Carbon markets have gained traction worldwide as an ostensibly win–win solution to climate change,
providing low-cost emission reductions in the Global North and sustainable development in the Global
South. However, sustainable development and livelihood co-benefits have largely failed to materialize
in a range of carbon offset projects, particularly those in forest communities. While some scholars explain
this failure as an outcome of fundamental tradeoffs between market efficiency and sustainable development,
others argue that institutions of common property land tenure can resolve tradeoffs and generate
important co-benefits for local communities. Using a political ecology approach, integrating insights of
Karl Polanyi and Noel Castree on the commodification of nature and evidence from a carbon forestry project
in Chiapas, Mexico, this article grapples with the ways in which carbon market requirements shape
forest governance within common property tenure arrangements. I argue that the centralization of forest
governance and decision making into the hands of project implementers and brokers, the necessity for
legible land rights and boundaries, and the technical requirements for measurement, calculation, and
monitoring of carbon have reshaped forest governance in ways that have undermined the social and ecological
benefits often associated with common property management schemes. This research therefore
demonstrates that so-called tradeoffs between market efficiency and equitable sustainable development
goals may not be inherent to carbon forestry and calls into question the reliance on disembedding market
mechanisms for climate change mitigation in forest ecosystems. As such, this work has important implications
for REDD+.