| dc.description.abstract | In 2013 Nicaragua was granted funding to start preparations for a national REDD+ strategy. REDD+, reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries , is a global climate mitigation initiative. The initiative is focused on reducing the impact of climate change through forest conservation activities in developing countries. REDD+ is a market-based instrument, and through forest conservation developing countries are going to achieve so-called carbon credits that will be a part of a carbon market. Nicaragua has one of the highest deforestation rates in Central America and figures high up on lists considering vulnerability to climate change. While research about REDD+ has been carried out in other Latin American countries and on projects based on similar mechanisms in Nicaragua, this thesis explores the first steps towards REDD+ in the Nicaraguan context in the eyes of civil society representatives. The study is informed by institutional ethnography (Smith, 2005) and the data material is based on REDD+ research literature, Nicaragua s formal application to start REDD+ activities, and on qualitative interviews with employees and volunteers in Nicaraguan organizations working on topics related to forest and climate change. Interviews were carried out during a 2 month stay in Nicaragua in the spring of 2015. Based on my data, REDD+ is seen as a wrong remedy for change and met with ambivalence among the Nicaraguan civil society workers. This can be understood as a result of the coordination that the civil society workers experience both from international and national level, and reflects deeper structural conditions in the difficult relationship between the Nicaraguan civil society and the Nicaraguan state. By carrying out a sociological analysis inspired by institutional ethnography, this thesis explores the meeting between global initiatives and national conditions and shows that institutional ethnography can be a useful perspective in research on global governance. | eng |