One of the leading causes of biodiversity loss is habitat degradation. In terrestrial landscapes, this is primarily through rampant deforestation. Unfortunately, the direct impacts of deforestation and land degradation extend beyond the realms of biodiversity and climate change. Rural and tribal communities face the brunt of the socioeconomic consequences of deforestation. This ranges from increased human-wildlife conflict, increased soil erosion and hence flooding, poorer agricultural yield, loss of livelihoods, and increased food insecurity.
However, tribal and rural communities can become the torchbearers for afforestation. Ecosystem restoration can not only help bolster biodiversity and mitigate the climate crisis but also alleviate poverty. Through a Payment for Ecosystem Services Model, farmers can be incentivized to protect existing and grow new forests on barren land to improve local ecology while also generating income. This is the vision of Farmers for Forests, a non-profit social enterprise based out of Pune, India. They aim to restore 30,000 acres of degraded land into forests through this method by 2030. This will sequester 25 million tonnes of CO2 annually, which is equivalent to the emissions of 8 million Indians. On this episode, I speak to their co-founder Krutika Ravishankar about the wonderful work the organization is involved with!
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