- Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, reviewed the websites of 99 international organizations that promote and fund reforestation projects to determine how well they report following best practices.
- They found that while these organizations increasingly acknowledge the importance of clear goals, local community involvement, and monitoring, few publicly report in detail the measures used to track progress and results achieved.
- For the study’s second phase, the researchers plan to investigate the links between reported practices and tree-growing outcomes, and identify effective reforestation models.
- Readers can nominate organizations for the new research and share information about tree-planting projects via Mongabay’s Reforestation.app.
Growing global interest in tree planting as a climate solution has prompted an influx of inexperienced organizations with opaque strategies, leading to numerous failures and unintended negative consequences.
Awareness of this issue has inspired many reforestation organizations to follow best practices to ensure tree-planting initiatives achieve their goals. Still, far fewer report in detail the measures used to track progress and results achieved.
These are the core findings from a study authored by researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, who reviewed data from the websites of 99 international organizations that promote and fund reforestation projects.
The study, published in Conservation Letters, revealed that although 70% of organizations had monitoring plans, only 41% reported tree survival rates and only 25% had time-bound objectives. And while most organizations cited potential benefits to local communities, only 38% reported measures of these outcomes.
“We were heartened that a number of organizations acknowledged best practices for tree growing, such as engaging communities and monitoring outcomes,” said study co-author Karen Holl, professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz. “However, many address these issues vaguely, and the next step is to publicly report outcomes.”
Building a ‘best practices’ index
The analysis focused on “intermediary organizations,” private institutions that promote and fund tree-growing or forest landscape restoration projects implemented by local organizations across multiple regions. These organizations were selected through a literature review and web research. The researchers examined information available on the organizations’ websites, focusing on criteria that previous research shows are keys to reforestation success, such as local community engagement, monitoring, funding, and project longevity.
They compiled this data into a “best practices scoring system” to evaluate the extent to which these organizations publicly reported adherence to those high standards. Given that the overall goal was to identify trends rather than individual performance, the researchers opted not to disclose the names and scores of the organizations analyzed.
Spencer Schubert, lead author of the new study and a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, said the organizations’ experience in conducting large-scale reforestation appeared to play a role in the extent of reporting and adherence to best practices. He also found that organizations that scored higher on best practices usually made clear statements about project management beyond the first two years, such as replanting sites that did not achieve a target for tree survival rate.
Holl identified another trend: “Overall, non-profit organizations scored much higher on the best practices index compared to for-profit organizations.” She added, “This is concerning given the growing amount of money being invested in reforestation as part of the carbon market.”
Another concern is that since organizations working in this sector have no obligation to disclose project results to the general public, they tend to refrain from doing so. This poor practice makes it difficult to assess the effectiveness of reforestation initiatives and whether investments are being allocated efficiently.
“Only about a third of organizations provided explicit selection criteria and justification for which local projects to sponsor,” Schubert said. “This is a huge gap when we consider that this is arguably the most critical interface between private sector money decisions and downstream results from the implementing partners.”
Stepping up transparency
For the second phase of the research, starting this month, the UC Santa Cruz team plans to investigate links between reported practices and reforestation outcomes. “The next step of our research will be to follow up with organizations directly to fill gaps in our dataset and then relate their practices to increases in tree cover,” Holl said.
Many reforestation initiatives, especially those with immense tree-planting goals, have only come into action in recent years; there’s much to learn from them. “Results from projects initiated over the last two decades may provide indicators of future success, and we need further research specifically linking organizational practices, at scale, that predictably lead to successful outcomes,” Schubert added.
The researchers will expand the list of intermediary organizations to be analyzed, and this time, they intend to publicly share information about individual practices. “Our work will move beyond just making general recommendations to identify effective reforestation models that can be scaled up,” they said in an email.
Suggest organizations for the next study
The UC Santa Cruz researchers are inviting Mongabay readers to suggest intermediary reforestation organizations for inclusion in their current study. They’re looking for organizations matching the following characteristics:
- It has ambitious goals to plant trees or increase forest cover;
- It maintains an online presence with messaging appealing to an international audience;
- It has a network of cooperating partners who implement and manage local projects;
- It supports multiple projects that include more than a single geographic area (i.e. beyond a single state, province, or protected area).
If you know of an organization that fits these characteristics, please nominate them by filling out this brief form.
Activating Mongabay’s reforestation community
As part of Mongabay’s mission to improve the transparency of reforestation practices, Mongabay plans collaborate with the UC Santa Cruz team by publishing their future research findings and making the insights accessible by incorporating the data into the Reforestation.app, a global directory of tree-planting and forest restoration projects launched by Mongabay in 2021.
The Reforestation.app serves as a platform for organizing crucial information about reforestation initiatives, such as their goals, methods, and the actors involved at the project level. Mongabay and our community have documented more than 400 projects focused on active and passive restoration methods across 80 countries. Already one of the most extensive databases on reforestation projects, it continues to grow and become a valuable resource for practitioners, funders, journalists and researchers worldwide.
Mongabay also invites readers to contribute to these transparency-building efforts. If you know of a tree-planting or forest restoration project not included in the Reforestation.app, please submit it through this Submission Form. Your input will help us continue building a robust directory and promoting awareness and transparency in the reforestation sector.
Citations:
- Schubert, S. C., Battaglia, K. E., Blebea, C. N., Seither, C. J. P., Wehr, H. L., & Holl, K. D. (2024). Advances and shortfalls in applying best practices to global tree‐growing efforts. Conservation Letters, 17(2). doi:10.1111/conl.13002
- Holl, K. D., & Brancalion, P. H. S. (2022). Which of the plethora of tree-growing projects to support? One Earth, 5(5), 452-455. doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2022.04.001
Credits
