Forest4Climate&People

Description of impact

If done sensitively both forest conservation and restoration could potentially benefit local people. However, there are also risks of exacerbating poverty where interventions result in people losing access to land and resources critical to their livelihoods. In addition, local land tenure arrangements need to be understood if such projects are to be effective and sustainable. Inattention to social issues can also threaten reforestation itself, undermining climate change mitigation. If conservation and restoration in lower-income countries are to contribute substantially to climate mitigation, these social issues need much greater integration into policy development and implementation.

The ultimate aim of this project is to ensure forest carbon programmes in Madagascar are more effective (can ultimately lock up more carbon) and pro-poor (avoid negative impacts on poor, vulnerable people and, where possible, bring benefits). The specific objectives are:

- To ensure that social issues (implementation of social safeguards, effective benefit sharing, consideration of the role of tenure) vital for effective and equitable outcomes from REDD+ and forest restoration are fully addressed in policy design and implementation in Madagascar.

- To review the evidence on the influence of current tenure rules in Madagascar on both the likely effectiveness of avoided deforestation/forest restoration efforts and the impacts on forest edge communities and ensure this information can be used by relevant stakeholders.

To achieve our project aims, we will carry out the following key activities.

- Run field-training courses for key regional and national stakeholders on the social issues vital for effective and equitable forest conservation and restoration (co-delivered with local communities) and provide follow up mentoring as they apply the lessons in their work,
- Produce and disseminate videos to communicate the social issues associated with forest conservation and restoration to civil society and a greater number of key stakeholders,
- Use the films and policy briefs in trainings and policy engagement,
- Produce a review paper of how current tenure rules influence the capacity of projects to effectively reduce emissions from deforestation/degradation and restore forest without harming forest-edge communities.

We are also working in collaboration with the associated research project: Reconciling Madagascar’s New Protected Areas with poverty alleviation, a research collaboration between Bangor University and ESSA-Forêt, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).

Impact Summary for the General Public

Bangor-led research has demonstrated the negative social impacts that conservation can have for some of the poorest people in the world. It has profoundly altered how governments, industry and donors implement conservation: one of the world’s largest nickel mines (Ambatovy, Madagascar) has changed how it approaches biodiversity offsets, the Ugandan government has incorporated recommendations into its national offset strategy, and the US government has used research findings in funding decisions for a mine in Myanmar. In Madagascar Bangor-led research has influenced how the government and donors implement safeguards to reduce negative impacts of protected areas on the poor.

Description of the underpinning research

Tropical forest conservation has global benefits but can result in significant local costs. In many parts of the world, people living on the forest-edge are unusually poor, politically marginalised and heavily dependent on using natural resources for their livelihoods. They are therefore highly vulnerable to negative impacts from conservation restrictions that prevent forest clearance or limit wild harvesting. Since 2014, Bangor research led by Professor Julia Jones and Dr Neal Hockley has investigated the costs of different models of conservation as experienced by local communities, with a focus on Madagascar. The research has identified startling shortcomings in implementation leading to negative effects on local livelihoods:

(A) Biodiversity offsets - conservation funded by industry to offset the impact of their operations with the aim of achieving No Net Loss in biodiversity
The International Finance Corporation (IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank) performance standards require that industrial developments such as mines, which impact natural habitats, achieve No Net Loss of biodiversity. This requires them to minimise impacts and offset unavoidable damages (e.g. by funding conservation to avoid biodiversity loss due to agricultural expansion by poor local communities). In this way industry is funding new conservation areas in poor countries. Stringent social safeguards apply to people affected by IFC-funded projects, but Bangor research revealed that this is not understood by many stakeholders involved in implementation of IFC performance standards. Bangor-led intensive research on the offsets associated with one of the largest nickel mines in the world (Ambatovy, Madagascar) showed that the social safeguards were not being met; in particular the poorest people were bearing a notable cost.

(B) Protected areas promoted by governments and funded through mechanisms such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation)
REDD+ is a mechanism stemming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whereby tropical forest countries slow the rate of forest loss to contribute to global climate change mitigation. Many REDD+ projects are set up with funding from the World Bank, meaning that World Bank performance standards apply (project-affected persons should be compensated). Bangor has pioneered methods for evaluating the local costs of conservation in such contexts. Bangor conducted the first complete analysis of the magnitude and distribution of local costs in a REDD+ project and associated protected area, compared to the compensation received. This revealed that stringent international standards were not being met and identified why this occurred.

Because of her work on social impacts of conservation policies and interventions, Jones was invited into a significant international collaboration (funded by the Science for Nature and People Partnership) proposing No Net Loss of ecosystems as a global aspiration for environmental policy post-2020 (when the current global commitments will have expired). She was critical at bringing the equity and socio-economic considerations into the vision for Global No Net Loss.

General Notes

http://forest4climateandpeople.bangor.ac.uk/index.php.en

Impact status	Ongoing
Impact date	1 Feb 2020
Category of impact	Environmental, Economic, Societal
Impact level	Engagement