Considering local demand for more effective restoration in Madagascar

Forests sustain biodiversity, regulate climate, and deliver multiple Nature’s Contributions to People (NCPs), making their persistence essential for sustainable development. Past and ongoing exploitation has reduced forest extent and quality in many tropical countries while profits have largely been exported to the Global North. This has benefitted the economies in the Global North that now recognize the urgency of restoring tropical forests, often with the stated intention to support sustainable development. However, tree-based restoration often ignores current land use, locally demanded NCPs, and local demands towards the practices applied in restoration interventions, especially when focusing solely on carbon goals.

The aim of the Demand4Restoration project is to systematically integrate restoration demand – which we define as the demand for restoration per se, for restoration at certain locations, for certain types of restoration practices, and for specific-NCPs as demanded by various local, regional, national, and international actors – into restoration science and practice.

The rapidly increasing private and public funding poured into reaching net-zero carbon goals through restoration risk side-lining people in the Global South. Investigating how restoration can be more demand-oriented and developing implementation projects that follow demand may instead deliver for people and nature alike.