Forest restoration in India: opportunities and realities
<p>There is an unprecedented urgency in mitigating the impacts of climate change and forest restoration is at the forefront. Global and national policy fora have championed the cause of forest restoration as a natural climate solution, culminating in the current UN Decade of Ecosystem Restorat...
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| Format: | Abschlussarbeit |
| Sprache: | English |
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2023
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| _version_ | 1826313550548697088 |
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| author | Gopalakrishna, T |
| author2 | Malhi, Y |
| author_facet | Malhi, Y Gopalakrishna, T |
| author_sort | Gopalakrishna, T |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>There is an unprecedented urgency in mitigating the impacts of climate change and forest restoration is at the forefront. Global and national policy fora have championed the cause of forest restoration as a natural climate solution, culminating in the current UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. It has often been touted as a cost-effective and scalable panacea with the potential to deliver a variety of benefits beyond sequestration of carbon. However, the reality of this strategy is more complex, warranting careful scientific assessment targeted at informing effective policy and practice. In this thesis, I evaluate the opportunities and realities of forest restoration in India by undertaking three interlinked pieces of research.</p>
<p>In <em>Chapter 3</em>, I estimate where there is opportunity area for forest restoration and the resulting climate change mitigation potential in each of the 28 Indian states. A novel methodological approach, using India-specific data when possible, included field-collected points of different forest types, machine learning, spatial analyses, and national inventory data of carbon pools for different forest canopy densities. I find there is just 1.58 million hectares (Mha) opportunity area resulting in 61.3 TgC mitigation potential, with immense variation between states. Approximately half of this opportunity is in degraded, barren and scrub land. Having accounted for fine-scale variation in India’s complex patterns of existing land uses and covers, these estimates are lower than India-specific estimates from global studies, suggesting that the potential of forest restoration to mitigate climate change in India has been overestimated. However, I estimate there is 14.67 Mha opportunity area for agroforestry, providing 98.1 TgC climate change mitigation potential at the pan- India scale, reflecting the importance of context-appropriate strategies such as agroforestry in countries with large smallholder agricultural footprints. Overall, the potential of forest restoration and agroforestry in India contributes minimally to India’s pledge to the Paris Agreement 2015, underscoring the need for a diversified portfolio of climate change mitigation strategies.</p>
<p><em>Chapter 4</em> assesses the patterns of tree cover across India’s savanna and forest biomes and its determinants. India’s savanna biome is often forgotten and misunderstood considering its relationship to colonial land management practises and India’s quest to meet its ambitious international climate pledges. Combining remotely sensed information about tree cover and climate with empirical evidence of endemic savanna plants, I revealed four distinct climatic zones of tree cover, with a clear ‘no go’ zone for afforestation. I then applied additional remotely sensed information about soil, fire and domestic livestock herbivory pressure to reach novel insights about the determinants of tree cover. Topography is a key regulator of tree cover, with anthropogenic activities and high herbivory pressure also limiting tree cover from reaching its maximum climatic potential. In contrast to evidence from South America, Africa and Australia, there is no clear evidence of the effect of fire disturbances on tree cover, potentially highlighting the different extent and intensities of fire regimes and historic and contemporary views on fire suppression, across South Asia. These new insights from South Asia help to fill a missing piece in the global puzzle of biome distribution. They also show the need to account for climatic, topographic and disturbance factors when planning forest restoration, moving beyond simplistic tree-planting initiatives.</p>
<p><em>Chapter 5</em> uses spatial prioritization methods to assess trade-offs in key environmental and social outcomes from single- and multi-objective forest restoration strategies. I focus on three outcomes- climate change mitigation, habitat creation for forest-dependent mammals and societal provision for human basic needs of energy, livelihoods, and housing construction material from naturally regenerating native forests across India. I find that multi-objective forest restoration strategies have the least trade-offs between the above environmental and societal outcomes and achieve most of the benefits of all single-objective strategies. The benefits from a multi-objective strategy were geographically distributed across India implying flexibility and options for on-the-ground implementation. Lastly, strategies focused on societal benefit or combined outcomes have the potential to deliver human basic needs to the highest fraction of socioeconomically disadvantaged people compared to forest restoration strategies aimed at climate change mitigation or biodiversity.</p>
<p>Overall, the thesis highlights the crucial need to consider contextual factors when planning forest restoration in India, including existing land uses and covers, distribution of human population density, natural disturbance regimes and priority areas delivering a variety of outcomes. Hence, the findings in this thesis have wider implications for other countries in the tropical biome. The novelty of this work includes (i) estimation of opportunity area and resulting climate change mitigation potential of forest restoration at the sub-jurisdiction spatial scale, crucial for informing policy and decision making; (ii) estimation of the immense potential of agroforestry as a strategic climate change mitigation action; (iii) determination of fresh insights about the factors that drive tree cover across forest and savannas; and (iv) assessment of the potential of multi-objective forest restoration strategies to deliver multiple environment and societal outcomes, for a future in which humans and nature thrive.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:16:45Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:36d29e71-3405-4897-9c81-28a7bf751518 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:16:45Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:36d29e71-3405-4897-9c81-28a7bf7515182024-07-22T07:38:13ZForest restoration in India: opportunities and realitiesThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:36d29e71-3405-4897-9c81-28a7bf751518EnglishHyrax Deposit2023Gopalakrishna, TMalhi, Y<p>There is an unprecedented urgency in mitigating the impacts of climate change and forest restoration is at the forefront. Global and national policy fora have championed the cause of forest restoration as a natural climate solution, culminating in the current UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. It has often been touted as a cost-effective and scalable panacea with the potential to deliver a variety of benefits beyond sequestration of carbon. However, the reality of this strategy is more complex, warranting careful scientific assessment targeted at informing effective policy and practice. In this thesis, I evaluate the opportunities and realities of forest restoration in India by undertaking three interlinked pieces of research.</p> <p>In <em>Chapter 3</em>, I estimate where there is opportunity area for forest restoration and the resulting climate change mitigation potential in each of the 28 Indian states. A novel methodological approach, using India-specific data when possible, included field-collected points of different forest types, machine learning, spatial analyses, and national inventory data of carbon pools for different forest canopy densities. I find there is just 1.58 million hectares (Mha) opportunity area resulting in 61.3 TgC mitigation potential, with immense variation between states. Approximately half of this opportunity is in degraded, barren and scrub land. Having accounted for fine-scale variation in India’s complex patterns of existing land uses and covers, these estimates are lower than India-specific estimates from global studies, suggesting that the potential of forest restoration to mitigate climate change in India has been overestimated. However, I estimate there is 14.67 Mha opportunity area for agroforestry, providing 98.1 TgC climate change mitigation potential at the pan- India scale, reflecting the importance of context-appropriate strategies such as agroforestry in countries with large smallholder agricultural footprints. Overall, the potential of forest restoration and agroforestry in India contributes minimally to India’s pledge to the Paris Agreement 2015, underscoring the need for a diversified portfolio of climate change mitigation strategies.</p> <p><em>Chapter 4</em> assesses the patterns of tree cover across India’s savanna and forest biomes and its determinants. India’s savanna biome is often forgotten and misunderstood considering its relationship to colonial land management practises and India’s quest to meet its ambitious international climate pledges. Combining remotely sensed information about tree cover and climate with empirical evidence of endemic savanna plants, I revealed four distinct climatic zones of tree cover, with a clear ‘no go’ zone for afforestation. I then applied additional remotely sensed information about soil, fire and domestic livestock herbivory pressure to reach novel insights about the determinants of tree cover. Topography is a key regulator of tree cover, with anthropogenic activities and high herbivory pressure also limiting tree cover from reaching its maximum climatic potential. In contrast to evidence from South America, Africa and Australia, there is no clear evidence of the effect of fire disturbances on tree cover, potentially highlighting the different extent and intensities of fire regimes and historic and contemporary views on fire suppression, across South Asia. These new insights from South Asia help to fill a missing piece in the global puzzle of biome distribution. They also show the need to account for climatic, topographic and disturbance factors when planning forest restoration, moving beyond simplistic tree-planting initiatives.</p> <p><em>Chapter 5</em> uses spatial prioritization methods to assess trade-offs in key environmental and social outcomes from single- and multi-objective forest restoration strategies. I focus on three outcomes- climate change mitigation, habitat creation for forest-dependent mammals and societal provision for human basic needs of energy, livelihoods, and housing construction material from naturally regenerating native forests across India. I find that multi-objective forest restoration strategies have the least trade-offs between the above environmental and societal outcomes and achieve most of the benefits of all single-objective strategies. The benefits from a multi-objective strategy were geographically distributed across India implying flexibility and options for on-the-ground implementation. Lastly, strategies focused on societal benefit or combined outcomes have the potential to deliver human basic needs to the highest fraction of socioeconomically disadvantaged people compared to forest restoration strategies aimed at climate change mitigation or biodiversity.</p> <p>Overall, the thesis highlights the crucial need to consider contextual factors when planning forest restoration in India, including existing land uses and covers, distribution of human population density, natural disturbance regimes and priority areas delivering a variety of outcomes. Hence, the findings in this thesis have wider implications for other countries in the tropical biome. The novelty of this work includes (i) estimation of opportunity area and resulting climate change mitigation potential of forest restoration at the sub-jurisdiction spatial scale, crucial for informing policy and decision making; (ii) estimation of the immense potential of agroforestry as a strategic climate change mitigation action; (iii) determination of fresh insights about the factors that drive tree cover across forest and savannas; and (iv) assessment of the potential of multi-objective forest restoration strategies to deliver multiple environment and societal outcomes, for a future in which humans and nature thrive.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Gopalakrishna, T Forest restoration in India: opportunities and realities |
| title | Forest restoration in India: opportunities and realities |
| title_full | Forest restoration in India: opportunities and realities |
| title_fullStr | Forest restoration in India: opportunities and realities |
| title_full_unstemmed | Forest restoration in India: opportunities and realities |
| title_short | Forest restoration in India: opportunities and realities |
| title_sort | forest restoration in india opportunities and realities |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT gopalakrishnat forestrestorationinindiaopportunitiesandrealities |