ABSTRACT
Although ambitious, forest landscape restoration (FLR) is still very high on global climate change mitigation and adaptation research and policy agendas. The scientific literature highlights the importance of institutions and actors' collaboration for achieving the intended outcomes. Despite these diffuse indications, a comprehensive understanding of the role played by different types of actors and institutions in shaping FLR outcomes is missing. This hinders the definition of an actor-cum-institutions research agenda for FLR, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Yet, in this region, different actors with diverse interests shape FLR practices. Likewise, formal and informal institutions are known to collide frequently. Hence, this paper addresses the lacunae by systematically reviewing FLR actors' interests and power manifestations and the typologies of institutions linked to FLR outcomes in SSA. The review further defines future research agendas on actors and institutions in SSA. The following lessons can be drawn from the review of 75 peer-reviewed journal articles: First, while exogenous actors are interested more in the ecological benefits of FLR, endogenous actors are interested in economic ones. Second, exogenous actors mostly use (dis-)incentives and coercion to shape the behavior of endogenous actors in FLR. Finally, while the exogenous formal institutional typology produces positive and negative ecological, economic, political, and sociocultural FLR outcomes, the endogenous formal and informal institutions produce only positive outcomes. Future studies should identify actors' compliance levels of the exogenous and endogenous formal and informal typologies of institutions. Future studies should also analyze the effectiveness of FLR-linked institutions towards ensuring successful FLR.
Subject(s)
Forests , Africa South of the SaharaABSTRACT
Context: Globally, forest landscapes are rapidly transforming, with the role of institutions as mediators in their use and management constantly appearing in the literature. However, global comparative reviews to enhance comprehension of how forest management institutions (FMIs) are conceptualized, and the varying determinants of compliance, are lacking. And so too, is there knowledge fragmentation on the methodological approaches which have and should be prioritized in the new research agenda on FMIs. Objectives: We review the regional variations in the conceptualization of FMIs, analyze the determinants of compliance with FMIs, and assess the methodological gaps applied in the study of FMIs. Methods: A systematic review of 197 empirically conducted studies (491 cases) on FMIs was performed, including a directed content analysis. Results: First, FMIs literature is growing; multi-case and multi-country studies characterize Europe/North America, Africa and Latin America, over Asia. Second, the structure-process conceptualization of FMIs predominates in Asia and Africa. Third, global south regions report high cases of compliance with informal FMIs, while non-compliance was registered for Europe/North America in the formal domain. Finally, mixed-methods approaches have been least employed in the studies so far; while the use of only qualitative methods increased over time, the adoption of only quantitative approaches witnessed a decrease. Conclusion: Future research should empirically ground informality in the institutional set-up of Australia while also valorizing mixed-methods research globally. Crucially, future research should consider multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to explore the actor and power dimensions of forest management institutions. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-022-01577-8.
