Stealing Air and Land – The Politics of Translating Global Environmental Governance in Suau, Papua New Guinea

Global environmental governance today is grounded in a set of ontological assumptions that involve measurement and commodification of carbon emissions as tradeable units between countries for mitigating climate change and preventing deforestation. These ontological assumptions are not necessarily shared by communities that are targeted for implementing projects developed under such agendas. This article provides an ethnographic account of the tensions around a REDD+ Pilot Project and a Save the Forest conservation program in Central Suau, Papua New Guinea. Despite efforts by project proponents to conduct 'awareness' on the programs to local communities, people feared these interventions as attempts to steal their air and land to sell to other countries. The study shows that differing assumptions of reality between project proponents and communities are related to the politics of translation that are embedded in past histories of colonisation, missionisation, and ongoing resource extraction. The ensuing disagreements highlight failures to mediate ontological intersections, which are manifested in local fears of new forms of power and external appropriation of their land and air through global environmental governance mechanisms.