Publications

Restoring African Drylands

At the beginning of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, this 60th issue of ETFRN News is very timely, reflecting a focus on drylands that cover some 40% of the world’s land area and contain some of the most severely degraded landscapes on Earth. They are also home to a third of the world’s population and a disproportionate number of the poorest people, along with unique ecosystems and biodiversity. And these issues are more acute in Africa than in any other continent.

ETFRN News 60 focuses on dryland restoration in the Sahel and the Greater Horn of Africa where levels of poverty, land degradation and out-migration are acute. It collates 36 articles from more than 100 contributors, including some long-term analyses of remarkable increases in tree cover and improved agricultural yields over large areas of the Western Sahel never published before, landscape restoration in Ethiopia, and examples from many other countries.

These provide new insights into what has led to the documented successes, summarizes the ‘top ten’ key findings, and offer recommendations to a much-needed change in focus if we are to achieve the ambitious commitments made by African countries to Land Degradation Neutrality targets, the Bonn Challenge, the African Forest Landscape Initiative, and the Great Green Wall, amongst others.

The overriding story is that farmer and community-led initiatives are the main driver of dryland restoration that have been adopted at scale, and at low cost. These include simple water harvesting techniques, encouraging natural regeneration, and locally-managed control over resources. Key factors include bylaws made with and enforced by local institutions and communities, the inclusion of women and youth, and effective support from projects and programmes, and national and international policies. Large-scale projects have also played a role, and private sector investments are limited but expanding.

There is an urgent need to take this knowledge on board in adapting and implementing restoration programmes. But challenges remain, such as tailoring investments to community needs so local people earn more from their efforts, and to improve monitoring to assess progress not just in productivity and hectares under restoration, but also in the resulting social, economic and environmental benefits.

Dryland degradation can be reversed, recreating more resilient and productive landscapes that will fix more carbon especially in the soil, restore ecosystem services, promote new viable enterprises and create employment, while reducing conflicts and migration. And together, these will increase the opportunities to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and the targets of the Rio Conventions on desertification, climate change and biodiversity. 

Exploring inclusive palm oil production

Widespread palm oil production causes much controversy due to its negative impacts in the tropics. But whatever is said about it, it is big business and getting bigger by the day due to increasing global demands. Alongside this, the size and depth of the social and environmental debates surrounding palm oil production are also growing. As a major globally-consumed commodity, its production in the humid and sub-humid tropics raises concerns due to its impacts on the environment, biodiversity, local communities, smallholder livelihoods, land rights and climate change.

One possible solution proposed is to improve the ‘inclusiveness’ of smallholders who make up a substantial part of the palm oil value chain. This ETFRN News presents potential opportunities by looking at the experiences, perceptions and perspectives of individuals, companies, institutions and NGOs on what has been done and is being done on the ground to increase the involvement of and benefits to smallholder oil palm farmers. And in doing so, it focuses on the following key questions: How do such actions and their impacts differ between different smallholder types and organizations? How do they differ between countries, regions and corporate contexts? What are the effects of various enabling policy environments? And what do the authors in this edition mean by ‘inclusiveness’?

This ETFRN News edition brings together 24 articles and interviews from around the world that reflect on these questions and it identifies means of improving smallholder inclusiveness in palm oil production and the ones that could be scaled up. These rich experiences are discussed and compared in a summary review, drawing out nine common key lessons.

Zero deforestation: A commitment to change

Several hundred companies, governments, and civil society and non-governmental organizations have committed to zero deforestation initiatives. However, all may not have fully realized the enormousness and complexity of the challenge in committing to zero deforestation, and it appears that some did not know exactly what they stepped into. What is clear though, is that this endeavour is very much at the initial stage of development, and early work and experimentation is showing the way to putting in place what is needed.

This silver anniversary edition of ETFRN News brings together 40 contributions from 100 experts and practitioners. They share their experiences, and suggest ways to improve the effectiveness of zero deforestation commitments through public-private collaboration and other models.

ETFRN News 58 presents different views across a range of commodity value chains, including how companies and smallholders are working together to build deforestation free supply chains. It reviews publicly announced commitments and on-the-ground impacts, and how implementation challenges are overcome. It looks at how socio-economic and environmental impacts and trade-offs are addressed, links between private commitments and government policy and regulations, and how transnational and civil-society initiatives help or hinder them.

From the different contributions in this book, common threads are drawn, woven into the following eight key issues, that if implemented, can enhance the implementation, effectiveness and impact of pledges, and increase the likelihood of existing and future zero deforestation commitments being met.

1. Agree on clear definitions and standards – what is a forest, and deforestation, and, what are acceptable credible and coherent standards for use across different commodities?

2. National and local governments to become more involved – as failure to address broader governance challenges may reduce the positive impact of private sector zero-deforestation initiatives.

3. More corporate transparency and accountability – must become the norm for monitoring and reporting progress, and not just regarding zero deforestation commitments.

4. Support for smallholder empowerment – through capacity building and technical assistance, so millions of small producers can become effective players.

5. Civil society to continue to advocate for change – as consumers and global citizens, for corporations to take effective action.

6. Advocate for jurisdictional action in support of national goals – required to complement corporate supply chain initiatives, and helps to fulfil more inclusive, sustainable development criteria.

7. Include alternative business and financing models – that better take into account existing realities, and local systems of governance and tenure.

8. Invite broad stakeholder involvement – in the inclusive platforms that are clearly needed for progress, as no single solution can achieve the desired impact.