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  • FTA Highlights Series Launched at GLF Climate/COP26

FTA Highlights Series Launched at GLF Climate/COP26
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Keynote speakers presented on 6 of FTA’s core work domains and how 10 years of research have translated into concrete impact

The first year of the U.N. Decade of Ecosystem Restoration also marks the completion of a 10-year cycle for the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). To celebrate, FTA announced its new series, “FTA Highlights of a Decade, 2011-2021,” during a side event of GLF Climate: Forests, food, finance – Frontiers of Change. The webinar spotlighted FTA’s past achievements and underlined the critical importance of FTA’s research for the future.

“We are very pleased to present our results from the last 10 years, showing the impact that research can have,” said Robert Nasi, Co-Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF). “Our work shows that forests, trees and agroforestry can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, livelihoods and biodiversity.”

DOWNLOAD FINAL AGENDA

Scientists at the digital event on Nov. 5 presented emblematic examples from six of the 18 volumes in the highlights series, which was officially launched the week after. FTA’s work has helped frame current agenda items as outlined in the U.N. Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (IYFV) and most importantly the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), which was concomitant to our webinar.

The full event can be replayed here:




 

Now, at the close of FTA’s decadal studies, the fruits from this labour are becoming clear. Six keynote speakers opened the conference with highlights on:

  1. Seed genetic diversity: ICRAF senior scientist and FTA Flagship 1 Leader, Ramni Jamnadass, spoke on the importance of diverse seeds for effective tree planting projects and landscape restoration, reminding the audience that “a mighty tree starts from a seed. If you put garbage in, you get garbage out.” Such diversity is particularly important to fit the needs of smallholders and support adaptation to climate change.
    Volume to be released
  2. Trees on farms (TonF): Over the past decade, FTA engaged in numerous agroforestry initiatives to improve livelihoods and the environment. Eduardo Somarriba, the FTA focal point from CATIE, presented a relevant case from Honduras, where “living tree fences” are used to pen livestock and encourage rotational grazing. Scaling up these fences created with trees could improve the ecosystem and livelihoods for farmers who could use the trees’ resources for additional income generation while contributing to climate change mitigation.
    Volume to be released
  3. REDD+: FTA has conducted comparative research in more than 22 countries with the intent of providing evidence-based knowledge and tools for countries to better measure and monitor their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These programs “allow country partners to develop efficient, equitable and effective policies and practices,” said CIFOR senior scientist and FTA-Flagship-5 Leader, Christopher Martius.
    Volume 11 available here!
  4. Value chains: Scaling up sustainable value chains and certification schemes can create new problems for smallholders if they do not have equitable access to resources, noted Bas Louman, the FTA focal point from Tropenbos International (TBI). To better understand these relationships, “we propose a systems approach linking landscapes to value chains and not looking just at landscapes or value chains,” he said.
    Volume 10 available here!
  5. Gender and social inclusion: Successful landscape initiatives must also work for women, said Marlène Elias, the FTA Gender focal point from the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT. Over the last decade, FTA’s work has had incredible impact, proving that effective and sustainable landscape management can support social inclusion. “The innovations that we propose aim to lift the barriers in forestry and agroforestry landscapes,” said Elias, so that women, Indigenous Peoples and other minority groups have equitable access to resources, assets, income and decision-making power.
    Volume 15 available here!
  6. Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR): CIFOR senior scientist, Manuel Guariguata, acknowledged that FLR is about more than just tree planting. Rather than being a goal, FLR is a means to achieve many goals that optimize ecosystem functions along the forest transition curve. Landscape restoration also implies multistakeholder collaboration at every stage. These understandings are summarized in the six principles of FLR.
    Volume 4 available here!

The introduction to the series, as well as the volumes on tree biodiversity conservation, wild meat and monitoring & evaluation are also available. More will be published in the coming weeks.

Following these interventions, the audience was asked which types of forest and tree-based innovations were most important for the future. The poll results showed that 45.7% of respondents felt more should be done to improve social inclusion (including poverty eradication) through forest and tree-based initiatives.

Next, a panel of stakeholders at the national and international level discussed how FTA’s decade of research could light the way forward. The distinguished line-up included Malanding Jaiteh, advisor to the Minister of Environment of The Gambia. “Much of what we are trying to do [in The Gambia] is to raise people’s livelihood systems by promoting the development of natural-resource-based enterprises,” said Jaiteh. He explained that the Ministry needs expert knowledge about tree diversity and seed quality to implement projects that are socioeconomically feasible and sustainable. Research from FTA scientists helps fill these gaps.

Li Yanxia, FTA-management-team member from the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization (INBAR), further highlighted three unique benefits that INBAR has received from the organization’s partnership with FTA: its unique focus on development, its capacity-building support and its platform for knowledge exchange. The Head of Embrapa Forestry, Brazil, Erich Schaitza, similarly shared how FTA facilitates his organization’s work. “FTA’s goals match very much with ours,” he said. “Working with them is a good opportunity to have our voices heard and to learn from other countries in the network.”

Natural rubber-producing countries also stand to benefit from FTA’s knowledge. “We have worked very closely with FTA since June 2020 to study how we can adapt natural rubber plantations to climate change,” said Salvatore Pinizzotto, the Secretary General for the International Rubber Study Group (IRSG).

The partnership will also be hosting its final event, “10 Years of FTA Research for People and the Planet,” on Dec. 9. Join us!

FINAL EVENT REGISTRATION

SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS

  1. Rober Nasi opening speech
  2. Effective Tree Seed Systems – Ramni Jamnadass & Lars Gaudal
  3. Trees on Farms (TonF) for livelihoods and the environment – Eduardo Somarriba, Arlene López-Sampson, Norvin Sepúlveda, Edwin Garcia, Fergus Sinclair
  4. REDD+: fighting climate change with forest science Assessing ten years of REDD+ research – Christopher Martius (CIFOR) Amy Duchelle (CIFOR, FAO)
  5. Gender and social inclusion – Marlène Elias
  6. Forest and Landscape Restoration – Manuel R. Guariguata

BROWSE ALL THE FTA HIGHLIGHTS

Visit the main portal here

  1. Introduction: Ten Years of Forests, Trees and Agroforestry Research in Partnership for Sustainable Development
  2. Tree Seed and Seedling Systems for Resilience and Productivity (COMING SOON!)
  3. Conservation of Tree Biodiversity and Sustainable Forest Management
  4. Forest and Landscape Restoration
  5. Food Security and Nutrition
  6. Wild Meat
  7. Trees on Farms to Improve Livelihoods and the Environment (COMING SOON!)
  8. Biomass, Bioenergy and Biomaterials (COMING SOON!)
  9. Improving Rural Livelihoods Through Supporting Local Innovation at Scale (COMING SOON!)
  10. Sustainable Value Chains, Finance and Investment in Forestry and Tree Commodities
  11. REDD+: Combating Climate Change with Forest Science
  12. Adaptation to Climate Change, with Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (COMING SOON!)
  13. Multi-Functional Landscapes for Sustainable Development (COMING SOON!)
  14. Governing Forests, Trees and Agroforestry Landscapes for Delivering on the SDGs (COMING SOON!)
  15. Advancing Gender Equality and Social Inclusion
  16. Capacity Development (COMING SOON!)
  17. Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessment
  18. The Way Forward (COMING SOON!)

This article was written by Daniella Silva.

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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  • FTA Highlight No. 15 — Advancing gender equality and social inclusion

FTA Highlight No. 15 — Advancing gender equality and social inclusion
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Over the course of its 10 years of research, FTA has shown that effective management of forests, trees and agroforestry systems can help address gender inequalities and support social inclusion and sustainable landscapes. FTA research focuses on the dynamics of forest-dependent people and the power norms that affect decision-making and benefits.

Advancing gender equality has proven positive effects on the estimated 1.6 billion people in the world who live in or near forests.

As part of “FTA’s highlights of a decade,” a new series focusing on the program’s main results since its inception in 2011, FTA is now publishing the volume on Advancing gender equality and social inclusion.

Download the FTA Highlight No.15! [PDF]

The FTA program has a key focus on policies, institutions and governance. Gender inequalities present structural barriers to the change that is needed to support sustainable and equitable development solutions in landscapes and along value chains. In many of the contexts where FTA works, youth and women do not share equally in the benefits that treed landscapes offer.

In addition to conducting research specifically on gender and on women’s and men’s empowerment, FTA has mainstreamed gender throughout its research portfolio, aiming to make transformative change at multiple scales, from the local to the global level.

This highlight volume outlines FTA’s achievements in this area, including extensive information on gender in relation to forest, land, and tree tenure and governance.

Based on FTA’s Gender Strategy, gender research and action is characterized by two mutually supportive strands of work.

Using this approach, FTA seeks to effect changes in five ways:

  1. create accessible tools and resource materials for integrating gender in project design;
  2. strengthen capacities for gender analysis and research through workshops and training;
  3. establish a Gender Research Fellowship Program;
  4. position gender research within the Flagship Programs; and
  5. hold interdisciplinary dialogues within FTA.

Tools and resources to integrate gender have positioned FTA as a knowledge broker on gender in natural resources management for policymakers, practitioners, academics and students. FTA’s gender team has delivered capacity-strengthening training to FTA scientists, partners and other stakeholders.

Research in the context of the Gender Fellowship programme studied a range of issues and spread learning across the FTA portfolio.

Interdisciplinary dialogues helped ground gender research in specific forest, tree and agroforestry issues. FTA has shared this learning process with other development and environmental organizations who seek to meaningfully integrate gender.

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  • A Feminist approach to Restoration - Interview with Marlène Elias

A Feminist approach to Restoration – Interview with Marlène Elias

Marlène Elias, FTA Gender focal point being interviewed on Zoom
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Land degradation costs the global economy up to USD 10 trillion per year – or around 17 percent of gross world product. World leaders have recognized the problem and are now turning their attention to restoring the Earth’s degraded and deforested landscapes. The U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which launched in June and will run through 2030, will ramp up efforts to combat land degradation across the globe.

But although the Decade will be driven by the latest biophysical science, a team of scientists has argued that policymakers need to pay greater attention to social and political considerations as well.

In a special issue of Ecological Restoration titled “Restoration for whom, by whom: Exploring the socio-political dimensions of restoration”, the scientists make the case for exploring these dimensions through the lens of feminist political ecology. The issue, reported on by IFPRI, The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, EurekAlert! and also picked up by Mongabay, features 11 studies examining the issues of equity and inclusion in ecological restoration.

We recently spoke with Marlène Elias, FTA’s Coordinator of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion who was co-guest editor of the special issue. Together with Deepa Joshi and Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Marlène is also authoring the introductory Perspective “A Feminist Political Ecology of Restoration” contained in the Special Issue.

Enjoy!

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In this important new article, you and your colleagues speak about “social and political dimensions of restoration.” Could you explain what you mean in simple terms?

We’re essentially talking about the politics, the power relations and the social relations that underpin restoration.

Often, because restoration is a field dominated by the natural sciences, it focuses more on the ecological aspects. What we’re trying to do is center people in that field. There have been several efforts to do that, but they often focus on the economic aspects, or they speak about participation and stakeholder engagement without really engaging with the power, politics and relational aspects of restoration. So, that’s what we’re trying to bring to the fore.

Woman working on her plot of land, Riau Province, Indonesia.
Photo by Aris Sanjaya/CIFOR

Can you give any examples, either positive or negative? Are there any correlations you would like to underline?

If we ignore power relations around who captures the benefits and plan interventions without thinking carefully about how resources are allocated and who participates in restoration projects, we run the risk of elite capture.

For example, one of the papers in the special issue talks about farmer-managed natural regeneration, and how interventions may ultimately benefit village chiefs and founding lineages the most, as they tend to have more privileged rights to land. So, it’s important to carry out a careful analysis of tenure and power relations among community members to prevent this elite capture.

The same goes for gender relations. If you’re not looking carefully at how labor is allocated within households, and you ask households to be in charge of providing labor for restoration, particularly unremunerated labor, then women could end up putting in labor without benefiting from it. The benefits might instead be directed to heads of household, who tend to be predominantly men in most of the contexts we work in.

So, if you don’t consider power relations and the norms that distribute labor and decision-making rights and responsibilities, and the distribution of benefits, you will run into skewed outcomes where the costs and benefits of restoration are not equitably distributed.

Restoration is one of the key FTA research domains, we have been working on those issues and developing innovations since day 1. For example, we recently released an options-by-context typology for people-centred nature-based land restoration through agroforestry. This typology can help linking knowledge with action in people-centric restoration in which all actors are brought to the table sharing responsibilities and roles. At the end of the day, empowerment of resource users and managers, including within multi-stakeholder processes,  is the key component to successful restoration practices.

 

You use the term ‘feminist political ecology perspective.’ Why have you defined it as ‘feminist’, and what are the linkages to the historical feminist movement? How does it differ from mainstream ecological approaches?

Feminism has been linked to natural resource management issues in the past, and essentially centers the discourse on equality and equity issues. That’s precisely what we’re trying to do here. Specifically, feminist political ecology has many different dimensions, but we refer to three key dimensions that help us push our thinking forward in terms of how we conceptualize and practice restoration.

We mention the importance of thinking through power relations and also of looking at those relations at various scales to contexualize what’s happening from the local level to political and economic contexts and structures. We’re also really stressing the importance of taking that analysis and putting it in a historical perspective: what happens now is not detached from a historical trajectory in terms of power relations and political and economic contexts; and it has to be understood within that trajectory.

 

Restoration is inherently context-specific, but the points raised in your paper are universal as they deal with human rights. How can we reconcile that? Should we suggest that everyone should taking a feminist stance, or should we tailor our approach to the context?

What we’re proposing is more in line with a reflexive practice of restoration. We’re not saying that it will look the same when applied in different contexts, but we’re saying that the issues we raise do matter across the board. Thinking about power relations, scale and historical trajectories matters in any context. But how they will look once you carry out an analysis and engage with those issues is going to be contextually specific. I don’t think there’s necessarily a tension there; it’s really about applying that thinking in a reflexive and contextually-specific way.

 

What should you do when social norms are hindering or don’t comply with a feminist FLR approach? When would you advocate for a top-down approach (policies, laws, etc.) versus a bottom-up approach (e.g. knowledge, information, behavioral change)?

Change is usually a function of both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Big change is often initiated from people coming together, organizing and calling for change, which policy change then supports and reinforces. It’s not a linear process – it’s very iterative, so ideally, change should be supported through both approaches.

What we really try to emphasize in the special issue is that it shouldn’t be only a global agenda that dictates what happens on the ground. Instead, the agenda should be set by the priorities and aspirations of people who are directly engaging with and impacted by restoration. That’s where context specificity really matters. So, it’s about policies supporting self-directed change and creating an enabling environment to allow that self-directed change to thrive.

Restoration can improve but also pose risks to rural women’s livelihoods. Farmer in a manioc field, Lukolela, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

Do you think this paper fills a void in the current global discussion in FLR? What do you hope to achieve with the release of this special issue?

Yes, what’s exciting about the issue is that it’s brought so many people together around it. We’ve continued collaborating after this issue, so we’ve now produced an article that’s under consideration in another journal that looks at 10 people-centered rules for socially sustainable restoration. It essentially takes key learnings from across the special issue papers and organizes them as a set of actionable principles for restoration in terms of centering it on people and on the human and socio-political aspects of restoration.

So, that’s been quite exciting, and I hope that the combination of the special issue, the paper and all of the communications and outreach around them will have an impact. It comes just after the launch of the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which we’re trying to contribute to with the timing of this special issue. It’s been in the works for two years, but having it come out now is quite exciting. We’re hoping that it can be picked up and can contribute to the ongoing discourses and debates around restoration, many of which are now better integrating human and social considerations than in the past.

But as we point out in this special issue and subsequent paper: it’s not easy. It’s very complex; it’s very messy, and there are several reasons why it hasn’t been done in a systematic way. But there are definitely efforts made in that direction. We have to view all of these contributions and steps along a bigger trajectory, but we hope that it pushes us along.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

This special issue and paper go beyond just thinking about restoration. They apply to everything we work on at FTA: the thinking and the approach can be applied more generally to natural resource management and to working in forestry and agroforestry landscapes. So, the hope is that it will also feed back into other discussions that are relevant to FTA and all those working in that area.

 

Revised by Ming Chun Tang

The special issue on ‘Restoration for whom, by whom: Exploring the socio-political dimensions of restoration’ is a collaborative initiative conducted under the umbrella of the CGIAR Research Programs on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry; Policies, Institutions, and Markets; and Water, Land and Ecosystems.

 

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  • FTA's new Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Agenda and Action Plan 2020-2021

FTA’s new Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Agenda and Action Plan 2020-2021

At a food fair in Luwingu, Zambia, in April 2017, women display items they regularly forage and cultivate.
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A Revised Research Agenda and Action Plan 2020-2021 for FTA on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion has just been released

Since its very beginning in 2011, gender and social inclusion have been a core area of research and action for the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).

Gender equality is a human right and a necessary condition for reaching sustainable development worldwide. Significant inequalities based on gender and other types of discrimination affect who has voice and can influence, and who benefits or suffers losses in rapidly transforming forest, tree and agroforestry landscapes. While being fundamentally unjust, these inequalities also have the undesirable side effect to hamper the achievement of fundamental development and environmental outcomes, such as the Sustainable Development Goals.

The first phase of FTA (2011-2015) had a robust institutional architecture in place for gender mainstreaming. The FTA Gender Strategy produced in 2013 was one of the first to be approved by the Independent Science and Partnership Council and the Consortium office. As FTA’s research agenda has evolved over time, so too has the program’s portfolio of gender and social inclusion research, to address emerging global challenges and reflect the latest thinking and innovations in the field.

The new FTA Gender Research and Action Plan 2020-2021 [pdf]
The revised version of this strategy, called Gender Equality and Social Inclusion – A Revised Agenda and Action Plan for the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry 2020-2021 draws on the program’s tradition of quality gender research and its experience strengthening gender integration across program activities and processes. Building on and complementing its original efforts and strategy, FTA continues to view gender integration in research as a fundamental part of doing good science (European Commission 2011), and approaches gender as a theme that cuts across every aspect of the FTA research portfolio.

FTA’s revised agenda and action plan lays out a transformative approach that actively addresses structural barriers and schemes that (re)produce gender inequalities. The aim is a deep, lasting and pervasive transition that moves beyond individual women’s self-improvement toward more equal power dynamics and structures that affect men’s and women’s capacities to:

  1. control assets and resources;
  2. value and distribute unremunerated labor; and
  3. meaningfully participate in decision making at the household and community levels and beyond.

From a normative perspective, FTA recognizes gender equality as an inherent human right. This means that FTA advances gender equality throughout its portfolio for its intrinsic rather than merely instrumental value: equality is not seen primarily as a mechanism to deliver greater impact, but as an essential and indivisible condition for all human beings.

In the new research agenda and action plan, there is also an explicit commitment to adopting an intersectionality lens to analyze how gender intersects with other factors of social differentiation, such as age or generation, socioeconomic status or ethnicity. This allows FTA to shine a light on and work more comprehensively on other forms of marginalization that all together shape livelihood and resource management decisions, governance and dramatically determine the inequitable distribution of benefits from tree-based systems. In this regard, the research program gives renewed attention to the aspirations and livelihoods of youth in forest, tree and agroforestry systems.

The Revised Research Agenda and Action Plan is characterized by two main, mutually supportive strands of work. The first strand focuses on knowledge generation and delivering quality gender, social inclusion and youth research, and the second on strengthening gender integration along FTA’s impact pathways, including how the program engages with a wide range of stakeholders.

Theory of change of gender integration in FTA

Broken down in main points, this Revised Research Agenda and Action Plan will enable FTA to:

  • Lay out the pathways through which FTA contributes to the CGIAR’s efforts to achieve the Intermediate Development Outcome (IDO) ‘Equity and inclusion achieved (gender and youth)’;
  • Generate an empirical evidence base on the structural barriers that (re)produce gender inequalities in forest and agroforestry landscapes and develop innovations to transform discriminatory structures and norms;
  • Strengthen capacities for delivering a high volume of quality, impactful research that will foster gender equality as well as other sought FTA outcomes;
  • Build partnerships to mainstream gender in processes (e.g. around restoration, climate change or inclusive business models) and multilateral environmental agreements and agendas (e.g. Rio Conventions) of concern to FTA.

This refocused Revised Research Agenda and Action Plan offers new opportunities for framing transformative and impactful research to enable change toward more equitable and sustainable forest, tree and agroforestry systems.

FTA hopes that it will inspire other research programs in constructing their social and gender inclusiveness strategy.

 

References

European Commission. 2011. Toolkit: Gender in EU-funded research. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

 

Written by Marène Elias and Ana Maria Paez Valencia from the FTA Gender cross-cutting theme. The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (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, ICRAF, INBAR and TBI.

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  • FTA at GLF Nairobi: Faith in trees restored  

FTA at GLF Nairobi: Faith in trees restored  
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A plenary takes place at the Global Landscapes Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. Photo by GLF

The most recent Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) conference, focusing on restoration in Africa, was attended by 800 people from the worlds of research, natural resource management and the private sector, and watched by thousands more online. 

The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) played key roles in the event, which was held in Nairobi, Kenya, on Aug. 29-30, including as a funding partner. With restoration a major priority of FTA’s work, the program hosted or cohosted two Discussion Forums and a side event, while its partner institutions hosted two Launchpads.

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Director General Robert Nasi gave a keynote speech during the Opening Plenary in which he queried why the massive cost to society of landscape degradation is not recognized when restoration brings impressive returns. The cost of inaction is at least three times the cost of active ecosystem restoration, and on average the benefits of restoration are 10 times higher, leading to increased employment, increased business spending, improved gender equity, increased local investment in education and improved livelihoods.

Ecosystem restoration can generate tangible benefits, which will increase food and water security, contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and contribute to addressing associated risks such as conflict and migration. Short-term gains from unsustainable land management often turn into long-term losses, making the initial avoidance of land degradation an optimal and cost-effective strategy.

We need a paradigm change: from seeing landscape restoration as a high-cost activity with no financial returns to land owners and only environmental benefits, to one which provides increased incomes to landowners, creates jobs, and results in ecosystem goods and services for society as a whole, Nasi said.

Watch: Robert Nasi’s opening remarks at GLF Nairobi 2018

Following the opening remarks, the afternoon of the event’s first day saw Social inclusion, equity and rights in the context of restoration – lessons from the ground, a discussion addressing restoration initiatives in different environmental and sociopolitical landscapes. Safeguarding the rights of local communities and promoting the voice and influence of their members in an equitable manner must be central in restoration to avoid perpetuating inequalities, to incentivize women and men to contribute to restoration efforts, and to provide greater opportunities and enhanced wellbeing for women and men alike, the session found.

The discussion aimed to extract, share and discuss concrete actions and conditions that have hindered or facilitated success in terms of rights, equality and wellbeing of local and indigenous women and men. It featured three different restoration initiatives from East Africa, as well as providing guidance on how to integrate robust socioeconomic targets and indicators in national and global restoration efforts.

Read also: Gender matters in Forest Landscape Restoration: A framework for design and evaluation




Watch: Discussion Forum 5: Social inclusion, equity and rights in the context of restoration

The session was hosted by CIFOR with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Bioversity International, FTA, the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE), International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), World Resources Institute (WRI), UN Environment, Program on Forests (PROFOR), Komaza and Vi Agroforestry.

Among the panel of notable speakers were FTA gender coordinator Marlène Elias of Bioversity International, and Cecile Ndjebet, president of the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF).

Read also: Woman on a mission: Pushing for rights and a seat at the decision-making table

During the same timeslot, a Launchpad session presented the key products and outcomes of a prototype of the Eastern Africa Forest Observatory (OFESA) to policymakers, practitioners and the general public.

Hosted by CIFOR, Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) and the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), speakers presented products including the observatory’s website and capabilities, a State of Forests report for the region covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique, as well as recommendations for the longer term sustainability of the observatory.

OFESA was developed in response to the significant loss of forests experienced in the region with negative impacts on forest goods and services and local livelihoods. Many factors driving forest cover loss are transboundary in nature, resulting in the need to monitor at a regional scale to ensure sustainable forest management and conservation.

However, the existing forest monitoring systems and initiatives are divergent, varying in scale, frequency and the type of data gathered, thus challenging forest monitoring at a regional scale. The regional forest observatory therefore provides member countries with a platform for sharing, exchanging and accessing data and information related to forests and REDD+ in support of decision-making processes by governments and other actors.

The observatory has data and information on forest cover trends and drivers that countries can use to track progress towards achieving restoration targets under the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and other initiatives such as Forests 2020.

Read more: The Current State of Eastern Africa’s Forests

A figure overlooks an agricultural landscape in Eastern Uganda. Photo by M. Lohbeck/ICRAF

Directly afterwards, in the early evening, was Rights, access and values: Trees in shifting economic and political contexts – new insights from sub-Saharan Africa, hosted by FTA and the CGIAR Research Program on People, Institutions and Markets (PIM).

This session, with four cases from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Kenya and Uganda, initiated a discussion on the dynamics of securing rights to trees by harnessing the values of trees through changing access to technologies, markets and finance in Sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to improve knowledge of tree tenure dynamics and increase recognition of the value of trees on farms to different users.

Improved recognition of the values of, and rights to, trees in land use decision-making and related policies and programs may provide an innovative pathway to sustain forested landscapes without recourse to costly restoration activities, but suboptimal tenure rules may jeopardize this, the session concluded.

Read more: GLF session acknowledges difference between tree and land tenure, aims to enhance landscapes

Held simultaneously was Sustainable woodfuel value chains in sub-Saharan Africa – policies, practices and solutions contributing to the continent’s restoration agenda, a side event organized by CIFOR with ICRAF, Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit – GIZ, UN Environment, Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), FTA and the European Union.

Woodfuel is the main cooking fuel for over 60 percent of households in Africa, which is expected to increase in coming decades, due to a lack of alternative household energy and growing charcoal demand in urban centers. The commercialization of woodfuel provides income to millions of people but is increasingly associated with detrimental impacts on the environment as supply basins in many countries are becoming severely degraded.

The side event explored how woodfuel value chains can be made sustainable and ultimately contribute to landscape restoration, livelihoods improvement and broader national climate change commitments, while balancing short-term socioeconomic and long-term ecological benefits.

The discussions focused on good practices and innovations for sustainable woodfuel value chains that can help to mitigate against deforestation and landscape degradation whilst enhancing livelihoods of producers and traders, with a specific emphasis on the important role of women in the value chain and how to increase gender equity.

The lineup of speakers included CIFOR’s Director General Robert Nasi on woodfuel as a sustainable energy source or driver of degradation, and ICRAF’s Phosiso Sola on the realities of woodfuel governance in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read more: Small flame but no fire: Wood fuel in the (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

FTA was represented a final time on the second day of the event with a second Launchpad, Trees for Seeds, a foundation for resilient restoration, hosted by Bioversity International. With around 12 percent, or 2 billion hectares, of the earth’s land surface currently degraded, the annual cost of degraded lands reaches 10 percent of global gross domestic product. The potential societal benefits of restoring degraded land are in the order of US$84 billion per year, a comparison that the session drew upon.




Watch: Launchpad: Trees for Seeds, a foundation for resilient restoration

Restoration of degraded tropical forest landscapes offer some of the greatest returns on investment, to address climate change, reduce poverty and food insecurity and support biodiversity. To deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), optimal restoration approaches are vital and the link between knowledge of native tree diversity and appropriate use to address SDGs in currently lacking. This represents a significant gap in capacity to enable scaling up forest landscape restoration (FLR) pledges from the Bonn Challenges to deliver multiple SDGs through restoration of degraded lands.

The Launchpad presented Bioversity International’s Trees for Seeds initiative, with Marius Ekue examining the current gaps in capacity and knowledge on delivery of native tree species relevant to AFR100 and introducing how Trees for Seeds can support resilient restoration in the region, Barbara Vinceti covering nutrition-sensitive restoration in Burkina Faso and Marlène Elias with gender-responsive FLR and novel approaches to ensure equality in FLR decision-making, before a panel discussion.

Rounding out the event, ICRAF Director General Tony Simons spoke during the Policy Plenary, before CIFOR’s Nasi spoke during the Closing Plenary. Highlighting its success, Nasi emphasized the number of people in attendance in person at the event, as well as a significant reach online.

“We have discussed about restoration, […] social innovation, rights, tenure, gender, monitoring, what is success, how to finance success, what we need to do in terms of policy. We had a very inspirational contribution by young people, the youth. We have done a lot of networking,” he said, adding that there was a “dynamism” evident throughout the event.

Over its two days of talks, GLF Nairobi helped to build and align international, national and private sector support for forest and landscape restoration, paving the way for turning support into action. Bringing together actors from all backgrounds and sectors, the conference has sparked a global conversation around Africa’s landscapes.

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  • Social inclusion, equity and rights in the context of restoration – lessons from the ground

Social inclusion, equity and rights in the context of restoration – lessons from the ground

10 September, 2018
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM



Restoration initiatives come in many sizes and shapes and take place in different environmental and socio-political landscapes. Evidence and experiences have shown that safeguarding the rights of local communities and promoting the voice and influence of their members in an equitable manner must be central in restoration to avoid perpetuating inequalities, to incentivize women and men to contribute to restoration efforts and to provide greater opportunities and enhanced wellbeing for women and men alike.

The objective of this interactive discussion forum is to extract, share and discuss concrete actions and conditions that have hindered or facilitated success in terms of rights, equality and wellbeing of local and indigenous women and men. The forum will feature three different restoration initiatives from East Africa, each presented by a restoration expert with practical experience from the field, followed by interaction with participants. The discussion will also sow the seeds for building an empirically grounded framework for understanding progress – or regression – in terms of equality and inclusion in the context of forest and landscape restoration, and provide guidance on how to integrate robust socioeconomic targets and indicators in national and global restoration efforts.

This video was originally published by the Global Landscapes Forum.

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  • Strengthening social inclusion within oil palm contract farming in the Brazilian Amazon

Strengthening social inclusion within oil palm contract farming in the Brazilian Amazon

29 March, 2018
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
  • Despite its promotion of contract farming (widely considered to be a relatively pro-poor approach to agribusiness expansion), Brazil’s Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program (SPOPP) cannot be considered to be an inclusive development program in its current format. Findings suggest that land- and labor-constrained households are more likely to be excluded from contract farming under this program than other households.
  • Viable options to strengthen inclusivity within the program include permitting smallholders to develop smaller plantations, promoting intercropping and reducing barriers that currently prevent smallholders under the scheme from engaging external laborers.
  • Despite civil society concerns that contract farming could result in smallholders abandoning staple food crop production to focus only on oil palm, there is no evidence to date that contract farming under the SPOPP scheme has exacerbated smallholder food insecurity.
  • Results suggest that while smallholder performance ranges widely, from highly productive farms to near abandonment of oil palm plots, the majority of smallholders involved in the scheme have been unable to meet the performance expectations of oil palm companies.
  • To increase the likelihood of success amongst the 12% of smallholders at highest risk of credit default, additional support should be provided, for example in the form of targeted capacity-building initiatives or enabling management outsourcing arrangements where successful smallholders take over plantation management through production sharing arrangements.

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  • Gender equality and social inclusion in forestry and agroforestry

Gender equality and social inclusion in forestry and agroforestry

16 December, 2017
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM



Both women and men can depend on forests, agroforestry and trees for their livelihoods, and play a critical role in managing them. However, there are significant inequalities in roles, rights and responsibilities among women and men in rural areas. These inequalities are reflected in the ways in which women and men participate in decision-making, benefit from forest and tree resources, and experience changes in forest and tree-based landscapes. The forestry and agroforestry sector has much to contribute to addressing inequalities between women and men, and empowering disadvantaged women and men in ways that contribute to sustainable rural landscapes. This video explains how FTA is tackling this challenge head on.

Originally published by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Produced by CIFOR as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), which is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors. 

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  • Gender equity and social inclusion in joint forest management: Lessons from two Indian states

Gender equity and social inclusion in joint forest management: Lessons from two Indian states

23 November, 2017
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

This brief focuses on gender equity and social inclusion in India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme; one of the first and largest initiatives for collaborative forest governance worldwide.

In JFM, the state, represented by the Forest Department (FD), and the village community share responsibilities and benefits of jointly protecting and managing forests adjoining villages. The agreement is operationalized through JFM Committees (JFMCs) – referred to as Village Forest Committees (VFCs) in some states – where elected community representatives and a FD official make forest-related decisions in a supposedly collaborative manner. In an effort to promote gender equity and social inclusion, seats are reserved on these committees for women and marginalized groups, such as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Schedule Tribes (STs). Yet, despite reservations, the ability of these groups to actively engage in JFM processes remains limited.

The brief addresses two primary questions: 1) Do local people perceive JFM, as implemented in two Indian landscapes, as equitable and inclusive?; 2) How can gender equity and social inclusion be improved in India’s JFM Program? The research shows continued social exclusions from JFM processes on the basis of gender and ethnicity. Gender and ethnicity do not operate independently of each other to influence active participation in JFM. Participation is shaped at the intersection of gender and ethnicity, such that women and men from different ethnic groups have distinct experiences with JFM. These findings underscore the need to reframe the issue of ‘women’s participation’ to capture inequalities among women from different ethnic groups. Recommendations for enhancing gender equality and social inclusion in JFM are provided.

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