Forest restoration plans should adopt ‘integrated’ approaches, encompassing biodiversity, climate, and human livelihood, as this could deliver significant benefits across all three areas simultaneously, a study carried out in India has found.
The study, led by scientists from the universities of Exeter and Oxford and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stressed how restoration projects tend to be seen in terms of “trade-offs”, as they focus on a specific goal such as capturing carbon, improving nature, or supporting human livelihoods.
For instance, plans could focus on planting tree species that are effective for carbon capture, conserving key ones with high value for ecosystems, or planting others that provide housing materials and fuelwood for cooking.
However, according to the study funded by the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development and conducted in large areas of India, plans can be designed to deliver high benefits in all three areas at once.
“Restoration projects sometimes have a narrow focus, which can lead to trade-offs,” said Trisha Gopalakrishna, researcher at the University of Exeter and among the authors.
“We were surprised and pleased to find that an ‘integrated’ plan can deliver all three remarkably efficiently.”
For their investigation, researchers used the Nature’s Contribution to People (NCP) framework, a mechanism that aims to incorporate social factors more inclusively in the economic and ecological aspects of ecosystem services.
Scientists designed maps of 3.88 million hectares of possible forest restoration areas through an algorithm, carefully avoiding areas such as grasslands and agricultural land.
The results demonstrated that integrated forest restoration plans, which aim to meet multiple objectives, achieve on average 83.3% of climate change mitigation, 89.9% of biodiversity improvement, and 93.9% of social benefits provided by single-goal plans.
Moreover, the study found that poorer people would benefit more from this approach, with 38-41% of the people impacted by integrated spatial plans belonging to socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.
“The blueprint we have developed provides an approach to design conservation policies, specifically ecosystem restoration activities,” Gopalakrishna said, adding that it would be useful to know if the findings hold true in other countries with different types of restoration plans.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
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