This book takes a multidisciplinary perspective to analyze and discuss the various opportunities and challenges of restoring tree and forest cover to address regional and global environmental challenges that threaten human well-being and compromise sustainable development. It examines forest restoration commitments, policies and programs, and their planning and implementation at different scales and contexts, and how forest restoration helps to mitigate environmental, societal, and cultural challenges. The chapters explore the concept of forest restoration, how it can restitute forest ecosystem services, contribute to biodiversity conservation, and generate benefits and synergies, while recognizing the considerable costs, trade-offs, and variable feasibility of its implementation. The chapters review historic and contemporary forest restoration practice and governance, variations in approaches and implementation across the globe, and relevant technological advances. Using the insights from the ten topic-focused chapters, the book reflects on the possibility of sustainable and just approaches to meet the challenges that lie ahead to achieve ambitious international forest restoration targets and commitments.
Tag: interdisciplinary research
Introduction: Restoring forests and trees for sustainable development
The introductory chapter presents the aims of the book and situates forest restoration within the discourse on sustainable development. It presents the global and regional restoration goals, agreements, and commitments, and discusses different understandings and modalities of forest restoration. It discusses the linkages between forest restoration and ecosystem services and considers forest restoration and its potential in the context of deforestation and forest degradation. It emphasizes the crucial importance of the socioecological and political contexts where restoration is implemented in shaping restoration goals, policies, and approaches and the related outcomes. The chapter positions the various chapters of the book within the discussions on forest restoration including potential social and ecological benefits, synergies, and trade-offs.
How to build Theories of Change for transdisciplinary research: Guidance and considerations
Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims to solve problems in complex systems by drawing from a range of methods and expertise to contribute to change processes. Theories of Change (ToCs) are well-suited to support TDR design and implementation, but they rarely achieve their full potential. In practice, ToCs are often compromised by insufficient engagement with the context, weak theoretical bases, poor articulation, and a lack of iteration. This paper presents a process for ToC design based on the authors’ experience facilitating ToC development for research planning and evaluation. We illustrate the process using an in-progress TDR example on patient-oriented cancer care research. The approach begins by framing the social and research problems and then identifies activities and outputs, key actors, outcomes, and underlying causal assumptions. Skilled facilitation and strong conceptual familiarity are key to effectively mobilize ToC concepts into a cohesive and testable model to refine a strategy with TDR stakeholders. Key considerations and resources are offered to enhance ToC development planning and facilitation.
Protecting people and wildlife from the potential harms of drone use in biodiversity conservation: interdisciplinary dialogues
In this policy intervention, we recount the process of producing a policy briefing targeting researchers and practitioners who use drones in biodiversity conservation. We use the writing process as a springboard to think through the ways that interdisciplinary exchange has and might further inform the ethical use of new technologies, such as drones. This approach is vital, we argue, because while drones may be deployed as tools that enable or empower forest, wildlife or habitat monitoring practices, so too can they be variously disruptive, repurposed and/or exceed these applications in significant ways. From questions of surveillance and capture, data ownership and security, to noise disruption, drone use requires careful and critical reflection, particularly in sensitive contexts. Yet, interdisciplinary exchange attentive to the ethical, social and experiential dimensions of drone use remains patchy and thin. To this end, this intervention reflects on the process of a group of scholars from ecological, environmental and social science backgrounds coming together in an interdisciplinary project grappling with diverse issues around responsible conservation drone use. After recounting our methodology, including the surprises and learning that emerged in practice, we contextualise the key themes we chose to foreground in our published policy briefing. We conclude by connecting our collaboration with wider actions and energies in the context of existing (conservation) drone policy and practice, while underscoring our contributions to existing work.
Value chain research and development: The quest for impact
For decades, governments, donors, and practitioners have promoted market-based development approaches (MBDA), most recently in the form of value chain development (VCD), to spur economic growth and reduce poverty. Changes in approaches have been shaped by funders, practitioners and researchers in ways that are incompletely appreciated. We address the following questions: (1) how have researchers and practitioners shaped discussions on MBDA?; and (2) how has research stimulated practice, and how has practice informed research? We hypothesize that stronger exchange between researchers and practitioners increases the relevance and impact of value chain research and development. We adopt Downs’ (1972) concept of issue-attention cycles, which posits that attention to a particular issue follows a pattern where, first, excitement builds over potential solutions; followed by disenchantment as the inherent complexity, trade-offs, and resources required to solve it become apparent; and consequently attention moves on to a new issue. We review the literature on MBDA to see how far this framing applies. We identify five cycles of approaches to market-based development over the last 40 or more years: (1) non-traditional agricultural exports; (2) small and medium enterprise development; (3) value chains with a globalization perspective; (4) value chains with an agri-business perspective; and (5) value chain development. The shaping and sequencing of these cycles reflect researchers’ tendency to analyse and criticize MBDA, while providing limited guidance on workable improvements; practitioners’ reluctance to engage in critical reflection on their programmes; and an institutional and funding environment that encourages new approaches. Future MBDA will benefit from stronger engagement between researchers, practitioners, and funders. Before shifting attention to new concepts and approaches, achievements and failures in previous cycles need to be scrutinized. Evidence-based practice should extend for the length of the issue-attention cycle; preferably it should arrest the cycling of attention. Funders can help by requiring grantees to critically reflect on past action, by providing “safe spaces” for sharing such reflections, and by engaging in joint learning with practitioners and researchers.
Responsible drone use in biodiversity conservation: Guidelines for environmental and conservation organisations who use drones
Key messages
- Drawing on interdisciplinary research expertise, this document lays out principles for best practice for the use of drones as part of biodiversity conservation and/or efforts to defend rights to land.
- We outline the risks that drones can pose to local communities and wildlife and propose mitigating strategies for minimising these risks.
- As drone imagery often captures identifiable human subjects, we highlight the importance of practices to avoid capture or deleting imagery where not needed, to reduce the risk of conservation data being used for other political purposes.
Related Journal articles and Blog:
Navigating power in conservation
Conservation research and practice are increasingly engaging with people and drawing on social sciences to improve environmental governance. In doing so, conservation engages with power in many ways, often implicitly. Conservation scientists and practitioners exercise power when dealing with species, people and the environment, and increasingly they are trying to address power relations to ensure effective conservation outcomes (guiding decision-making, understanding conflict, ensuring just policy and management outcomes). However, engagement with power in conservation is often limited or misguided. To address challenges associated with power in conservation, we introduce the four dominant approaches to analyzing power to conservation scientists and practitioners who are less familiar with social theories of power. These include actor-centered, institutional, structural, and, discursive/governmental power. To complement these more common framings of power, we also discuss further approaches, notably non-human and Indigenous perspectives. We illustrate how power operates at different scales and in different contexts, and provide six guiding principles for better consideration of power in conservation research and practice. These include: (1) considering scales and spaces in decision-making, (2) clarifying underlying values and assumptions of actions, (3) recognizing conflicts as manifestations of power dynamics, (4) analyzing who wins and loses in conservation, (5) accounting for power relations in participatory schemes, and, (6) assessing the right to intervene and the consequences of interventions. We hope that a deeper engagement with social theories of power can make conservation and environmental management more effective and just while also improving transdisciplinary research and practice.
Women representation in soil science: gender indicators in the University Program of Interdisciplinary Soil Studies
Introduction. In the world, 33% of soils are degraded, and 2.9 million people are affected by land degradation, with problems associated with food security, conflicts over natural resources, and migration with different impacts on men or women. To support sustainable soil management, it is necessary to include women’s contributions to soil Sciences; their achievements and academic performance still need to be represented. Women in Science represent 30% worldwide. In Mexico, only 24 % of top academic positions are women. For commitment to soil Sciences for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UNAM created the University Program for Interdisciplinary Soil Studies (PUEIS). Methods. This research evaluates women’s representation through gender indicators in the PUEIS and SNI datasets and discusses their implications for the gender gap in the soil Science community from Mexico. The data was collected with an online semi-structured survey and the gender indicators selected were related to participation, gender gap, sexism, equal opportunities, exclusion, and academic performance. Results. The results show that in the PUEIS, 54% of members identify themselves as women and 46% as men. The gender gap shows equality in the total number of members. However, low-rank jobs, such as lecturers and lab technicians are women dominated, and the top-ranked positions as a full professor, associate professor, and research scientist are equal. One result to consider for the PUEIS members is that the younger generation, as is the older generation, is dominated by men. This could indicate a setback in intermediate generations’ progress toward achieving gender equality. In the case of SNI members, there is a gender gap problem; of members with a Ph.D. degree, only 38% are women, and the elite group of scientists with a Ph.D. at the top position is represented only by 24% of females. Discussion. This work constitutes the first gender exercise for analyzing women’s participation in the soil Sciences in Mexico. From our perspective, it is not about competition in scientific careers between women and men; however, it is essential to recognize that gender inequalities are related to income, professional development, and science funding inequalities, and these disparities impact women more than men.
FTA in a Nutshell. Cracking issues, spreading solutions
The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), created in 2011, is the world’s largest research for development program focused on the role of forests, trees and agroforestry for sustainable development, food security and climate action. At the heart of the program is the vision that forests, trees and agroforestry, when adequately used, managed and governed, in an evidence-based and inclusive way, can play a central role in sustainable development by improving production systems, ensuring food security and nutrition, enhancing people’s livelihoods and addressing climate change.
Annual Report 2021: CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry
2021 marks the last year of FTA as a CGIAR CRP. It has a set of operational priorities which structure its program of work. These priorities address key development demands and knowledge gaps concerning the implementation of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on climate change. These operational priorities have each a 3-yr operational workplan 2019-2021, with a detailed list of activities and outputs, identifying clearly those funded by W1W2. 2021 was therefore also the closing year of these triannual plans, mainly directed to finalizing projects and studies synthetising results and bringing these to the next users. Overall in 2021, FTA produced 509 publications, of which 464 open access, 213 peer-reviewed and 192 ISI journal articles. FTA delivered, in 2021, 23 major innovations and 19 major contributions to policies. FTA also wrapped-up its COVID-19 Rapid Research Response, releasing a set of key studies looking at impacts and ways to build resilience.