Reforesting the earth : the human drivers of forest conservation, restoration, and expansion / Thomas K. Rudel.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and across Sub-Saharan Africa continues at rapid rates in 2022. These seemingly relentless processes of deforestation point out a lacuna in our understanding of the ways in which forest conservation, restoration, and expansion proceed. While scientists have compiled a detailed understanding of the environmental services provided by primary and secondary forests, they have found it difficult to describe how, in a generalized way, humans have mobilized to preserve, restore, and even expand these forests. In other words, the contours of the human effort to reforest the earth remain unclear. Reforesting the Earth addresses this question. It investigates the organizational profiles of successful reforestation efforts through a comparative historical analysis of eighteen cases of forest gains during different historical periods in diverse locations around the globe. This analysis finds that the most successful efforts at forest conservation, restoration, and expansion have taken a corporatist form. In other words, these efforts have succeeded when they bring together diverse groups of people, all with interests in the same sector of the economy. The participants in this corporatist process would include local and indigenous peoples, government officials, and wealthy, overseas donor groups. These corporatist processes have occurred across a wide variety of landscapes. They have characterized the regeneration of sparse, dry forests of the Sahel in Sub-Saharan Africa, the preservation of tropical rain forests in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the creation of small forest plantations in Southeast Asia, and the reforestation of cattle pastures in Central America. The larger political context of corporatism has also varied historically. The wide range of places in which corporatist decision-making has contributed to successful efforts to reforest landscapes suggests that it provides a useful political template for accomplishing reforestation. Looking forward, Reforesting the Earth provides a guide for scaling up local efforts to sequester carbon in resurgent forests throughout the globe"-- Provided by publisher.