Lessons Learned

Towards more effective integration of tropical forest restoration and conservation

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Research Directions in Tropical Forest Restoration

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The paper addresses the challenges and strategies involved in tropical forest restoration. It highlights the importance of global and national initiatives aimed at restoring millions of hectares of tropical forests to achieve goals such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and improving human livelihoods. Researchers and practitioners are increasingly aware of the site's natural resilience and the project’s ecological and human goals when planning restoration strategies due to the various site-specific barriers to forest recovery.

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REDD’ing Forest Conservation: The Philippine Predicament

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Forests, food, and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuels

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Hope for Threatened Tropical Biodiversity: Lessons from the Philippines

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Automating violence? The anti-politics of ‘smart technology’ in biodiversity conservation

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Biodiversity conservation initiatives, such as the UN's post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (30x30), increasingly use smart technologies. Despite recognizing Indigenous and local rights for successful conservation, these initiatives often neglect customary rights and uses. Smart technologies, like AI, camera traps, and drones, enable new surveillance methods. State, private, and corporate actors, including big tech and BINGOs, actively adopt these tools to enhance data access and form smart governance networks.

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Placing diverse knowledge systems at the core of transformative climate research

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Effective solutions-oriented research values both the process and the outcomes, recognizing that genuine partnerships across knowledge systems emerge within broader political shifts. Yet, international environmental organizations often exclude non-Western knowledge from their frameworks, reinforcing epistemic injustices that mirror social and political inequalities. Transformative change in addressing the climate crisis demands a critical examination of how knowledge and power interact, ensuring the integration—not marginalization—of diverse perspectives.

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Why environmental impact assessments often fail

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Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) aim to mitigate the environmental costs of development, particularly in biodiversity-rich developing nations. While governments and corporations claim EIAs as safeguards against environmental harm from roads, dams, mines, and housing, many are ineffective or even worthless. Weak assessments fail to prevent projects that destroy habitats and endanger species. Key shortcomings include insufficient funding, narrow focus on immediate project areas, conflicts of interest among consultants, and poor governance that grants developers undue influence over policy decisions.

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What works in tropical forest conservation, and what does not: Effectiveness of four strategies in terms of environmental, social, and economic outcomes

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Outcomes and Impacts of Development Interventions: Toward Conceptual Clarity

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