Parting Shot: Dennis Garrity, former ASB chair talks about the impact of the partnership

By Elizabeth Kahurani

Having been there since the inception of ASB Partnership in 1995, Dr Dennis Garrity took some time to give us his reflection on the impact of the partnership over the years and his best highlight moment as the chair. Read excerpts from his interview below and view the entire interview here

Q. What would you say has been the greatest success of the Partnership?

The ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins (ASB) is the only partnership that focuses on the forest margins and the problems they face of land conversion, poverty, deforestation... and I am very proud that since the network started 20 years ago, it keeps getting stronger and better every year.

Most recently what global organizations have discovered is that ASB is the best source of solid scientific empirical results on the effects of deforestation on carbon and carbon sequestration. These results have made such organizations as the World Bank and others support the network in order to use that data - which is the only pan tropical data source available- to answer questions with regard to the new climate change negotiations on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). So the network has become a gem for the international arena and as a result has garnered many new projects with collaborators throughout the humid and sub humid tropical forest areas of the world.

Q. ASB works at the interface of science and policy, in what way is the partnership currently contributing to ongoing climate change debates?

One area of focus in the climate change discussions is the REDD mechanism whose agenda is all about finding ways in which to properly compensate countries and communities for efforts to conserve the forest rather than cut it down. We know that by cutting down forests you may earn some money but the value to society is much higher than the amount gained in the short term. ASB is contributing to this using findings from the Reducing Emissions from All Land Uses (REALU) project which extends the REDD concept with a whole landscape approach. As we know, the forests are not isolated from the rest of the landscape and so there is need for holistic approaches in order for these solutions to actually work for people in the future. Former ASB Chair Dr Dennis Garrity (seated left) during a past global steering group meeting

Q. What do you hope to see ASB Partnership achieve in the next 5 to 10 years?

Well, I think ASB can move from its strengths in the humid tropical forests to take on issues relating to the dry land forests which are under tremendous threat and yet they provide livelihood for tens of millions of people. I think the other thing that the ASB Partnership is aiming to do is to work with cultivators who are clearing tropical forests for subsistence and develop more clear directions for those people to be able to make a good living and to transform the areas where they have cleared forests into tree crop systems which are the best solution for managing humid tropical lands in agriculture. 

Q. If you were to point out one highlight moment of your tenure as ASB Chair, what would that be?

We like to remember quite fondly what we call the voyage of discovery; when we took top policy makers and donor representatives on a major tour in Sumatra, Indonesia one of the ASB benchmark sites. I still get comments about that particular trip being such an eye opener for so many people who had been making decisions but had not been on the ground to see what was happening. We got to see some of the ways in which one can actually solve community problems in ways that are affordable and very convenient. That one particular memory lives on as one of the ASB high points and certainly one of those treasured memories that I will carry with me for a long time