International Environmentalist NGOs and Tropical Forest Policies
A critical analysis of Greenpeace’s conservation campaign in Amazonia, from the mid 1990s to today reveals the contradictory impact of international NGOs on tropical forest policies. On one hand, Greenpeace succeeds in maintaining the question of tropical forest management on national and international political agendas. The organisation also contributes by providing a substantial aid to local populations, whilst being at the forefront of new concepts and norms in local participation and promoting new policies. On the other hand, internal logics induce strategic decision-making which, at times, leads Greenpeace to adopt norms and representations that do not always adequately represent the complexity inherent to tropical forest environments. This in turn can restrict debates concerning appropriate conservation modalities and the management of forest spaces. Such dynamics can also produce contrary effects to those desired.