This paper contains three main arguments. First, tropical forests have become objects of climate and environmental governance under the REDD+ mechanism in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that combines legal, market and scientific rationalities with measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) technologies in a neoliberal green governmentality regime. Second, the current structures and institutions of governance are contradictory and international environmental law provides inadequate means for regulating and protecting forests. Third, these deficiencies point to the need for imaginative alternative forms of governance to prevent further deforestation.