Blog: The Politics of Digital Forest Restoration
In the urgent race to heal our planet, digital tools from satellite mapping to one-click tree-planting apps are hailed as game-changers. They promise the efficiency and scale needed to meet colossal goals like the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. However, a critical examination reveals a more complex story. A recent study in Environmental Politics (Urzedo et al., 2023) argues that these platforms are not neutral tools; they are power-laden processes that actively reshape restoration, often deepening global inequalities. The digitalization of restoration is a profound struggle over who controls knowledge, money, and story.
The "View from Above": When Maps Erase People
The first driver uses scientific expertise to optimize land selection. Platforms like the Atlas of Forest and Landscape Restoration Opportunities use satellite data to label sparsely populated areas as prime "restoration opportunities." But this "view from above" is dangerously simplistic. As the research notes, these maps are blind to reality; an "empty" pixel might be crucial grazing land or a sacred site. This depoliticizes land decisions, using scientific authority to justify projects that can displace local communities and livelihoods.
Networked Power: Data Extraction and Marketable Stories
Digital networks like Restor connect global practitioners but often operate as engines of data extraction. Local project data can become a commodity for Northern research institutes, raising issues of environmental data justice. Furthermore, accelerators like The Land Accelerator coach Global South entrepreneurs to frame their work through crisis narratives that appeal to Northern investors. This process prioritizes marketable stories over ecologically or culturally appropriate restoration, shaping what gets funded by donor appeal, not local need.
The "Click-to-Plant" Illusion
The rise of apps like TreeApp commodifies restoration into a simple transaction. While engaging for users, this model obscures critical questions: Are native species or monocultures planted? Are workers paid fair wages? The focus becomes the metric of "trees planted," granting consumers a clean conscience while long-term socio-ecological success and fair distribution of benefits becomes secondary.
Hope from the Ground: Community-Led Tech
In contrast, a fourth driver shows technology harnessed from the bottom up. Communities are adapting everyday tools: the Xingu Seed Network uses WhatsApp to coordinate complex native seed supply chains, while the Cerrado Pé Association uses Instagram to tell its own story and gain leverage. The most advanced form, like the Redário platform, involves communities co-creating digital tools for their own needs. Yet, a power asymmetry remains: these groups are often tenants on corporate owned platforms like Meta's.
The Core Question: Where Does Power Flow?
Ultimately, the digitalization of restoration revolves around key power dynamics:
* Knowledge Power: Satellite data vs. ancestral wisdom.
* Financial Power: Global investors vs. local planters.
* Narrative Power: Forests as carbon sinks vs. forests as homes.
The study's conclusion is clear: digital platforms are active political agents. They decide how restoration happens, for whom, and by whose rules. Our responsibility is to look past the promise of efficiency and constantly ask: Where is the power flowing, and who is being left behind? Supporting community-led technological practices is a vital step toward a more just and effective restoration future.
References:
Urzedo, D., Westerlaken, M., & Gabrys, J. (2023). Digitalizing forest landscape restoration: A social and political analysis of emerging technological practices. Environmental Politics, 32 (3), 485-510.
- Written by Angela John
