Ten people‐centered rules for socially sustainable ecosystem restoration

As the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration begins, there remains insufficient emphasis on the human and social dimensions of restoration. The potential that restoration holds for achieving both ecological and social goals can only be met through a shift toward people-centered restoration strategies. Toward this end, this paper synthesizes critical insights from a special issue on “Restoration for whom, by whom” to propose actionable ways to center humans and social dimensions in ecosystem restoration, with the aim of generating fair and sustainable initiatives. These rules respond to a relative silence on socio-political issues in di Sacco et al.'s “Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits” on socio-political issues and offer complementary guidance to their piece. Arranged roughly in order from pre-intervention, design/initiation, implementation, through the monitoring, evaluation and learning phases, the 10 people-centered rules are: (1) Recognize diversity and interrelations among stakeholders and rightsholders'; (2) Actively engage communities as agents of change; (3) Address socio-historical contexts; (4) Unpack and strengthen resource tenure for marginalized groups; (5) Advance equity across its multiple dimensions and scales; (6) Generate multiple benefits; (7) Promote an equitable distribution of costs, risks, and benefits; (8) Draw on different types of evidence and knowledge; (9) Question dominant discourses; and (10) Practice inclusive and holistic monitoring, evaluation, and learning. We contend that restoration initiatives are only tenable when the issues raised in these rules are respectfully addressed

Gender and inclusion in the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE): an end of program reflection and evaluation

The growing relevance of research on gender and social inclusion in agricultural research for development calls for systemic, transformative change processes. Transformative gender ambitions can stand at odds with personal biases and experiences that shape diverse understandings of gender, institutional values, structures and cultures that tend to reward technological quick-fix solutions, and other practical challenges to ‘doing’ gender on the ground. Very little is known about these challenges. How are these challenges navigated by (relatively small) teams of gender researchers, who are often caught between the demand for tangible fast gains on gender, and the intractable challenges of deep-rooted and complex, intersectional gender inequalities? This was the focus of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) End of Program Reflection and Evaluation (EoPRE) to assess how gender and inclusion research is pursued, and the key barriers to knowing and doing gender in eight research projects. Adopting a reflexive, self-analytical feminist approach to evaluation, this EoPRE facilitated eight project teams, diverse and with an uneven focus on gender, to connect the dots between the processes of knowing and doing gender research. A key finding of this evaluation is that the need for change is foremost internal. We need to begin by fixing our personal biases and assumptions, and fixing institutional cultures, values and structures instead of just trying to fix things out there, including fixing poor and marginalized women. A key recommendation is to seek more regular and open conversations across researcher disciplines and hierarchies, and between CGIAR and external partners and stakeholders, including feminist grassroots actors and networks – on what works well (and does not) and why. This would allow us to grasp why we start with different meanings and conceptualizations of gender; how agile we are (or not) in adapting to changes on the ground; and how, through a culture of reflection and learning, we might shift pathways to more transformative change processes in a fast evolving and increasingly unequal world

Gender and inclusion in the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE): an end of program reflection and evaluation

The growing relevance of research on gender and social inclusion in agricultural research for development calls for systemic, transformative change processes. Transformative gender ambitions can stand at odds with personal biases and experiences that shape diverse understandings of gender, institutional values, structures and cultures that tend to reward technological quick-fix solutions, and other practical challenges to ‘doing’ gender on the ground. Very little is known about these challenges. How are these challenges navigated by (relatively small) teams of gender researchers, who are often caught between the demand for tangible fast gains on gender, and the intractable challenges of deep-rooted and complex, intersectional gender inequalities? This was the focus of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) End of Program Reflection and Evaluation (EoPRE) to assess how gender and inclusion research is pursued, and the key barriers to knowing and doing gender in eight research projects. Adopting a reflexive, self-analytical feminist approach to evaluation, this EoPRE facilitated eight project teams, diverse and with an uneven focus on gender, to connect the dots between the processes of knowing and doing gender research. A key finding of this evaluation is that the need for change is foremost internal. We need to begin by fixing our personal biases and assumptions, and fixing institutional cultures, values and structures instead of just trying to fix things out there, including fixing poor and marginalized women. A key recommendation is to seek more regular and open conversations across researcher disciplines and hierarchies, and between CGIAR and external partners and stakeholders, including feminist grassroots actors and networks – on what works well (and does not) and why. This would allow us to grasp why we start with different meanings and conceptualizations of gender; how agile we are (or not) in adapting to changes on the ground; and how, through a culture of reflection and learning, we might shift pathways to more transformative change processes in a fast evolving and increasingly unequal world

Ramsar Convention and the wise use of wetlands: rethinking inclusion

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands emphasizes the “wise use” of wetlands by conserving the ecological character of wetlands while managing the socio-economic value these landscapes hold for different stakeholders. Reviewing the Convention obligations, resolutions, and guidelines through a feminist political ecology lens, we find them to be overtly simplistic and technocratic. A deliberately generic framing of socio-ecological interrelations and of economic trade-offs between wetland uses and users obscures broader political and social contexts which shape complex nature-society interrelations in the use, management, and governance of wetlands. Poverty, the cultural significance of wetlands—particularly for indigenous communities—and gender equality have only recently been considered in wetlands management and governance guidelines and interventions. These recent additions provide little insight on the power imbalances which shape plural values, meanings, experiences, and voices in wetlands use and governance, especially for the most marginalized of wetlands users. We welcome the call for a “reformulation” of a socio-ecological approach to managing and governing wetlands, but caution that unless wetlands governance structures and processes are re-politicized, changes in policies and approaches will likely remain rhetorical