Shizuku Sunagawa shared findings from the In-Forest project at the 3rd International TAFORI Scientific Conference taking place from 11.-13. December 2024. As part of a session on Forest landscape restoration governance and management, she presented results from a mixed-methods study on Tanzanian forest governance research. 

The hybrid conference was held at the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC), Tanzania, where the In-Forest team was represented by Mercator Fellow and TAFORI senior researcher Amani J. Uisso. The event serves as a key space for exchanging information and sharing research on topic regarding forestry and beekeeping in Tanzania. This year, its overarching theme was “Restoring forest landscapes for sustainable development and climate change mitigation,” with eight related sub-themes hosting a range of oral presentations, posters, technologies and forest and bee products.

Joining the conference online from Germany, Shizuku Sunagawa presented a paper with In-Forest co-authors titled “Forest governance research in Tanzania: Analysing social and epistemic patterns in scientific publications”. The mixed-methods study examined whether and how locally published forest governance research by scholars based in Tanzania epistemically differs from research published in international outlets, and how these differences relate to authors’ social positions. By combining bibliometric and in-depth content analysis of publication data and text, we found that locally published research appears to be largely similar to international ones regarding methods and the purpose of study, while topical and geographical foci differ. Local publications cover a wider range of forest areas within Tanzania and are geared towards results linking closely with national policies. These results imply that if researchers and policymakers survey the forest governance knowledgebase primarily through digitized ‘international’ science databases, they are likely to miss research relevant for Tanzanian and international forest governance.  

The conference served as a valuable opportunity to share findings from the In-Forest project with scholars, policy-makers and practitioners from Tanzania. A video from the conference opening can be found here.