Delivering climate-development co-benefits through multi-stakeholder forestry projects in Madagascar: Opportunities and challenges

TY - JOUR

T1 - Delivering climate-development co-benefits through multi-stakeholder forestry projects in Madagascar

T2 - Opportunities and challenges

AU - Favretto, Nicola

AU - Afionis, Stavros

AU - Stringer, Lindsay C.

AU - Dougill, Andrew J.

AU - Quinn, Claire H.

AU - Ranarijaona, Hery Lisy Tiana

N1 - Funding Information: Funding: This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP), grant number: ES/K006576/1. Funding Information: Acknowledgments: We thank the staff of Eden Projects, Wildlife Conservation Society, the interpreters Max and Eloise, and the local communities involved with both projects for their exceptional cooperation and logistical support provided on the ground. Special thanks to Larissa for the invaluable assistance and love offered in the field, and for constantly raising intellectually challenging questions that have helped shaping the research. Lindsay Stringer acknowledges the Royal Society as she holds a Royal Society Wolfson research merit award. Funding Information: This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council's Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP), grant number: ES/K006576/1. We thank the staffof Eden Projects, Wildlife Conservation Society, the interpreters Max and Eloise, and the local communities involved with both projects for their exceptional cooperation and logistical support provided on the ground. Special thanks to Larissa for the invaluable assistance and love offered in the field, and for constantly raising intellectually challenging questions that have helped shaping the research. Lindsay Stringer acknowledges the Royal Society as she holds a Royal Society Wolfson research merit award. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 by the authors.

PY - 2020/5/18

Y1 - 2020/5/18

N2 - This paper explores multi-stakeholder perspectives on the extent to which forestry projects that pursue ecological restoration and rehabilitation in Madagascar engage with local communities and can co-deliver climate-development benefits. Drawing on mixed methods (policy analysis, semi-structured interviews, participatory site visits and focus groups) in two different forestry contexts, weshow that by strengthening access to capital availability, projects can enhance local adaptive capacity and mitigation and deliver local development. We show that active consideration of ecological conservation and action plans early in project design and implementation can co-develop and support monitoring and reporting systems, needed to progress towards integrated climate-compatible development approaches. Climate mitigation benefits remain poorly quantified due to limited interest in, and low capacity to generate, carbon revenues. Monitoring alone does not ensure carbon benefits will materialize, and this research stresses that institutional considerations and strengthened engagement and cooperation between practitioners and communities are key in achieving both climate mitigation and community development impacts. Multiple benefits can be fostered by aligning objectives of multiple landscape actors (i.e., community needs and project developers) and by systematically linking project deliverables, outputs, outcomes and impacts over time, grounded in a theory of change focused on ensuring community buy-in and planning for delivery of tangible benefits.

AB - This paper explores multi-stakeholder perspectives on the extent to which forestry projects that pursue ecological restoration and rehabilitation in Madagascar engage with local communities and can co-deliver climate-development benefits. Drawing on mixed methods (policy analysis, semi-structured interviews, participatory site visits and focus groups) in two different forestry contexts, weshow that by strengthening access to capital availability, projects can enhance local adaptive capacity and mitigation and deliver local development. We show that active consideration of ecological conservation and action plans early in project design and implementation can co-develop and support monitoring and reporting systems, needed to progress towards integrated climate-compatible development approaches. Climate mitigation benefits remain poorly quantified due to limited interest in, and low capacity to generate, carbon revenues. Monitoring alone does not ensure carbon benefits will materialize, and this research stresses that institutional considerations and strengthened engagement and cooperation between practitioners and communities are key in achieving both climate mitigation and community development impacts. Multiple benefits can be fostered by aligning objectives of multiple landscape actors (i.e., community needs and project developers) and by systematically linking project deliverables, outputs, outcomes and impacts over time, grounded in a theory of change focused on ensuring community buy-in and planning for delivery of tangible benefits.

KW - Climate and development

KW - Forest conservation

KW - Mangroves

KW - Project monitoring and evaluation

KW - REDD

KW - Sustainable land management

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094107221&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/LAND9050157

DO - 10.3390/LAND9050157

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85094107221

SN - 2073-445X

VL - 9

JO - Land

JF - Land

IS - 5

M1 - 157

ER -