Ecological Restoration and Tree-Planting Efforts in the  Ihorombe Grasslands of Southern Madagascar

To mitigate global climate change and diverse socio-ecological crises, ecological restoration (ER) has emerged as a solution to repair damaged and degraded environments and landscapes. ER's primary strategy relies on planting trees, often in the geographical contexts of the Global South. Our preliminary fieldwork observations from the Ihorombe plateau in southern Madagascar show that large-scale tree planting efforts raise questions and concerns about, amongst others, political economic issues such as land ownership and livelihoods. Therefore, tree planting is not simply aimed at environmental repair, but intertwined with multilevel social, economic, and political issues. Keywords: ecological restoration, tree planting, Madagascar, pastoralism, land