This collection of data intends to provide other researchers the data collected for the ‘REDEGN 2’ project. The project explored how norms are used in confrontations over environment and development projects, thereby answering the question ‘whose norms matter?’ Based on legal and environmental justice analyses of dams and REDD+ forestry projects and policy in Nepal, Uganda, and Sudan, the focus of the bulk of research was on the pivotal role of the intermediaries between those most and least directly affected. With a focus on data collected in Uganda and Nepal, this collection includes a comprehensive note that provides background information relevant to interpret the bulk data provided.The research responds to the unprecedented emergence of global environmental norms intended to reconcile natural resource management with poverty alleviation. Prominent examples of such norms are the social safeguards included in global conventions and the human rights-based rulings of international courts. The norms possess the potential to transform development practice in the future, so long as they effectively support poor people's claims on natural resources and rights to sustainable livelihoods. The increasing significance of global environmental norms challenges research to develop new theory on the dynamics of environment and development that attends to cross-scale relationships between local environmental struggles, environmental mobilizations and global norms. This research employs an environmental justice lens to examine the effects of global environmental norms on poverty alleviation in the Global South through explorations of forests and water. The proposed research expands the political ecology approach through attention to notions of environmental justice and cross-scale environmental politics. Notions of justice are at the core of many environmental struggles, as they inform people's claims and practices in relation to natural resources. Justice conceptions are also an integral component of international environmental politics and global environmental norms. Thus ideas about justice are an integral element of environmental politics across scales, connecting local struggles to mobilizations at national and international levels as well as the conceptions informing global norms - or causing dissonances between them. Research in stage 1 proceeded by way of four case studies from Nepal, Sudan and Uganda on how marginalized people's struggles in reaction to carbon forestry and hydropower projects are, or are not taken up in environmental mobilizations, and how this uptake does, or does not contribute to increases in wellbeing. The particular objectives guiding the research in stage 2 are to: (1) Generate empirical insights on the resonance of global norms and international mobilisations with environmental struggles by examining international politics of justice on carbon forestry and hydropower. (2) Combine the empirical insights from stage 1 and 2 to develop new theory on cross-scale dynamics of environment and development. (3) Support practitioners involved in environmental mobilisations in generating impact in low-income countries through novel forms of engagement. Research in stage 2 will trace references to the struggles examined in our stage 1 research in negotiations over the so-called Safeguards on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and international court cases dealing with hydropower projects in the South. The research team will synthesize their findings in a theoretical and two case-based journal articles. In addition, the insights from stage 1 and stage 2 will inform the development of a theoretical paper on cross-scale dynamics of environment and development. The project team will also expand the cooperation with environmental activists on the basis of the insights gained in stage 1 research, using think tanks and workshops to create new forums for engaging activists, professionals and government officials. Such forums facilitate involved actors to develop shared ideas about justice and apply them to the REDD+ Safeguards and international water law.

The project convened participatory workshops, or think-tank meetings, over two days in Kampala and Kathmandu in August 2016. In Nepal, 23 participants represented 17 organisations (approximately half of the 34 policy actors in REDD+ processes): 12 diverse Civil Society Organisations; the state agency responsible for REDD+; two academic institutions; one private consultancy and; a national newspaper. In Uganda 17 participants represented 14 organisations (approximately 42% of organisations listed as part of Uganda’s REDD+ Working Group): 10 diverse CSOs, the Uganda Wildlife Authority, National Forest Authority and two relevant academic institutions. The meetings were facilitated by the authors as open discussions, drawing on participant expertise to deliberate over equity issues relevant to REDD+ and means of addressing them. Semi-structured interviews were held with 16 intermediaries from Nepal and 16 from Uganda. Key informants who were sampled to include varied types of organisations with diverse objectives operating at a variety of scales. Each interview extended to roughly two hours. Participants primarily represented civil society organisations, but also included state officials, journalists and private sector actors, operating at various levels from local scale community work and mobilisations to national and international networks and policy forums (Table 1). Not one of the 32 intermediaries functioned solely at local, national or international levels, and most worked at all three. For example, even local government officials had attended international United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC ) conferences. Furthermore, both social and environmental objectives guided the climate-related forestry work of all 32 participants. All interviews were conducted by the authors, 26 during 2016, while six interviews were held with subnational intermediaries in Uganda in 2014. Six interviews in each country were held at local level with intermediaries working in areas adjacent to forests where strict protection for biodiversity conservation has adversely impacted some local communities’ resource access, land tenure security and place attachments: around Mount Elgon National Park in Eastern Uganda and Chitwan National Park in Southern Nepal. Again, intermediaries were selected to represent a diversity of organisations and perspectives on forest governance and associated social issues. Around both Mount Elgon and Chitwan National Parks, impacts have been particularly acute for Indigenous Peoples or cultural minorities inhabiting those areas, affecting access to ancestral lands, resources and cultural practices associated with their identities. At Mount Elgon, carbon-based forest governance has been established, initially through The Uganda Wildlife Authority-Forests Absorbing Carbon Emissions (UWA-FACE) project from 1992 and more recently through the Mt. Elgon Regional Eco-System Conservation Programme (MERECP). For the site around Chitwan, REDD+ projects were in the planning stage, though pilot studies have been conducted within the same district. The remaining ten semi-structured interviews in each country were conducted with intermediaries based in the capital cities, Kathmandu and Kampala. Participants were selected to represent a diversity of actors seeking to advance both environmental management and social outcomes of the rural population, and with potential to mobilise and advance justice-related norms based on recognition of local values and practices