Realizing Carbon’s Value: Discourse and Calculation in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica David M. Lansing Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA; dlansing@umbc.edu Abstract: This article examines the relation between discourse and value in the production of a carbon forestry offset project among indigenous smallholders in Costa Rica. By analyzing a pivotal cost–benefit calculation that changed the trajectory of the project, this article makes two principal claims. First, the intelligibility of the calculation is grounded in a discursive formation that is emergent from a history of development projects in the region, where particular ways of speaking about the relation between indigenous bodies and agriculture have allowed carbon’s commodification to emerge as a desirable project. Second, the calculations resulted in quantified representations of space that were necessary for the offset to become useful within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol. In this case, the forestry offset’s use value derived from quantified representations of agricultural space; a process that opened some forms of land use for receiving carbon while foreclosing on others. Keywords: carbon offsets, neoliberalism, value, development, agrarian change, Costa Rica Introduction In 2004, a group that included scientists, economists, indigenous leaders, and state bureaucrats began work on an agricultural development project among indigenous Bribri and Cab´ ecar smallholders in southeast Costa Rica. This project’s original goal was to revive cacao agroforestry practices by linking the production of agroforestry landscapes with an emerging global commodity—the carbon forestry offset. Specifically, project developers wanted to create a carbon forestry offset under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), where indigenous land users would receive a carbon payment for converting their pesticide-intensive plantain fields to more carbon-intensive cacao agroforestry systems. During the course of implementing this project, however, its goals shifted. After project managers completed cost–benefit calculations of various land use practices, they determined that the opportunity costs of switching from plantains to cacao agroforestry were too high for carbon financing to induce this type of change. Instead, their calculations revealed that carbon credits are better positioned to encourage the Antipode Vol. 43 No. 3 2011 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 731–753 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00886.x C  2011 The Author Antipode C  2011 Editorial Board of Antipode.