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Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessment (MELIA) has been a key focus of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) over its decade of work.
FTA’s MELIA Program has adapted, developed, tested and refined a comprehensive set of concepts and methods. These include participatory theories of change and developing and refining outcome evaluation methods.
They also include systematically reviewing, defining and assessing the quality of research that crosses disciplinary boundaries; and developing a quality assessment framework suitable for research for development (R4D).
This decadal work has generated a body of research and valuable lessons about research design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation within FTA and beyond.
The CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) embodied a fundamental shift in the approach to research for development (R4D). CRPs assume shared responsibility for achieving economic and human development outcomes, a shift that required new ways of monitoring and evaluating research (R4D).
When the Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) program was established in 2011 it responded to this approach with a plan to develop and use theory-based approaches for monitoring and evaluating outcomes and impacts.
PHOTO GALLERY
Over its ten years FTA has recognized the importance of monitoring and evaluation, not only as an important management tool, but also as a field of research in its own right.
From the beginning, FTA’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessment (MELIA) strategy included a core research component. FTA’s impact orientation and MELIA work were strongly supported by FTA governance. More engaged, transdisciplinary approaches to research involve stakeholders in order to deal with complexity and increase potential impact.
FTA’s research approaches aim to contribute to reduced poverty, improved food security and nutrition, and improved management of natural resources and ecosystem services through technical, institutional and policy innovation. Monitoring is a key element of FTA’s adaptive, learning-oriented approach, from the project level to the program level.
Research activities operate within a program-level theory of change (ToC), and each activity has its own particular context, design and implementation, and specific ToC.
This multi-level approach creates an excellent opportunity for learning how research contributes to transformative change within complex social and environmental systems.
FTA has developed a set of user-friendly and time-efficient monitoring tools for use at the project scale. The tools facilitate systematic collection of data on engagement with stakeholders, knowledge generation, uptake and use, and progress toward higher-level outcomes and impacts.
FTA’s MELIA team also contributed to the development of the Quality of Research for Development (QoR4D) framework. The framework guides and enhances research at all levels, and contributes to outcomes and impacts.
Download the publication to learn more about FTA’s approach to monitoring, FTA’s integrated outcome evaluations, case studies, results and lessons learned. FTA’s work on MELIA sets the ground for future initiatives to build and design projects integrating theory-based evaluation towards a transdisciplinary model of research impact.
How does FTA’s oil palm research in Indonesia measure up?
How does FTA’s oil palm research in Indonesia measure up?
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Oil palm plantation at the border of a intact forest. Jambi, Indonesia. Photo by Iddy Farmer/CIFOR
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The Forests, Trees and Agroforestry research program (FTA) of the CGIAR has just released an extensive evaluation of its research portfolio on oil palm in Indonesia, which assesses the influence of the work on policy, practice, partnerships, and research within the sector.
FTA Evaluation report on Oil Palm Portfolio [PDF]Oil palm production in Indonesia is “in many ways emblematic of key economic, social, and environmental challenges and opportunities,” the report’s authors state. The country is a major oil palm producer, and the sector has experienced rapid growth in demand – and rapid expansion of oil palm plantations – in recent years.
While this growth has contributed considerably to the country’s income, it has also been linked to severe environmental impacts, such as increased instances of fires, deforestation and peat exploitation, resulting in carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. There are also social challenges as the industry grows and becomes more regulated, such as smallholder disenfranchisement.
In that context, FTA’s leading partner, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), has been carrying out a number of research projects in Indonesia since 2010 to better understand Indonesia’s governance of and policy process for oil palm management; the biophysical characteristics and ecological implications of oil palm production; and the social realities of oil palm expansion.
Now, FTA’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessment team (MELIA) has released an evaluation of that research. MELIA chose four key projects, valued at around USD7 million of investment, to represent the portfolio: Supporting Local Regulations for Sustainable Oil Palm in East Kalimantan (EK), Governing Oil Palm Landscapes for Sustainability (GOLS), Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes (OPAL), and Engendering Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Standards (ERS).
The evaluation assessed the project design, implementation and outcomes of those initiatives. “The objective was to assess the extent to which CIFOR’s research on palm oil has influenced policy and practice in Indonesia – and to learn from that,” said evaluation manager and CIFOR Research to Impact team leader Jean-Charles Rouge.
Portfolio’s Composite Theory of Change
The team used a new Theory of Change (ToC) as the analytical framework for the evaluation. It combined key elements of the four projects to create a composite ToC, which sketched out the theoretical relationships and sequences of steps through which the portfolio aimed to contribute to particular outcomes and impacts. The portfolio’s ToC identifies a total of 21 outcomes at three distinct levels:
6 end-of-project outcomes that are reasonable to expect and observable at the time of the evaluation, and therefore are testable;
7 intermediate outcomes that relate to changes in knowledge, skills and relationships, and
8 high-level outcomes to support the causal logic from end-of-project outcomes to impacts and project purpose.
The distinction between end-of-project and high-level outcomes is made because higher-level results are expected to require more time to manifest and depend on variables beyond the influence of the project. The evaluation then tested to what extent and how outcomes were realized, using document review and interviews with relevant stakeholders (see Table 1).
The evaluation constituted a significant undertaking in terms of data collection and validation. Over 200 documents were reviewed, 89 interviews were conducted, and a total of five sense-making workshops were held to validate and solicit additional input to the report with representatives from government, NGOs, partner organizations, researchers, and FTA.
“CIFOR had already used a theory-based evaluation approach in previous evaluations of research projects,” said Rouge. “But in this evaluation, for the first time, the approach was used for a portfolio of projects, which led to a number of methodological challenges – on top of navigating in a very politically sensitive sector. The evaluation team addressed them well and ensured that all stakeholders had an opportunity to voice their views”.
Rachel Davel, one of the evaluators from the Sustainability Research Effectiveness (SRE) Program at Royal Roads University, added that “this evaluation offered us an opportunity to work with a composite theory of change to represent the intended contributions of multiple research projects. This required additional validation from researchers of the four projects to ensure the composite accurately reflected the collective research efforts and outcomes of the portfolio. We have since transferred this learning to another study to document composite theories of change to assess the FTA program.”
Rachel Claus, another member of the SRE evaluation team, noted that the value of the theory-based evaluation method was the ability of the analytical framework to make explicit and test outcomes organized around collective research contributions. “Using a theory of change framework was helpful to identify where projects were well aligned to reinforce each other and build on outcomes, and where there was scope to be more strategic, coordinated, and intentionally designed for impact,” she said.
The evaluators found that the portfolio fully contributed to the realization of 12 of the 21 outcomes and partially contributed to six of them identified in the ToC. Some notable achievements include: shaping a provincial-level regulation in East Kalimantan to include high conservation areas; government partners building new expertise in oil palm topics; ally organizations using FTA findings to hold private palm oil companies accountable to their commitments; RSPO changing international oil palm certification standards to reflect gender considerations; skilling the next generation of young researchers; and advancing oil palm research.
Six of the seven intermediate outcomes, which related to changes in knowledge, skills, and relationships, were met. While there is an indication that the outcome related to the private sector learning from research was partially realized, the lack of evidence could not fully support this claim. The report explains how private sector engagement was a shortcoming of the portfolio. As a lesson, this could be a focal area for future research on oil palm that could support cross-sector engagement and progress toward sustainability in the sector.
Five of the six end-of-project outcomes were also realized, although some of the portfolio’s higher-level outcomes are yet to be met; many of these depend on factors and processes that are beyond the direct influence of the portfolio.
The portfolio mechanisms that proved to have most influence related to new knowledge production and the scientific reputation of CIFOR and its partners. For instance, the smallholder typology developed by GOLS contributed to raising awareness about the need to focus policy to give the right assistance to the right kind of smallholders. “Numerous interview respondents appreciated the neutral, credible, and research-based information that CIFOR can offer to support constructive dialogues and collective action in a contentious sector,” the report underlines.
“Overall, FTA’s research portfolio produced knowledge on diverse aspects of oil palm sustainability and contributed to notable changes in policy, partnerships, capacity-building, and the research agenda,” said Davel. The evaluation concludes that there is potential for future oil palm production in Indonesia to take place in ways that have both enhanced social benefits and fewer negative environmental impacts – if it is well-guided by government regulation, private sector commitments and research to inform sustainable and inclusive practices. However, the report also noted that there are currently a number of barriers to realizing this scenario, including competing political and economic priorities, and future legislation that could undermine sustainability initiatives in the sector.
Table 1. Summary of Outcome Assessment and Portfolio Contribution
Expected Outcome
Outcome Assessment and Portfolio Contribution
High-Level Outcomes
Partner organizations use project research to inform planning decisions and project development
H
Realized, clear portfolio contribution
Smallholders and women have improved representation in policy-making around oil palm
M
Partially realized, clear portfolio contribution. Relies on some theoretical extrapolation of the implication of policy changes.
The research agenda on oil palm advances toward sustainability and inclusion
M
Partially realized, clear portfolio contribution
Policy-makers recognize and reflect environmental sustainability and social inclusion in all oil palm-related policy
M
Partially realized, clear portfolio contribution
Private sector adopts more sustainable and inclusive business models
L
Partially realized, clear portfolio contribution
Accumulation of scholarship on oil palm influences organizational practice
L
Not realized, too early to assess. There is no evidence of realization. It is possible that portfolio research could indirectly contribute to practice change via portfolio influence on policy change.
Smallholders and women have improved oil palm market access and share of benefits
L
Not realized, too early to assess. Realization of this outcome relies on the assumption that policies are effectively implemented and enforced.
The oil palm sector (governments, private sector, NGOs, smallholders, CIFOR) develops more effective working arrangements
L
Partially realized, unclear portfolio contribution. Few respondents explicitly identified how the processes facilitated by the portfolio contributed to more effective working arrangements.
Intermediate Outcomes
Government actors learn from oil palm research processes and findings
H
Realized, clear portfolio contribution
Government actors build their capacities and relationships within the oil palm sector
M
Realized, clear project contribution
Government actors engage CIFOR & partners to help make informed decisions on oil palm
M
Realized, clear project contribution
Project partnerships facilitate mutual learning on oil palm
H
Realized, clear portfolio contribution
Graduate students build their research capacities
H
Realized, clear portfolio contribution
CIFOR & partners are recognized for expertise in oil palm research
H
Realized, clear portfolio contribution
Private sector actors learn from oil palm research
This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with ICRAF, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR and TBI.FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.
The fully digital conference, titled Forest, trees and agroforestry science for transformational change, ran from 14 to 25 September 2020 and drew more than 520 participants from 69 countries around the world. It featured close to 200 interventions from scientists involved in the FTA program spread over 10 days and 26 different sessions. It included keynote speeches, controversial panel debates on “hot topics”, and technical presentations and posters.
The conference put an emphasis on collaborative research between FTA and the broader community, as 60% of the presentations were between FTA’s seven managing partners (CIFOR, ICRAF, The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR and TBI) as well as the many national partners. The 179 abstracts accepted for the event are now made available in a book on the new web-portal, with more coming next, such as selected videos.
The conference was organized around six key technical themes that are pathways for transformational change:
Inclusive value chains, finance and investments
Towards resilient and diverse landscapes and food systems
Transforming livelihoods through agroecological approaches with trees
Nature-based solutions to address the climate crisis
Inclusive governance for sustainable landscapes
Designing, implementing and evaluating research for development impact
Three plenary sessions allowed for overall framing, linking-up across themes, stock-taking of discussions. The conference featured two sessions addressing “Hot & Controversial” issues, be it in science, in development, or in the media:
Competing understandings of the restoration problem and solutions
Systemic approaches in a ‘silver bullets’ world.
Restoration has emerged in the last decade as a key global political objective and debates on the topic are intense. The “Hot & Controversial” session used a variety of techniques, including role-playing, quick polls and devil’s advocacy, to highlight and debate some of the most disputed points, allowing to discuss strengths and shortcomings of the argumentations behind, and to debunk myths.
An innovative “Green” Dragons’ Den event was organized for the second “Hot & Controversial” session, to trial five innovations coming from the program. These were defended by their authors in quick elevator pitches, trying to convince the Green philanthropist dragons to invest a “virtual” sum of three million USD. The audience was also called to a virtual crowdfunding exercise. The session was a “live learning” event, for scientists to get better at telling convincing stories on often very complex issues and tools, to best sell their results, as well as understand needs, objectives, and ways of thinking of investors.
***
It was the second time FTA organized a global virtual conference, after the first one held in March 2017 on “cool insights for a hot world”, that gathered 200 participants over two days.
For the 2020 conference, technical developments, including live (“synchronous”) online collaborative tools such as Mural, virtual poster rooms, live polling, role-playing sessions, and the experience of FTA’s events team, allowed for a lively and smoothness event, marking probably a new era for large scale scientific conferencing.
Participation from within the program was double the size of what it would have been if held in-person, and several high-level stakeholders could join for engagement sessions, for which otherwise they may not have been able to travel for a full week. Also, with 3 hours of “air time” per day, it left participants still with time for their other activities, while allowing participation from scientists in time zones situated 15 hours apart, from Vancouver to Hobart.
As a follow-up, the FTA is now organizing a series of “Science to Action” webinars, which are open to all, and which will focus on the way forward for actors on the ground. The first webinar was held on 26 November 2020 on the topic: Innovations to overcome barriers to access to finance for smallholders, SMEs, and women, and was developed in coordination with FTA partner Tropenbos International. You can replay the whole event here.
***
Looking forward to engaging even more in 2021, as we wrap up a full decade of research since 2011.
By Sandra Cordon.
This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with ICRAF, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR and TBI.FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.
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A bird view of a typical swidden landscape in Batang Lupar (Yves Laumonier/CIFOR)
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We often think about man’s effect on the environment nowadays. We rarely stop to think about man’s effect on man.
Tracking the state of the world’s forests over the decades is, of course, extremely important, but what about the forest communities – are they also flourishing? Indeed, you could make a case that any forest hosting an impoverished community is a forest that, however flourishing today, tomorrow is destined for the ax. That is why, when an international team of social and environmental scientists got together to create a long term tropical forest monitoring project, they made sure to give it two arms of equal strength, the better to collect both environmental biophysical data and human socio-economic data.
By combining these two seams of data, researchers and policymakers are able to make long range predictions about effects in both directions. That is why this ambitious project is called Sentinel Landscapes.
Yves Laumonier, senior scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research, explains: “The Sentinel Landscapes are a long term research network to monitor not only biophysical data, but also social transformation in the landscape, especially for the livelihood of indigenous people and people who are still dependent on the forest.”
FTA Sentinel Landscape Global Sites
The Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) research program of the CGIAR, led by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), has selected eight Sentinel Landscape research sites across the tropics, each site carefully chosen to represent different positions on the forest transition curve.
Forest Transition Curve – HLPE (2017), adapted from CIFOR (2011)
The forest transition curve describes how pristine primary forest is gradually cleared for timber, agriculture or development and how, at a certain point, this deforestation peaks and is replaced by the regrowth of secondary forest, planting of agroforestry or timber, leading to a degree of environmental recovery in the landscape.
With significant areas of standing ancient forest, the Heart of Borneo is perched at the top of the curve. But even here, crawling over the horizon, we see the tracks of bulldozers.
In Sentinel Solutions for the Anthropocene, we explored how long-term biophysical monitoring is a “global health check” for the tropics and how, in the Nicaragua-Honduras Sentinel Landscape, that data is being used to track forest degradation and climate change.
In this long read, we turn our attention to Borneo and look at how the different socio-economic contexts revealed by the Sentinel Landscape project affect forest conservation in one of the last forest frontiers.
Borneo: The Last Forest Frontier
The Borneo-Sumatra Sentinel Landscape report [download it in pdf here]The Borneo-Sumatra Sentinel Landscape (BSSL) unfolds over four sites on two of Indonesia’s largest islands, from the almost pristine forests of Kapuas Hulu on Borneo to the more developed plantations of rubber and oil palm on Sumatra.
The recently published BSSL report focuses on two study blocks in the Kapuas Hulu Regency of West Kalimantan on Borneo. Straddling the equator, Borneo is the third largest island in the world, more than three times larger than Great Britain and seven times the size of Cuba. With 73 percent forest cover and two national parks, the report describes Kapuas Hulu as part of the “last forest frontier”.
Yves Laumonier is lead author of the BSSL report. “We have other sites in Indonesia that are much more transformed or degraded,” he explains, “but we can imagine that Borneo shows the original state of the forest.”
Batang Lupar, Borneo: Aerial view of the Danau Sentarum National Park wetlands, a unique ecosystem of interconnecting seasonal lakes, peat swamps, and periodically inundated freshwater swamp forests. (Yves Laumonier/CIFOR)
However, Laumonier also warns that oil palm plantations are expanding near the biodiversity corridor between the two national parks, creating both economic opportunities and conflicts.
Degraded swidden landscapes on steep slopes and poor soils in Mentebah, Borneo: Improved road infrastructure has brought a different context for the mostly Malayu population. Gold mining is an important source of income and, although the area is more “developed”, inequality is also higher than in the villages of Batang Lupar. (Yves Laumonier/CIFOR)
Lost without water
Between the two study blocks, Batang Lupar in the north and Mentebah in the south, lies the Danau Sentarum National Park: “a unique wetlands system with many lakes and swamp forests,” according to Laumonier. “Water fluctuation can be ten metres,” he continues. “During the rainy season some trees are underwater!”
The two sites were specifically chosen for their position as sentinels of the wetlands. As the report states: “Any transformation of these landscapes may have an impact on the integrity of the wetland ecosystem and on the communities living there.” This is significant because the wetlands are fed by the Kapuas River, the longest in Indonesia, sprawling over an area bigger than the countries of Costa Rica and Denmark put together.
The river is ecologically important, teeming with a rich diversity of fish, flora and fauna from the dense mountain rainforests to the alluvial delta where the Kapuas is swallowed by the South China Sea. But it is no less essential to human existence: a livelihood for fishermen and farmers, a shipping superhighway for passengers and freight, and a water reservoir that nourishes the whole of West Kalimantan province.
Indeed, the significance of the river to the people of Kapuas Hulu is not restricted to its magnitude, diversity or even the yield of its fruits. The indigenous Iban Dayak don’t navigate by the cardinal points – north, south, east or west – they navigate by reference to the natural world – uphill, downhill, upstream or downstream. The Iban are quite literally lost without water.
“We need this research”
Long term ecological monitoring projects aren’t new, but Sentinel Landscapes are the first to attempt such an undertaking in the tropics. “In Europe you have the Pan European Ecological Network, a large network of long term ecological research,” Laumonier says. “There is also something similar in the US. But in the tropics, it’s not existing.”
Given that tropical forests account for approximately half of the planet’s aboveground carbon and its critical importance for conserving the planet’s biodiversity, this is surprising, to say the least. “The key for me is to focus on the tropical belt,” Laumonier says. “We need this research. If you want to monitor climate change impact on the forest, and you don’t have long term data, it’s very difficult.”
However, long term monitoring projects in the tropics are not as straightforward as in the highly industrialized environments of Europe and North America. “Many ecological science methods used in Europe are not suitable for the tropics,” Laumonier says. “The tropics have the highest ecological biodiversity, and this makes monitoring much more complex than in Europe.”
Research in remote, pristine forests
It’s not only the scientific methods that need to be rewritten for the context. The practicalities of on site research are complicated too. “Pristine forests are only found nowadays in very remote areas that are difficult to access,” Laumonier says. “This is a burden on research. In Europe, you simply get in your car and go there.”
Even when the researchers reached the remote villages of Kapuas Hulu, that wasn’t the end of their challenges.
Alfa Simarangkir is a private consultant who helped collect the data from the socio-economic household surveys. “It took a long time to do the interviews in Batang Lupar especially,” she says. “Not many people speak Bahasa and they had difficulty understanding what we wanted to do.” Indeed, the BSSL report notes that, without a local partner who spoke the Iban dialect, the survey would have been impossible.
As well as the language barrier, Simarangkir and the rest of the team ran into trouble collecting even the most basic data, like the size of household land plots or what year a particular farm was opened. “We tend to use hectares, but in Batang Lupar they have their own local units and you can’t necessarily compare one unit with their neighbour’s,” Simarangkir says. “They also have difficulties remembering the precise timing of events. They don’t have that way of thinking. It took us one week to survey ten households!”
With 139 households to survey in Batang Lupar and another 300 in Mentebah, the socio-economic element of the Sentinel Landscape research was a heroic undertaking that compensated Laumonier, Simarangkir and their team with fascinating revelations.
FTA Socio-economic surveys in Kapuas Hulu
The Iban Dayak of Batang Lupar: from headhunting to oil palm
“Borneo is one of the most forested of the Sentinel Landscape sites, so it’s a bit special,” Laumonier says. “But the local community of Batang Lupar are also quite special: the Iban Dayak.” The Iban are renowned as ferocious warriors, notorious for severing the heads of their enemies, smoking them over a fire and keeping them as grisly mementos – a practice, thankfully, long since ended.
They do still live in traditional longhouses, however. “These longhouses are not isolated individual houses, they are connected apartments, originally to protect themselves from the enemy,” Laumonier explains. “The shared longhouses mean that cohesion in the group is very high.”
Late afternoon gathering in a longhouse in Batang Lupar (Alfa Simarangkir/CIFOR)
The Iban, at least in Batang Lupar, also still live lives that “depend on the forest”, according to Laumonier. They practice swidden agriculture (also known as slash-and-burn or fire-fallow), clearing land for cultivation by cutting and burning the existing vegetation – mostly old fallows rather than primary forest.
But with intense international scrutiny of the annual Indonesian forest fires, this traditional farming method has become problematic. “To avoid excessive haze in the region, the Iban ancestral technique of using fire to clear their fields has recently been forbidden,” Laumonier says. “But the big fires you see in the news are never caused by the indigenous people: they know very well how to control their fires. The big fires you see every dry season are caused by the big industrial companies.”
Kapuas Hulu vegetation maps 2000-2010-2019
Laumonier argues that the ban on swidden agriculture is based on an outdated theory of conservation. “In the 1980s, many governments and even conservationists wanted to get rid of agriculture in the forests,” he explains, “but now a lot of people think it’s not that bad, especially for biodiversity.”
“After one or two years of cultivation, the Iban leave the land fallow for regeneration,” Laumonier continues. “If the cycle is not too short – 10 or 15 years – the secondary forest has recovered and biodiversity is already very high.”
The light environmental touch of this traditional practice has a modern downside. “These people are living in subsistence,” Laumonier says. As development spreads even into the furthest reaches of Kapuas Hulu, traditional ways of living are being eroded by the temptation to cash in on the forest.
“The Iban plant rubber as a cash crop, but unfortunately the market price is very low and they can be tempted to shift to oil palm,” Laumonier says. “The oil palm companies are advancing little by little, sometimes with conflict, sometimes not,” he adds. “Many Iban are resisting the oil palm and in the peat swamps there’s a government-imposed moratorium on clearing – but it still happens.”
Mentebah: the road, the rubber and the gold
Batang Lupar and Mentebah are only 100km apart, but the local inhabitants could hardly live in more different situations.
Aerial view of gold mining impact on landscapes in Mentebah (Alfa Simarangkir/CIFOR)
“The tendency of some research is to work in one village and draw conclusions for whole region,” Laumonier says. “The advantage of the Sentinel Landscapes is that we get representative data for the larger region, such as districts.”
The most striking geographical difference between Batang Lupar and Mentebah districts is that, where Batang Lupar is relatively remote and hard to access, Mentebah lies on the main road between Sintang and the administrative capital of Kapuas Hulu, Putussibau. From this simple detail comes a cascade of socio-economic differences between the two sites. As Simarangkir says of Mentebah: “There is a really different way of living there. The road has given a huge opportunity to them.”
Secondary forests in Mentebah (Yves Laumonier/CIFOR)
The road has also brought outsiders to the district. “In Mentebah, people from Java are given land by the government,” Simarangkir says. “The population is diverse compared to Batang Lupar.”
Simarangkir explains that the families in Batang Lupar depend more on natural resources, while those in Mentebah largely earn their living from other employment opportunities. In particular: tapping for rubber and mining for gold.
Traditional gold mining activity in Mentebah – this activity havs desastrous effects on the riparian forest and the quality of the river water (Yves Laumonier/CIFOR)
“The gold mining is illegal,” Simarangkir says. “When one of the respondents showed me some gold he had already made into a block, he told me that he would be in serious trouble with the police if they caught him.”
Despite the potentially lucrative gold industries, the socio-economic survey also discovered that there was significantly greater food insecurity in Mentebah, and that inequality was more extreme between the haves and the have-nots.
The curse of capitalism?
“In Mentebah you need money to buy your daily needs,” Simarangkir explains, “but in Batang Lupar I think they are lucky. They grow vegetables. If they need fish, they go to the river. If they need meat, the men go hunting. You don’t need money to buy food in Batang Lupar.”
Iban man working on traditional Bemban basketry (Alfa Simarangkir/CIFOR)
The road is both a blessing and a curse for the people of Mentebah, as access to the markets of Sintang and Putussibau draws farmers away from their fields to the cash crops.
“Not many people in Mentebah concentrate on the productive landscape any more,” Simarangkir says. “Most of them work more on rubber plantations – but the rubber price fluctuates.” Without the guarantee of a stable price for rubber, a family’s fortunes in Mentebah can collapse from one year to the next in a way that the diversified subsistence farming of Batang Lupar would not.
The financial lure of rubber and gold means that the fields of Mentebah are less productive too. “In Mentebah, people might not have the time and labour to open fields because they are gold mining instead,” Simarangkir says. “In Batang Lupar they stay in the villages and have time to work in the fields.”
Despite their rice paddies, Simarangkir found that most households in Mentebah still have to buy rice. “They cannot predict the harvest,” she explains. “In Batang Lupar, one household can own many different land plots and they can rotate their crops. But in Mentebah they don’t rotate at all because they don’t have as much land. This is one reason why the harvest in Mentebah is not so good: you need to give time for the land to recover.”
Another striking difference between the two districts is that women own significantly more land in Batang Lupar than in Mentebah.
The women landowners of Batang Lupar
The BSSL socio-economic survey found the women owned nearly a third of all land plots in Batang Lupar, whereas women in Mentebah owned less than a fifth. Again, the road, rubber and gold of Mentebah offer clues to why this might be.
Iban woman working on traditional Bemban basketry (Alfa Simarangkir/CIFOR)
“Many of the women in the Batang Lupar come from the nearest village. In Mentebah, women come from cities all over Indonesia,” Simarangkir explains. This break in communal continuity and in the line of inheritance is one reason why women might own more land in Batang Lupar.
But Simarangkir speculates further: “I’m thinking that much of the land previously owned by women in Mentebah has already been sold because households can’t rely on unstable farm products like rubber,” she says. “Instead they rely on illegal gold mining. Sometimes they get a lot of money, but if not then they have to sell whatever they can – including, perhaps, their land.”
“There is a really different way of living there,” she says again.
The question is: how can the Sentinel Landscapes help the people of Kapuas Hulu navigate between these two different ways of life, between the equitable and ecologically sustainable subsistence farming of traditional Batang Lupar and the potentially lucrative market infrastructure of Mentebah?
Conservation or infrastructure: a false choice?
“At their best, Sentinel Landscapes give evidence to decision makers that something is going wrong with the environment,” Laumonier says. “For example, we can quickly see degradation of the forest because there are fewer and entirely different birds.”
“But,” Laumonier adds, “that evidence might not convince decision makers to change course because they – quite rightly – also want to develop and build hospitals and schools.”
It may seem that, with two national parks, Kapuas Hulu is environmentally well-protected, but it is not that straightforward.
“There are two national parks in Kapuas Hulu and that’s quite unique for Indonesia,” Laumonier explains. “Local authorities will say that they have been told to do this for conservation, but that the national parks are also the reason they have no money and no infrastructure.”
There has been a lot of international pressure on Indonesia to protect the forests of Borneo, with high profile campaigns, such as that to save the orangutan, driving the government to establish the national parks in Kapuas Hulu.
There are promising signs that Indonesian conservation efforts are being rewarded. Global Forest Watch recently reported that Indonesian primary forest loss in 2019 fell for the third consecutive year, despite a harrowing fire season. Deforestation is now 40 percent lower than the average annual loss between 2002 and 2016.
The same report indicates that conservation efforts have been even more successful in forests with protected status, bolstered by the announcement last year that the moratorium on forest clearing for palm plantations or logging will become permanent. According to 2016 figures from the Indonesian government, 49 percent of forests are protected in one way or another.
However, Laumonier suggests that choosing between the extremes of conservation and infrastructure is a false choice. “The solution is not always a national park,” Laumonier argues. “We can still do conservation with agroforestry and we can do more to connect the forest fragments. These measures may be as efficient as a national park.”
“In some places around the world, national parks aren’t working because the populations living next to the park are very poor and they don’t see the benefit of conservation,” Laumonier explains. “We have to find a trade-offs between conservation and development.”
Finding that balance isn’t easy – it would be impossible without environmental, cultural and socio-economic insights from the Sentinel Landscapes.
By David Charles. This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.
A joint stocktaking of CGIAR work on forest and landscape restoration by FTA, PIM and WLE
A joint stocktaking of CGIAR work on forest and landscape restoration by FTA, PIM and WLE
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Despite the high level of political engagement and the wide range of organizations involved in restoration projects from local to global levels, beyond some success stories, restoration is not happening at scale. Research is urgently needed to design, develop and upscale successful restoration approaches. As part of this effort, FTA, PIM and WLE publish a synthesis of a survey of CGIAR’s projects on restoration.
This UN Decade could offer unprecedented opportunities to address food security, job creation and climate change simultaneously. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) considers that restoring 350 million hectares (ha) of degraded land by 2030, as committed in the New York Declaration on Forests, could generate USD 9 trillion in various ecosystem services and remove about 13–26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
However, despite the high level of political engagement and the wide range of institutions (public, private or civil society; local to global) involved in restoration projects, and beyond some success stories, restoration is not happening at scale.
“There are huge opportunities in bringing the three CRPs together to work on land restoration. Each of these CRPs works on different aspects of land restoration. Pooling this evidence in a user-friendly and accessible manner holds great potential for scaling, and for delivering enhanced impact from our CGIAR research” said Vincent Gitz, Izabella Koziell and Frank Place, the three CRP directors.
The three CRPs agreed on a broad scope of restoration, focused on the restoration of “ecological functions”, with the following definitions:
Degradation: Loss of functionality of e.g. land or forests, usually from a specific human perspective, based on change in land cover with consequences for ecosystem services
Restoration: Efforts to halt ongoing and reverse past degradation, by aiming for increased functionality (not necessarily recovering past system states).
They also discussed theories of [induced] changes underlying landscape dynamics of degradation and restoration. The following questions helped structure the discussions:
Why? What are the final goals of restoration efforts, which sustainable development goals can they contribute to?
What? What are the drivers of degradation that need to be addressed? What are the ecological functions to be restored?
Who?Who cares? Who are the stakeholders responsible for or impacted by land degradation? How stakeholders are encouraged, empowered and organized to act for forest and landscape restoration?
How? How to design effective restoration interventions? What are the land use and land management options for change in different contexts, across countries and biomes?
Where and when? How to operationalize action recognizing the connectivity across different spatial and temporal scales in the restoration process, considering the landscape’s spatial configuration and temporal dynamics?
As a first step of their collaboration, the 3 CRPs (FTA, PIM, WLE) conducted a broad survey of the CGIAR’s work on restoration, inviting contributions from other CRPs. The document published today is a synthesis of the survey results. The full database with full details on each initiative is available as an annex.
The survey reflects the implication of different CGIAR Centers (ICRAF, Bioversity, CIFOR, CIAT, IWMI, ILRI, ICRISAT, CIMMYT and IFPRI) in restoration projects across the tropics and sub-tropics, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Some countries, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Peru, or Indonesia concentrate many projects and provide strong opportunities for further collaboration among the three CRPs.
The survey shows the wide range of restoration activities undertaken by CGIAR CRPs and Centers, with their partners, from knowledge generation, methods, planning, modelling, assessment and evaluation, monitoring and mapping, to action on the ground. CGIAR restoration work can be divided into three broad categories: (1) case studies and projects; (2) tools for development; (3) approaches and conceptual frameworks.
The first category gathers case studies and projects comprising an element of field research. It comprises experimental plots, trials, local capacity building and implementation, on-the-ground assessments and surveys at different scales. It distinguishes: (i) “restoration-focused projects” where forest and land degradation is the main entry point and restoration is the main objective; from, (ii) “restoration-related projects” that can contribute to forest and landscape restoration while following other objectives (such as sustainable intensification or climate-smart agriculture). Half of the “restoration-focused” projects aim at assessing restoration practices with the view to upscale successful restoration experiences, such as the Ngitili fodder management system which contributed to the restoration of up to 270,000 ha over about 25 years in Shinyanga region, Tanzania. The others focus on climate change and climate-smart restoration, or on desertification and sand fixation. Six projects in this category focus on genetic diversity and on the performance and organization of the seed supply system, identified in this survey as a critical factor of success for restoration interventions. “Restoration-related projects” focus on various topics closely linked to restoration, including: sustainable land and water management; climate-smart agriculture; land tenure security and land governance reform; participatory governance and planning and collective farming.
The second category regroups: (i) tools, methods and guidelines, directed at decision makers or restoration practitioners at different levels, to support decision making; as well as, (ii) maps and models, measuring at different scales the intensity of degradation (i.e. efforts needed for restoration) or modeling the impacts of different land-use changes or land management practices. Models and maps often serve as the first layer for decision-making supporting tools. This category includes for instance two entries on the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), developed by ICRAF and applied, since 2005, in over 250 landscapes (100 km2 sites) across more than 30 countries. Using indicators such as vegetation cover, structure and floristic compositions, tree and shrub biodiversity, historic land use, visible signs of land degradation, and physical and chemical characteristics of soil (including soil organic carbon content and infiltration capacity), the LDSF, applicable to any landscape, provides a field protocol for assessing soil and ecosystem health to help decision makers to prioritize, monitor and track restoration interventions.
The third category, covering more theoretical work, includes: (i) evaluations, conceptual or theoretical frameworks around restoration and related issues; and (ii) systematic literature and/or project reviews, as well as meta-analyses on different topics linked to restoration. For instance a global survey on seed sourcing practices for restoration, was realized between 2015 and 2017 by Bioversity International, reviewing 136 restoration projects across 57 countries, and suggesting a typology of tree seed sourcing practices and their impact on restoration outcomes (Jalonen et al., 2018).
The survey describes projects operating at the landscape level or across multiple scales. This shows the importance of the landscape level to effectively combine integrated perspectives that allow synergies among different ecosystem components and functions with a deep knowledge of, and a fine adaptation to, local conditions. While many projects focus on the technical performance of restoration projects, relatively few investigate the economics, cost and benefits, of restoration and few examine their underlying power structures and power dynamics/games. This relative paucity of costs and benefit data has been noted by other organizations, an aspect that led to the launch of the FAO-led TEER initiative, to which FTA and several CGIAR centers contribute.
All the answers taken together provide useful insights for future restoration activities. In particular, they identify five critical factors of success for restoration interventions:
secure tenure and use rights;
access to markets (for inputs and outputs) and services;
access to information, knowledge and know-how associated with sustainable and locally adapted land use and land management practices;
awareness of the status of local ecosystem services, often used as a baseline to assess the level of degradation; and
(v) high potential for restoration to contribute to global ecosystem services and attract international donors.
This synthesis will inform future work of FTA, PIM and WLE. It can also be used to support the design of restoration activities, programs and projects. Finally, it also illustrates with concrete examples the powerful contribution of forest and landscape restoration to the achievement of many, if not all of the 17 sustainable development goals. In particular, forest and landscape restoration, through the recovery of a range of ecological functions, can contribute to:
enhance food security through the improvement of the ecosystem services sustaining agriculture at landscape scale
improve natural resource use efficiency, thus reducing the pressure on the remaining natural habitats and addressing water scarcity;
favour social justice by securing a more equitable access to natural resources (e.g. land, water and genetic resources), and a wider participation in decision-making processes, in particular for women and marginalized people; and,
strengthen ecosystem, landscape and livelihoods resilience to economic shocks and natural disasters in a context of climate change.
The COVID 19 crisis has shown the importance of healthy ecosystems for healthy and resilient economies and societies. We hope that this document will contribute to integrate restoration as part of the efforts to “build back better” after the crisis.
This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.
Outcome Evaluation Approach – 5 Case Studies from FTA
Outcome Evaluation Approach – 5 Case Studies from FTA
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Yordana Yawate, carries a sack of sago pith to be filtered on the banks of the Tuba river in Honitetu village, Maluku province, Indonesia. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/CIFOR
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Two recent publications discuss how to effectively assess the impact of transdisciplinary (TDR) research and apply these methods to 5 case studies.
The creation of the CGIAR Research Programs (CRP) was aimed to increase the social, economic, and environmental impacts of research. These programs have intentionally developed broader and deeper partnerships with a wide range of policy and development actors (i.e., international conservation and development organizations, NGOs, policy actors, other stakeholders), as well as with other researchers and research organizations. These efforts mirrored a shift in the broader research environment toward more engaged, problem-centred research. Such research, known variously as Transdisciplinary Research (TDR), Mode 2 Research, and Sustainability Science, among other terms, actively involves stakeholders to help ensure the relevance of the research, incorporate a broader range of expertise in the research process, and promote the co-generation of knowledge with research users.
In theory, engaged TDR approaches should help address complex sustainability problems and contribute to more and better outcomes. However, the increased complexity of these approaches makes impact assessment even more challenging than for traditional research approaches. Research impact assessment is chronically challenged by the fact that the uptake and use of research-based knowledge is incremental, with multiple steps and other intervening factors, often with long time-lags. Measuring and attributing impact are difficult. CGIAR research impact assessment has typically attempted to measure the benefits of improved technologies generated by CGIAR research; this assumes that the main contributions of the research are bundled within an improved plant variety or other technology package. TDR deliberately aims to contribute to several impact pathways simultaneously, by supporting capacity-building and empowerment among partners, facilitating dialogue and political processes, co-generating knowledge that will be implemented directly by partners, as well as through more conventional research products. However, empirical evidence of whether and how transdisciplinary approaches contribute to (more) effective scientific and social outcomes remains limited.
CIFOR Senior Associate Scientist Brian Belcher and his team in the Sustainability Research Effectiveness Program (SRE) at Royal Roads University have developed methods to assess TDR. The SRE Program has also conducted a series of case studies of completed FTA research projects to investigate the link between transdisciplinary research and societal effects. They recently published two papers to share lessons from their work.
A refined method for theory-based evaluation of the societal impacts of research [pdf]“A refined method for theory-based evaluation of the societal impacts of research” (Belcher et al., 2020) provides a detailed description of concepts and a method for assessing the relationship between research processes, outputs, and outcomes. The Outcome Evaluation Approach uses an actor-centred Theory of Change as the analytical framework, and accounts for complexity by recognizing the role of other actors, context, and external processes in change. The article provides stepwise guidance on how to:
document a theory of change;
determine data needs and sources;
collect data;
manage and analyze data; and
present findings.
The paper responds to the need for appropriate methods to demonstrate (for accountability) and analyze (for learning) whether and how research projects contribute to change processes, in an effort to make research more effective in addressing complex sustainability challenges.
Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP)
Fire and Haze Indonesia (F&H)
Global Comparative Study on Forest Tenure Reform-Peru (GCS-FTR), and
Support to the Development of Agroforestry Concessions in Peru (SUCCESS)
represent a wide range of research approaches, social and policy contexts, and outcomes. Each case study used the Outcome Evaluation Approach described in Belcher et al. (2020) to document the project’s Theory of Change and assess whether and how outcomes were realized. The analysis also used Belcher et al.’s (2016) Transdisciplinary Research Quality Assessment Framework (QAF) to characterize each project by the degree to which its design and implementation conformed with transdisciplinary criteria.
Each project had a deliberate focus on moving beyond knowledge production to influence policy and practice. To do that, the projects employed a variety of strategies that crossed disciplinary bounds and engaged a range of partners and stakeholders at different levels. The results demonstrate that projects employing more transdisciplinary characteristics make more diverse contributions as they tend to leverage more diverse mechanisms of change. The participation of various system actors contributed to projects’ relevance and strongly contributed to the uptake and use of the research. Projects that invested most in developing and facilitating participation (e.g., the Global Comparative Study on Forest Tenure Reform-Peru and the Support to the Development of Agroforestry Concessions in Peru projects) were the most successful in generating social learning and building coalitions. Projects that employed the most traditional scientific models (e.g., the Brazil Nut Project and the Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program) but still invested in outreach and engagement, were able to realize significant outcomes. Research project efforts to support social processes helped translate and broker knowledge outputs and made substantial additional contributions through capacity-building, initiating and supporting discourse, and relationship-building.
Given the results, it is clear that research aiming to influence policy and practice change should consider integrating and reflecting on TDR characteristics more intentionally from the early planning stages and throughout the whole research process. This new Outcome Evaluation Approach will help linking outcomes, outputs and TDR more effectively, justifying the need for more transdisciplinary science, with an increase in overall results and global benefits.
[1] Two individual project outcome evaluation reports have been published (Brazilian Nut, SWAMP), while the others are forthcoming (F&H, GCS-FTR, SUCCESS).
FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.
MRV for REDD+ in Mexico: The political process of a technical system
MRV for REDD+ in Mexico: The political process of a technical system
16 December, 2017
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The monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of activities carried out for REDD+ in Mexico can shed some light on the challenges that could be faced when complying with the provisions of the Paris Agreement and the enhanced transparency framework (ETF) it establishes. Addressing the concerns presented by multiple stakeholders on several levels will contribute to highlighting transparency, in accordance with the ETF.
National and subnational stakeholders should make an effort to officially clarify the objectives and scope of the National Monitoring, Reporting and Verification System (SNMRV); and of subnational stakeholder participation (institutional arrangements, times, inputs, outputs, roles, and responsibilities); and how to establish complementariness with other national and subnational monitoring initiatives.
The experience and knowledge of subnational stakeholders can improve and enrich MRV in Mexico, since its efforts, interests and needs go beyond the simple monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that the SNMRV has performed so far.
Long-term institutionalization should be ensured for REDD+ and the MRV system at the different government levels to overcome changes associated with political cycles and ensure the continuity of financial, technical and administrative efforts. Given that budget cuts have affected public administration in Mexico, more stakeholders and funding sources (private sector, academia, civil society, foundations) should support technical requirements for MRV and other monitoring initiatives.
Interviewed national and subnational stakeholders valued the implementation of the national initiative for the reduction of forest emissions (IRE) through the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the mechanisms to strengthen subnational stakeholders (such as the Governors Climate and Forests Task Force, GCF), as well as opportunities to clarify questions on MRV procedures and empower the states for decision-making.
Ensuring quality of research for development: The MELIA system
Ensuring quality of research for development: The MELIA system
05 October, 2017
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The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) is an integrated global research initiative that aims to enhance the use, management and governance of forests, agroforestry and tree genetic resources as a way to improve livelihoods and the integrity of the environment. To test methods, approaches, partnerships and engagement strategies, and to seek the most effective means of achieving positive change, the program uses an innovative system to ensure the quality of its research, to monitor, evaluate and assess the outcomes (defined as changes in technical, social and economic behavior) and impact (defined as changes in actual environmental quality and human wellbeing) of its work.
By Brian Belcher, Senior Associate, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
In the new phase of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, the previous work under “Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact Assessment” has been re-labelled as “Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessment” (MELIA).
FTA is developing its MELIA unit as a core research and support unit with team members from each of the participating centers. In the new phase, FTA has a great opportunity to make significant theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to help improve research quality and research effectiveness within FTA, the CG, and beyond.
The MELIA work will be organized in four main clusters of activities:
Foresight/ex ante impact assessment
This is a new area for FTA, in which we will develop tools and approaches for assessing strategic opportunities and estimating potential impact to help inform priority setting and planning. In 2017, MELIA will develop our approach, in collaboration with other CGIAR Research Programs such as Policies, Institutions and Markets and Roots, Tubers and Bananas and in conjunction with research priority setting work in the FTA Management Support Unit.
Ex post impact assessment
MELIA will use and adapt experimental and quasi-experimental methods to assess the impact especially of technical or policy interventions. In 2017, for example, FTA will undertake an ex post impact assessment of the Agroforestry for Food Security Program in Malawi with support from the CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment.
MELIA will continue to develop, test and refine theory-based research evaluation methodology to assess research contributions in complex systems and to build a series of outcome evaluation case studies and a longer-term comparative analysis of cases. In 2017, at least four evaluations will be completed and four new studies will be launched. For example, an outcome evaluation of a gender-specific project focusing on women’s participation in forest management in Uganda will help improve the sensitivity of MELIA tools and strengthen FTA’s theory of gender transformative change in FTA landscapes. MELIA will also explore opportunities for collaboration with CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security(CCAFS) and other partners.
Indicators, monitoring & reporting
This work will support the ongoing development of indicators, indicator frameworks and data collection to support the five Flagships in their reporting of outputs, outcomes and indicators for monitoring and reporting. Overall, this work will foster an impact culture within FTA, help ensure that FTA’s work remains relevant and useful in rapidly changing and complex circumstances, learn lessons from the rich FTA experience and guide ongoing research, engagement and capacity development to maximize effectiveness. In 2017, MELIA will support a FTA-wide work to revise the set of FTA indicators and milestones.
Key outcomes of MELIA’s work in 2017 will be
improved capacity and improved design, monitoring, evaluation and learning (DMEL);
strengthened impact culture within FTA;
stronger empirical evidence of contributions of FTA research; and
better, more transparent estimates of potential impact leading to well-informed strategies and improved donor confidence.
Success from the ground up: Participatory monitoring and forest restoration
Success from the ground up: Participatory monitoring and forest restoration
18 January, 2017
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Authors: Evans, K.; Guariguata, M.R.
New global forest restoration initiatives present an unparalleled opportunity to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation in the coming years. This effort will require the collaboration of stakeholders at all levels, and most importantly, the participation and support of local people. These ambitious restoration initiatives will also require monitoring systems that allow for scalability and adaptability to a range of local sites. This will be essential in understanding how a given restoration effort is progressing, determining why or why not it is succeeding and learning from both its successes and failures. Participatory monitoring could play a crucial role in meeting international monitoring needs. The potential of participatory monitoring in forest restoration and related forest management activities is explored in this review through multiple case studies, experiences, field tests and conceptual discussions. The review seeks to deepen and broaden our understanding of participatory monitoring by teasing out the lessons learned from existing knowledge and mapping a possible path forward, with the aim of improving the outcomes of forest restoration initiatives.
Source: CIFOR Publications
Series: CIFOR Occasional Paper no. 159
Pages: 43p.
Publisher: Bogor, Indonesia, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
COP22 Special: REDD+ monitoring is a technical and political balancing act
COP22 Special: REDD+ monitoring is a technical and political balancing act
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Analysis of the CO2 and H2O levels at Berbak National Park, Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by James Maiden for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
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Monitoring deforestation so countries can track their greenhouse gas emission targets is more than a technical matter of satellite images and data. Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT/CIFOR
By Barbara Fraser, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News
Monitoring deforestation so countries can track their greenhouse gas emission targets might seem like a technical matter of satellite images and data.
But implementing systems for measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of programs aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) has proven much more complicated, says Anne Larson, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
That’s partly because of the many layers of decision-making involved, from international agreements hammered out at global climate summits to national government policies and local government programs for forest-dwelling communities.
“We live in a world of multi-level governance,” says Larson, who will present findings from CIFOR’s research at a side event during the international climate conference (COP22) that kicked off in Marrakesh, Morocco this past Monday (Nov. 7).
“If we want to make a real impact on the ground in addressing climate change by controlling land-use change, we have to figure out how to improve communication and collaboration among those various levels of governance,” she says.
How well national and sub-national governments coordinate with each other—and how well they collaborate with international bodies—varies from place to place.
“We need to understand what is behind collaboration challenges, such as different perspectives on the problem and its solutions, different economic or political interests, or different goals,” Larson says. “And all of this is shaped by power dynamics.”
Monitoring REDD+ has been designed globally, but the systems have to be implemented nationally, and some components probably will have to be handled locally, such as here in the Amazon. Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT/CIFOR
That can make it difficult to implement programs that appear to be straightforward technical solutions.
“MRV for REDD+ has been designed globally, but the systems have to be implemented nationally, and some components probably will have to be handled locally,” Larson says.
This will require a balancing act.
INCREASING TRANSPARENCY
Slowing deforestation and degradation requires good monitoring systems, but must also account for factors such as effective land-use planning, guaranteeing land tenure, and ensuring that local communities share the benefits of REDD+ programs.
While the technical experts who design the systems for measuring, reporting and verifying progress must base their work on unbiased scientific evidence, implementation requires political negotiations that must be transparent and participatory, Larson says.
In Peru, for example, CIFOR research found that government officials sought to centralize data gathering for MRV at the national level, but local and regional government officials also wanted access to the information and a role in decision making.
While the national government’s priority might be data about carbon storage and REDD+, local and regional governments need information for land-use planning. Communities, meanwhile, might be most interested in geo-referencing their boundaries or controlling intrusion by outsiders.
“Sub-national governments may not know what data is being collected and why, who has access to it and how they could use it,” Larson says.
Analysis of the CO2 and H2O levels at Berbak National Park, Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by James Maiden for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
STRENGTHENING SYNERGIES
“The system should be designed from the beginning in the way that is most useful to everyone,” she adds. “It takes a lot of effort to bring the various levels of government together to talk about these things, but it is more effective in the long run.”
Communication and coordination are even more important when indigenous communities are involved, because systems must take cultural characteristics into account.
While MRV systems can be highly technical, the experts who design them must be able to discuss their social and economic implications with policy makers, national and local government officials, and members of civil society groups, Larson says. They also may need to offer training to government officials and representatives of community groups who lack technical experience.
In places like the Amazon basin, which is shared by nine countries, coordination among national governments is also important. In South America, the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization could facilitate such collaboration to “strengthen synergies and minimize overlaps,” she says.
“MRV isn’t just a matter of gathering and mapping data,” Larson says. “It’s crucial to pay attention to the political steps. If REDD+ programs are to be successful, they have to be negotiated through this complex political world.”
Enhancing transparency in the land-use sector: Exploring the role of independent monitoring approaches
Enhancing transparency in the land-use sector: Exploring the role of independent monitoring approaches
07 November, 2016
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There is a need for independent monitoring approaches (i.e. unbiased data, tools and methods) that stakeholders involved in land-use sector mitigation activities can rely on for their own goals, but which would also be perceived as transparent and legitimate by others and support accountability of all stakeholders in the framework of the Paris Agreement
Independent monitoring is not a specific tool, a single system or a one-serves-all approach. It is rather a diversity of approaches and initiatives with the purpose of increasing transparency and broadening stakeholder participation and confidence by providing free and open methods, data, and tools that are complementary to mandated reporting by national governments.
We identify key elements of independent monitoring:
transparency in data sources, definitions, methodologies and assumptions;
free and open methods, data, and tools, which are truly “barrier free” to all stakeholders;
increased participation and accountability of stakeholders;
complementarity to mandated reporting by countries;
promotion of accuracy, consistency, completeness and comparability of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission estimates.
Independent monitoring should be considered an important mechanism for enhancing transparency in the land-use sector. Interested stakeholders can engage and benefit from independent monitoring approaches when starting to implement the Paris Agreement; we provide examples and recommendations as starting points.
Measure it and manage it: Terra-i forest monitoring goes global
Measure it and manage it: Terra-i forest monitoring goes global
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Members of the Terra-i team discuss the Terra-i deforestation monitoring system, which can zoom-in on Latin America's forest to track deforestation in near real-time. Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT
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By Ruben Echeverria, Director General, Center International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
Members of the Terra-i team discuss the Terra-i deforestation monitoring system, which can zoom-in on Latin America’s forest to track deforestation in near real-time. Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT
The Amazon rainforest is often described as the ‘lungs of the Earth’. But the forests of South East Asia and Africa are also vitally important – and among the most at risk. That’s why a deforestation early-warning system that’s proving so successful in Latin America will soon be monitoring all the world’s tropical forests – from space. By combining detailed satellite images with a lot of number crunching, the deforestation monitoring system Terra-i harnesses the power of big data to help protect forests, biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods.
With images updated and scrutinized every 16 days, it can distinguish between recent and historical deforestation back to 2004, giving a frighteningly accurate story of forest clearance. It also enables users to identify the drivers of forest loss – from agriculture to mining, road building, urbanization and more.
Launched in Latin America in 2012, the Government of Peru adopted Terra-i as its official deforestation monitoring system two years later. Since then it has been keeping watch over its share of the Amazon rainforest, and flagging new drivers in 2015. Several countries in Central America are poised to adopt it.
Last year also saw a lot of hard work to prepare for the launch of Terra-i in SE Asia and Africa – a move that means the system will soon be watching over all the world’s tropical forests. In SE Asia, we expect early adopters to be Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – where deforestation rates are among the highest in the world.
The system will also track forest clearance and vegetation change Africa, specifically in the enormously rich, diverse and important Congo Basin.
While some of the images generated by the system can be unnerving, the team behind Terra-I know that when it comes to deforestation, if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it. By giving a clearer idea of where the hotspots are, and what’s likely to be causing them, Terra-i enables governments to develop more robust policies on forest protection.
It can also help them quantify the enormous carbon dioxide emissions generated by forest clearance, meaning they can put a more accurate price on conservation.
The private sector can benefit from Terra-i too, with businesses better able to assess the environmental impact of their activities, which in turn can feed into their corporate social responsibility programs.
These activities go to the heart of the important issues that the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry is committed to tackling.
The expansion of Terra-i to SE Asia and Africa represents a big step towards uniting scientists and policymakers across the tropics behind a common goal: the protection and management one of our most precious and vulnerable resources.
Terra-i is the result of collaboration between CIAT, Kings College London and the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland (HEIG-VD). It is funded by The Nature Conservancy, The World Resources Institute, Global Forest Watch and the CGIAR Research Program on FTA.
Restoration 
Plantations and tree crop commodities 
Enhanced nutrition and food security 
Biodiversity, safeguarding and conservation 
Nationally determined contributions 
Bioenergy and biomaterials 
Blue carbon and peatlands 
Climate change adaptation 
Landscape governance 
Gender 
Silvopastoral systems 
Market-based agroforestry-forestry 
Farm-forest policy interface 
Agroecology 
Livelihood trajectory modelling and assessment 
Inclusive finance and business models 
Innovating finance for sustainable landscapes 
Public and private commitments to zero deforestation 
Orphan tree crops 
Effectiveness of approaches to sustainable supply 
Quality of FTA research for development 
Sentinel landscapes 
Foresight 
Seeds and seedlings delivery systems 
Smallholder tree-crop commodities 
