Plantations fail

A study of 400 of India’s tree planting initiatives found that plantations failed to achieve their goals. Researcher Forrest Fleischman says this raises questions about the aims of tree-planting initiatives. “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”.