A new Stanford University-led study has explored the level to which communities in rural Africa have sought to reverse land degradation, offering valuable insights that could be applied to Western economies.
The study, which was undertaken alongside the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), was published in the Sustainability Science journal, highlights the benefits of long-term coalitions among local communities, governments, and organisations in fostering sustainability transitions.
“Every place is different and one should avoid a ‘one size fits all approach’ to environmental policy, but we should also learn from past experiences to identify conditions that lead to success in turning around environmental degradation,” commented co-author Eric Lambin, the George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Land restoration efforts
Focusing on 17 initiatives across 13 different countries in Africa, researchers identified common traits that made land restoration efforts successful.
One example highlighted is Tanzania’s Shinyanga region, where local community involvement in reforestation led to the restoration of hundreds of thousands of hectares of woodland, improving local livelihoods.
Similarly, in Burkina Faso, farmers started planting cashew trees to combat desertification and create income through access to international markets. According to the study, economic incentives, such as land security and ecosystem service improvements, are critical to engaging communities in environmental restoration.
“Incentives were mostly economic in nature, but some also concerned security of access to land or improved provision of ecosystem services following restoration of natural resources,” added Camille Jahel, a research fellow at CIRAD.
Interventions that work
The research also notes that external support from NGOs and governments can be crucial, however said interventions must avoid imposing top-down governance structures that alienate local communities.
An example of this can be seen in Zambia’s Kafue Flats, where restoration efforts faltered due to lack of community acceptance of new governance systems.
The long-term sustainability of these projects depends on building resilience within local communities so that they can continue managing restored ecosystems independently, the authors noted.
“It is possible to turn the tide on environmental decline,” Lambin added. “The key lies in creating long-term interventions that are locally driven [and] integrate poverty-related concerns, supported by strong governance structures and based on coalitions of actors.” Read more here.
