behind. While some point out that women and marginalised social groups are now able to exercise unprecedented voice and influence in community-wide decision-making processes related to forests (Adhikari and Hobley Reference Adhikari and Hobley2011), others find that such voice is largely offset by a surge in paid and unpaid work burdens that these social groups must now assume. Others rightly recognise that the effects of migration on distributive and representative justice for individuals and social groups are influenced by pre-existing gender and social relations (Sijapati Basnett Reference Sijapati Basnett2011), a generational divide between migrants and the elderly male population that is left behind (Lama et al. Reference Lama, Kharel and Ghale2017), and the structure and composition of the household (Giri and Darnhofer Reference Giri and Darnhofer2010).

Likewise, in a noteworthy study, Sunam and McCarthy (Reference Sunam and McCarthy2015) find that while migration has the potential to lift households and families out of poverty, its effects on distributive justice are mediated by modes of incorporation into migration processes. Those who are better off, with greater social networks, are able to access lucrative migration opportunities, whereas others take up highly risky jobs with limited prospects for upward mobility. Poor and marginalised households incur significant debt in order to pay for migration. Agriculture and forest-based livelihoods subsidise the direct and indirect costs of migration for them. There is limited evidence that migrants invest any surplus income on agriculture and forestry or diversify their livelihoods in a way that lowers their growing dependence on remittance. In this context, the prospects of poor and marginalised migrant workers and their families are limited and highly contingent on the vagaries of the highly unequal market for migrant labour (Fox Reference Fox2018, Sijapati Basnett and Manandhar Reference Sijapati Basnett and Manandhar2018).

Other scholars also point out that not all remittances are invested back into forests or into maintaining or enhancing agrarian capital. This is because of ‘opportunity costs of other potential applications of funds and diverse interests of households’ (Hecht et al. Reference Hecht, Yang, Sijapati Basnett, Padoch and Peluso2015: 16). For instance, in peri-urban landscapes, significant agricultural and forest retraction has occurred, and migrant investment in real estate and housing speculation is widespread. These landscapes of immigration have been documented in Central America and Mexico (Kandel and Cuellar Reference Kandel, Cuellar, Hecht, Kandel and Morales2012), in the Andes (Bebbington and Batterbury Reference Bebbington and Batterbury2001, Rudel Reference Rudel2006) and in Nepal (Sunam and McCarthy Reference Sunam and McCarthy2015). The effects have not only been a reduction in forest cover and/or decline in incentives to manage commonly held forests, but also heightened environmental injustices. Sunam and McCarthy (Reference Sunam and McCarthy2015), for instance, point to aggravated inequalities in access to private and public lands, with potential consequences for food security and nutrition for poor and marginalised social groups.

10.6 Summary and Concluding Remarks

This chapter has discussed the potential effects of addressing SDG 10 on forest outcomes from an environmental justice perspective, focusing on two major clusters of issues in SDG 10: inequalities within countries, and migration and remittances. We have defined environmental justice as constituting three notions of justice: distribution, representation and recognition. While distribution notions of justice emerge from socio-economic injustice, recognition relates to symbolic and/or cultural injustice. Representation justice is concerned with parity of participation in institutionalised values and norms, deliberation about rules in distribution and social interactions more broadly. All three notions of justice are intertwined, and yet one is not a precondition for another. Authoritative definitions of environmental justice may clash with and, therefore, have trade-offs with poor and marginalised local peoples’ visions of what is just.

We find considerable overlaps among the three notions of justice and SDG 10 targets pertaining to inequalities within countries. However, target aspirations are not fully translated into the corresponding indicators, limiting SDG 10’s contribution to environmental justice. Likewise, SDG 10 remains disconnected from SDGs pertaining to environmental sustainability, even when these have bearing on the achievement of SDG 10 and on the promotion of environmental justice.

One of the major gaps within SDG 10 is that trade is not explicitly mentioned, despite mounting concerns about the incompatibility between global systems of trade and goals of equality. A rise in global prices for forest products is often accompanied by unsustainable resource extraction alongside consolidation of power and wealth by a few. Rules governing global trade of forest products are increasingly influenced by international and supranational actors, thereby bypassing the state. Such rules are rooted in hegemonic notions of good governance for the ‘global good’, which are often at odds with the interests of local communities. Alternatively, complying with such rules is only possible for those who can afford to navigate increasingly complicated and costly systems. The consequence has been that smaller actors are being pushed out while normative systems of accountability between the state and marginalised citizens are being disrupted. Such inequalities in the global trading regime have given rise to unprecedented movements for environmental justice. However, current efforts to address these calls remain preoccupied by the need to compensate forest-dependent communities for loss and/or incentivise their action (distributive). Such terms and ideas foreclose the application of representative and recognition notions of justice for poor and marginalised people in forested landscapes.

Therefore, by omitting trade, SDG 10 excludes a major source of inequality within and between countries. It also misses options for redressing historical injustices levelled against poor marginalised social groups and supporting environmental justice movements that truly represent them.