Landscape-restoration projects and climate-adaptation initiatives must involve local communities to make them successful and expandable.

Scientists presenting at an International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) side event during the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland said that local communities are an integral part of restoration projects without whom development at larger scale is near impossible.

The IFAD Pavilion brought together various experts involved in landscape-restoration and climate-adaptation projects across the world, who recommended that such programmes should be driven by communities to enable local solutions unique to different landscape circumstances.

Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) soil scientist Leigh Winowiecki said the empowerment of farmers in soil conservation and landscape restoration has been a driving factor in the success of restoration projects in Kenya’s drylands.

‘We have worked with farmers, who are central to the dryland restoration project where they were already planting trees but with very poor survival rates,’ she said, referring to an agroforestry project in Kenya. ‘We worked with them to know which tree planted which way survives best. That way, we have increased tree-seedling survival from 30 to 80 percent by tracking over 50,000 seedlings.’

The project engaged more than 2000 households, involving farmers in exploring what works best for restoration and at what cost.

According to Winowiecki, landscapes are diverse and social contexts are equally diverse, hence such projects must embrace diversity so that tools are developed to fit the contexts.

‘There is no silver bullet: approaches and options must be tailored to meet the needs of the farmers and co-learning is crucial in scaling landscape restoration goals,’ she added.

Her sentiments were echoed by other experts in the Pavilion side event, who emphasized the need to understand the variations that exist in various locations before implementing landscape-restoration and climate-adaptation programmes.

Vijay Kumar, who chairs a farmers’ empowerment organization aligned with the Government in India, said the use of farmer-to-farmer training to lead innovations in the restoration of degraded land has been a critical factor in the success of the project, which has been in existence for over a decade, transforming many parts of India.

‘Champion farmers are the best trainers and there is sometimes a need for six-to-eight years of handholding until a village transforms,’ he said. ‘That is why sometimes it is safe to plan with up to 15 years of deep community involvement with good partnerships to achieve meaningful change. Scaling up social development cannot happen in an ad hoc manner and social and human capital is very important.’

He emphasized that women are critical for local-led transformations.

His counterpart from Nepal, who also drives a climate-adaptation programme, Sheila Gnyawali, supported the need to involve women in such programmes, at the beginning when implementation tools were developed.

Gnyawali said there is always a need to conduct vulnerability assessments before rolling out adaptation programmes, which in many cases need support from local governments as well for easy expansion of scale.

Her programme, Local Adaptation Plan of Action, has engaged 114,000 households in the semi-arid areas of Nepal over the last six years, with local communities deeply involved in planning and execution.

‘Scientific knowledge is blended with local knowledge to develop the adaptive and mitigative options,’ she said. ‘We have seen such approaches yield positive outcomes, like reduced seasonal out-migration and increased youth engagement in climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as a 15 percent increase in income for locals.’

The experts emphasized the need to involve farmers in landscape-restoration plans because it provides the pathway for achieving food and nutritional security, increased resilience to climate change and increased above- and belowground biodiversity.

This work is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems.