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Short abstract

Most tree restoration programs in Rwanda happen on private land, producing a rural frontier in the form of a struggle to increase tree density on farmland. This frontier is shaped by remote sensing progress, that made individual trees into policy objects, and by the promotion of native tree species.

Long abstract

Rwanda has been committing to ambitious forest restoration targets since 2011, as part as global initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge. In the most densely populated country of continental Africa, where about 70% of the population lives from agriculture, land shortage makes it difficult to find where to plant trees. The promotion of agroforestry is thus a large part of Rwanda’s strategy to increase tree cover: most tree restoration programs happen on private farmland. This contribution explores the production of a rural frontier of tree restoration, through the analysis of the scientific and expert knowledge that steers, supports and monitors tree restoration programs in Rwanda.

First, I will show how progress in remote sensing has contributed to turn individual trees (as opposed to forested areas) into policy objects (e.g., by including them in carbon inventories). The rural frontier, in this case, does not take the form a moving front but of a struggle for increasing tree density by conquering nooks and crannies of small plots of farmland. Second, I will analyse public institutions’ efforts to promote native tree species instead of popular fast-growing, exotic species (such as eucalyptus) as an epistemic frontier. Whereas farmers are constrained by the authorities in the choice of the agricultural crops they grow, most experts involved in tree planting projects highlight the importance of farmers’ engagement for the success of tree planting campaigns: farmers might plant a seedling and uproot it the next day if they are not convinced of its usefulness.