The project aims to develop new products and methods to study forest fires, lantana infestation, and forest understory and test positive feedback mechanisms between forest fires, climate change, and forest composition.

The project aims to understand what kind of elected political representatives can influence environmental outcomes in India. In particular, it aims to assess whether an elected politician’s identity (i.e. gender) and quality (i.e. whether they are “educated” or have a “criminal background”) can have any effect on forest cover gain or loss. The focus is on forest endowments as forests are an important carbon sink and therefore forest cover loss can accelerate global warming, exacerbating the adverse impacts of climate change.