The Future of Our Forests Workshop: Next Steps
The final part of this series on the consensus-building workshop organised by CSEI & the Biodiversity Collaborative focuses on the current knowledge and capacity gaps.
Parts 1 and 2 covered the takeaways of the main sessions that took place at the two-day The Future of Our Forests consensus-building workshop on lantana removal and ecological restoration. We shared common ground on the scale of the problem and how we could go about tackling the different nuts and bolts, from removal methods to financing mechanisms — all of which are key to finding a way forward that is sustainable and effective.
Now that there was a shared sense of what needs to be prioritised under these broad categories of issues, we needed to end the workshop by honing in on critical next steps. The final session was divided into five themes — science, innovation, money, institutions and policy. We discussed the current gaps and requirements across these broad themes.
Read | Part 1: The Problem and Part 2: How Do We Fix It
The workshop established that the scientific basis of current restoration can be improved. In this final blog post, we also outline a research agenda for removal of lantana and ecological restoration across India.
Session 5: If Active Ecological Restoration Is The Way Forward, What Are The Critical Next Steps?
Science: What additional scientific evidence is needed?
There was consensus among all participants that there are still knowledge gaps on carbon, soil microbiota and hydrology that must be addressed by 2030.
Innovation: What technology innovations are needed?
- Technology innovations are required in adapting existing machinery to remove lantana at scale while minimising disturbance to the soil and native species.
- Extensive mapping of lantana-invaded landscapes is required to be done using satellite images. Drones can be used to plan and monitor the lantana removal and ecological restoration.
Money: What financing instruments are needed?
- Blended financing models that combine government, philanthropic (including CSR) and market led financing must be explored.
- From a private capital perspective, carbon financing for restoration should be explored.
Institutions: What institutions are needed?
- Institutions must be carefully designed; especially considering the frequent violation of the Forest Rights Act in many areas.
- Institutions will vary from place to place; setting up a multi stakeholder committee from the initial stages of restoration including planning would be a good approach.
- Discussions with community leaders to actively involve them should be taken up in restoration sites.
Policies: What supporting policies are needed?
Policies are to be influenced at the state-level first. If 3–4 states adopt visible steps forward, then it will become easier to influence policies at the national level.
A Future Research Agenda
Current action on lantana is constrained by a lack of clarity on the science as well as efficacy and safety of implementation practices. The two-day workshop shone the spotlight on these gaps and helped us put together a list of priorities. The summary below will be detailed in a research agenda that we will publish separately.
Mapping
Lantana’s spread is different across different landscapes and ecological conditions.
This means we need a clear understanding of typologies of lantana invasion, how it is projected to grow over the next decade and map which regions need to be prioritised.
Experts were also in agreement that it is important to understand land ownership type as the experiences, costs and social benefits of lantana removal inside protected areas (where the forest departments focus on ecological benefits and communities focus on non-timber forest produce (NTFPs)) and forest fringe villages (where the communities interest lies in fodder, fuel and farming) are very different.
Basic Science
The workshop established that the scientific basis of current restoration projects can be improved. There is still a lot that we simply don’t know. What is the impact on soils, in terms of nutrient content and water, if we were to remove lantana en masse? How does lantana respond to fire, i.e. can a carefully-controlled cool-season fire destroy most of the lantana seeds in the seed bank, clearing the way for native vegetation? How have communities adapted to the widespread presence of lantana?
Documenting how communities feel about ecological restoration across a range of landscapes is critical to inform effective and scalable restoration programmes.
Moreover, given that climate financing may be a potential source of funding for lantana removal and ecological restoration, it is also necessary to look into the net carbon impact of restoration work in the 5 to 10-year time frame, especially when dense thickets of lantana are removed.
Implementation
We need investment in ‘implementation science’ reports that facilitate two-way dialogue between science and restoration practice. Currently, there are many problems with the way we are studying the subject and taking action. For one, scientific knowledge is fragmented across different scientific communities or disciplines that study different aspects of lantana invasion, removal and subsequent ecological restoration. Secondly, many studies do not account for confounding factors found under rapidly-evolving field conditions, so solutions that work in plot level experiments don’t work as intended in field conditions. Third, when interventions don’t work as anticipated, the insights from real-world implementation never feed back into scientific inquiry — there is no feedback cycle of learning.
Based on the interviews and workshop discussions, we will start working on ‘implementation science’ reports.
To begin with, we propose the following:
- A lantana removal and ecological restoration guidebook documenting the current state of the science
- Protocols for ‘living labs’ approaches for restoration in Protected Areas
- A report on the knowledge of communities based on in-depth interviews
- Case studies of lantana removal: best practices and lessons learnt from failures
- A multi-capital framework for blended financing
In the coming weeks, we also plan to organise a follow-up webinar focused on financing as well as a monitoring and evaluation framework.
This three-part summary collated by CSEI’s Veena Srinivasan, Karishma Shelar, Syamkrishna P. Aryan and Sandeep Hanchanale; and the Biodiversity Collaborative’s Ravi Chellam (Metastring Foundation) is based on discussions held at the workshop.
Other participants were Subhash Gautam, The Real Elephant Collective; Ishan Agarwal, Foundation for Ecological Security; Srinivas Rachakonda, Prakruthi Prerna Foundation; Ruth Defries, Columbia University; Siddappa Setty, ATREE; Jagdish Krishnaswamy (Biodiversity Collaborative), Indian Institute for Human Settlements; Ravikanth G (Biodiversity Collaborative), ATREE; Ravindra (Karnataka Forest Department), Abi Vanak (Biodiversity Collaborative), ATREE; Sheeba Sen, Hasten Ventures; AK Gupta (Biodiversity Collaborative), University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology; and Aunindo Ghosh (Biodiversity Collaborative).
Edited by Kaavya Kumar
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