This study analyzes the multiscalar interactions of the emerging carbon market and the social, environmental, and economic implications it may hold for small-scale landholders in the tropical rainforest. Based on a change detection analysis from a case study in Costa Rica, this report argues that 1) the scalar mismatch between national carbon trading markets and small scale agroforestry sequestration efforts is driven by insignificant land holdings; 2) secondly, the scalar mismatch limits the small scale landholders’ access to the carbon market; and 3) that in order to link global and local approaches to climate change we need to understand the local economic contexts within which these global markets are interacting. / text

After 1989, the elimination of the Brazilian Coffee Institute coincided with a global movement of coffee market deregulation, resulting in a long ‘coffee crisis’ that harmed the livelihoods of thousands of small-scale coffee producers in Brazil. In response, the Brazilian coffee landscape was restructured and large private cooperatives emerged as the primary institutions in the Sul de Minas region. However, after the initial retraction of state intervention, extremely low coffee prices contributed to the reestablishment of the Brazilian government in the coffee sector, but in a different fashion, as state institutions were redesigned to support actors and private institutions, not recreate the state as an intermediary in the market. Despite further commitment to coffee production, producers experienced greater economic vulnerability and suffered the brunt of the low coffee prices, but a strong culture of coffee production played an important role in shaping the choices of producers.

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