Tag: Land restoration
Quantification of climate change mitigation benefits from expansion of silvopastoral systems: An analytical proof of concept for Colombia
Gender Roles And Land Use Preferences-Implications To Landscape Restoration In Southeast Asia
This section discusses the roles that women play in agricultural production, as well as their land use choices and the implications of those choices on landscape restoration. Based on case studies from Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, we argue that the pathway to land restoration is influenced by the way that land is appreciated by direct stakeholders. Women, due to their increasingly productive roles, could become agents of either land degradation or restoration. Ignoring their specific needs may lead to unsuccessful implementations of land restoration programs. We recommend a greater emphasis on understanding gender-specific differences over land-use and land management practices as an entry point, followed by nuanced design and implementation of gender-responsive and gender-focused land restoration approaches and investments.
Sustainable and fair forest and land restoration: Balancing goals, interests, and trade-offs
The chapter synthesizes the findings of the 11 chapters of this book and situates them in current debates on forest restoration and related literature. It explores forest restoration histories and trends; summarizes projections of what can be expected of future forest restoration; discusses the goals, costs, and actual and potential social, economic, and environmental benefits of forest restoration; and estimates how likely it is that benefits will be achieved in practice. The chapter deliberates on international, national, and local restoration governance, including how international restoration governance takes shape, how it relates to other international processes, and how it links to national and subnational forest restoration governance. The chapter, furthermore, discusses fairness and justice of local level governance. It ends by summarizing the major challenges of forest restoration and suggests how they might be overcome, reflecting on the best ways to translate the global restoration project into feasible pathways of doing restoration in a just and sustainable manner.
‘Trees are not all the same’ Assessing the policy and regulatory barriers to the upscaling of Famer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) in Senegal
Ecosystem restoration remains high on development agendas worldwide. In the Sahel, including Senegal, knowledge gaps remain on how the underlying policy and regulations for rights and ownership influence farmers’ incentives for upscaling land restoration. We contribute to filling these gaps by i) analysing agroforestry related policy and regulations, and ii) assessing key stakeholders (foresters, animators, and farmers) perceptions in Kaffrine, Kaolack and Fatick regions using semi-structured interviews. The results show that tree rights and use procedures are determined by the Forestry Code and vary according to the status and location of the tree. However, the Forestry Code was found to be inappropriate for managing agroforestry systems where farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) is practiced, hence creating barriers to its adoption. Contrasting perceptions and potential solutions emerged. While the field animators and farmers find the tree use procedures burdensome and constraining for the practice of FMNR, most foresters find them not burdensome and appropriate for environmental protection. As solutions, animators and foresters suggest farmers’ sensitization, capacity building, and rewards, whereas the farmers call for an easing of tree use procedures and a reduction of taxes and permit fees. These results suggest farmer-centric and inclusive policy reform of tree rights in Senegal.
Managing tree cover to restore farm productivity and build landscape and livelihood resilience in West Africa
Land restoration and sustainable natural resource use are critical societal concerns that impact both the health of ecosystems and human well-being. There is increasing recognition of the importance of restoring degraded land and landscapes, culminating in the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030). This special issue sheds light on how trees can help restore landscapes and is organized around 3 domains: ecological and genetic variation, restoration of species and lands, and species management in production systems. Successful tree cover interventions consider species, practices, and their management within the production systems to optimize impacts. A solid understanding of the variation in tree materials and their different functional traits can help restoration project planners and managers select the best interventions, such as direct seeding and Farmers’ Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). Simultaneously, the use of these approaches must be context-specific and consider the severity of land degradation. The Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), a tool that helps determine the severity of land degradation, can be used to help tailor interventions to the local extent of land degradation.
Growth and aboveground carbon of trees estimated using the FORCASTREE (SExI-FS) model: possible inputs for land restoration and carbon project in the Philippines
In this report, we present the results of a projection of potential aboveground carbon storage of four tree-based practices using FORCASTREE (a model FOR simulating growth and CArbon of foreST and agroforest tREEs): a tree-tree growth and interaction model, formerly known as SExI-FS (Spatially Explicit Individual-based Forest Simulator), developed by the World Agroforestry (ICRAF). The four tree-based practices combine fast- and slow-growing and native and exotic tree species: (1) a mixture of different Dipterocarp species, (2) native and exotic non-Dipterocarp species, (3) Dipterocarp, fruit trees, and cacao, and (4) Dipterocarp species, native non-Dipterocarp species, fruit trees, and cacao. Scenarios of tree mortality (with or without mortality) and tree density (400 or 1100 trees per hectare) were considered for each practice.
Sustainability planning with community and local stakeholders
Sustainability planning with the community and local stakeholders is important to ensure that promoted land restoration practices continue being implemented after the Regreening Africa Programme transitions at the end of 2022. Sustainability planning should be part of the programme’s exit planning.
Annual Report. September 2019 – August 2020. Regreening Africa Reversing Land Degradation in Africa by Scaling-up Evergreen Agriculture
This narrative report covers year four of the Reversing Land Degradation by Scalingup Evergreen Agriculture (Regreening Africa) project funded by the European Union (EU) from September 2017 to September 2022.
Assessing the application of gender perspectives in land restoration studies in Ethiopia using text mining
Restoration of degraded land is key to enhancing land productivity and farmers’ wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence shows that the benefits of land restoration are tremendous, ranging from biophysical benefits in soil health, agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, to socio-economic dimensions such as improving farmers’ income and livelihoods. Yet one issue that is rarely considered is how the outcomes of restoration initiatives affect different social groups, specifically women, men, and the marginalized. Our study aims to understand the extent of gender and social inclusion in land restoration studies in Ethiopia. Through analyzing 314 peer-reviewed scientific articles on land restoration initiatives and studies for Ethiopia published between 1985 and 2020, we aimed to: i) develop a novel approach that would allow for the semi-automatization of analyzing gender aspects in a large set of scientific documents using machine learning techniques, ii) assessed the current evidence on gender integration in peer-reviewed studies related to RDL, and iii) identified what gender issues are discussed in RDL literature. We employed text mining techniques to analyze the literature for keywords and to classify articles into three main classes: gender blind, gender sensitive, and gender transformative, based on the extent to which gender and social inclusion keywords appeared in the studies. Our analysis showed that gender and social inclusion are rarely considered in landscape restoration studies in Ethiopia, as most studies and interventions are heavily focused on the biophysical and environmental aspects of restoration. Despite an exponential increase in the use of gender and social inclusion keywords after 2005, most of the research (58 percent of articles) remains gender blind. The most frequently used related terms remained generic, e.g. community, access, participatory, and tenure. Only 38% of the studies could be classified as gender sensitive to a certain degree, and a strikingly low number of articles (4 percent) ― which consider the systematic challenges women face ― could be defined as gender transformative. This implies that scientific evidence about how land restoration has benefited men and women, and to what extent it could transform gender and power dynamics, is lacking. Our findings demonstrate the urgent need to consider gender and social inclusion to ensure associated benefits of land restoration practices.