Pushpendra Rana
Biographic Data
| ID | 189163 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pushpendra Rana |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pushpendra |
| FAMILY NAME | Rana |
| SIGNATURE | RANA P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Illinois Department of Natural Resources |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3955-0662 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 48 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Why carbon offsets may fail in complex systems
Forest restoration for environment and well-being is associated with empowered local governance over long time horizons
Forest restoration is widely recognized as a global priority to sequester carbon, conserve biodiversity, and support the livelihoods of rural and indigenous people. Contemporary interventions often target landscapes with a substantial human presence, and they regularly call for stakeholder participation during project implementation. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence linking local involvement with multiple forest benefits over long t…
Using machine learning to uncover synergies between forest restoration and livelihood support in the Himalayas
In recent years, governments and international organizations have initiated numerous large-scale tree planting projects with the dual goals of restoring landscapes and supporting rural livelihoods. However, there remains a need for greater knowledge of drivers and conditions that enable positive social and environmental outcomes over the long term. In this study, we used interpretable machine learning (IML) to explore win–win and win–lose outcome…
How Social Considerations Improve the Equity and Effectiveness of Ecosystem Restoration
Ecosystem restoration is an important means to address global sustainability challenges. However, scientific and policy discourse often overlooks the social processes that influence the equity and effectiveness of restoration interventions. In the present article, we outline how social processes that are critical to restoration equity and effectiveness can be better incorporated in restoration science and policy. Drawing from existing case studie…
Indian forest governance during the Covid-19 pandemic
The unexpected nature of COVID-19 tested the institutional strength and resilience of state agencies across the world. Preliminary evidence is presented on how reduced mobility due to COVID-19 affected the functioning of the Forest Department in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and triggered changes in forest use by local communities as perceived by forest officials. Our evidence shows mixed outcomes in terms of the effectiveness of …
Cetp in Jodhpur
Inviting oversight
Predicting wasteful spending in tree planting programs in Indian Himalaya
A global review of the impact of forest property rights interventions on poverty
Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India
How politics shapes the outcomes of forest carbon finance
Predicting the long-term social and ecological impacts of tree-planting programs
Dark and bright spots in the shadow of the pandemic
The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption to lives and livelihoods around the world. These disruptions have brought into sharp focus experiences of vulnerability but also, at times, evidence of resilience as people and institutions gear up to respond to the crisis. Drawing on intensive qualitative enquiry in 16 villages of Himalayan India and Nepal, this paper documents both dark and bright spots from the early days of the…
Machine learning to analyze the social-ecological impacts of natural resource policy
Machine learning promises to advance analysis of the social and ecological impacts of forest and other natural resource policies around the world. However, realizing this promise requires addressing a number of challenges characteristic of the forest sector. Forests are complex social-ecological systems (SESs) with myriad interactions and feedbacks potentially linked to policy impacts. This complexity makes it hard for machine learning methods to…
Using publicly available social and spatial data to evaluate progress on Redd+ social safeguards in Indonesia
Countries are grappling with how to monitor and evaluate the social impacts of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) at national and sub-national scales as they develop REDD+ safeguard information systems (SIS). Given limited resources for social safeguard measuring, reporting and verification (MRV), and the fact that REDD+ is a performance based mechanism requiring monitoring over the medium to long-run, there is a…
Beyond committees
A Crystal Ball for Forests
Citizens, governments, and donors are increasingly demanding better evi- dence on the eff ectiveness of development policies and programs. Eff orts to ensure such accountability in the forest sector confront the challenge that the results may take years, even decades, to materialize, while forest-related interventions usually last only a short period. Th is article reviews the broad interdisciplinary literature assessing forest conservation and m…
Rules and Exceptions
Predicting the long-term social and ecological impacts of tree-planting programs
Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India
Dark and bright spots in the shadow of the pandemic
The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption to lives and livelihoods around the world. These disruptions have brought into sharp focus experiences of vulnerability but also, at times, evidence of resilience as people and institutions gear up to respond to the crisis. Drawing on intensive qualitative enquiry in 16 villages of Himalayan India and Nepal, this paper documents both dark and bright spots from the early days of the…
Beyond committees
Using publicly available social and spatial data to evaluate progress on Redd+ social safeguards in Indonesia
Countries are grappling with how to monitor and evaluate the social impacts of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) at national and sub-national scales as they develop REDD+ safeguard information systems (SIS). Given limited resources for social safeguard measuring, reporting and verification (MRV), and the fact that REDD+ is a performance based mechanism requiring monitoring over the medium to long-run, there is a…
Inviting oversight
Predicting wasteful spending in tree planting programs in Indian Himalaya
How politics shapes the outcomes of forest carbon finance
Rules and Exceptions
Rules and Exceptions
Using publicly available social and spatial data to evaluate progress on Redd+ social safeguards in Indonesia
Countries are grappling with how to monitor and evaluate the social impacts of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) at national and sub-national scales as they develop REDD+ safeguard information systems (SIS). Given limited resources for social safeguard measuring, reporting and verification (MRV), and the fact that REDD+ is a performance based mechanism requiring monitoring over the medium to long-run, there is a…
Beyond committees
A Crystal Ball for Forests
Citizens, governments, and donors are increasingly demanding better evi- dence on the eff ectiveness of development policies and programs. Eff orts to ensure such accountability in the forest sector confront the challenge that the results may take years, even decades, to materialize, while forest-related interventions usually last only a short period. Th is article reviews the broad interdisciplinary literature assessing forest conservation and m…
Machine learning to analyze the social-ecological impacts of natural resource policy
Machine learning promises to advance analysis of the social and ecological impacts of forest and other natural resource policies around the world. However, realizing this promise requires addressing a number of challenges characteristic of the forest sector. Forests are complex social-ecological systems (SESs) with myriad interactions and feedbacks potentially linked to policy impacts. This complexity makes it hard for machine learning methods to…
A global review of the impact of forest property rights interventions on poverty
Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India
How politics shapes the outcomes of forest carbon finance
Predicting the long-term social and ecological impacts of tree-planting programs
Dark and bright spots in the shadow of the pandemic
The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption to lives and livelihoods around the world. These disruptions have brought into sharp focus experiences of vulnerability but also, at times, evidence of resilience as people and institutions gear up to respond to the crisis. Drawing on intensive qualitative enquiry in 16 villages of Himalayan India and Nepal, this paper documents both dark and bright spots from the early days of the…
Predicting wasteful spending in tree planting programs in Indian Himalaya
How Social Considerations Improve the Equity and Effectiveness of Ecosystem Restoration
Ecosystem restoration is an important means to address global sustainability challenges. However, scientific and policy discourse often overlooks the social processes that influence the equity and effectiveness of restoration interventions. In the present article, we outline how social processes that are critical to restoration equity and effectiveness can be better incorporated in restoration science and policy. Drawing from existing case studie…
Indian forest governance during the Covid-19 pandemic
The unexpected nature of COVID-19 tested the institutional strength and resilience of state agencies across the world. Preliminary evidence is presented on how reduced mobility due to COVID-19 affected the functioning of the Forest Department in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and triggered changes in forest use by local communities as perceived by forest officials. Our evidence shows mixed outcomes in terms of the effectiveness of …
Cetp in Jodhpur
Inviting oversight
Using machine learning to uncover synergies between forest restoration and livelihood support in the Himalayas
In recent years, governments and international organizations have initiated numerous large-scale tree planting projects with the dual goals of restoring landscapes and supporting rural livelihoods. However, there remains a need for greater knowledge of drivers and conditions that enable positive social and environmental outcomes over the long term. In this study, we used interpretable machine learning (IML) to explore win–win and win–lose outcome…
Forest restoration for environment and well-being is associated with empowered local governance over long time horizons
Forest restoration is widely recognized as a global priority to sequester carbon, conserve biodiversity, and support the livelihoods of rural and indigenous people. Contemporary interventions often target landscapes with a substantial human presence, and they regularly call for stakeholder participation during project implementation. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence linking local involvement with multiple forest benefits over long t…
Why carbon offsets may fail in complex systems
Geography (16 works) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (15 works) · Economics (15 works) · Business (14 works) · Environmental resource management (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Ecology (9 works) · Forestry (9 works) · Forest Management and Policy (8 works) · Agriculture (6 works)