forest landscape restoration

FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001

Forest Landscape Restoration

Context, Concepts and Principles


A planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes

Definition



“A landscape is a contiguous area, intermediate in size between an ‘ecoregion’ and a ‘site’, with a specific set of ecological, cultural and socio-economic characteristics distinct from its neighbours”

What is a Landscape?


World

Eco-region

“Conservation”

Landscape

“Cultural” landscape

Landscape

units

Site

What is a Landscape?


World

Eco-region

Watershed

Valley in the watershed

Forest

Forest stand

An example


Terrestrial Ecoregions


Biological Importance

Highest (I)

High (II)

Medium (III)

CandidatePrior ity Areas

Our priority conservation landscapes in a particular eco-region

1

5

4

3

2

6

7

I,A

I,B

II

Within which will be nested other stakeholders “landscapes”


A large conservation landscape: The 100,000 sq km Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou

Transfrontier Park between Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe


A small cultural landscape:

The 70,000 hectare Dyfi watershed in Wales, UK


Whose Landscape?• The landscape provides us with an operational

context

• Don’t get hung-up on fixing boundaries

• Sometimes we will be able achieve broad stakeholder consensus

• Sometimes we won’t and will have to work with several

• But we must know, and refer back to our “conservation” landscape


The landscape is often the appropriate scale to operationalise conservation visions– however these need

to be set at a larger scale

Strategic planning and legislation

Identify conservation priorities at an ecoregional scale

Design and negotiation of an implementation package

Build consensus to operationalise vision at a landscape scale

Implementation actionImplement decisions at a site scale


Is this just not land-use planning?

NO - BUT IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO IMPLEMENT THE “ECOSYSTEM APPROACH” - A CBD OBLIGTION


What do we want from landscapes?

Acceptable – with good management Stand/site

Discouraged – requires strong justification and guarantees

Landscape

Strongly discouraged – should be opposed in virtually all circumstances

Ecoregion

Low

High

Unacceptable Global

Trends in specialisation

Acceptability of net losses of forest functions (goods and services) at a particular unit of scale

Unit of Scale


A planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes

Definition



Definitions

• Ecological integrity = the diversity and quality of an ecosystem that allows it to support life, adapt to change and provide for the needs of future generations

• Human well-being = people meeting their needs, safeguarding their livelihoods and realising their full potential


B

Hum

an w

ellb

eing

.

Restoration

A1

C2

High

Low

Ecological integrity

From a degraded site (point B), restoration should promote both ecological integrity and social wellbeing (eg: towards points A1 A2 or A3).

Interventions that move the system to points C1 or C2 would fail either on the human count or on the ecological one.

C1

MediumA3

A2


Forest Landscape Restoration or tree planting?

Forest landscape restoration goes beyond planting trees to re-establish forest cover,

Forest landscape restoration is about restoring “forest functionality” that will deliver a broad range of goods and services to society at the appropriate scale - the landscape.

Forest landscape restoration is about both forest quality and forest quantity: traditional tree-planting schemes have encouraged quantity only

Tree planting schemes often exclude rather than involve local people

Conventional tree planting creates simple rather than diverse forests

The public and private sector spend US$ 100s of millions on tree planting. Yet, less than 2/3 of tree planting initiatives actually succeed…


Estimated that worldwide private forest investment flows was $223 billion in 1996 (up from $ 193 bn. In 1993) (source: Bazett, 2000)

The World Bank provided $1.4 billion in loans between 1984 and 1994 to create 2.9 million hectares of tree plantations (source: WRM)

The EU spent a total of $ 1 billion between 1993-97 on afforestation schemes -

About 20% of world's plantations not commercially viable (ABARE 99)

Brazil planted 6 million ha of which 1/3 is no longer viable.

Expenditure on tree planting


Overview of FLR

• Not just a tool - it’s a paradigm shift - a vehicle to promote the ecosystem approach?

• Restoring forest functionality at a landscape level

• Involves halting and reversing

• Building assets for people and biodiversity

• Adaptation to climate change

• Critical to link policy with practice


Potential principles for FLR• Consistency with the FLR definition

• Scale

• Focus on forest functions

• Measurable

• Partnerships

• Participation

• Replication

• Timeframe


What makes FLR unique?

• It is a package that:– Focuses on restoring forest functions– Deals with scale via a landscape approach– Requires informed consensus of key

stakeholders


FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION:

* Why?

* Where? * How?* What?


Ecological reasons: eg improve and safeguard water supplies regulate and stabilise local climatic patterns protect soils from erosion and degradation create new habitat for wildlife

Social reasons: eg support local economic development build assets for livelihood security reduce risk (health, economic, natural disasters)

Economic reasons: eg Economic diversification Community development

WHY SHOULD FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION TAKE PLACE ?


WHERE SHOULD FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION TAKE PLACE ?

Ecological Criteria: Extent to which fragmentation/degradation has occurred Extent to which ecotype was represented elsewhere High biodiversity of forest species (endemism/endangered species)

Social criteria: Institutional compatibility Social stabilityLocal support, especially champions?

Economic criteria: What are the transaction costs How much will government revenue increase or decrease Protecting existing and planned infrastructure


HOW SHOULD FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION BE UNDERTAKEN ?

Some key considerations: how to integrate socio-economic and ecological dimensions

how to establish political will

how to deal constructively with power relationships re: land-use rights

how to promote partnerships with key stakeholders

how to mobilise the required funds


Forests Reborn

Programme Goal: to facilitate the promotion and implementation of forest restoration as a tool for safeguarding livelihood security, protecting biodiversity and ameliorating lost or impaired forest ecosystem functions

Programme Purpose: by June 2002, to ensure that the WWF and IUCN networks are equipped to promote and influence the effective mobilisation of private and public sector resources into socially and ecologically appropriate forest restoration initiatives

A joint Initiative by WWF-International andIUCN - The World Conservation Union


WWF’s Restoration target

• By 2005, undertake at least twenty forest landscape restoration initiatives in the world’s threatened, deforested or degraded forest regions to enhance ecological integrity and human well-being


World Bank New Forest Strategy: "Under its new strategy, the Bank will support … and make significant contributions to forest landscape restoration. The Bank can take advantage of the vast experience accumulated in ICRAF and CIFOR in this area and further develop the concept through the emerging Forest Reborn initiative developed jointly with bilateral donors, WWF, IUCN, and other organizations." CIFOR - Has requested IUCN / WWF to become a full member of Forests Reborn

OTHER RESPONSES TO THE FLR CONCEPT

forest landscape restoration

Documents

south africa

forest quantity

forest quality

large conservation landscape

forest cover

forest functionality

small cultural landscape

tree planting initiatives