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BIODIVERSITY GRASSLANDS Greening the Savannah: At What Cost? Forest landscape restoration and afforestation strategies commonly spearheaded by international or non-local actors may often be ecologically inappropriate. For many, what comes to mind when considering the African landscape are grassy savannahs, wild bush, and lone acacias dotting a stark horizon line. It makes sense. Nearly half of the continent is sheathed by grasslands of all types. Yet the science supporting our knowledge, and even the very language we use is surprisingly antiquated due to a lack of attention from ecologists (for instance, data on the carbon storage potential of grasslands -- estimated to contain 10-30 per cent of the world’s soil organic carbon -- was last updated in 2002). There is also the human flaw of missing the obvious, the elements right before our eyes. What has always been there and appears as nothingness -- an absence -- may be key to our planet’s future. Many pieces are delineating the failure of the United Nations summit on climate change in Glasgow (COP26) in 2021 to address climate change issues in significant or tangible ways. For realists and cynics alike, none of this came as a surprise. By definition, talk of plans rather than action is not too reassuring. Similarly, as topics regarding the pitfalls and superficiality of corporate ‘greenwashing’ gain traction in the media, analogous issues in the true efficacy of climate mitigation strategies have arisen. Mass tree planting has been a popular strategy to mitigate ongoing, worsening climate change. But forest landscape restoration (FLR) and afforestation (planting trees where there were previously none) strategies, commonly spearheaded by international or non-local actors, are often ecologically inappropriate. Prevailing perils range from the incompetency of planting the wrong trees in the wrong places, to excluding local communities from the planning and BELOW Think of the African savannah, and the Masai Mara ecosystem and landscape will come to mind. This vast grassland is a pristine example of the savannah, and one of the best-protected reserves on the African continent. It offers one of the world’s most important habitat areas for a great variety of wild african animals. 40 | JULY - SEPTEMBER 2022
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BIODIVERSITY participation. The myopic focus on increasing tree cover generally fails to consider the ecological importance of rangelands -- not to mention the myriad of cultures and livelihoods that developed in tandem with the resource provisions of grassy biomes. Many tree-planting schemes are not designed as people-oriented or communitybased solutions. The subsequent conflation of tree planting with forest restoration is damaging to the rural and Indigenous people who depend on these ecosystems for their livelihoods. For instance, Crowther Lab, a Swiss research university, identified 900 million hectares of land available for afforestation. In a paper entitled “The global tree restoration potential” published in Science in 2019, Crowther determined that areas such as Kruger National Park in South Africa and Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains were viable regions for developing new tree cover. The afforestation would offset the first world’s carbon emissions, they claimed, the implication being that Africa’s natural landscapes are free for conversion into industrial tree plantations. Land history and culture have tangible ramifications on the ground, says Susanne Vetter, an associate professor in Plant Ecology at Rhodes University in South Africa. Her research specializes in rangeland dynamics across arid and semi-arid South Africa, but she has always been fascinated by people’s deeper relationship with plants, vegetation and nature. Vetter notes that misunderstandings regarding the intrinsic productivity of grasslands and their utility to local communities manifest in ecologically inappropriate strategies that threaten pastoral livelihoods, such as attempts to convert grassy biomes -- areas where small-scale herders have grazed their animals since time immemorial -- into agricultural plots. The true origins of modern development thinking tend to be elusive. The schools of thought regarding ecological conservation frequently imported into the Global South have remarkable continuity with colonial forestry and resource management where one plants trees to atone for deforestation caused by local people. The Ogiek community of Kenya’s Mau Forest is one such example. It has faced repeated violent evictions from their ancestral land since the days of British TOP RIGHT Sprawling on the edge of the Northern Kenyan Frontier, stretching from the slopes of Mount Kenya to the rim of the Great Rift Valley, is central Kenya's expansive Laikipia plains. BELOW Grevy zebra spotted in Laikipia County. JULY - SEPTEMBER 2022 | 41

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BIODIVERSITY

GRASSLANDS

Greening the Savannah: At What Cost?

Forest landscape restoration and afforestation strategies commonly spearheaded by international or non-local actors may often be ecologically inappropriate.

For many, what comes to mind when considering the African landscape are grassy savannahs, wild bush, and lone acacias dotting a stark horizon line. It makes sense. Nearly half of the continent is sheathed by grasslands of all types.

Yet the science supporting our knowledge, and even the very language we use is surprisingly antiquated due to a lack of attention from ecologists (for instance, data on the carbon storage potential of grasslands -- estimated to contain 10-30 per cent of the world’s soil organic carbon -- was last updated in 2002). There is also the human flaw of missing the obvious, the elements right before our eyes. What has always been there and appears as nothingness -- an absence -- may be key to our planet’s future.

Many pieces are delineating the failure of the United Nations summit on climate change in Glasgow (COP26) in 2021 to address climate change issues in significant or tangible ways. For realists and cynics alike, none of this came as a surprise. By definition, talk of plans rather than action is not too reassuring. Similarly, as topics regarding the pitfalls and superficiality of corporate ‘greenwashing’ gain traction in the media, analogous issues in the true efficacy of climate mitigation strategies have arisen.

Mass tree planting has been a popular strategy to mitigate ongoing, worsening climate change. But forest landscape restoration (FLR) and afforestation (planting trees where there were previously none) strategies, commonly spearheaded by international or non-local actors, are often ecologically inappropriate. Prevailing perils range from the incompetency of planting the wrong trees in the wrong places, to excluding local communities from the planning and

BELOW Think of the African savannah, and the Masai Mara ecosystem and landscape will come to mind. This vast grassland is a pristine example of the savannah, and one of the best-protected reserves on the African continent. It offers one of the world’s most important habitat areas for a great variety of wild african animals.

40 | JULY - SEPTEMBER 2022

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