Commentary on the paper by Lyons and Westoby “Carbon colonialism and the new land grab: Plantation forestry in Uganda and its livelihood impacts” Klara Fischer * , Flora Hajdu, Filippa Kavallin Giertta Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Ulls v€ ag 27, SE-756 51 Uppsala, Sweden article info Article history: Received 8 November 2015 Accepted 14 June 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: Plantation forestry Uganda Carbon markets Climate Change abstract This paper is a commentary on Lyons, K. and Westoby, P. (2014) Carbon colonialism and the new land grab: Plantation forestry in Uganda and its livelihood impacts, Journal of Rural Studies, 36, 13-21. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. In volume 36 of this journal (2014, pages 13e21), Kristen Lyons and Peter Westoby published a paper entitled ”Carbon colonialism and the new land grab: Plantation forestry in Uganda and its live- lihood impacts”, in which they criticise the activities by the Nor- wegian company Green Resources in two pine and eucalyptus plantations in Uganda. We have studied one of these plantations (Kachung). Based on the information we have, it appears to us that, for the sake of strengthening their argument about the problem with private large-scale investments in carbon forestry, Lyons and Westoby combined findings from two different plantations run by the Company: Bukaleba and Kachung, in order to paint a more negative picture of the overall situation than is actually the case. By doing so, Lyons and Westoby undermine the possibility for their paper to deliver an important critique on the wider consequences of these investments, as they tempt those with insights into these two cases, including Green Resources themselves, to write off their critique as non-scientific and misleading. Green Resources owns two plantations in Uganda: Bukaleba and Kachung. Both plantations are located on land which has been reserved by the Ugandan government for plantation forestry since the colonial era (so-called Central Forest Reserves (CFR)). The state has not managed to maintain viable plantations in the CFRs and recent changes in forest legislation and policy have therefore opened the way for private investments in forestry. Both Bukaleba and Kachung benefit from selling emissions reductions on the global carbon market. Bukaleba is certified under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Kachung is certified under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Lyons and Westoby are highly critical of the livelihood conse- quences of the Green Resources investments in these two planta- tions. However, the way in which they describe what has happened on the ground leads readers to believe that people living around these two plantations have experienced very similar situations. Our research suggests that, while there have been conflicts in Kachung, the situation in Bukaleba has been much worse and that Green Resources has made efforts to do things differently in Kachung. The first-hand information that Lyons and Westoby claim to have of local experiences of the plantations consists of focus group discussions in nine villages, three of which are located within the licensed area in Bukaleba and six that are located on the edges of Bukaleba and Kachung respectively. Lyons and Westoby do not tell the reader how many focus group interviews actually took place in villages around Kachung, but it can be concluded from the text that the authors visited between one and five villages around Kachung plantation. Our knowledge of the local situation around Kachung is based on information from nine of the 17 villages defined by Green Resources as close enough to be affected by the plantation. In 2014, two of us (Fischer and Hajdu) visited eight villages and performed nine interviews on an individual or group basis with smallholders * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: klara.fischer@slu.se (K. Fischer), flora.hajdu@slu.se (F. Hajdu), filippa.giertta@gmail.com (F.K. Giertta). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Rural Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.06.014 0743-0167/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Rural Studies xxx (2016) 1e2 Please cite this article in press as: Fischer, K., et al., Commentary on the paper by Lyons and Westoby “Carbon colonialism and the new land grab: Plantation forestry in Uganda and its livelihood impacts”, Journal of Rural Studies (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.06.014