Bringing people together for a more sustainable future - In conversation with René Boot

What has been the main lesson during your time as TBI’s director?

I would say that the most important lesson in my career stems from the time before I was TBI’s director, when I was working in Bolivia. There, I learned that you cannot achieve sustainable forest management without putting people first. When I became TBI’s director, I saw it as my task to mainstream this perspective in the organization. At that time TBI was still mostly focusing on the technical aspects of forest management. I was convinced that this needed to change. We adopted "putting people first" as our adage because people who depend on forests should also manage them and have a strong voice in governing them.

What did you encounter when trying to introduce a more people-centred perspective?

There was quite a bit of resistance. At the time, we worked intensively with Dutch universities, who placed their PhD students in our country programmes. I told the universities that all research had to be demand driven, and some of them were not happy with that. They wanted to have students working on a research agenda set by Dutch universities with little or no input from forest and knowledge institutes in the host countries. Rudy Rabbinge, then Chair of TBI, played an important role in helping to convince the universities of the need for a different approach, where research agendas are determined together with local actors. Rabbinge also introduced the concept of the knowledge broker, which became a central component of our approach. It meant that we were no longer focusing on generating academic knowledge, but much more intent on connecting knowledge to its potential users.

What has been your most important achievement?

I think that would be the establishment of the network. Around 2012, I realized that structural changes were needed. Up until then we were a Dutch organization with offices abroad. We were completely dependent on financing from the Dutch government. The board, chaired by Martin Kropff at the time, rightfully stressed that this made the organization highly vulnerable. Moreover, by keeping it a Dutch organization, we were not contributing to building a strong civil society in the countries where we were working. I felt we needed to change to a network of autonomous organizations, to ensure ownership where it belongs, and to increase legitimacy at the national level. You could say we were ahead of the time. Most other organizations active in international development stuck to a centralized approach for much longer. But you see that the thinking in development cooperation has been evolving.

How has the thinking changed?

There is more awareness now that local ownership is key. We can provide support to countries, but we must recognize our role and position. This also applies to me. Working in Bolivia 25 years ago, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell a Bolivian minister what I thought needed to be done. I would never do that now! Who am I to tell them what to do?

How would you describe the impact of the work of TBI network members?

TBI members apply a landscape approach, resulting in tangible changes in the landscapes where they work. Those are changes that improve the situation for the people who live there through better management of forests and trees. Sometimes this requires a policy change, as a means to an end. Ultimately, one should be able to walk through a landscape and be able to point out the concrete results of TBI’s activities. If TBI members can show that their work resulted in improved landscape features and conditions for local people, I think that the TBI approach will be picked up by others. This is one of the ways to reach scale.

TBI does not represent a particular stakeholder group. What gives TBI members a licence to operate in the landscapes where they are active?

In my view, TBI’s licence to operate has been based on our role as knowledge broker: informing discussions and decisions with evidence-based information, and providing insights into the consequences of certain decisions for a range of sectors. Next to that, I think that the legitimacy of TBI members is also based on their longstanding relationships with local and national stakeholders, who invite them to participate in discussions to share their knowledge and recommendations. They are trusted as neutral and trustworthy organizations.

Could you describe a moment when you felt that your work as director really came together?

That was sometime in 2019. In the timespan of only a couple of months a lot of things happened. At an international event in New York, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs subscribed to an international commitment to combat wildfires, which were wreaking havoc in the Amazon region. Around the same time, the Bolivian government approached the Dutch embassy for help with fighting the fires. I knew that our Bolivian partner, IBIF, had been working for quite some time on developing a more structural approach to wildfires, in close collaboration with a local mayor and a district head. There was a window of opportunity there. I then managed to bring all parties together; IBIF, the mayor, the district head, Bolivian government officials, the Bolivian ambassador to the Netherlands, the Dutch diplomatic service, and the head of the programme on forests and climate of the Dutch government. After meetings with all of them, everyone was enthusiastic. Things started moving, and resulted in a new programme in support of a more structural approach to wildfire prevention in multiple countries. That was an exciting time for me.

What is the secret to successfully bringing people together?

I was able to get all the different parties around the table because over the years I had built relationships of trust with all of them. And I was able to ensure that everyone felt ownership over the process. The key is to listen to everyone. You must take everyone’s interests seriously. Bringing people around the table to work on a common objective will not work if you only have an eye for your own interests, or if you want to convince others that your own goals are more important than theirs. Success starts with the agenda of the other.

Taking all interests seriously — is that a key element of the TBI approach?

I think so. TBI members have the capacity and the openness to develop relationships of trust with a range of actors. Many NGOs focus on identifying problems, and on creating awareness about those problems. That is important too, of course. But TBI members are more focussed on developing solutions, and this requires considering the interests of all stakeholders. I have learned that it is not effective to start with stating what you think is the solution. Instead, it is better to start with talking about what the various parties find important. We must start with listening. When all the interests and priorities are on the table, we can talk about possible solutions that do justice to the concerns of all stakeholders. That is one of the secrets of being an effective knowledge broker. In this role, TBI members can help with developing broadly supported solutions for a more sustainable future. 

Photo: Milagro Elstak