How Two Unlike States Won Forest Cash Without the Official Rulebook
Two politically contrasting Brazilian states won the same international climate funds under jurisdictional REDD+ by relying on informal diplomacy and alliances rather than just formal checklists.
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The full story with proper science words explained.
A Tale of Two States
How did two unlike states in Brazil win the exact same global climate aid? Standard policy says regions must tick every box on official forms before cash arrives.
Under jurisdictional REDD+, whole states earn funds for cutting forest loss across their land. Yet two very contrasting states in the Brazilian Amazon both gained backing from the REDD+ Early Movers (REM) scheme.
The Power of Informal Backdoors
To solve this puzzle, researchers used comparative process tracing. This method tracks each step in time to see why events took place. They combed through 287 records and ran 74 semi-structured interviews. They tested their findings using Van Evera's evidence tests, a set of strict rules that prove which causes matter.
The results surprised the team. Checking off every standard box was neither needed nor enough on its own. Instead, five shared factors decided the outcome. Approval rested on paradiplomatic networks—direct global ties built by regional leaders without their central rulers. It also required shared past paths, informal deals, and wide pacts across local civic groups.
The process worked through polycentric governance, a setup where multiple independent groups link up across levels instead of obeying one top boss. This approach matters because it shows how states win aid in messy political environments.
What We Still Do Not Know
This shows that forest aid works less like an exam with a rigid mark scheme. It acts more like a college interview. Formal rules matter, but personal trust and direct diplomacy push deals through. That comparison has limits, of course: applicants do not build multi-tiered political pacts across borders.
These findings come from an un-peer-reviewed preprint. The study looked at only two states in Brazil under one scheme. Because of that, we do not know if these five factors apply in other woods. It also remains unclear how these networks will fare over years of forest care after funds arrive.
Science words
- Jurisdictional REDD+
- A system that rewards entire regions or states for lowering forest loss across their whole territory.
- REDD+ Early Movers (REM)
- A global climate finance programme that pays pioneering regions for verified forest conservation.
- Comparative process tracing
- A research method that tracks step-by-step causes to explain why certain events happened across different cases.
- Van Evera's evidence tests
- A set of strict social science rules used to test whether evidence truly proves a cause.
- Paradiplomatic networks
- Direct international partnerships created by regional governments rather than national leaders.
- Polycentric governance
- A system where multiple independent authorities collaborate at different levels instead of obeying one central boss.
Check it yourself
This story is based on a real research paper in Preprint by Sessin-Dilascio, Borges-Rossi, Igari et al. We write with AI help and check it against the paper, but the original is the final word.