Line thickness represents the amount of evidence available; three weights are used. Line color indicates the agreement in the available evidence, where green suggests general agreement and purple suggests some disagreement.

This is a repository copy of Ten people-centered rules for socially sustainable ecosystem restoration.

In Makueni County, Kenya, an area experiencing intensifying migration flows, we investigate the aspired futures of rural men and women using a novel methodology combining a narrative-based survey tool, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews. Our findings indicate that, in the absence of men and presence of norms restricting women's movement out of rural life, women are becoming increasingly engaged in farm management. Women’s aspirational narratives focused on commercialising farm activities, likely reflecting their changing agricultural opportunity space and new realities as farm managers. We highlight that only considering aspirations at the household level overlooks differing individual contributions, agency over various household income streams and individuals’ changing roles throughout life. Based on our findings, we make recommendations for further aspirations research including explicit consideration of intrahousehold heterogeneity and how individual strategies and aspirations interrelate and are negotiated at the household level to build an overall livelihood strategy.

While attention has been paid largely to forest restoration, meeting global land restoration pledges will require scalingup restoration of ecosystem services on agricultural land. This paper contributes to the literature on restoration practice and agricultural technology adoption, by shifting the focus onto the farm and considering the role of intrahousehold dynamics in the uptake of farmland restoration practices. We examine the intrahousehold decisions and gender relations surrounding the trial of two on-farm restoration practices: tree planting and planting basins; with over 2,500 farmers in the eastern drylands of Kenya. Combining results from household surveys, interviews and focus group discussions, our findings reveal that decisions over the uptake of restoration practices, although usually initiated by women who attend agricultural workshops, are often discussed between husband and wife and that multiple social dimensions intersect to shape men's and women's interest in, contribution to, and benefit from different practices. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that these intrahousehold relations are, in turn, shaped by women's participation in innovation processes and broader societal changes, particularly the outmigration of rural men. Based on these insights, we offer recommendations for improving the dissemination and uptake of on-farm restoration practices in eastern Kenya and achieving more inclusive and gender-equitable outcomes.

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