The Ecological Restoration Alliance invites you to its next webinar Rethinking Forest Restoration in India: An Evidence-based View. Featuring Dr Forrest Fleischman, it examines the efficacy of state-backed forest restoration policies and practices over decades, their consequences for local communities, and ways forward.
The webinar comes at a time when private participation in mass tree planting initiatives gains momentum under India’s Green credits program, and our remaining native forests and community lands become increasingly ‘planted’. It makes the case for changing aspects of forest restoration policy and praxis so that mistakes of the past are not repeated.
You can register on this link, or by scanning the QR code on the poster below.
About the webinar:
For several decades, India has attempted to restore forests through a collection of policy tools. These have included widespread tree planting on government land, law enforcement-based conservation, community-based conservation programs, modest support for tree-growing on private land, and pseudo-market based instruments such as the compensatory afforestation fund (CAMPA) and more recently, the green credits programme.
In this talk, Dr Forrest Fleischman presents evidence from Himachal Pradesh that shows that this approach has been ineffective, incoherent, and has led to unintended negative consequences for people and nature.
At the same time, he also presents potentially effective reforms, including greater local authority over decision-making, more precise and ecologically informed ambitions for restoration programs, and the integration of sustainable livelihoods approaches across all lands.
About the Speaker:
Dr Forrest Fleischman is an associate professor of environmental policy in the department of forest resources at the University of Minnesota, USA. His research focuses on institutional dynamics of forest policy, with a focus on forest restoration. He has been studying forest and agroforestry policy in India since 2006, with experience in the Himalayas, central India, and Kerala.
He has also conducted field research in the US, Mexico, Guatemala, Malawi, and South Africa, and has published nearly 50 peer reviewed scientific papers across a wide variety of leading journals in the social and ecological sciences.