Browsing by Author "Rana, Pushpendra"

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    Data for Decades of tree planting in Northern India had little effect on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods
    (2021-06-24) Coleman, Eric; Schultz, Bill; Ramprasad, Vijay; Fischer, Harry; Rana, Pushpendra; Filippi, Anthony; Güneralp, Burak; Ma, Angdong; Rodriguez Solorzano, Claudia; Guleria, Vijay; Rana, Rajesh; Fleischman, Forrest; ffleisch@umn.edu; Fleischman, Forrest
    This contains data from three sources: 1. Remote sensing-based analysis of land cover and land use change in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India, with a focus on government run tree plantations we mapped in the region that had occurred between 1980 and 2018, were located in 60 randomly sampled panchayats (local governments), and were at least 5 HA in size. We also have supplemental information on these plantations provided by the local informants who helped map them (e.g. such as the date of establishment and the involvement of local communities in planting them) 2. A survey of Panchayat characteristics across 60 randomly sampled panchayats in Kangra District 3. A random sample survey of 40 households in each of the 60 panchayats, focusing on household livelihood needs and their relationship to forests and tree plantations in terms of both livelihood related uses (e.g. fuelwood, fodder, and grazing) and forest governance. Viewing these data sources together enable us to understand the relationships between land use change as driven by government plantations, local governance, and livelihoods.
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    Data for: Tree-planting programs in Himachal Pradesh India 2019
    (2020-03-26) Rana, Pushpendra; Fleischman, Forrest; Ramprasad, Vijay; Lee, Kangjae; pranaifs27@gmail.com; Rana, Pushpendra
    This dataset provides information on the tree plantation programs of the government of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. Data were released publicly by the government in response to questions posed by Members of the State Legislative Assembly in 2019. We combined this data with other publicly available datasets to provide a more complete picture of plantation programs for the purpose of evaluating their effectiveness.
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    Historical tree planting data from Himachal Pradesh
    (2020-07-07) Fleischman, Forrest; Ramprasad, Vijay; Rana, Pushpendra; Rana, Rajesh; Guleria, Vijay; Fischer, Harry S; ffleisch@umn.edu; Fleischman, Forrest
    This dataset records information about tree planting activities in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh from 1979-2015. Data were obtained from "Annual Plantation Brochures" Published by the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department. The brochure for 1983 could not be located, thus the year 1983 is missing. Contains detailed information about species and government programs that are responsible for planting each tree. Two data files are included, a statewide dataset and a dataset focusing only on Kangra Circle
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    How politics shapes the outcomes of forest carbon finance
    (Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2021) Fleischman, Forrest; Basant, Shishir; Fischer, Harry; Gupta, Divya; Garcia Lopez, Gustavo; Kashwan, Prakash; Powers, Jennifer S.; Ramprasad, Vijay; Rana, Pushpendra; Rastogi, Archi; Rodriguez Solorzano, Claudia; Schmitz, Marissa
    Interest in forest-based carbon storage has led to growth in financing for carbon forestry. Most financial strategies rest on strong assumptions which are not valid in many parts of the world. We use cases drawn from tribal forestry in the US and government forestry in India to illustrate how carbon finance relies on the presence of enforceable rights, representative and accountable institutions, clear incentives, and symmetrical power relations. In the absence of these conditions, carbon finance provides perverse incentives that undermine biodiversity and human rights without storing carbon. We suggest that for forest-based carbon storage to be successful, more attention needs to be paid to underlying political reforms, as well as to policies that are not reliant on financial exchange.
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    Indian Forest Governance during the COVID-19 Pandemic
    (International Forestry Review, 2023) Rana, Pushpendra; Fleischman, Forrest
    Mixed outcomes were observed in terms of the effectiveness of forest bureaucrats' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many forest officers were able to adapt and improvise new solutions to saving forests, wildlife and local livelihoods. Several officers failed to control forest offenses and did not support forest-based livelihoods. Old and outdated forest laws, exigencies-driven forest management and professional decay reduced administrative performance. Strengthening forests as a safety net, reforming forest laws, empowering communities and adopting proactive governance can help forest authorities and managers better respond to unpredictable events. The unexpected nature of COVID-19 tested the institutional strength and resilience of state agencies across the world. Preliminary evidence is presented on how reduced mobility due to COVID-19 affected the functioning of the Forest Department in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and triggered changes in forest use by local communities as perceived by forest officials. Our evidence shows mixed outcomes in terms of the effectiveness of the forest bureaucrats in handling the COVID-19 pandemic as assessed through their own perceptions and other forestry records. The positive and negative elements relating to the bureaucratic forest administration during the COVID-19 lockdown are presented, and some possible reasons behind these varying patterns across the state of Himachal Pradesh are suggested. Lessons drawn from the COVID-19 crisis that can help guide forest bureaucracies to deal effectively with unpredictable events in the future are presented.
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    Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India
    (Nature Sustainability, 2021-09-13) Coleman, Eric A.; Schultz, Bill; Ramprasad, Vijay; Fischer, Harry; Rana, Pushpendra; Filippi, Anthony M.; Güneralp, Burak; Ma, Andong; Rodriguez Solorzano, Claudia; Guleria, Vijay; Rana, Rajesh; Fleischman, Forrest
    Many countries have adopted large-scale tree-planting programs as a climate mitigation strategy and to support local livelihoods. We evaluate a series of large-scale tree planting programs using data collected from historical Landsat imagery in the state of Himachal Pradesh in Northern India. Using this panel dataset, we use an event study design to estimate the socioeconomic and biophysical impacts over decades of these programs. We find that tree plantings have not, on average, increased the proportion of forest canopy cover, and have modestly shifted forest composition away from the broadleaf varieties valued by local people. Further cross-sectional analysis, from a household livelihood survey, shows that tree planting supports little direct use by local people. We conclude that decades of expensive tree planting programs in this region have not proved effective. This result shows that large-scale tree planting may sometimes fail to achieve its climate mitigation and livelihood goals.
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    Predicting wasteful spending in tree planting programs in Indian Himalaya
    (2022-06) Rana, Pushpendra; Fleischman, Forrest; Ramprasad, Vijay; Lee, Kangjae
    Tree planting is widely promoted as a cost-effective natural climate solution, yet there are few evaluations of the implementation of tree planting. Our analysis of a unique dataset on tree planting in the Indian Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh shows that over half of the state’s budget for tree planting is wasted on plantations that are unlikely to survive and/or are poorly designed to achieve the state’s goal of increasing forest cover. Himachal Pradesh (and India more generally) has been identified as a high potential area for natural climate solutions due to high government capacity, adequate funding, and government agencies with extensive planting experience. We combine data on the location and financial outlay for plantations, which allow us to analyze the relationship between plantations and social and biophysical conditions, with a machine learning model, trained on past land cover change, which predicts the likelihood of future tree cover loss in plantation areas. Our finding that even in this high potential area tree planting programs involve considerable wasted expenditure on ineffective plantations raises questions about optimistic assessments of the potential for tree planting to serve as a cost-effective natural climate solution. We suggest deemphasizing the target-based approaches that dominate present policy-making and high-profile scientific publications, which we argue are the cause of wasted expenditures in Himachal Pradesh. Instead policy-makers and scientists interested in natural climate solutions should focus on developing solutions that respond to local biophysical, social, and economic realities, and are implemented through transparent procedures that increase accountability to and reinforce the rights of forest dependent people.