forest landscape restoration
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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. Forest Landscape Restoration. What is a Landscape?. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
Forest Landscape Restoration
Context, Concepts and Principles
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
A planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes
Definition
Forest Landscape Restoration
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
“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?
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
World
Eco-region
“Conservation”
Landscape
“Cultural” landscape
Landscape
units
Site
What is a Landscape?
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
World
Eco-region
Watershed
Valley in the watershed
Forest
Forest stand
An example
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
Terrestrial Ecoregions
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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”
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
A large conservation landscape: The 100,000 sq km Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou
Transfrontier Park between Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
A small cultural landscape:
The 70,000 hectare Dyfi watershed in Wales, UK
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
Is this just not land-use planning?
NO - BUT IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO IMPLEMENT THE “ECOSYSTEM APPROACH” - A CBD OBLIGTION
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
A planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes
Definition
Forest Landscape Restoration
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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…
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
Potential principles for FLR• Consistency with the FLR definition
• Scale
• Focus on forest functions
• Measurable
• Partnerships
• Participation
• Replication
• Timeframe
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION:
* Why?
* Where? * How?* What?
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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 ?
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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 - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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
FORESTS REBORN - East Africa Inception Workshop - April 2001
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