Contact Information: Sophia Hagolani-Albov, sophia.hagolani-albov@helsinki.fi

Working Group Coordinators: Markus Kröger, Ossi Ollinaho, Sophia Hagolani-Albov, Global
Development Studies, University of Helsinki

Title: Planting Promises: Money, Myths, and the Realities of Global Tree Planting and
Ecological Restoration

Our working group is focused on the ruins and hopes connected to tree planting in the global South. Our plan is to have the working group take the form of an academic panel, composed of speakers both invited from the case locations of the Trees for Development project (for example Mozambique, Madagascar, Ethiopia, or Brazil) and speakers who submit abstracts to our group through the open call. There will be short contextualization of your work and then a moderated panel discussion. Speakers will receive the questions in advance and are invited to reflect on the topics through the lens of their own research. We will then have an open Q&A time with the audience participants. The session will be held in a hybrid format.

Our panel will explore the theme of “Reclaiming the Cracks” most directly as the cases in our project are sites of tree planting that follow the tenets of ecological restoration rather than the monocultural tree plantations associated with the bioeconomy and some forms of carbon sequestration. This panel seeks to bring together knowledges cultivated in the global South around tree planting projects, including those with North-South financial and other links. We welcome submissions that deal with tree planting and ecological restoration more generally.

We are interested in contributions specifically that look at cases that interrogate the relationships between global South planting sites and the global North actors involved in the business of tree planting. Please submit an abstract (max 300 words) to sophia.hagolani-albov@helsinki.fi. You do not need to submit a full paper to participate in our working group.