Forest Restoration in Landscapes

WWF’s Forests for Life Programme

WWF’s vision for the forests of the world, shared with its long-standing partner, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), is that“the world will have more extensive, more diverse and higher-quality forest landscapes which will meet human needs and aspi-rations fairly, while conserving biological diversity and fulfilling theecosystem functions necessary for all life on Earth.”

WWF’s approach to forest conservation has evolved over timeinto a global programme of integrated field and policy activitiesaimed at the protection, responsible management, and restorationof forests, whilst at the same time working to address the keythreats which could potentially undermine these efforts. Those ofparticular concern to WWF are illegal logging and forest crime,conversion of forests to plantation crops of palm oil and soy, forestfires, and climate change.

The Forests for Life Programme consists of a global network ofmore than 250 staff working on over 300 projects in nearly 90 coun-tries. Regional forest officers coordinate efforts in each of the fiveregions, supported by a core team based at WWF International inSwitzerland. The programme also draws on the complementaryskills and support of partners to help achieve its goals.

WWF and Restoring Forests and TheirFunctions in Landscapes

WWF has adopted a target for forest restoration: “By 2020, restoreforest goods, services, and processes in 20 landscapes of outstand-ing importance within priority ecoregions to regain ecologicalintegrity and enhance human well-being,” which is issued as a challenge to the world.

As its contribution toward the target, WWF is actively develop-ing a portfolio of forest landscape restoration programmes, andalso working with governments, international organisations, indige-nous peoples, and other communities to pursue its work on forestrestoration within a landscape context, by doing the following:

• Initiating and facilitating projects/programmes within landscapesof high restoration priority in WWF Global 200 Ecoregions

• Assisting others, and building local capacity to plan and imple-ment forest restoration interventions

• Developing suitable monitoring tools and techniques to measureprogress

• Documenting, exchanging and disseminating lessons learnt andexperiences

For more information please see the Web site: http://www.panda.org/forests/restoration/.

Stephanie MansourianDaniel VallauriNigel Dudley

Forest Restoration inLandscapes

Beyond Planting Trees

With 28 Illustrations

Stephanie Mansourian Daniel VallauriConsultant WWF FranceWWF International 6 Rue des FabresAvenue Mont Blanc 13001 MarseilleGland 1196 FranceSwitzerland

Nigel DudleyConsultantEquilibrium47 The QuaysCumberland RoadBS1 6UQUnited Kingdom

© 1986 Panda symbol WWF

® WWF is a WWF Registered Trademark

Cover Illustrations: Photo Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), tree seedling. PhotoCredit: © WWF-Canon/Michael Gunther. Background photo: Mt. Rinjani, Lombok,Indonesia, © Agri Klintuni Boedhihartono.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005927862

ISBN 0-387-25525-7 Printed on acid-free paper.ISBN-13: 978-0387-255855

© 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.Cite as Mansourian, S.,Vallauri, D., Dudley, N., eds. (in cooperation with WWF Inter-national) 2005. Forest Restoration in Landscapes: Beyond Planting Trees, Springer,New York.All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in partwithout the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media,Inc., 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in con-nection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of infor-mation storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similaror dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden.The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similarterms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression ofopinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.

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Is it a sign of the times that last year the Nobel committee choseto award the Nobel Peace prize to Wangari Maathai for havingplanted 30 million trees? We believe so. We think that while in the20th century conservation made significant progress on setting upa global protected area network, the 21st century will be a time offorest restoration.The fact that Wangari Maathai is the first Africanwoman to receive such an honourable distinction is in itself a majoraccomplishment.What is even more remarkable is that, for the firsttime, this highly esteemed prize, which has long been associatedwith political feats, was given for an environmental achievement.And not just any environmental achievement, but forest restora-tion. It is a comfort to see that it is not just us at WWF, the globalconservation organisation, who believe forest restoration to be ofglobal significance, but that the Nobel committee is in agreement.The committee members are not the only ones, I should add. In2003 WWF, IUCN, (the World Conservation Union), and the United Kingdom Forestry Commission launched a global partner-ship on forest landscape restoration to raise awareness about theimportance of the restoration of forests and to invite all decisionmakers and influential organisations to join in a movement torestore forests. Today this partnership includes governments asdiverse as Switzerland, Finland, El Salvador, and Italy, and inter-national organisations such as the United Nations Food and Agri-culture Organisation (FAO), the Centre for International ForestryResearch (CIFOR), the International Tropical Timber Organisa-tion (ITTO), and it continues to grow.

Too much damage has already been done for us to afford toignore our dwindling forest resources. If we wait until tomorrow torestore forests, it will be too late. If too little is left, it will takelonger, will be more difficult, and will cost much more to beginrestoring a healthy forest—and it may also be too late.

At WWF we are aware of this urgency, and with this book weinvite practitioners, researchers, and decision makers to join us indoing something practical about our forests. As the Nobel com-mittee has noted, too many wars are fought over dwindlingresources. If we do not do something about it, this may well be thenew security scourge jeopardising our future and that of our children.

Chief Emeka AnyaokuPresident, WWF International

Foreword

v

For WWF, the global conservation organisation, achieving lastingforest conservation requires working on a large scale and integrat-ing global strategies and policies to protect, manage, and restoreforests.

In an ideal world, restoration would not be necessary; however,today many forest habitats are already so damaged that their long-term survival, and the ecological services they provide, are in doubtand we urgently need to consider restoration if we are to achieveconservation and sustain the livelihoods of people dependent onnature.

Forest conservation strategies that rely solely on protected areasand sustainable management have proved insufficient either tosecure biodiversity or to stabilise the environment. The UnitedNations Environment Programme now classifies a large proportionof the world’s land surface as “degraded,” and this degradation iscreating a wide range of ecological, social, and economic problems.Forest loss and degradation is a particularly important element inthis worldwide problem with annual global estimates of forest lossbeing as high as 16 million hectares, and those for degradation evenhigher. Reversing this damage is one of the largest and mostcomplex challenges of the 21st century.

An analysis of the WWF Global 200 ecoregions—those areas ofgreatest importance for biodiversity on a global scale—demon-strates the problems. For example, over 20 percent of forest ecore-gions have already lost at least 85 percent of their forests: sometimesonly 1 to 2 percent remains. Deforestation is a key threat to waterquality in 59 percent of freshwater ecoregions. Many of the charis-matic species that are flagships for conservation (African elephant,Asian elephant, great apes, rhinoceros, giant panda, and tiger) arethreatened by forest loss, fragmentation, and degradation.

Forest loss is not only of concern to conservationists. Accordingto the World Bank about 1 billion people in the developing worlddepend either directly or indirectly on goods and services from theforests, and these provide an essential safety net to many of theworld’s poorest people.

Preface

vii

WWF’s mission is to stop degradation on our planet and toachieve a world where humans and nature live in harmonytogether. Decades of overexploitation have brought us to a worldcharacterised by imbalance: imbalance between rich and poor,imbalance between supply of natural resources and demand fornatural resources, imbalance between biodiversity needs andhuman needs.WWF’s approach to forest restoration, in the contextof ecoregion conservation, seeks to redress these imbalances inorder to restore healthy landscapes that are able to benefit bothbiodiversity and people.

This book harnesses the expertise of over 70 authors drawing ona wealth of practical experience and a wide range of expertise. Itis practical, hands on, and illustrated with numerous examples fromacross the world. The aim is to synthesise in an easily accessibleformat the knowledge and expertise that exists and also to high-light areas that need further work.We are hoping to encourage fieldstaff—ours and those of other organisations interested in conser-vation and development—who are out there dealing with theimpacts of forest loss and degradation, to apply landscape-scaleforest restoration as an approach to help them meet their conser-vation goals and our conservation goals.

Dr. Chris HailsProgramme Director, WWF International

viii Preface

This book has been designed to help readers understand how forestrestoration can be integrated with other aspects of conservationand development in landscapes. Parts A, B, and C introduce the ele-ments for planning and implementing restoration on a broad scale,including a range of social, political, and economic considerationsthat will influence and that will be influenced by any large-scalerestoration effort. Part D focusses on more specific issues, includ-ing restoration in different forest habitats and for different reasons.

While we believe that successful restoration generally needs tobe planned on a large scale, it will probably be implemented in oneor more sites within a landscape, and the book similarly starts withvery broad-scale considerations and then focusses increasingly onactions that can be taken at the site. Parts A, B, and C thus providewhat could be seen as the foundations, and part D provides somemuch more specific tools and considerations that are applicable indifferent situations. We recommend that you read the relevantchapters in part D once you have read all of parts A, B, and C.

The final part (part E) discusses some of the lessons learned todate from practical experiences and recommendations for futurework related to forest restoration on a large scale.

Each chapter starts with an introduction to the issue, illustratingit with a series of brief thumbnail examples, showing, where appro-priate, both good and bad practice. Some useful tools are then listedfollowed by a brief description of future work required and finallyand importantly a set of references. We cover a vast subject hereand each chapter is as a result kept deliberately short, we can onlyintroduce many of the techniques described but have provideddetailed sources for those who wish to follow up specific issues ingreater detail.

The book includes contributions from a large number of authors.Although we have all been writing within the framework of forestlandscape restoration, there are inevitably different nuances in howthis should be interpreted and applied. What follows is a set ofexperienced opinions rather than a rigid blueprint. We will in turnvery much appreciate hearing feedback, criticism, and experiencefrom users.

Note from the Editors

ix

The editors would like to thank Mark Aldrich, James Aronson,Chris Elliott, Chris Hails, and Pedro Regato for their emphatic andvery welcome support throughout the conception and productionof this book. On behalf of WWF International we would also liketo thank the 70 authors who donated their expertise, for nopayment and under what must have often been a frustratingly tighttimetable, to help produce such a comprehensive review of thisrapidly emerging field.

The following people have kindly reviewed different sectionsand chapters and provided us with valuable feedback: Chris Elliott(WWF International), Louise Holloway, Jack Hurd (the NatureConservancy), Val Kapos (U.N. Environment Programme–WorldConservation Monitoring Centre), John Parrotta (U.S. ForestService), Duncan Pollard (WWF International), Fulai Sheng (Con-servation International), P.J. Stephenson (WWF International), andColin Tingle (NR Group).

A special thank you is due to Tom McShane for taking the timeto read and comment on the whole manuscript.

Nelda Geninazzi played an essential role in helping to organisethe various editorial meetings, and Katrin Schikorr deserves specialmention for helping the editors with references.

The authors would like to specifically thank the following peoplefor contributing in some form or another to their respective chapters: José María Rey Benayas, André Rocha Ferretti, KarenHoll, Ramdan Lahouati, N. Lassettre, Stewart Maginnis, HalMooney, Guy Preston, Mohamed Raggabi, Peter Schei, and KristinSvavarsdottir.

The authors would also like to thank the following agenciesand/or institutions for support in projects that have made it possi-ble for them to write their respective chapters: European Life Envi-ronment programme “Water and Forest,” French ResearchMinistry, French National Forest Office (ONF) and Water Agency(Agence RMC), the European Commission (EC) (for the projectBiodiversity Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use inFragmented Forest Landscapes (BIOCORES), the Long-Term

Acknowledgements

xi

Ecological Research programme in Puerto Rico, funded by theNational Science Foundation, the government of Japan (for theCIFOR/ Japan Research project on lessons from past rehabilita-tion experiences), and the Generalitat Valenciana and FundaciónBancaja. The authors from CIFOR would like specifically to thankthe various research and support staff, as well as workshop and casestudy participants from the different countries for their invaluablecontributions to the project “Review of Forest Rehabilitation Ini-tiatives: Lessons from the Past”, which formed the basis for theirchapter in this book.

Finally, WWF would like to thank Lafarge for supporting thedevelopment of its forest landscape restoration programme.

The book represents a collection of individual essays and are theopinions of the authors and should not be seen as representingopinions from their respective employers or organisations. Need-less to say, despite the enormous help we have received in puttingthis book together, any remaining errors of fact or opinion remainthe responsibility of the editors.

xii Acknowledgements

Foreword by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, President, WWF International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Preface by Chris Hails, Programme Director, WWF International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Note from the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

Contributors’ List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii

Part A Toward a Wider Perspective in ForestRestoration

Section I Introducing Forest Landscape Restoration

Chapter 1Forest Landscape Restoration in Context

Nigel Dudley, Stephanie Mansourian, and Daniel Vallauri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Chapter 2Overview of Forest Restoration Strategies and Terms

Stephanie Mansourian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Section II The Challenging Context Of Forest Restoration Today

Chapter 3Impact of Forest Loss and Degradation on Biodiversity

Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 4The Impacts of Degradation and Forest Loss on Human Well-Being and Its Social and Political Relevance for Restoration

Mary Hobley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Table of Contents

xiii

xiv Table of Contents

Chapter 5Restoring Forest Landscapes in the Face of Climate Change

Jennifer Biringer and Lara J. Hansen . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Section III Forest Restoration in Modern Broad-Scale Conservation

Chapter 6Restoration as a Strategy to Contribute to Ecoregion Visions

John Morrison, Jeffrey Sayer, and Colby Loucks . . . . . 41

Chapter 7Why Do We Need to Consider Restoration in a Landscape Context?

Nigel Dudley, John Morrison, James Aronson, and Stephanie Mansourian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Chapter 8Addressing Trade-Offs in Forest Landscape Restoration

Katrina Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Part B Key Preparatory Steps Toward RestoringForests Within a Landscape Context

Section IV Overview of the Planning Process

Chapter 9An Attempt to Develop a Framework for Restoration Planning

Daniel Vallauri, James Aronson, and Nigel Dudley . . . . 65

Section V Identifying and Addressing Challenges/Constraints

Chapter 10Assessing and Addressing Threats in Restoration Programmes

Doreen Robinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Chapter 11Perverse Policy Incentives

Kirsten Schuyt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Chapter 12Land Ownership and Forest Restoration

Gonzalo Oviedo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Table of Contents xv

Chapter 13Challenges for Forest Landscape Restoration Based on WWF’s Experience to Date

Stephanie Mansourian and Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . 94

Section VI A Suite of Planning Tools

Chapter 14Goals and Targets of Forest Landscape Restoration

Jeffrey Sayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Chapter 15Identifying and Using Reference Landscapes for Restoration

Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Chapter 16Mapping and Modelling as Tools to Set Targets, Identify Opportunities, and Measure Progress

Thomas F. Allnutt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Chapter 17Policy Interventions for Forest Landscape Restoration

Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 18Negotiations and Conflict Management

Scott Jones and Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Chapter 19Practical Interventions that Will Support Restoration in Broad-Scale Conservation Based on WWF Experiences

Stephanie Mansourian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Section VII Monitoring and Evaluation

Chapter 20Monitoring Forest Restoration Projects in the Context of an Adaptive Management Cycle

Sheila O’Connor, Nick Salafsky, and Dan Salzer . . . . . 145

Chapter 21Monitoring and Evaluating Forest Restoration Success

Daniel Vallauri, James Aronson, Nigel Dudley, and Ramon Vallejo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

xvi Table of Contents

Section VIII Financing and Promoting Forest Landscape Restoration

Chapter 22Opportunities for Long-Term Financing of Forest Restoration in Landscapes

Kirsten Schuyt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Chapter 23Payment for Environmental Services and Restoration

Kirsten Schuyt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Chapter 24Carbon Knowledge Projects and Forest Landscape Restoration

Jessica Orrego . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Chapter 25Marketing and Communications Opportunities: How to Promote and Market Forest Landscape Restoration

Soh Koon Chng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Part C Implementing Forest Restoration

Section IX Restoring Ecological Functions

Chapter 26Restoring Quality in Existing Native Forest Landscapes

Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Chapter 27Restoring Soil and Ecosystem Processes

Lawrence R. Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Chapter 28Active Restoration of Boreal Forest Habitats for Target Species

Harri Karjalainen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Chapter 29Restoration of Deadwood as a Critical Microhabitat in Forest Landscapes

Nigel Dudley and Daniel Vallauri . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Chapter 30Restoration of Protected Area Values

Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Table of Contents xvii

Section X Restoring Socioeconomic Values

Chapter 31Using Nontimber Forest Products for Restoring Environmental, Social, and Economic Functions

Pedro Regato and Nora Berrahmouni . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Chapter 32An Historical Account of Fuelwood Restoration Efforts

Don Gilmour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Chapter 33Restoring Water Quality and Quantity

Nigel Dudley and Sue Stolton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Chapter 34Restoring Landscapes for Traditional Cultural Values

Gladwin Joseph and Stephanie Mansourian . . . . . . . 233

Section XI A Selection of Tools that Return Trees to the Landscape

Chapter 35Overview of Technical Approaches to Restoring Tree Cover at the Site Level

Stephanie Mansourian, David Lamb, and Don Gilmour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Chapter 36Stimulating Natural Regeneration

Silvia Holz and Guillermo Placci . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Chapter 37Managing and Directing Natural Succession

Steve Whisenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Chapter 38Selecting Tree Species for Plantation

Florencia Montagnini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Chapter 39Developing Firebreaks

Eduard Plana, Rufí Cerdan, and Marc Castellnou . . . . 269

Chapter 40Agroforestry as a Tool for Forest Landscape Restoration

Thomas K. Erdmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

xviii Table of Contents

Part D Addressing Specific Aspects of ForestRestoration

Section XII Restoration of Different Forest Types

Chapter 41Restoring Dry Tropical Forests

James Aronson, Daniel Vallauri, Tanguy Jaffré, and Porter P. Lowry II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Chapter 42Restoring Tropical Moist Broad-Leaf Forests

David Lamb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Chapter 43Restoring Tropical Montane Forests

Manuel R. Guariguata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Chapter 44Restoring Floodplain Forests

Simon Dufour and Hervé Piégay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Chapter 45Restoring Mediterranean Forests

Ramon Vallejo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Chapter 46Restoring Temperate Forests

Adrian Newton and Alan Watson Featherstone . . . . . . 320

Section XIII Restoring After Disturbances

Chapter 47Forest Landscape Restoration After Fires

Peter Moore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Chapter 48Restoring Forests After Violent Storms

Daniel Vallauri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Chapter 49Managing the Risk of Invasive Alien Species in Restoration

Jeffrey A. McNeely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Chapter 50First Steps in Erosion Control

Steve Whisenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Chapter 51Restoring Forests After Land Abandonment

José M. Rey Benayas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Chapter 52Restoring Overlogged Tropical Forests

Cesar Sabogal and Robert Nasi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Chapter 53Opencast Mining Reclamation

José Manuel Nicolau Ibarra andMariano Moreno de las Heras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Section XIV Plantations in the Landscape

Chapter 54The Role of Commercial Plantations in Forest LandscapeRestoration

Jeffrey Sayer and Chris Elliot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Chapter 55Attempting to Restore Biodiversity in Even-Aged Plantations

Florencia Montagnini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Chapter 56Best Practices for Industrial Plantations

Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

Part E Lessons Learned and the Way Forward

Chapter 57What Has WWF Learned About Restoration at an Ecoregional Scale?

Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Chapter 58Local Participation, Livelihood Needs, and Institutional Arrangements: Three Keys to Sustainable Rehabilitation of Degraded Tropical Forest Lands

Unna Chokkalingam, Cesar Sabogal, Everaldo Almeida,Antonio P. Carandang, Tini Gumartini, Wil de Jong,Silvio Brienza, Jr., Abel Meza Lopez, Murniati,Ani Adiwinata Nawir, Lukas Rumboko, Takeshi Toma,Eva Wollenberg, and Zhou Zaizhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Table of Contents xix

xx Table of Contents

Chapter 59A Way Forward: Working Together Toward a Vision for Restored Forest Landscapes

Stephanie Mansourian, Mark Aldrich, and Nigel Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

AppendixA Selection of Identified Ecological Research Needs Relating to Forest Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

ACG—Area Conservación GuanacasteCAP—common agriculture policyCATIE—Centro Agronómico Tropical de

Investigación y EnsenanzaCBD—Convention on Biological DiversityCBFM—community-based forest managementCDM—clean development mechanismCEAM—Centro de Estudios Ambientales

Mediterráneos (Mediterranean Centre forEnvironmental Studies)

CIFOR—Centre for International ForestryResearch

DFID—U.K. Department for InternationalDevelopment

DG—Directorate GeneralEC—European CommissionECCM—Edinburgh Centre for Carbon

ManagementERC—ecoregion conservationEU—European UnionFAO—United Nations Food and Agriculture

OrganisationFLO—Fair-Trade Labelling OrganisationFLR—forest landscape restorationFSC—Forest Stewardship CouncilFONAFIFO—Fondo Nacional de Finan-

ciamiento Forestal (National Fund forFinancing Forestry)

GEF—global environment facilityGIS—geographical information systemGTZ—Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische

Zusammenarbeit (German Company forInternational Technical Cooperation)

HCVF—high conservation value forestIAS—invasive alien speciesICDP—Integrated Conservation and Devel-

opment ProgrammeIFOAM—The International Federation of

Organic Agriculture MovementsIMF—International Monetary FundIPF—Intergovernmental Panel on ForestsITTO—International Tropical Timber

Organisation

xxi

Acronyms

IUCN—The World Conservation UnionIISD—International Institute for Sustainable

DevelopmentIIED—International Institute for

Environment and DevelopmentLULUCF—Land Use, Land-Use Change, and

ForestryMOSAIC—Management of Strategic Areas

for Integrated ConservationNTFP—nontimber forest productsNGO—Nongovernmental organisationODA—Overseas Development AssistancePES—payment for environmental servicesPRA—participatory rural appraisalPVA—population viability analysisRIL—reduced-impact loggingRRA—rapid rural appraisalREACTION—Restoration Actions to

Combat Desertification in the NorthernMediterranean

SAPARD—Special Action for Pre-AccessionMeasures for Agriculture and Rural Development

SERI—Society for Ecological RestorationInternational

SDC—Swiss Agency for Development andCooperation

SEI—Stockholm Environment InstituteSLU—Swedish University of Agricultural

SciencesTDF—tropical dry forestsTNC—The Nature ConservancyUNCCD—United Nations Convention to

Combat DesertificationUNFCCC—United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate ChangeUSAID—U.S. Agency for International

DevelopmentWWF—Worldwide Fund for Nature (also

known as World Wildlife Fund in NorthAmerica)

Mark AldrichManager, Forest Landscape RestorationForests for Life ProgrammeWWF InternationalAv. Mont Blanc1196 Gland, SwitzerlandE-mail: maldrich@wwfint.org

Thomas F. AlnuttSenior Conservation SpecialistConservation Science ProgrammeWorld Wildlife Fund–US, Suite 200Washington, DC 20037E-mail: tom.allnutt@gmail.com

Everaldo AlmeidaCIFOR Regional Office for Latin Americac/o EMBRAPA Amazônia OrientalTrav. Dr. Enéas Pinheiro s/nCEP 66.010-080 Belém—Pará, BrazilE-mail: e.almeida@cgiar.org

James AronsonRestoration Ecology GroupCEFE (CNRS-U.M.R. 5175)1919, Route de MendeF-34293 Montpellier, FranceE-mail: james.aronson@cefe.cnrs.fr

Martin AshbySion ChapelLlanwrinPowysSY20 8QHWales, United KingdomE-mail: martin.ashby@Martin-Ashby.

demon.co.uk

Contributors’ List

xxiii

Eduard PlanaHead of Forest Fire Working GroupForest Technology Centre of CataloniaArea de Política ForestalPujada del Seminari s/nSolsona 25280, SpainE-mail: eduard.plana@ctfc.es

Nora Berrahmouni Corkland ProgrammeCoordinator

WWF Mediterranean Programme OfficeVia Po 25/C00198 Rome, ItalyE-mail: nberrahmouni@wwmedpo.org

Jennifer BiringerWorld Wildlife Fund–US, Suite 200Washington, DC 20037E-mail: jennifer.biringer@wwfus.org

Silvio Brienza, Jr.Embrapa Amazônia Oriental,Trav. Dr. Enéas Pinheiro s/n 66095-100Belém—Pará, BrazilE-mail: brienza@cpatu.embrapa.br

Katrina BrownProfessor of Development StudiesSchool of Development StudiesUniversity of East AngliaNorwichNR4 7TJ, United KingdomE-mail: k.brown@uea.ac.uk

xxiv Contributors’ List

Antonio P. CarandangForestry ConsultantMain StreetMarymount Village, AnosLos Banos,Laguna 4030, PhilippinesE-mail: apc@laguna.net

Marc CastellnouForestry EngineerGRAF-Fire ServiceGovernment of CataloniaCtra. Universitat Autònoma, s/n08290 Cerdanyola del Vallès (Vallès

Occidental)SpainE-mail: incendis@yahoo.com

Rufi CerdanDr. in GeographyAutonomous University of BarcelonaCampus de la UAB, Edifici B08193 BellaterraSpainE-mail: rufi.cerdan@uab.es

Soh Koon ChngCommunications ManagerWWF InternationalAv. Mont Blanc1196 Gland, SwitzerlandE-mail: skchng@wwfint.org

Unna ChokkalingamScientistEnvironmental Services and Sustainable Use

of Forests ProgrammeCentre for International Forestry Research

(CIFOR)P.O. Box 6596 JKPWBJakarta 10065, IndonesiaE-mail: u.chokkalingam@cgiar.org

Nigel DudleyConsultantEquilibrium47 The QuaysCumberland RoadBristolBS1 6UQ, United KingdomE-mail: equilibrium@compuserve.com

Simon DufourPhD studentCNRS UMR 560018 rue Chevreul69362 Lyon Cedex 07, FranceE-mail: sim_dufour@yahoo.fr

Chris ElliottDirector, Forest ProgrammeWWF InternationalAv. Mont Blanc1196 Gland, SwitzerlandE-mail: celliott@wwfint.org

Thomas K. ErdmannRegional CoordinatorERI Madagascar Projectc/o Development Alternatives, Inc.7250 Woodmont Ave.Suite 200Bethesda, MD 20814E-mail: tom_erdmann@dai.com

Alan Watson FeatherstoneTrees for LifeThe ParkFindhorn BayForres IV36 3TZScotland, United KingdomE-mail: trees@findhorn.org

Don GilmourEnvironmental Consultant42 Mindarie Cres Wellington Point4160 Queensland, AustraliaE-mail: gilmour@itxpress.com.au

Manuel GuariguataEnvironmental Affairs OfficerUnited Nations Environment ProgrammeSecretariat of the Convention on Biological

Diversity413 St. Jacques, Suite 800Montreal, Quebec, CanadaE-mail: manuel.guariguata@biodiv.org

Tini GumartiniEnvironmental Services and Sustainable Use

of Forests ProgrammeCentre for International Forestry Research

(CIFOR)P.O. Box 6596 JKPWBJakarta 10065, IndonesiaE-mail: gumartini@cgiar.org

Contributors’ List xxv

Lara J. HansenChief Scientist for Climate ChangeWWF1250 24th Street NWWashington, DC 20016E-mail: lara.hansen@wwfus.org

Mary HobleyConsultantGlebe HouseChard StreetThorncombeChard TA20 4NE, United KingdomE-mail: mary@maryhobley.co.uk

Marja HokkanenMetsähallitusNatural Heritage ServicesP.O Box 9401301 Vantaa, FinlandE-mail: marja.hokkanen@metsa.fi

Silvia HolzPh.D. candidate,National University of Buenos AiresDepartamento de Ecología, Genética y

Evolución(4to Piso, Pabellón II).Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y NaturalesGüiraldes 2620. Ciudad UniversitariaCP: 1428, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, ArgentinaE-mail: silviaholz@yahoo.com.ar

José Manuel Nicolau IbarraProfesor Titular de EcologíaDepartamento de EcologíaUniversidad de Alcalá28871 Alcalá de HenaresMadrid, SpainE-mail: josem.nicolau@uah.es

Tanguy JaffréDirecteur de Recherche de l’IRDLaboratoire de Botanique et d’Ecologie

VégétaleCentre IRDBP A5F-98848 Noumea CedexNouvelle-Calédonie, FranceE-mail: jaffre@noumea.ird.nc

Wil de JongProfessorJapan Centre for Area Studies, National

Museum of Ethnology10-1 Senri Expo Park, SuitaOsaka 565-8511, JapanE-mail: wdejong@idc.minpaku.ac.jp

Scott JonesForests for People GroupCentre for International Development and

TrainingUniversity of WolverhamptonTelford CampusTF2 9NT, United KingdomE-mail: tiger.moth@ntlworld.com

Gladwin JosephDirector and FellowAshoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the

EnvironmentHebbalBangalore 560024, IndiaE-mail: gladwin@atree.org

Harri KarjalainenHead, Forest ProgrammeWWF FinlandLintulahdenkatu 1000500 Helsinki, FinlandE-mail: harri.karjalainen@wwf.fi

David LambSchool of Integrated BiologyUniversity of QueenslandBrisbane, 4072, AustraliaE-mail: d.lamb@botany.uq.edu.au

Abel Meza LopezCentre for International Forestry Research

(CIFOR)Apdo. 558, Carretera Fdco. Basadre km 4,200Pucallpa, PeruE-mail: cifor-peru@cgiar.org;

a.meza@cgiar.org

Colby LoucksConservation Science ProgrammeWorld Wildlife Fund–U.S., Suite 200Washington, DC 20037E-mail: colby.loucks@wwfus.org

xxvi Contributors’ List

Porter P. Lowry IICurator and Head, Africa and Madagascar

DepartmentMissouri Botanical GardenP.O. Box 299St. Louis, Missouri 63166-0299,andDépartement Systématique et Evolution,

Muséum National d’Histoire NaturelleC.P. 3957 rue Cuvier75231 Paris CEDEX 05, FranceE-mail: Pete.Lowry@mobot.org

Stephanie MansourianConsultant—WWF International10 rte de Burtigny1268 Begnins, SwitzerlandE-mail: stephanie.mansourian@worldcom.ch

Jeffrey A. McNeelyChief ScientistIUCN—The World Conservation UnionRue Mauverney, 281196 Gland, SwitzerlandE-mail: jam@iucn.org

Florencia MontagniniProfessor in the Practice of Tropical ForestryYale UniversitySchool of Forestry and Environmental Studies370 Prospect St.New Haven, CT 06511E-mail: florencia.montagnini@yale.edu

Peter MooreFire Management and Policy SpecialistMetis Associates—Strategic AnalystsP.O. Box 1772Bowral NSW 2576, AustraliaE-mail: metis@metis-associates.com

Mariano Moreno de las HerasPhD StudentDepartamento de EcologíaEdificio de CienciasUniversidad de Alcalá28871 Alcalá de HenaresMadrid, SpainE-mail: mariano.moreno@uah.es.

John MorrisonDeputy DirectorConservation Science ProgrammeWorld Wildlife Fund–U.S., Suite 200Washington, DC 20037E-mail: john.morrison@wwfus.org

MurniatiForestry Research and Development Agency

(FORDA)Jalan Gunung Batu No. 5Bogor, IndonesiaE-mail: murniati@forda.org

Robert NasiPrincipal ScientistProgramme on Environmental Services and

Sustainable Use of ForestsCentre for International Forestry Research—

CIRADCampus International de Baillarguet TA 10/D34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, FranceE-mail: r.nasi@cgiar.org

Ani Adiwinata NawirScientistForests and Livelihoods ProgrammeCentre for International Forestry Research

(CIFOR)P.O. Box 6596 JKPWBJakarta 10065, IndonesiaE-mail: a.nawir@cgiar.org

Adrian NewtonSenior LecturerSchool of Conservation SciencesBournemouth UniversityTalbot CampusFern BarrowPooleDorset BH12 5BB, United KingdomE-mail: anewton@bournemouth.ac.uk

Nguyen Thi DaoAnnamites Ecoregion Conservation Manager,

VietnamWWF Indochina Programme40 Cat LinhBa Dinh DistrictHanoi, VietnamE-mail: dao@wwfvn.org.vn

Contributors’ List xxvii

Sheila O’ConnorDirector, Conservation Measures and AuditsWWF International39 Stoke Gabriel Rd.Galmpton nr BrixhamDevon TQ5 0NQ, United KingdomE-mail: soconnor@wwfint.org

Jessica OrregoForestry Project ManagerEdinburgh Centre for Carbon ManagementTower Mains Studios18F Liberton BraeEdinburgh, EH16 6AE, United KingdomE-mail: jessica.orrego@eccm.uk.com

Gonzalo OviedoSenior Advisor, Social PolicyIUCN–The World Conservation Union28 Rue Mauverney1196 Gland, SwitzerlandE-mail: gonzalo.oviedo@incn.org

Jussi PäivinenMetsähallitus, Natural Heritage ServicesP.O. Box 3640101 Jyväskylä, FinlandE-mail: jussi.paivinen@metsa.fi

Hervé PiégayResearcherCNRS UMR 560018 rue Chevreul69362 Lyon Cedex 07, FranceE-mail: piegay@univ-lyon3.fr

Guillermo PlacciConsultantConstitución 2375800—Río Cuarto, Cba, ArgentinaE-mail: guillermoplacci@ciudad.com.ar

Gérard RambeloarisoaForest Programme OfficerWWF MadagascarWWF Madagascar and West Indian Ocean

Programme OfficeB.P. 738Antananarivo 101, MadagascarE-mail: grambeloarisoa@wwf.mg

Pedro RegatoHead, Forest ProgrammeWWF Mediterranean Programme OfficeVia Po 25/C00198 Rome, ItalyE-mail: pregato@wwfmedpo.org

José M. Rey BenayasDpto. de EcologíaEdificio de CienciasUniversidad de Alcalá28871 Alcalá de Henares, SpainE-mail: josem.rey@uah.es

Doreen RobinsonBiodiversity and Natural Resources SpecialistUSAID1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NWRonald Reagan Building 3.08Washington, DC 20523-3800E-mail: drobinson@usaid.gov

Triagung RooswiadjiProgramme ManagerWWF Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara ProgrammeJl. DODIKLAT No. 2Kelurahan OebubuKupang, NTT 8500, IndonesiaE-mail: triagung@kupang.wasantara.net.id

Lukas Rumboko WibowoForestry Research and Development Agency

(FORDA)Jalan Gunung Batu No. 5Bogor, IndonesiaE-mail: lukas_19672000@yahoo.com

Cesar SabogalSenior Scientist, Tropical Silviculture and

Forest ManagementCIFOR Regional Office for Latin Americac/o EMBRAPA Amazônia OrientalTrav. Dr. Enéas Pinheiro s/n,CEP 66.010-080 BelémPará, BrazilE-mail: c.sabogal@cgiar.org

Nick SalafskyCo-DirectorFoundations of Success4109 Maryland Ave.Bethesda, MD 20816E-mail: Nick@FOSonline.org

xxviii Contributors’ List

Daniel W. SalzerConservation Measures ManagerThe Nature ConservancyConservation Measures Group821 SE 14th Ave.Portland, OR 97214E-mail: dsalzer@tnc.org

Jeffrey SayerSenior AdvisorWWF InternationalAv. Mont Blanc1196 Gland, SwitzerlandE-mail: jsayer@wwfint.org

Kirsten SchuytResource EconomistWWF InternationalAv. Mont Blanc1196 Gland, SwitzerlandE-mail: Kschuyt@wwfint.org

Sue StoltonConsultantEquilibrium47 The Quays, Cumberland RoadBristolBS1 6UQ, United KingdomE-mail: equilibrium@compuserve.com

Takeshi TomaSenior ScientistEnvironmental Services and Sustainable Use

of Forests ProgrammeCentre for International Forestry Research

(CIFOR)P.O. Box 6596 JKPWB,Jakarta 10065, IndonesiaE-mail: t.toma@cgiar.orgPresent address:Associate Research CoordinatorResearch Planning and Coordination Division,

Forestry and Forest Products ResearchInstitute (FFPRI)

1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8687,Japan

E-mail: toma@affrc.go.jp

Daniel VallauriWWF France6 Rue des Fabres13001 Marseille, FranceE-mail: dvallauri@wwf.fr

Ramon VallejoCEAM,Parque Tecnológico,Ch. Darwin 14E-46980 Paterna, SpainE-mail: vvallejo@ub.edu

Lawrence R. WalkerProfessor of BiologyDepartment of Biological SciencesUniversity of Nevada, Las VegasBox 4540044505 Maryland ParkwayLas Vegas, NV 89154-4004E-mail: walker@unlv.nevada.edu

Steve WhisenantProfessor and Department HeadDepartment of Rangeland Ecology and Man-

agement2126-TAMUTexas A&M UniversityCollege Station, TX 77843-2126E-mail: rangerider@mac.com

Eva WollenbergSenior ScientistForests and Governance ProgrammeCentre for International Forestry Research

(CIFOR)P.O. Box 6596 JKPWBJakarta 10065, IndonesiaE-mail: L.wollenberg@cgiar.org

Zhou ZaizhiResearch Institute of Tropical ForestryChinese Academy of ForestryLongdong, Guangzhou 510520, ChinaE-mail: zzzhoucn@21cn.com

Part AToward a Wider Perspective in

Forest Restoration

Section IIntroducing Forest Landscape

Restoration

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

People have been actively using forests sincelong before the beginning of history. The oldestknown written story, the Epic of Gilgameshrecorded on 12 cuneiform tablets in Assyria inthe seventh century b.c., includes reference tothe problems of forest loss. The need for good tree husbandry was stressed in Virgil’spastoral poem The Georgics in 30 b.c., writtento promote rural values within the RomanEmpire. The oldest records of forest manage-ment in the world have been kept without abreak for 2000 years in Japan, relating to forestsmanaged to produce timber for Shinto temples.The need for large-scale restoration has alsobeen recognised for centuries; for example, the

English pamphleteer John Evelyn wrote a tractcalling for major tree planting during the timeof Queen Elizabeth I in the 1600s. In morerecent times, forest departments around theworld have developed major efforts at refor-estation in Europe, eastern North America,Australia, New Zealand, and increasingly inparts of the tropics.1 In the last 20 years,hundreds of aid and conservation projects have promoted and carried out tree plantingschemes and the development of tree nurseries,aimed at both supplying goods such as fuel-wood and at restoring ecological functions andprotecting biodiversity. Following the Societyfor Ecological Restoration International (SERI)and its chapters around the world, the scientificknowledge on ecological restoration has beenconceptualised and applied to many differenttypes of ecosystem, including forest landscapes.Good books have already been published.2

Why then do we need another book aboutrestoration?

The arguments for forest restoration arebecoming more compelling. Forest loss anddegradation is a worldwide problem, with netannual estimates of forest loss being 9.4 millionhectares throughout the 1990s3 and those for degradation uncalculated but universallyagreed to be even higher. The most severelosses are currently concentrated mainly,although not exclusively, in the tropics, with

1Forest Landscape Restoration in ContextNigel Dudley, Stephanie Mansourian, and Daniel Vallauri

Key Points to Retain

Forest landscape restoration is grounded inecoregion conservation and is defined as aplanned process that aims to regain ecologi-cal integrity and enhance human well-beingin deforested or degraded landscapes.

Such an approach helps achieve a balancebetween human needs and those of biodi-versity by restoring a range of forest func-tions within a landscape and accepting thetrade-offs that result.

3

1 For an overview see Perlin, 1991.2 Perrow and Davy; 2002, SERI, 2002; Whisenant, 1999.3 FAO, 2001.

4 N. Dudley et al

the temperate countries gradually recoveringforest area if not necessarily quality after severedeforestation in the past. As well as creatingacute threats to forest dependent biodiversity,the decline in global forests also has a series ofdirect social and economic costs because of therole of forests in supplying timber and manyimportant nontimber forest products alongwith a wide range of environmental servicesuch as the stabilisation of soils and climate.Forest loss and degradation has already led tothe extinction of species, has altered hydro-logical regimes and damaged the livelihoods of millions of people—mainly amongst thepoorest on the earth—who rely on forests forsubsistence. In many areas, protecting and man-aging the remaining forests are no longer suffi-cient steps in themselves to ensure that forestfunctions are maintained, and restoration isalready an essential third component of anymanagement strategy.

Unfortunately, many existing restorationprojects have partially or completely failed,often because the trees that they sought toestablish have not survived or have beenrapidly destroyed by the same pressures thathave caused forest loss in the first place.Anyone working regularly in the tropicsbecomes accustomed to finding abandoned treenurseries, often with their donor organisations’signboards still in place, the paint graduallypeeling away. Even when crops of trees havesurvived to maturity, they have not necessarilybeen welcomed, as evidenced by the wide-spread controversy over afforestation withexotic monocultures of conifers in much ofwestern Europe4 and the increasingly bitterdebates about tree plantations in the tropics.5

There has also often been a mismatchbetween social and ecological goals of conser-vation; either restoration has aimed to fulfilsocial or economic needs without reference toits wider ecological impacts, or it has had anarrow conservation aim without taking intoaccount people’s needs.

A number of consequent problems can beidentified. Most restoration to date has been

site-based, aiming to produce one or at most alimited number of goods and services. Projectshave often sought to encourage and sometimesimpose tree planting without understandingwhy trees disappeared in the first place andwithout attempting to address the immediate orunderlying causes of forest loss.6 Projects havealso relied heavily on tree planting, which isoften the most expensive way of reestablishingtree cover over a large area, frightening off gov-ernments, donors, and nongovernmental organ-isations. Because restoration takes time, it isessential to think and plan long term. Unfortu-nately, short-term political interests oftensupersede longer term priorities, creating sim-plistic approaches.

The above reservations are not to under-estimate the major steps that have been made inunderstanding the ecological and social aspectsof restoration, many of which are summarised inthis book. Criticising after the event is alwayseasy, and we also recognise the very real bene-fits that have accrued from successful restora-tion projects. Nonetheless, we are far from alonein believing that some new perspectives areneeded in addressing the current restorationchallenge. Perhaps the most important of theserelates to working on a broader scale, along withall the implications that this has.

1.1. Taking a Broader Approach

An increasing number of governmental andnongovernmental conservation institutionshave recognised that in order to achieve lastingconservation impacts it is necessary to work on a larger scale than has been the case in thepast. Although there are a number of ways ofdefining useful ecological units for planningconservation, the concept of the ecoregion isincreasingly being adopted, including by WWF,the global conservation organisation.An ecore-gion is defined as a large area of land or waterthat contains a geographically distinct assem-blage of natural communities that share a largemajority of their species and ecological dynam-ics, share similar environmental conditions, and

4 Tompkins, 1989.5 Carrere and Lohmann, 1996. 6 Eckholm, 1979.

1. Forest Landscape Restoration in Context 5

interact ecologically in ways that are critical for their long-term persistence. Ecoregions aresuitable for broad-scale planning, which usuallyincludes the identification of a few smaller pri-ority landscapes that are particularly importantfrom a conservation perspective, themselvescomposed of numerous sites with different management regimes or habitats (see chapter“Restoration as a Strategy to Contribute toEcoregion Visions”).

As used here (Fig. 1.1), landscapes are gen-erally smaller than ecoregions, and typically a number of important “conservation land-scapes” have been identified within ecoregionsduring planning processes. But the key pointhere is that landscapes are bigger than singlesites and therefore almost always encompass arange of different management approaches.

Coming from a conservation organisation,this book is biased toward ecological and bio-diversity issues. However, forests have socialand economic functions as well, and restorationefforts often need to address many needs atonce. This may not be possible within a singlesite; it is, for example, difficult to create a largeharvest of industrial timber or firewood in anenvironment that is also suitable for specialisedor sensitive wildlife species. One importantreason for shifting the focus to a landscapescale is that it is hoped this can provide a broad-enough area to plan a suite of restoration activ-

ities that could meet multiple needs and tonegotiate the compromises and trade-offs thatsuch a mosaic entails. The aims of forest land-scape restoration have therefore always tran-scended conservation to embrace developmentas well, and we have invited a number ofexperts to provide a parallel set of social toolsand approaches within the current volume. Webelieve that successful restoration on a broadscale relies on getting the right mix betweensocial and environmental needs; this is a fun-damental part of the process and not anoptional extra.

Accordingly, in 2000, WWF and IUCN, theWorld Conservation Union, brought together arange of experts from different organisations,different regions, and different disciplines toagree on a definition for forest landscaperestoration7: “A planned process that aims toregain ecological integrity and enhance humanwell-being in deforested or degraded land-scapes.” This definition and approach lies at the heart of the current book. “Ecologicalintegrity” is described by Parks Canada as astate of ecosystem development that is charac-teristic of its geographic location, containing afull range of native species and supportiveprocesses that are present in viable numbers.“Well-being” embraces the factors that make

Ecoregion

Landscape Landscape Landscape

Site

Site

Site

Site

Site

Site

Site

Site

Site

Figure 1.1. At the ecoregional scale, ecoregionvisioning can help to identify a series of priority land-scapes. At the landscape level, assessment and nego-tiation can help to identify agreed forest functions to

7 WWF and IUCN, 2000.

be restored, leading to a number of actions at indi-vidual sites within the landscape. All these fit withinthe landscape goals for restoration, which them-selves contribute to the ecoregion vision.

6 N. Dudley et al

human life comfortable, such as money, peace,health, stability, and equable governance.

1.2. What Is Special About Forest Restoration in a Landscape?

Restoring the complexity of a small patch offorests is in itself an achievement. However, agreater challenge lies in restoring a matrix offorests within larger areas—landscapes—tomeet different needs. At this greater spatialscale, different influences, pressures, stake-holders, and habitats coexist, which in someways increases the challenges of restoration.However, the landscape scale also providesenough space to plan and implement restora-tion to meet multiple needs.

Conservation priorities therefore must bebalanced with other aspects of sustainabledevelopment. Specific uses and priorities mayhave to be focussed on part of the forest land-scape, and the resulting trade-offs negotiatedand agreed to by a wide range of stakeholders.The resulting task is generally too complex to be solved solely by site-based approachesfocussing on a narrow range of benefits fromindividual forests.Achieving a balance betweenthe various goods and services required fromrestored forest ecosystems requires conceptu-alisation, planning, and implementation on abroader scale.

It also requires deciding where forest is andis not needed. Aiming at restoring forest func-tions does not necessarily mean restoring forestacross the whole landscape; this is often impos-sible in a crowded world with many competingclaims on land. Rather, it entails identifyingthose areas where forests are most useful, froma variety of social and ecological perspectives,and further identifying what type of forest islikely to be most useful in a particular location.Whilst from a conservation perspective a highdegree of naturalness is often important, thismay not be the case for social or economic uses.Even in the parts of the landscape that are “spe-cialised” in conservation, sometimes culturallandscapes are desired either because they havebeen in place for so long that remaining bio-diversity has adapted to these conditions orbecause there is not sufficient space for a fullyfunctioning natural system (for instance, with

respect to the way that the forest changes andregenerates over time).

Forests managed for social needs may havedifferent priorities. Sometimes these overlapwith conservation requirements—for instancesome forests managed for nontimber forestproducts can be extremely rich in biodiver-sity—in other cases they do not. Seeking abalance at a landscape scale is more importantthan trying to make sure that every scrap offorest fulfils every possible role. Broad-scalerestoration in most cases, therefore, has toaddress multiple, sometimes competing, needsthat will themselves entail different types offorests (perhaps ranging from natural forests toplantations) and sometimes also including quitespecific requirements such as particular non-timber forest products required by local com-munities or maintenance of water quality in acertain watershed. Such multifunctional land-scapes by their nature need to be planned andimplemented on a far broader scale than anindividual forest patch.

2. Conclusion

For foresters, restoration traditionally meantestablishing trees for a number of functions(wood or pulp production, soil protection). Formany conservationists restoration is eitherabout restoring original forest cover indegraded areas or about planting corridors offorest to link protected areas. For many inter-ested in social development, the emphasis willinstead be on establishing trees that are usefulfor fuelwood, or fruits, or as windbreaks andlivestock enclosures. The sad fact is that all toomany restoration projects do not bother to findout what local people really want at all; if theydo, then a collection of different and oftenopposing or mutually exclusive wants anddesires emerge. There is still a lot to be learnedand disseminated about reconciling nature andhuman needs, and about planning restorationareas within larger scales in order to return aswide a range of forest functions as possible.Thisrequires the ability to work across disciplines,including agriculture, forest-compatibleincome-generation activities, forestry, andaddressing water issues as well as specific social

1. Forest Landscape Restoration in Context 7

issues. It also, perhaps even more importantly,requires finding out how to bring the peoplemost affected into the debate, not as a matterof duty or because funding agencies expect itbut because this is vital and necessary for bothnature and human well-being.

Through ecoregion conservation, WWF haslearned that working on a large scale is com-plex, costly, and time-intensive; however, it isalso a more sustainable way of addressing con-servation than through small, often unrelatedprojects. This approach is also a challenge forrestoration.

References

Carrere, R., and Lohmann, L. 1996. Pulping theSouth: Industrial Plantations and the World PaperEconomy. Zed Books and the World RainforestMovement, London and Montevideo.

Eckholm, E. 1979. Planting for the Future: Forestryfor Human Needs. Worldwatch Paper number 26.Worldwatch Institute, Washington, DC.

FAO. 2001. Global Forest Resource Assessment2000: Main Report. FAO Forestry Paper 140. Foodand Agriculture Organisation of the UnitedNations, Rome.

Perlin, J. 1991. A Forest Journey: The Role of Woodin the Development of Civilisation. Harvard Uni-versity Press, Cambridge, MA, and London.

Perrow, M.R., and Davy, A.J. 2002. Handbook orEcological Restoration, vol. 1 and 2. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, UK.

Society for Ecological Restoration International.Science and Policy Working Group. 2002.The SERPrimer on Ecological Restoration, www.ser.org.

Tompkins, S. 1989. Forestry in Crisis: The Battle forthe Hills. Christopher Helm, London.

Whisenant, S.G. 1999. Repairing Damaged Wild-lands—a Process-Oriented, Landscape-ScaleApproach. Cambridge University Press.

WWF and IUCN. 2000. Minutes, Restoration work-shop, Segovia, Spain (unpublished).

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

When forests are lost or degraded, we lose farmore than just the trees that they contain.Forests provide a large number of goods andservices, including habitat for species, home-land for indigenous peoples, recreational areas,food, medicines, and environmental servicessuch as soil stabilisation.And as forest areas arereduced, pressure on remaining forestsincreases.

Efforts at reversing this trend have had onlylimited success. For many, restoration signi-fies large-scale afforestation or reforestation(mainly using fast growing exotic species),which have only limited conservation benefits.This has been the approach taken by many gov-ernments that are seeking to support a timberindustry or create jobs or, equally, those whohave taken a simplistic approach to flood orother disaster mitigation. On the other hand,some have sought to re-create original forests,a near-impossible feat in areas where millenniaof human intervention have modified the land-scape and local conditions.

Many different terms are used to describethese different approaches and can result insome confusion or misconceptions.8 We attempthere to cover most of the terminology used inEnglish taken from the Society for EcologicalRestoration International (SERI), which has

2Overview of Forest RestorationStrategies and TermsStephanie Mansourian

Key Points to Retain

There are numerous terms promoting differ-ent strategies when dealing with forestrestoration, which could be a source of con-fusion.

WWF is implementing forest landscaperestoration (FLR) as an integral componentof the conservation of large, biologicallyimportant areas such as ecoregions, alongwith protection and good management.

Forest landscape restoration is an approachto forest restoration that seeks to balancehuman needs with those of biodiversity, thusaiming to restore a range of forest functionsand accepting and negotiating the trade-offsbetween them.

While the challenge of restoration on a largescale is greater than at individual sites, it isaccepted nowadays that the effectiveness offorest restoration and its chances of sustain-ability are both much greater on a largescale.

Forest landscape restoration aims to achievea landscape containing valuable forests,rather than returning forest cover across anentire landscape.

8

8 Ormerod, 2003.

Confusion reigns as the term restoration is used indis-criminately, with no consensus even among practi-tioners in its meaning.

Stanturf and Madsen, 2002

2. Overview of Forest Restoration Strategies and Terms 9

made the best attempt at cataloguing and defin-ing these different terminologies and concepts.It must be noted that this complexity is alsoapparent and sometimes exacerbated whentranslating these terms into other languages.

2. Examples

We present below a number of terms that havebeen defined recently by SERI in its “The SERPrimer on Ecological Restoration.”9

2.1. Ecological Restoration

Ecological restoration is defined as the processof assisting the recovery of an ecosystem thathas been degraded, damaged, or destroyed. It isan intentional activity that initiates or acceler-ates the recovery of an ecosystem with respectto its health, integrity, and sustainability.

Example 1: In 2000, in an attempt to re-createa native wild wood, the Scottish nongovern-mental organisation (NGO), Borders ForestTrust, together with many partners, bought a600-hectare plot of land, Carrifran, in theSouthern Uplands of Scotland in order torestore its original forest. Thanks to fossilpollen buried deep in peat, it was possible toidentify the nature of the variety of species pre-viously found on this now near-denuded siteand therefore to develop a restoration plan thataimed to re-create the species’ mix that hadoccurred in the past. Thousands of native treeseeds from surviving woodland remnants in the vicinity were collected. A total of 103.13hectares (165,008 trees) have been planted atCarrifran since the start of the project. Theupper part of the site is being allowed to regen-erate naturally.10

2.2. Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation emphasises the reparation ofecosystem processes, productivity, and services,whereas the goals of restoration also includethe reestablishment of the preexisting biotic

integrity in terms of species’ composition andcommunity structure.

Example 2: Bamburi Cement’s quarries inMombasa (Kenya) were once woodlandexpanses covering 1,200 hectares.11 Starting in1971, experiments began with the rehabilitationof the disused quarries. In the face of badlydamaged soils, three tree species provedcapable of withstanding the difficult growingconditions: Casuarina equisetifolia, Conocarpuslancifolius, and the coconut palm. The Casuar-ina is nitrogen fixing and is drought and salt tolerant, enabling it to colonise areas left virtually without soil. The Conocarpus is also adrought-, flood-, and salt-tolerant swamp tree.The decomposition of the Casuarina leaf litterwas initially very slow due to a high proteincontent, thus impeding the nutrient cyclingprocess, although this problem was overcomeby introducing a local red-legged millipede thatfeeds on the dry leaves and starts the decom-position process. Today this area contains morethan 200 coastal forest species and a famousnature trail, attracting 100,000 visitors a yearsince opening in 1984.

2.3. Reclamation

Reclamation is a term commonly used in thecontext of mined lands in North America andthe United Kingdom. It has as its main objec-tives the stabilisation of the terrain, assuranceof public safety, aesthetic improvement, andusually a return of the land to what, within theregional context, is considered to be a usefulpurpose.

Example 3: A large open-cut bauxite mine atTrombetas in Pará state in central Amazonia is located in an area of relatively undisturbedevergreen equatorial moist forest. A reclama-tion programme has been developed to restorethe original forest cover as far as possible. Theproject has treated about 100 hectares of minedland per year for the last 15 years. First, themined site was levelled and topsoil replaced toa depth of about 15cm using topsoil from thesite that was removed and stockpiled (for less

9 SERI, 2002.10 www.carrifran.com. 11 Baer, 1996.

10 S. Mansourian

than 6 months) prior to mining. Next, the sitewas deep-ripped to a depth of 90cm (1-mspacing between rows). Trees were plantedalong alternate rip lines at 2-m spacings (2500trees per hectare) using direct seeding, stumpedsaplings, or potted seedlings. Some 160 localtree species were tested for their suitability inthe programme, and more than 70 species fromthe local natural forests are now routinely used.After 13 years most sites have many more treeand shrub species than those initially plantedbecause of seeds stored in the topsoil or coloni-sation from the surrounding forest. Not sur-prisingly, the density of these new colonists isgreater at sites near intact forest, but dispersalwas evident up to 640m away from old-growthforest. The new species, most of which havesmall seed, have been brought to the site bybirds, bats, or terrestrial mammals.12

2.4. Afforestation/Reforestation

Afforestation and reforestation refer to theartificial establishment of trees, in the formercase where no trees existed before. In addition,in the context of the U.N.’s Framework Con-vention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) andthe Kyoto protocol, specific definitions havebeen agreed on reforestation and afforesta-tion.13 Afforestation is defined by the UNFCCCas “the direct human-induced conversion ofland that has not been forested for a period ofat least 50 years to forested land through plant-ing, seeding, and/or human induced promotionof natural seed sources.”

Example 4: During the middle years of the20th century, very large areas of long-deforested land were planted in Scotland by the state forestry body, initially as a strategicresource. In contrast to the Borders Forest Trustproject described above, these efforts made noattempt to re-create the original forest, insteadusing exotic monocultures, mainly of Sitkaspruce from Alaska (Picea sitchensis) or Norwayspruce (Picea abies) from mainland Europe.Planting was generally so dense that virtually nounderstorey plant species developed.

Reforestation is defined by the UNFCCC as“the direct human-induced conversion of non-forested land to forested land through planting,seeding, and/or the human-induced promotionof natural seed sources, on land that wasforested but that has been converted to non-forested land.”

Example 5: In Madagascar, large plantationprojects were planned in the early 1970s tosupply a paper mill on the “Haut Mangoro.” By1990 about 80,000 hectares had been planted,97 percent of which was Pinus spp. This projectcreated significant social and political tensions,as the local population systematically opposeda project that it felt was not providing muchbenefit.14

2.5. What Is WWF’s Definition?

In 2000 WWF and IUCN, the World Conserva-tion Union, were asking the questions: What is meant by forest restoration? How can weachieve lasting and successful forest restorationin our ecoregional programmes? The twoorganisations felt that a suitable definition andtypology of restoration were needed. In partic-ular, given the large-scale conservation workthat the organisations were engaging in, it wasfelt that there was still a gap in knowledge andin approaches to forest restoration. Notably,how does forest restoration relate to planta-tions, agroforestry, secondary forests, biologicalcorridors, and single trees in the landscape?

In July 2000 WWF and IUCN broughttogether a number of regional conservationstaff, foresters, economists, and other profes-sionals to help them take restoration forward.They defined the term forest landscape restora-tion as “a planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity15 and enhancehuman well-being16 in deforested or degraded landscapes.”

12 Lamb and Gilmour, 2003.13 UNFCC, 2003.

14 Faralala, 2003.15 Ecological Integrity, for WWF and IUCN, is “maintain-ing the diversity and quality of ecosystems, and enhancingtheir capacity to adapt to change and provide for the needsof future generations.”16 Human well-being, for WWF and IUCN, is “ensuring thatall people have a role in shaping decisions that affect theirability to meet their needs, safeguard their livelihoods, andrealise their full potential.”

2. Overview of Forest Restoration Strategies and Terms 11

what may seem like a less than optimal solu-tion if taken from one perspective, but a solu-tion that when taken from the whole group’sperspective can be acceptable to all.

• It places the emphasis not only on forestquantity but also on forest quality. Decisionmakers often think predominantly about thearea of trees to be planted when consideringrestoration, yet often improving the qualityof existing forests can yield bigger benefitsfor a lower cost.

• It aims to restore a range of forest goods,services, and processes, rather than forestcover per se. It is not just the trees themselvesthat are important, but often all of theaccompanying elements that go with healthyforests, such as nutrient cycling, soil stabilisa-tion, medicinal and food plants, forest-dwelling animal species, etc. Including thefull range of potential benefits in the plan-ning process makes the choice of restorationtechnique, locations, and tree species muchmore focussed. It also allows more flexibilityfor discussions on trade-offs with differentstakeholders, by providing a diversity ofvalues rather than just one or two.

Forest landscape restoration goes beyondestablishing forest cover per se. Its aim is toachieve a landscape containing valuable forests,for instance partly to provide timber, partlymixed with subsistence crops to raise yields andprotect the soils, as well as partly improvingbiodiversity habitat and increasing the avail-ability of subsistence goods. By balancing thesewithin a landscape,WWF believes that it is pos-sible to enhance the overall benefits to peopleand biodiversity at that scale.

3. Outline of Tools

Broad definitions and explanations of whatrestoration entails can be found in most con-servation and forestry institutions. Nonetheless,little of this has reached the field. Because of itscomplexity, large-scale restoration requires amixture of responses from practical to politicaland many practitioners are at a loss as to whereto begin.

Some practical guidance is available:

The key elements of FLR are as follows:

• It is implemented at a landscape scale ratherthan a single site—that is to say, planning forforest restoration is done in the context ofother elements: social, economic, and biolog-ical, in the landscape. This does not necessar-ily imply planting trees across an entirelandscape but rather strategically locatingforests and woodlands in areas that are nec-essary to achieve an agreed set of functions(e.g., habitat for a specific species, soil stabil-isation, provision of building materials forlocal communities).

• It has both a socioeconomic and an ecologi-cal dimension. People who have a stake inthe state of the landscape are more likely toengage positively in its restoration.

• It implies addressing the root causes of forestloss and degradation. Restoration can some-times be achieved simply by removing what-ever caused the loss of forest, (such asperverse incentives and grazing animals).This also means that without removing thecause of forest loss and degradation, anyrestoration effort is likely to be in vain.

• It opts for a package of solutions. There is no single restoration technique that can beapplied to all situations. In each case anumber of elements need to be covered, buthow to do that depends on the local condi-tions. The package may include practicaltechniques, such as agro-forestry, enrichmentplanting, and natural regeneration at a land-scape scale, but also embraces policy analy-sis, training, and research.

• It involves a range of stakeholders in plan-ning and decision making to achieve a solution that is acceptable and therefore sus-tainable. The decision of what to aim for inthe long term when restoring a landscapeshould ideally be made through a processthat includes representatives of differentinterest groups in the landscape in order toreach, if not a consensus, at least a compro-mise that is acceptable to all.

• It involves identifying and negotiating trade-offs. In relation to the above point, when aconsensus cannot be reached, different inter-est groups need to negotiate and agree on

12 S. Mansourian

4. Future Needs

In the context of terminology related to restora-tion, given the flurry of interest, concepts, anddefinitions being touted, there is a need for

• a set of widely accepted definitions (such asthose of SERI) to be used more systemati-cally and rigorously;

• efforts and resources to be more focussed onthe “doing” than on the “defining”;

• greater exchanges, debates, and sharing ofexperiences in order to disseminate theaccepted concepts and the positive experi-ences; and

• the accepted definitions in the restorationfield to be shared with other relevant expertgroups, such as development workers,foresters, extension officers, etc.

References

Baer, S. 1996. Rehabilitation of Disused LimestoneQuarries Through Reafforestation (Baobab Farm,Mombasa, Kenya). World Bank/Unep AfricaForestry Policy Forum, Nairobi, August 29–30,1996.

Faralala. 2003. Rapport de Reconnaissance dansCinq Paysages Forestiers. WWF, Madagascar.

ITTO Policy Series No. 13. 2002. Guidelines on the Restoration, Management and Rehabilitationof Degraded and Secondary Tropical Forest.Yokohama, Japan.

Lamb, D., and Gilmour, D. 2003. Rehabilitation and Restoration of Degraded Forests. IUCN,Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK, andWWF, Gland, Switzerland.

Ormerod, S.J. 2003. Restoration in applied ecology:editor’s introduction. Journal of Applied Ecology40:44–50.

Perrow, M., and Davy A., eds. 2002. Handbook ofEcological Restoration. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, England.

Society for Ecological Restoration International.Science and Policy Working Group. 2002.The SERPrimer on Ecological Restoration, www.ser.org/.

Stanturf, J.A., and Madsen, P. 2002. Restoration con-cepts for temperate and boreal forests of NorthAmerica and Western Europe. Plant Biosystems136(2):143–158.

• The Society for Ecological Restoration(SERI) have developed guidelines forrestoration (see Guidelines for Developingand Managing Ecological Restoration Pro-jects, 2000, at www.ser.org).

• The International Tropical Timber Organisa-tion (ITTO) developed some guidelines17onthe restoration, management, and rehabilita-tion of degraded and secondary tropicalforests.

• The International Union of Forest ResearchOrganisations (IUFRO) runs a special pro-gramme on correct usage of technical terms inforestry called SilvaVoc, available on its Website: www.iufro.org/science/special/silvavoc/.

• The Nature Conservancy (TNC)18 has identi-fied some guidance on when and where to re-store (see Geography of Hope Update, Whenand Where to Consider Restoration in Ecore-gional Planning at www.conserveonline.org).

• In 2003, IUCN and WWF published a book,by David Lamb and Don Gilmour,19 Reha-bilitation and Restoration of DegradedForests, which covers site-based techniquesto restoration (summarised in a paper in thismanual) but also highlights some of the gaps.

• Cambridge Press has produced a Handbookof Ecological Restoration,20 which is a two-volume handbook containing a largeamount of material on the diverse aspects ofrestoration.

It should also be noted that a number of state forest services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have produced guidelines forplanting trees. However, while these guidelinesmay have some applicability for very specificcases (issues dealing with one or another specific species), they are of limited value forrestoration within ecoregions or large and bio-logically and structurally complex areas.

Tools available to address specific elementsof restoration are summarised in other chaptersof this manual.

17 ITTO, 2002.18 TNC, 2002.19 Lamb and Gilmour, 2003.20 Perrow and Davy, 2002.

2. Overview of Forest Restoration Strategies and Terms 13

and Technological Advice. 2003. Land Use,Land-Use Change and Forestry: Definitions andModalities for Including Afforestation and Refor-estation Activities Under Article 12 of the KyotoProtocol. Eighteenth session, Bonn, June 4–13,2003.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC). 2002. Geography ofHope Update: When and Where to ConsiderRestoration in Ecoregional Planning. www.con-serveonline.org.

United Nations Framework Conference on ClimateChange (UNFCCC) Subsidiary Body for Scientific

Section IIThe Challenging Context of Forest

Restoration Today

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

1.1. The Need for Assessment and Likely Impacts of Forest Loss

Assessment of forest condition is an importantprecursor to the planning and implementationof restoration programmes. Restoration is aprocess that in the case of forests generally aimsat rebuilding the ecosystem to some earlier ormore desirable stage. There is widespreadrecognition of the need for restoration; forexample, in its Programme of Work on Pro-tected Areas the Convention on Biological

Diversity advises governments to “rehabilitateand restore habitats and degraded ecosystems,as appropriate, as a contribution to buildingecological networks, ecological corridors and/orbuffer zones.” Given limited time and resources,restoration must be strategic, focussing onforests that have the highest importance to bio-diversity or to society, and considering the fourgoals of conservation biology: representation,maintenance of evolutionary/ecological proces-ses, maintenance of species, and conservation of large habitat blocks. Reasonably fine-scaleanalyses are needed to choose specific siteswhere restoration might bring the highest ben-efits. From a conservation perspective, thismeans evaluating the impacts of forest loss,including analysis of biodiversity, authenticity,and ecological integrity.

Impacts on biodiversity: Complete forest losshas the clearest impact on biodiversity, withmost forest-dwelling species unable to live inhabitats that replace forests. However, it isharder to measure the impacts of changes suchas fragmentation and loss of microhabitats.Management often simplifies forests, reducingbiodiversity and age range; as older and deadtrees disappear, so do many associated species.Conversely, pioneer or weed species mayincrease. Biodiversity monitoring is costly, andour knowledge of many forest ecosystems isstill incomplete. One concept that has gainedincreasing recognition in the last few years isthat of critical thresholds for particular species,that is, the population level below which furtherdecline and eventual extirpation or extinction

3Impact of Forest Loss andDegradation on BiodiversityNigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Assessment of current forest condition is anecessary precursor to restoration.

Ecological assessments should considerissues related to biodiversity, level of natu-ralness, and more generally ecologicalintegrity.

A number of assessment tools exist, fornational, landscape, and site-level assess-ments. They include: at national scale, fron-tier forests; at landscape scale, forest qualityassessment; and a number of site-level toolsincluding High Conservation Value Forestassessments.

17

18 N. Dudley

is likely, and where these thresholds are knownthey can play a key role in monitoring impactsand planning restoration strategies.

Impacts on authenticity or naturalness: On anecosystem scale, measuring impacts on overallnaturalness of forests is easier than surveyingbiodiversity and acts as a partial surrogate; gen-erally the greater the naturalness of a forest, themore of its original constituent species are likelyto survive. Worldwide forest authenticity isdeclining fast. In most West European countriesless than 1 percent of forests are classified by theUnited Nations as “undisturbed.”21 A growingproportion of forests in Africa, the Pacific, andthe Amazon have been logged at least once.

Ecological integrity: This concept coversmany of the above issues. It is defined by ParksCanada as “a condition that is determined to becharacteristic of its natural region and likely topersist, including abiotic components and thecomposition and abundance of native speciesand biological communities, rates of change,and supporting processes.”22

Evaluation of options for restoration shouldalso consider the reasons why forest loss ordegradation have occurred. Many restorationprogrammes fail because the pressures thatcaused deforestation are not addressed, andrestored forests suffer the same fate as the orig-inal forests. If population or economic pres-sures mean that there is insufficient fuelwood,then planted trees will be burned long beforethey have a chance to mature and reach a usefulsize. On the other hand, understanding thenature of the pressures and working with localcommunities to plan restoration in ways thatare mutually beneficial increases the chances ofrestoration succeeding. Assessment needs toaddress several different aspects:

• Impacts of forest loss and degradation onbiodiversity, naturalness, and ecologicalintegrity;

• Some of the key factors causing change;• Changes in biodiversity, naturalness, and

ecological integrity following restorationinterventions.

Whilst the first two can be assessed throughsingle surveys, assessment of trends implies theneed for a monitoring system.

2. Examples

2.1. New Caledonia

In New Caledonia the overall loss of forestscreates a critical threat to biodiversity and eco-logical integrity. Today only 2 percent of the dry forest remains in the island, in scatteredfragments of 300 hectares or less, leading toextreme threats to the remaining biodiversity.Over half of the 117 dry forest plant speciesassessed by the IUCN Species Survival Com-mission are threatened, and it is likely thatseveral have already gone extinct. For example,the tree Pittosporum tanianum was discoveredin 1988 on Leprédour Island in an area that hasbeen devastated by introduced rabbits anddeer, declared extinct in 1994, and rediscoveredin 2002.This level of damage suggests an urgentneed for both restoration of forest cover and acarefully designed series of interventions toprotect and allow the spread of species thatmay already be at critically low levels.23

2.2. Western Europe

Changes in management and human distur-bance have reduced near-natural forests to lessthan 1 percent of their original area in mostwestern European countries, despite an expan-ding forest estate. In Europe as a whole, almostnine million hectares are defined as “undis-turbed by man,” but most of this exists in theRussian Federation and Scandinavia; Swedenrecords 16 percent of its forest as natural,Finland 5 percent, and Norway 2 percent. Inmost of Europe the proportion is usually fromzero to less than 1 percent; for instance, Switzer-land records 0.6 percent.24 Even in forest-richcountries like Finland and Sweden, many forestd-welling species are threatened because the forests contain only a proportion of the

21 UNECE and FAO, 2000.22 Parks Canada, undated.

23 Vallauri and Géraux, 2004.24 UNECE and FAO, 2000.

3. Impact of Forest Loss and Degradation on Biodiversity 19

expected habitats and ecosystem functions.Here the challenge is less to recover forest area(although this may sometimes be important)than to restore natural ecosystem processes andmicrohabitats. Specific monitoring criteria areneeded and these have started to be developed,for instance by the Ministerial Conference onthe Protection of Forests in Europe.25

2.3. Brazilian Atlantic Forests

In the Atlantic forest of Brazil, forest loss and fragmentation are combining to threatenendemic species. Although international atten-tion tends to focus on threats to the Amazon,the Atlantic forests of Brazil have undergonefar more dramatic losses. The forests havealready been reduced to just 7 percent of theiroriginal size, and the associated threats to bio-diversity are increased because the remainingareas are fragmented and the populations aregenetically isolated. The area is home to manyendemic species, including some of the 19 resi-dent primates and 92 percent of amphibianspecies found there. Attention has focussed par-ticularly on the golden lion tamarins (Leontop-ithecus rosalia), which now inhabit less than 2percent of their original range.Their populationis currently around 1000, up from little morethan 200 twenty years ago following a majorconservation effort. However, population is stillbelieved to be below long-term viability, andsubpopulations are isolated in remaining forestfragments. Restoration efforts, therefore, focusparticularly in reconnecting the remainingforest fragments of high biological importance.

2.4. Uganda

In Uganda loss of connectivity is separatingpopulations of mountain gorillas even in areaswith relatively high forest cover. The world’sremaining mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringeiberingei) live in isolated rain forests in themountains on the borders of Uganda, Rwanda,and the Democratic Republic of Congo, withhalf of the world’s known population, 350 indi-

viduals, in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Reservein Uganda. Another major population is in theVirunga volcanoes area, some of which is inMgahinga National Park. Neither of these pop-ulations is considered large enough to be genet-ically secure over time, but both reserves arealso thought to be reaching their natural carry-ing capacity. Linking the two populations isimportant for their long-term survival, but theintervening land has all been converted to agri-culture, and any restoration efforts will need along period of planning and negotiation (infor-mation from park staff in Bwindi).

Understanding of what has been lost, andwhat is at risk of being lost, should be the basisfor any forest restoration that has biodiversityconservation amongst its aims. This needs to beaugmented with an understanding of what typeor quality of forest is needed to maintain biodi-versity. If the key issue is connectivity for largemammals and birds, for example, managed sec-ondary forests or even plantations or shade-grown coffee may be suitable. If the threats aremore generally to forest biodiversity, restora-tion efforts should probably be aimed at creat-ing a forest as near to natural as possible.

3. Outline of Tools

Detailed biodiversity surveys are expensive andrely on a high level of expertise. Methodologiesfor achieving these have become increasinglysophisticated, and a number of short cuts havebeen developed where time and money arelimited.

3.1. National Level Surveys

National level surveys can help identify thescale of the problems and the locations of valu-able remaining forest habitat, which shouldusually serve as the starting point for restora-tion efforts. The U.N. Economic Commissionfor Europe and the Food and AgricultureOrganisation asked countries to report on theproportion of their forest that was “undisturbedby man,” taken here to mean left without man-agement interventions for at least 200 years.This has created a fairly crude but effective

25 Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests inEurope, 2002.

20 N. Dudley

international database for many of the temper-ate countries, but as yet no similar exercise hasbeen attempted in the tropics. It also does notcreate a very useful way of measuring progressin restoration. Some individual countries (e.g.,Austria, France, and the U.K.) have also carriedout detailed surveys of ancient forest.

3.2. High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF)

This is a WWF/ProForest methodology for iden-tifying the forests of the highest conservationand social value in a landscape, drawing on sixdifferent types of HCVF: (1) forest areas con-taining globally, regionally, or nationally signifi-cant concentrations of biodiversity values (e.g.,endemism, endangered species, refugia); (2)forest areas containing globally, regionally, ornationally significant large landscape levelforests, where viable populations of most if notall naturally occurring species exist in naturalpatterns of distribution and abundance; (3)forest areas that are in or contain rare, threat-ened,or endangered ecosystems;(4) forest areasthat provide basic services of nature in criticalsituations; (5) forest areas fundamental tomeeting basic needs of local communities; and(6) forest areas critical to local communities’ tra-ditional cultural identity.26 Although designedinitially for site-level assessments, a landscape-scale methodology is being developed.

3.3. Forest Quality Assessment

WWF and IUCN have developed an approachto landscape assessment of forest quality usingindicators to map social and ecological values,including identifying different elements of naturalness or authenticity, drawing on the following: composition, pattern, ecologicalfunctioning, process, resilience, and area (alsosee “Restoring Quality in Existing NativeForest Landscapes”). Assessment is based on a seven-stage process: identification of aims,selection of the landscape, selection of a toolkit(relevant indicators), collection of informationabout each indicator, assessment, presentation

of results, and incorporation into management.Information is collected through primaryresearch, literature review, and interviews. Theextent to which assessment is a participatoryprocess can change depending on the situationand aims.27

3.4. Frontier Forest Analysis

Frontier forest analysis is a World ResourcesInstitute/Global Forest Watch approach28 thatdefines frontier forests as free from substantialanthropogenic fragmentation (settlements,roads, clearcuts, pipelines, power lines, mines,etc.); free from detectable human influence forperiods that are long enough to ensure that itis formed by naturally occurring ecologicalprocesses (including fires, wind, and pestspecies); large enough to be resilient to edgeeffects and to survive most natural disturbanceevents; containing only naturally seeded indige-nous plant species; and supporting viable pop-ulations of most native species associated withthe ecosystem.29 It is mainly used at a nationalscale.

3.5. Site-Scale Survey Methods

A wide range of survey methods exist includingsome that have specifically been developed tofacilitate rapid surveys for conservation practi-tioners, amongst these are the Rapid Ecologi-cal Assessment methodology developed by TheNature Conservancy.30 Increasingly surveys byoutside experts are being augmented by inter-views and collaboration with local communi-ties, which often have great understanding ofpopulation levels of key plants and animals;these sources are usually referred to as tradi-tional ecological knowledge.

4. Future Needs

Despite expertise in survey methods, there isstill much to be learned about accurate ways

26 Jennings et al, 2003.

27 Dudley et al, in press.28 Bryant et al, 1997.29 Smith et al, 2000.30 Sayre et al, 2002.

3. Impact of Forest Loss and Degradation on Biodiversity 21

of monitoring of both biodiversity and, morecritically, ecological integrity that would allowproper assessment of restoration outcomesover time and thus help set realistic goals forrestoration. In general, quick and cost-effectivemethods of monitoring the impacts of restora-tion on biodiversity and ecology are stillrequired in many ecosystems.

References

Bryant, D., Nielsen, D., and Tangley, L. 1997.The LastFrontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies onthe Edge. World Resources Institute, Washington,DC.

Dudley, N., Schlaepfer, R., Jackson, W., and Jeanrenaud, J. P. In press. A Manual on ForestQuality.

ECE and FAO. 2000. Forest Resources of Europe,CIS, North America, Australia, Japan and NewZealand. U.N. Regional Economic Commissions

for Europe and the Food and Agriculture Organ-isation, Geneva and Rome.

Jennings, S., Nussbaum, R., Judd, N., et al. 2003. TheHigh Conservation Value Toolkit. Proforest,Oxford (three-part document).

Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forestsin Europe. 2002. Improved Pan-European Indica-tors for Sustainable Forest Management: asadopted by the MCPFE expert level meeting,October 7–8, 2002, Vienna, Austria.

Parks Canada. Undated. http://www.pc.gc.ca/progs/np-pn/eco_integ/index_e.asp.

Sayre, R., et al. 2002. Nature in Focus: Rapid Eco-logical Assessment. The Nature Conservancy andthe Island Press, Covelo and Washington, DC.

Smith, W., et al. 2000. Canada’s Forests at a Cross-roads: An Assessment in the Year 2000. GlobalForest Watch, World Resources Institute,Washington, DC. See also the Global Forest Watch Web site: http://www.globalforestwatch.org.

Vallauri, D., and Géraux, H. 2004. Recréer des forêtstropicales sèches en Nouvelle Calédonie. WWFFrance, Paris.

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

For many millions of people forests and forestproducts and services supply both direct andindirect sources of livelihood, providing a major

part of their physical, material, economic, andspiritual lives31). The World Bank has estimatedthat 90 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion poorestpeople depend on forests in some way oranother. Forest areas often coincide with areasof high poverty incidence and livelihooddependence on forests. They often occur inremote rural areas with poor infrastructure andlimited access to markets and other basic serv-ices; the livelihood options in such areas arehighly circumscribed. The challenge facingmany communities is not just the restoration oftrees in their landscape but the growth of apolitical and social landscape that facilitatestheir ability to make choices to secure theirlivelihoods.

In this section we consider the impacts offorest loss and degradation on human well-being. At the most simple level the first ques-tion must be: impact on whom? This is animportant point because degradation and lossof resources affects people in different ways. Toexplore this question we need to unpick theconcept of well-being and then look at the waysin which forests and people are intertwined.The major focus of this section, however, is on those who are most adversely affected bychanges in forest cover and quality—the poor,and in particular those living in forest areas.Thesecond question to ask is why deforestation anddegradation happen, since understanding the

4The Impacts of Degradation andForest Loss on Human Well-Beingand Its Social and Political Relevancefor RestorationMary Hobley

Key Points to Retain

Poor people rely on forests as a safety net toavoid or mitigate poverty and sometimes asa way to lift themselves out of poverty.

It is important to recognise different levels ofpoverty and different types of dependence onforests when trying to understand the likelysocial implications of forest restoration.

A series of tools and questions exist that canhelp to identify potential benefits fromrestoration, although these need to be usedwith care to avoid overlooking some of thepoorest members of society.

22

31 Byron and Arnold, 1997.

Forests: “the poor man’s overcoat” (Westoby, 1989).

Forests have an important role to play in alleviatingpoverty worldwide in two senses. First, they serve avital safety net function, helping rural people avoidpoverty, or helping those who are poor to mitigatetheir plight. Second, forests have untapped potentialto actually lift some rural people out of poverty (Sunderlin et al, 2004).

4. The Impacts of Degradation and Forest Loss on Human Well-Being 23

answers to this question provides answers towhom it impacts on. As part of this process weneed to set out the major concepts and termsthat support this understanding. These aredeforestation and degradation, well-being, liveli-hoods, people, and impact.

The drivers of forest loss and degradation arecomplex and variable, moving from theextreme of deforestation for other land uses tomore subtle forms of degradation through multiple overuse, either happening slowly ormore rapidly depending on the pressuresdriving change. Who drives the changes in theforests and who benefits from them also helpsto determine the impacts. These are not simpleevents and do not have simple causal conse-quences. For example, one person’s loss as aresult of forest degradation may be anotherperson’s gain if for instance opportunities tofarm land are opened up. Timber companiesbenefit from timber extraction but generallythe capture of benefits at the local level is veryweak and the local social and environmentalcosts of logging are high.

Following Wunder32 and the U.N. Food andAgricultural Organisation, deforestation (orforest loss) is defined as a radical removal ofvegetation to less than 10 percent crown cover.For local people deforestation can be cata-strophic, as in the case of large-scale clear-felling by an outside agency that destroysresources without offering any alternatives, orin other cases it can be the planned precursorto an alternative land use system such asfarming, which in terms of livelihood outcomesmay provide more secure alternatives than thatoffered by the forest.

Degradation is taken to mean a loss of foreststructure, productivity, and native species’diversity.A degraded site may still contain treesor forest but it will have lost its former ecolog-ical integrity.33 Degradation is a process of lossof forest quality that is in practice often part of the chain of events that eventually leads todeforestation.

Impact: “Impact concerns the long-term andsustainable changes introduced by a given

intervention in the lives of beneficiaries. Impactcan be related either to the specific objectivesof an intervention or to unanticipated changescaused by an intervention; such unanticipatedchanges may also occur in the lives of peoplenot belonging to the beneficiary group. Impactcan be either positive or negative, the latterbeing equally important to be aware of.”34

Well-being is a concept used to describe allelements of how individuals experience theworld and their capacities to interact, andincludes the degree of access to materialincome or consumption, levels of education andhealth, vulnerability and exposure to risk,opportunity to be heard, and ability to exercisepower, particularly over decisions relating tosecuring livelihoods.35 When used in connectionwith livelihoods it becomes a powerful conceptfor considering the effects of change on allaspects of the lived experience of an individual.

A useful definition of livelihoods is asfollows: “People’s capacity to generate andmaintain their means of living, enhance theirwell-being and that of future generations.Thesecapacities are contingent upon the availabilityand accessibility of options which are ecologi-cal, economic, and political and which are predicated on equity, ownership of resources,and participatory decision making.”36

The individual experience of well-beingvaries along a continuum, with ill-being at oneend and well-being at the other, and is notstatic; it can vary during an individual’s lifecycle. Those classified as extreme poor oftensuffer ill-being, particularly expressed throughhigh degrees of exposure to vulnerability andrisk, whereas those who can be classified asimproving poor generally experience higherlevels of well-being. It is important to be ableto differentiate among people’s vulnerabilitiesin order to understand the differential effectsthat forest loss and degradation may have.

One of the most important issues to considerwhen looking at the effects of a change inaccess to or availability of forest products andservices is a household’s exposure to vulnera-

32 Wunder, 2001.33 Lamb and Gilmour, 2003: 4.

34 Blankenberg, 1995.35 World Bank, 2001:15.36 de Satgé, 2002:4.

24 M. Hobley

bility and risk. It is clear that households andindividuals within households experience dif-ferent levels of vulnerability and exposure torisk. This is particularly important in the assess-ment of the effects of forest quality change, asit has differential impacts within and betweenhouseholds.

There are two main ways in which forestsimpact on livelihoods and reduce vulnerability:

• as a safety net helping rural people avoidpoverty and helping those who are poor tomitigate their poverty;

• through their potential to lift some peopleout of poverty.

For the sake of understanding the likelyimpacts of forest loss or restoration, it is usefulto define people in terms of their vulnerabilityand their relationships with forests and forestproducts (see Table 4.1 for examples of impactsof degradation and deforestation on these different groups):

• Extreme poor with very little or no capabil-ity for social mobilisation

• Coping poor with little capability for socialmobilisation

• Improving poor with some capability forsocial mobilisation

This typology helps to underline the impor-tance of understanding the social situation ofhouseholds and individuals. Attempts toaddress restoration in a social context, withoutrecognising the differences that degrees ofpoverty have on people’s relative vulnerabilityand opportunities, most often at best ignorethose in extreme poverty and at worst exacer-bate their condition.

Also important in this context are the differ-ent relationships that people have with forestswhich can usefully be categorised as37:

• hunters and gatherers,• shifting cultivators,• farming communities with inputs from the

forest, and• livelihoods based on commercial forest pro-

duct activities.

Poverty is not a uniform experience for thesefour types of forest-related people, and neitheris it possible to say, for example, that all shift-ing cultivators are extremely poor or that allfarming communities are “improving poor.”This makes it even more difficult to generaliseabout the impacts that forest change will haveon individual livelihoods.Within the same com-munity, dependence on forests and wildlandswill vary, although generally the extremely poorwill be the most dependent on the resourcesfrom natural habitats and the improving poorwill be less dependent. However, those whoselivelihoods are most interlinked with the forestresource, such as hunter-gatherer groups andshifting cultivators, are those who are the mostvulnerable to any changes in that resource andare also the least able to move into other liveli-hood options.

It should be noted that these are by no meansstatic categories; they change as the local andnational environment changes. For example,increasing market penetration has profoundeffects on the choices or enforced changes thatpeople have to make in their livelihood base.The key point to recognise here is the diversityof the types of relationships that people havewith forests and therefore the diversity ofimpacts that changes in forests and associatedlandscapes might have on the livelihoods ofthose living in and around them.

1.1. Relationships to the Forest

It is also important to move away from a broad-brush consideration of communities torecognition of differences between individualhouseholds and categories of well-being.38

Many people assume that communities havecommon interests or, where they are conflict-ing, that disagreements could be resolved byworking with the different interest groups, butthis is not always the case. This becomes particularly important when considering theimpacts of changes in forest cover and qualityand how this is experienced by different house-holds. For some of the most dependent people,

37 Byron and Arnold, 1997. 38 de Satgé, 2002.

4. The Impacts of Degradation and Forest Loss on Human Well-Being 25T

able

4.1.

Exa

mpl

es o

f im

pact

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def

ores

tati

on a

nd d

egra

dati

on.

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e

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ricu

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ve t

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secu

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fold

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is g

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nefit

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use

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ter

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enefi

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mos

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capt

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by

the

netw

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and

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;bei

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lly n

etw

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is

to b

e la

bour

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este

rs

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iron

men

tal s

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ces

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oss

all g

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tal f

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of

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are

impo

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t fo

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aini

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ater

sup

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s,in

puts

to

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cult

ural

pro

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y th

roug

h im

prov

ing

soil

fert

ility

,and

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vidi

ng t

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ange

of

biod

iver

sity

nec

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ry

to m

aint

ain

a ro

bust

loca

l eco

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on o

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gain

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t ac

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lt b

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ose

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gro

up t

heir

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vers

ew

ho h

ave

no o

ther

opt

ions

port

folio

and

hig

her

leve

ls o

f ri

sk-

taki

ng c

apac

ity

mea

ns t

hat

they

are

mor

e re

silie

nt t

o m

inor

cha

nges

inen

viro

nmen

tal s

ervi

ces.

Ada

pted

fro

m w

ork

by B

rock

lesb

y (2

004)

and

Hob

ley

(200

4) d

iffe

rent

iati

ng b

etw

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form

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pov

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dep

ende

nt o

n vu

lner

abili

ty a

nd c

apab

ility

to

have

a v

oice

.

26 M. Hobley

forest change can be devastating, whereas for others with a broader livelihood portfoliothat includes only limited dependence on theforests, changes in forest quality and extent mayonly have relatively minor effects. In such cases,responses to forest restoration will also be different between individual households in acommunity. The importance of a broad-basedand carefully structured participatory process,linked to social mobilisation and includingattempts to build the capacity of different social groups to have a voice, cannot be underestimated.

For some of the poorest rural peoples thereis extreme forest dependence, but for otherswho are not so poor (the “coping” poor), theuse of forests is indirect and more often is ameans of poverty prevention, providing impor-tant seasonal safety nets.This latter role is oftentransitory as poor people build other assets tomove out of poverty. It is rarely the case thatforests themselves are the means to povertyreduction. However, what happens to theforests, their products and services, does have aprofound impact on people’s livelihoods, par-ticularly when this is linked with the effects onother land uses such as grazing and agriculture.

Risk and uncertainty are universal charac-teristics of life in rural areas. Sources of riskinclude natural hazards like drought and flood,commodity price fluctuations, illness and death,changing social relationships, unstable govern-ments, and armed conflicts. Some risky eventslike drought or flood simultaneously affectmany households in a community or region.Other risky events, like illnesses, are household-specific and again have differential effectsdepending on the overall robustness of a par-ticular household and its livelihood strategies.Catastrophic forest loss, for example throughfire or clear-felling, thus affects whole commu-nities, but the intensity of the effects are notnecessarily uniform.

It is not only total forest loss that leads tonegative impacts on well-being. For example,loss of particular nontimber forest products(NTFPs) from a surviving forest can be equallycatastrophic to those households who havebased their livelihoods around the use and saleof these products. Changes in market condi-

tions, including in particular the recognition ofthe value of an NTFP on national and interna-tional markets, can disadvantage the very pooras the elites seize control of valuable naturalresources and dominate market access.

1.2. Implications of Differential Social Impacts for Forest Restoration

1.2.1. Guiding Questions for Restoration

Forests can affect livelihoods in two principalways that must be considered when any land-scape restoration is under consideration39:

• Poverty avoidance or mitigation, that is,where forest resources serve a safety netfunction, or as a gap filler, including as asource of petty cash

• Poverty elimination, that is, where forestresources help lift a household out of povertyby functioning as a source of savings, invest-ment, accumulation, asset building, and permanent increases in wealth and income

When restoration is planned to amelioratethe impacts of forest changes on the well-beingof target groups a set of questions can help toguide responses as to the nature and extent ofrestoration required.40 The usefulness of suchquestions depends to a large extent on the wayin which they are asked. It is important to useparticipatory processes that lead to peoplebeing able to influence decisions about land useand control the outcomes of these decisions, butprocesses must also allow space for the voicesof the extreme poor to be heard as well as thoseof the more articulate and much less vulnera-ble poor and wealthier groups:

What is the frequency or timing of use of forestproducts and the extent to which a house-hold’s labour is allocated to these activities?

What is the role of forest products in householdlivelihood systems? What is their importanceas a share of household inputs, and in

39 Sunderlin et al, 2004:1.40 Byron and Arnold, 1997.

4. The Impacts of Degradation and Forest Loss on Human Well-Being 27

meeting household livelihood strategy objectives?

What is the impact of reduced access to forests?Does the forest serve as a (critical) economicand ecological buffer for its users, or arethere alternatives, such as trees outsideforests or non–forest/tree sources of neededinputs and income?

What is the likely future importance of forestproducts? Do users face a growing or declin-ing demand for forest products, or the poten-tial for expanded or decreased involvementin production and trade in forest products?

2. Examples

Undoubtedly forest degradation and loss hasmajor livelihood and well-being impacts formany people, from those with secure liveli-hoods to the extreme poor. It is therefore particularly important to understand the differential effects of forest change and theimplications for livelihoods and livelihoodoptions.

Byron and Arnold41 provide a useful cate-gorisation that aids this understanding anddirects practical intervention. Clearly there isno general solution that can be applied acrossall situations. Any support to forest landscaperestoration must be based on a careful assess-ment that “covers the range of the relationshipsbetween the people and the forests which theyuse and/or manage, the current limitations totheir livelihoods, and the potentials and desiresfor change.” They outline five generalised (andpotentially overlapping) situations:

1. Forests continue to be central to livelihoodsystems. Local people are or should be the prin-cipal stakeholders in these forest areas. Meetingtheir needs is likely to be the principal objec-tive of forest management and restoration, andthis should be reflected in control and tenurearrangements (also see “Land Ownership andForest Restoration”).

2. Forest products play an important supple-mentary and safety net role. Users need security

of access to the resources from which theysource these products, but are often not theonly users in that forest area. Forest manage-ment and control is likely to be best based onresource-sharing arrangements among severalstakeholder groups. Successful restorationactivities need to recognise and be plannedwith respect to these roles. Examples across theworld include joint forest management in Indiaand collaborative management in Ghana,where the state and local forest users shareboth in management decisions and in the ben-efits of forest products, which provide incen-tives to both partners to manage the forests fora range of benefits. However, in many cases thestate is still reluctant to allow these agreementsto cover high value forests, retaining controland access to the benefits and restricting localaccess to the forests and its products.42 Com-munity forestry in the hills of Nepal is widelycited as a successful example of transfer ofcontrol of management and benefits to localcommunities; again, however, the governmenthas demonstrated its reluctance to extend man-agement authority to the high value forests ofthe lowlands.

3. Forest products play an important role butare more effectively supplied from nonforestsources. Management of a proportion of theforests needs to be geared towards agro-foreststructures, and control and tenure need to beconsistent with the individual rather than thecollective forms of governance that this shift islikely to require. Examples of these situationsabound: PASOLAC (Programa para la Agri-cultura Sostenible en las Laderas de AméricaCentral) in Central America has been workingwith communities living in areas of high envi-ronmental degradation and insecurity to reducetheir vulnerability to extreme natural events.This programme supports farmers to identifytheir own training requirements, providesfinancial and in-kind compensation for themanagement and maintenance of naturalresources and their services and works todevelop the integration of farmers and forestproducts into local markets. This integrated

41 Byron and Arnold, 1997. 42 Arnold, 2001; Molnar et al, 2004.

28 M. Hobley

approach “combining improvements in humanand social capital with advances in locallyadapted resource management techniques andthe creation of financial instruments”43 is animportant combination and an interesting pro-gression away from approaches that have gen-erally limited their support to more technicallybased interventions.

4. Participants need help in exploiting oppor-tunities to increase the benefits they obtain fromforest product activities. Constraints in the wayof smallholders’ access to markets need to beremoved. Improved access to credit, skills, mar-keting services etc., may be required. A goodexample of the increasing experience with thistype of support is provided by the PROCY-MAF project (Proyecto de Conservación yManejo Sostenible de Recursos Forestales) inMexico. It has focussed on strengthening pro-ducer organisations and overcoming valuechain “gaps.”44 This support is packaged withthe supply of business services, which developthe skills of producer organisation leaders andmembers. A range of other programmes acrossthe world are focussing on the better harvest-ing and marketing of a wide variety of NTFPsthrough understanding value chains and devel-oping producer skills at entering markets in amore informed and secure environment.

5. Participants need help in moving out ofdead-end forest product activities. An importantexample of this is firewood collection for salein the market, often conducted by women whosay they would rather be employed in othereasier activities that are not so physically burdensome and poorly paid. It is often anactivity of last resort and does not lead toopportunity to move out of these poverty con-fining conditions.

3. Outline of Tools

Baseline assessment: To build understanding ofpeople’s livelihoods and well-being, exposureto risk, and vulnerability, there are a range oftools that have been gathered under the

umbrella of livelihoods analysis. These includesurvey methodologies and participatoryappraisal approaches and are discussed in other chapters in this book. A useful guide tothe range of tools and their applications can befound on Web sites including www.liveli-hoods.org. With this baseline assessment, it isthen possible to begin to work with local peopleto identify different approaches to supporttheir relationships with forests and forest prod-ucts. It can be used as the basis for implemen-tation and for later evaluation to assess thedegree of change in exposure to risk and reduc-tion in vulnerability as a result of livelihoodinterventions.

Tools for engagement: Voice, as has already been discussed, is an essential element of changing relationships and shiftingpower. Building poor people’s capabilities to be able to influence decisions and policy is a key part of any restoration effort.Participatory tools and social mobilisationapproaches are all used to build people’s capa-bilities, but often voice is most strongly devel-oped as poor people’s livelihoods become moresecure.

Community-based cost-benefit analysis:For communities, changing their use of forests and forest lands depends very much on individual and collective cost-benefit analyses. Communities are likely to be pre-pared to manage forests only if they offergreater benefit than under other uses of the land on which the forests grow. Such analyses are an essential part of any landscaperestoration initiative because unless these costs and benefits are understood and factoredinto the process, initiatives will fail where perceived costs of maintaining the forest outweigh the tentative benefits. This is whereecosystem service payment schemes become animportant part of the analysis and where it willbe important to change local incentives andattitudes toward forests.45 Additionally, focuson market access is critical where poor accessand low values for forest products act as majorbarriers and disincentives.

43 IISD et al, 2003.44 Scherr et al, 2003. 45 Arnold, 2001.

4. The Impacts of Degradation and Forest Loss on Human Well-Being 29

Facilitating access to green markets: Providingmechanisms and funds that allow local peopleto access markets for ecosystem services suchas watershed protection, biodiversity pro-tection, etc., is another important element ofchanging the relationship between people’slivelihoods and the forest resource. Forest cer-tification can also be used to help forest man-agers to access higher value markets. There aresome successful experiences with community-based certification in Latin America,46 althoughthe certification costs are often very high forsmall community groups and much more stillneeds to be done to provide standards thatfacilitate access of community managed naturaltimber into the green markets.

Securing tenure and management rights:Clearly tenure or at least long-term manage-ment rights are important elements in anyforest restoration effort. There are now manymodels of communities that own forests withevidence of the incentives this creates for wisemanagement. Tenure is often highly contestedand requires careful work with governments tobuild an environment in which it is possible toshift tenure patterns. Often this requires signifi-cant evidence that changing tenure arrange-ments does lead to fundamental environmentaland social benefits.

4. Future Needs

In any process of restoration, and perhaps par-ticularly restoration projects driven by conser-vation concerns, some key messages need to beincorporated into the planning and implemen-tation of any programme:

• Recognition of the differential importance offorests, products, and services on differentpeople and therefore the differential impactsof changes in forest quality and extent;

• Recognition of the role of forests in povertyprevention as well as poverty reduction;

• The need to involve people in the decision-making process to build voice and capacity toarticulate voice in an institutional and politi-

cal environment that is able to respond tothese voices;

• Recognition of the need to support the build-ing of livelihoods that reduce people’s expo-sure to risk and remove vulnerabilities;

• Recognition that forests alone do not neces-sarily move people out of poverty but actu-ally can secure them in poverty;

• Support to decentralised service provisionthat can be socially responsive and tailoredto particular ecological and economic conditions47;

• Impacts of restoration also need to be carefully considered. Just as the impacts ofdegradation are not equally felt across liveli-hood groups, it is the case with restoration.Restoration of forest cover for some mayhave negative livelihood implications. Oftenthe beneficiaries of restoration are not thoseliving locally to the forest but are down-stream users of services, therefore, the distri-bution of costs and benefits of restorationneed to be carefully considered.

References

Arnold, M. 2001. 25 Years of Community Forestry.FAO, Rome.

Blankenberg, F. 1995. Methods of Impact Assess-ment Research Programme, Resource Pack and Discussion. Oxfam UK/I and Novib, theHague.

Brocklesby, M.A. 2004. Planning against risk: toolsfor analysing vulnerability in remote rural areas.Chars Organisational Learning Paper 2, DFID,London, www.livelihoods.org.

Byron, N., and Arnold, M. 1997. What futures for thepeople of the tropical forests? CIFOR workingpaper No 19. CIFOR, Bogor, www.cifor.cgiar.org.

de Satgé, R. 2002. Learning about livelihoods:insights from Southern Africa. Periperi Publica-tions, South Africa and Oxfam Publishing, Oxford.

Hobley, M. 2004. The Voice-responsiveness frame-work: creating political space for the extremepoor. Chars Organisational Learning Paper 3,DFID, London, www.livelihoods.org.

IISD, SEI, IUCN, and Intercooperation. 2003.Livelihoods and climate change: increasing the

46 Molnar et al, 2004. 47 Ribot, 2002.

30 M. Hobley

resilience of tropical hillside communities throughforest landscape restoration. Information Paper 2IUCN and SDC, www.iucn.org/themes/ceesp/index.html.

Lamb, D., and Gilmour, D. 2003. Rehabilitation andRestoration of Degraded Forests. IUCN andWWF, Gland Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

Molnar, A., Scherr, S.J., and Khare, A. 2004. Who conserves the world’s forests? Community-drivenstrategies to protect forests and respect rights.Forest Trends, and Ecoagriculture Partners,Washington, DC, www.forest-trends.org.

Ribot, J.C. 2002. Democratic Decentralisation ofNatural Resources: Institutionalising Popular Par-ticipation. World Resources Institute, Washington,DC.

Scherr, S.J., White, A., and Kaimowitz, D. 2003.Making markets work for forest communities.International Forestry Review 5(1):67–73.

Sunderlin, W.D., Angelsen, A., and Wunder, S. 2004.Forests and poverty alleviation. CIFOR, Bogor,www.cifor.cgiar.org.

Westoby, J. 1989. Introduction to World Forestry.Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

World Bank. 2001. World Development Report2000–2001. World Bank, Washington.

Wunder, S. 2001. Poverty alleviation and tropicalforests—what scope for synergies? World Devel-opment 29(11):1817–1833.

Additional Reading

Forestry Research Programme (FRP). 2004. Com-munity forestry gets the credit. Forestry ResearchProgramme Research Summary 006, FRP,Kent.

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

Climate change is arguably the greatest con-temporary threat to biodiversity. It is alreadyaffecting ecosystems of all kinds and theseimpacts are expected to become more drama-tic as the climate continues to change due toanthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions intothe atmosphere, mostly from fossil fuel com-bustion. While restoration is made more diffi-

cult by climate change, it can conversely be seenas a possible adaptive management approachfor enhancing the resilience of ecosystems tothese changes.

Climate change will result in added physicaland biological stresses to forest ecosystems,including drought, heat, increased evapotran-spiration, altered seasonality of hydrology,pests, disease, and competition; the strength andtype of effect will depend on the location. Suchstresses will compound existing nonclimaticthreats to forest biodiversity, including overhar-vesting, invasive species,pollution,and land con-version. This will result in forest ecosystemschanging in composition and location. There-fore, in order to increase the potential forsuccess, it will be necessary to consider thesechanges when designing restoration projects.

On the other hand, restoration projects canalso be viewed as a key aspect of enhancingecosystem resilience to climate change. Humandevelopment has resulted in habitat loss, frag-mentation, and degradation. A first step inincreasing resilience to the effects of climatechange is enhancing or protecting the ecosys-tem’s natural ability to respond to stress andchange. Research suggests that this is bestachieved with “healthy” and intact systems as astarting point, which can draw on their owninternal diversity to have natural adaptation oracclimation potential,48 and therefore greaterresilience. Any restoration activities thatenhance the ecological health of a system can

5Restoring Forest Landscapes in theFace of Climate ChangeJennifer Biringer and Lara J. Hansen

Key Points to Retain

Climate change increases the need forrestoration, both to help forest systems tomanage existing changes and to buffer themagainst likely changes in the future byincreasing areas of natural, healthy forestsystems.

Care needs to be taken to avoid oversim-plistic reliance on forests for carbon seques-tration, and attempts at restoration toincrease carbon storage must be assessedcarefully to judge their true worth.

Tools such as vulnerability analyses can helpto design effective restoration strategies,which are likely to include reduction of fragmentation, increasing connectivity,development of effective buffer zones, andmaintenance of genetic diversity.

31

48 Kumaraguru and Beamish, 1981; McLusky et al, 1986.

32 J. Biringer and L.J. Hansen

thus be seen as creating or increasing the poten-tial buffering capacity against negative impactsof climate change. It should be mentioned thatthere are obvious limits to the rate and extentof change that even a robust system can toler-ate. As a result it is only prudent to conductrestoration for enhancing resilience in tandemwith efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions, the root cause of climate change.

For many with a forestry background, carbondioxide sequestration might seem a concomi-tant advantage to restoration projects, whichcan aid in reduction of atmospheric concentra-tions of greenhouse gases.While forests do holdcarbon, and their loss does release carbon, theirlong-term capacity to act as a reliable sink inthe face of climate change, especially for effec-tive mitigation, is not a foolproof strategy (formore on carbon sequestration projects, see“Carbon Knowledge Projects and Forest Land-scape Restoration”). Where restoration is pro-moted with a focus on capturing carbon, ananalysis of climate change impacts should beintegrated into project planning to determinewhether there really are net sequestration benefits. Increased incidence of forest fires as a result of warming and drying trends, forexample, could outweigh any efforts to reducecarbon emissions. Case studies of successfulresilience-building efforts are not yet plentiful,due to relatively recent revelations about the scale and impact that climate change willhave on ecosystems. However, the global tem-perature has risen 0.7°C as atmospheric con-centrations have risen49 and extinctions andlarge-scale ecosystem changes are expected. Anumber of forest types are already being nega-tively impacted, including tropical montanecloud forests, dry forests, and forests in theboreal zone, and climate-related extinctions arealready thought to have occurred, for exampleamongst amphibians. Along the coasts, therising sea level is increasing the vulnerability ofmangroves. Restoration as a means to ensurehealthy ecosystem structure and function willhave a large part to play in adapting ecosystemsto these broad-scale changes. See Box 5.1 formore in-depth exploration of these topics.

2. Example: Mangrove Restoration as an Adaptive Management Strategy

Mangroves provide a concrete example of howrestoration can be used as a tool to helpenhance resistance and resilience to climatechange. Mangroves are clearly vulnerable torising sea levels, which will change sedimentdynamics, cause erosion, and change salinitylevels. The rate of sediment buildup, which isthe backbone of mangrove survival, is expectedto take place at only half the pace of sea-levelrise in many places, and mangrove survival willtherefore require active restoration. Anotheraspect of mangroves that makes them an idealtesting ground for restoration is their relativeecological simplicity. Furthermore, the relation-ship between human and ecological vulner-ability to climate change is relatively clear.Low-lying coastal areas, particularly those intropical Africa, South Asia, and the SouthPacific, are predicted to experience among themost severe consequences of global climatechange.50 As these are among the most popu-lous areas across the globe, the livelihoods of many coastal communities that depend onmangrove resources for wood and shrimpfarming, will be increasingly tied to their vul-nerability to climate change.

Mangrove restoration can do much to limitor delay the negative effects of climate changeon associated human and natural communities.Mangroves play an integral role in coastalecosystems as the interface among terrestrial,freshwater, and marine systems.They are exten-sively developed on sedimentary shorelinessuch as deltas, where sediment supply deter-mines their ability to keep up with sea-levelrise. They afford protection from dynamicmarine processes to both terrestrial and estu-arine systems, preventing erosion and chaoticmixing. They also act locally to filter water.Mangrove forests protect sea grass beds andcoral reefs from deposition of suspendedmatter that is transported seaward by rivers and

49 Hansen et al, 2003. 50 IPCC, 2001.

5. Restoring Forest Landscapes in the Face of Climate Change 33

Box 5.1. Framework for Understanding Intersection of Resilience-Building and ForestRestoration and Protection

1. Protection: For some forests protectionalone will not increase resilience to climatechange. Many tropical montane cloud forestsprovide a case in point. Australia’s WetTropics World Heritage Area is expected toexperience a 50% reduction in habitat withwarming of 1 degree Celsius, which will leaveamphibians and other cool-adapted speciesno upland migration options as conditionsbecome warmer and drier.

2. Sequestration via restoration: Manyexamples exist where the planting of treesstores carbon but is not coordinated withconservation or resilience-raising advan-tages. Nonnative trees, such as Eucalyptus,are often planted solely for the carbonbenefit, though the planting may causedegradation of the landscape, and thus notprovide a buffer against climate change.

3. Resilience/adaptation: Restoration isbut one of the many types of managementoptions that increase resilience. For example,actions that respond to changing dynamicssuch as insect infestations and changing firepatterns are aspects of good forestry that willreceive special attention with the advent ofclimate change. Activities that increase theefficiency of resource use will also increaseresilience. In Cameroon, mangroves are

being aided by increasing the efficiency ofwood-burning stoves so that 75 percent lessmangrove wood is needed for cooking,thereby increasing the resilience of thesystem by reducing harvest levels. Suchactions decrease degradation of the man-grove and raise the probability that it will beequipped to respond to the effects of climatechange.

4. Sequestration and resilience/adapta-tion: Restoration and resilience go hand inhand when the impacts of climate change are taken into account in project planning.Whether passive or active restoration, activ-ities target those areas that will be more suit-able to climate change, and encourage use ofspecies that will be hardier under new cli-matic conditions (successful seed dispersers,for example).

5. Intersection of protection, sequestra-tion, and resilience/adaptation: Creatingbuffer zones through restoration canincrease the resilience of protected areas tothe impacts of climate change while at thesame time sequestering carbon. This sce-nario is similar to the one above, except thatrestoration is focussed on increasing theresilience of protected areas by expandingboundaries to increase suitable habitatunder changing climatic conditions.

6. Protection and adaptation: Protectioncan lead to increased resilience to theimpacts of climate change, where suitablehabitat is intact, and the expansion of bound-aries is possible to accommodate species’needs with a changing climate. A successfulprotected area system includes identificationand conservation of mature forest stands,functional groups and keystone species, andclimate refugia.

34 J. Biringer and L.J. Hansen

provide nursery habitat for many fish species.Deteriorating water quality and coastal degra-dation are anticipated to be magnified byclimate change. Globally, however, many man-grove systems have already been degraded anddestroyed. Loss of these buffering systems pre-cludes any protection they might afford. Thishas been recognised for some time, and manyindividual projects have attempted to rebuildmangrove systems. However, in the past, theemphasis of mangrove restoration projects hasbeen on planting trees, and this has led to poorsurvival rates, such as in West Bengal, India,where survival rates in some projects werereported as low as less than 2 percent.51

New approaches are therefore required. Inaddition, simply restoring a mangrove where ithas been degraded will not necessarily beenough in the face of climate change. Restora-tion in an environment where the climate israpidly changing will require taking intoaccount a few additional elements as opposedto restoration in a stable context. Before start-ing a restoration programme, two additionalsteps are required: (1) assess the cause of man-grove loss and evaluate how to remove thosecauses if possible; and (2) take into account theadded complexity relating to how climatechange will affect the system: in this case pri-marily through sea-level rise.

A large-scale mangrove restoration effort inVietnam has demonstrated that this approachto mangrove management can benefit localresource users and enhance protection fromstorm surge and sea-level rise.52 The restorationproject in this region has planted more than18,000 hectares of mangrove along 100 kilome-tres of coastline. In addition to creating a morestable coastline capable of surviving chang-ing marine conditions, harvestable marine re-sources are also increasing in number.

Understanding the hydrology (both fre-quency and duration of tidal flooding) is thesingle most important factor in designing suc-cessful mangrove restoration projects.53 Incor-porating projections of sea-level rise into

project design will be necessary so that man-groves are planted or are allowed to colonisenaturally or regenerate (this takes 15 to 30years where stresses leading to degradation areno longer present) in areas that will be morehospitable in the future. If the shoreline ismoving, for instance, mangroves may need tobe restored some distance from their originallocation.

3. Outline of Tools

This section offers a framework for integratingknowledge about climate change to forest man-agers who are considering restoration. It isbased on an understanding of how adaptation(in this case to climate change) needs to be inte-grated with both restoration and protection, asoutlined in Box 5.1 above.

3.1 Vulnerability Analysis

To understand how climate change will affectan existing forest system, an analysis of the vul-nerability of the defined area can be under-taken.As a first stop, climate change impacts onthe major forest types are presented in WWF’sBuying Time: A User’s Manual for BuildingResistance and Resilience to Climate Change inNatural Systems,54 with examples from manydifferent regions collected from the literature.For more specific information on a particularsite, a literature search may identify whether avulnerability analysis has been made of theproject area in question.

If limited information on climate changeimpacts exists for the selected site, a vulnera-bility analysis can be commissioned to feed intoproject design activities. An expert conversantin climate change science as well as biologicalscience for the region can piece together apicture of regional vulnerability that will helpto guide project activities so that they can takeaccount of likely alterations in environmentalconditions as the climate changes. At a large

51 Sanyal, 1998.52 Tri et al, 1998.53 Lewis and Streever, 2000. 54 Hansen et al, 2003 (available on www.panda.org).

5. Restoring Forest Landscapes in the Face of Climate Change 35

scale, major shifts in biome types can be pro-jected by combining biogeography models suchas the Holdridge Life Zone ClassificationModel with general circulation models (GCMs)that project changes under a doubled CO2 sce-nario. Biogeochemistry models simulate thegain, loss, and internal cycling of carbon, nutri-ents, and water-impact of changes in tempera-ture, precipitation, soil moisture, and otherclimatic factors that give clues to ecosys-tem productivity. Dynamic global vegetationmodels integrate biogeochemical processeswith dynamic changes in vegetation composi-tion and distribution. Studies on particularspecies comparing present trends with paleo-ecological data also provide indications for howspecies will adapt to climate change.55

A vulnerability analysis can help to assesswhat systems or aspects of the systems havegreater resilience and resistance to climatechange impacts. This type of information canhelp to identify sites that have greater long-term potential as ecosystem “refugia” fromclimate change impacts. Some refugia exist dueto their unique situational characteristics, buttheir resilience could be enhanced by manage-ment and restoration.

3.2 Restoration as a Resilience/Adaptation Strategy

After completing a vulnerability analysis todetermine how a forest system may be im-pacted by changing climatic conditions, the nextstep is to look at the range of adaptationoptions available in order to promote resi-lience. An effective vulnerability analysis willdetermine which components of the system—species or functions, for example—will be mostvulnerable to change, together with considera-tion of which parts of the system are crucial forecosystem health.An array of options pertinentto adapting forests to climate change are avail-able, both to apply to forest communities athigh risk from climate change impacts as wellas for those whose protection should be priori-tised given existing resilience. Long-term

resilience of species will be enabled wherenatural adaptation processes such as migration,selection, and change in structure are allowedto take place due to sufficient connectivity andhabitat size within the landscape.

Restoration can provide a series of criticalinterventions to reduce climate change im-pacts.56 Basic tenets of restoration for adapta-tion include working on a larger scale toincrease the amount of available options forecosystems, inclusion of corridors for connec-tivity between sites, inclusion of buffers, andprovision of heterogeneity within the restora-tion approach. Key approaches are as follows:

Reduce fragmentation and provide connectivity:Noss57 provides an overview of the negativeeffects of ecosystem fragmentation, whichare abundantly documented worldwide.“Edge effects” threaten the microclimate andstability of a forest as the ratio of edge tointerior habitat increases. Eventually, theability of a forest to withstand debilitatingimpacts is broken. Fragmentation of forestecosystems also contributes to a loss of bio-diversity as exotic, weedy species with highdispersal capacities are favoured and manynative species are inhibited by isolation.Restoration strategies should therefore oftenfocus first on those areas where interventioncan connect existing forest fragments into amore coherent whole.

Provide buffer zones and flexibility of land uses:The fixed boundaries of protected areas arenot well suited to a dynamic environmentunless individual areas are extremely large.With changing climate, buffer zones mightprovide suitable conditions for species if con-ditions inside reserves become unsuitable.58

Buffer zones increase the patch size of theinterior of the protected area and overlap-ping buffers provide migratory possibili-ties for some species.59 Buffer zones shouldideally be large, and managers of protectedareas and surrounding lands must demon-strate considerable flexibility by adjusting

55 Hansen et al, 2001.

56 Biringer, 2003; Noss, 2001.57 Noss, 2000.58 Noss, 2000.59 Sekula, 2000.

36 J. Biringer and L.J. Hansen

land management activities across the land-scape in response to changing habitat suit-ability. A specific case for a buffer zonesurrounding tropical montane cloud forestscan be made based on research that showsthat the upwind effects to deforestation oflowland forests causes the cloud base torise.60 Restoring forest around protectedareas, for example to supply timber throughcontinuous cover forestry, or for nontimberforest products, watershed protection, or asrecreational areas, could help maintain thequality of the protected area in the face ofclimate change.

Maintain genetic diversity and promote ecosys-tem health via restoration: Adaptation toclimate change via selection of resilient spe-cies depends on genetic variation. Efforts tomaintain genetic diversity should be applied,particularly in degraded landscapes or withinpopulations of commercially important trees(where genetic diversity is often low due toselective harvesting). In such places wheregenetic diversity has been reduced, restora-tion, especially using seed sources from lowerelevations or latitudes, can play a vital role inmaintaining ecosystem resilience.61 Hogg andSchwarz62 suggest that assisted regenerationcould be used in southern boreal forests inCanada where drier conditions may decreasenatural regeneration of conifer species. Sim-ilarly, genotypes of beach pine forests inBritish Columbia may need assistance inredistributing across the landscape in orderto maintain long-term productivity.63 In addi-tion, species that are known to be moreresilient to impacts in a given landscape canbe specifically selected for replanting. Forexample, trees with thick bark can be plantedin areas prone to fire to increase tree survivalduring increased frequency and severity offires.64

4. Future Needs

Documentation of the role restoration plays inbuilding resilience to climate change is in itsinfancy. Although field projects are beginningto test restoration as a resilience-building tool,we are far from definitive guidance. Unfortu-nately, this is the nature of the practice of con-servation; decisions based on best knowledgeneed to be made now while we continue togather more information. Otherwise, opportu-nities will be lost.

To meet these needs we propose additionalfield projects to test, confirm, and developrestoration’s role in building resilience toclimate change. This needs to be conductedacross different forest types with as much repli-cation as possible. A strong monitoring com-ponent is necessary for any such project,especially given the complex relationshipsbetween species’ structure, composition, andfunctioning on which climate change is unfold-ing. The results of monitoring will also enablelessons to be drawn from resilience-buildingefforts, and to compare these with similar“control” landscapes or other resilience-building projects in different regions withsimilar habitat type.

Ideally, resilience-building managementstrategies will serve as another layer in a com-prehensive forest management plan that has asits objective the overall health of the forestecosystem. For example, many WWF eco-regional visions are adding vulnerability toclimate change as another component that will drive conservation decisions. Such antici-patory resilience-building plans take climatechange into account during the planningprocess, and will better ensure synergies withother management priorities. A number of sci-entific, governmental institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGO) areacquiring expertise in the area of climatechange impacts and adaptation/resilience. Itwill be fruitful to seek partnerships with theseinstitutions at the beginning of any restorationproject to analyse climate impacts and pro-posed restoration activities.

60 Lawton et al, 2001.61 Noss, 2000.62 Hogg and Schwarz, 1997.63 Rehfeldt et al, 1999.64 Dale et al, 2001.

5. Restoring Forest Landscapes in the Face of Climate Change 37

References

Biringer, J. 2003. Forest ecosystems threatened by climate change: promoting long-term forestresilience. In: Hansen, L.J., Biringer, J.L., andHoffman, J.R. eds. Buying Time: A User’s Manualfor Building Resistance and Resilience to ClimateChange in Natural Systems.WWF,Washington, pp.41–69. (Also online at www.panda.org/climate/pa_manual)

Dale, V., Joynce, L., McNurlty, S., et al. 2001. Climatechange and forest disturbances. Bioscience 51(9):723–734.

Hansen, A., Neilson, R., Dale, V., et al. 2001. Globalchange in forests: responses of species, communi-ties, and Biomes. Bioscience 51(9):765–779.

Hansen, L.J., Biringer, J.L., and Hoffman, J.R. eds.2003. Buying Time: A User’s Manual for BuildingResistance and Resilience to Climate Change in Natural Systems. WWF, Washington, 242 pages. (Also online at www.panda.org/climate/pa_manual.)

Hogg, E., and Schwarz, A. 1997. Regeneration ofplanted conifers across climatic moisture gradientson the Canadian prairies: implications for distri-bution and climate change. Journal of Biogeogra-phy 24:527–534.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC). 2001. Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnera-bility.Working Group II,Third Assessment Report.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1032pages.

Kumaraguru A.K., and Beamish, F.W.H. 1981. Lethaltoxicity of permethrin (NRDC 143) to rainbowtrout, Salmo gairdneri, in relation to body weightand water temperature. Water Research 15:503–505.

Lawton, R., Nair, U., Pielke, R., and Welch, R. 2001.Climate impact of tropical lowland deforestationon nearby montane cloud forests. Science 294(5542):584–587.

Lewis, R., and Streever, B. 2000. Restoration of man-grove habitat. WRP Technical Notes Collection

(ERDC TN-WRP-VN-RS-3.2), U.S. Army Engi-neer Research and Development Center, Vicks-burg, MS. www.wes.army.mil/el/wrp.

McLusky, D.S., Bryant, V., and Campbell, R. 1986.The effects of temperature and salinity on the tox-icity of heavy metals to the marine and estuarineinvertebrates. Oceanography and Marine BiologyAnnual Review 24:481–520.

Noss, 2000. Managing forests for resistance andresilience to climate change: a report to WorldWildlife Fund U.S., 53 pages.

Noss, R. 2001. Beyond Kyoto: forest management ina time of rapid climate change. ConservationBiology 15(3):578–590.

Rehfeldt G., Ying, C., Spittlehouse D., and Hamilton,D., Jr. 1999. Genetic response to climate in Pinuscontorta: niche breadth, climate change and refor-estation. Ecological Monographs 69(3):375–407.

Sanyal, P. 1998. Rehabilitation of degraded man-grove forests of the Sunderbans of India. Pro-gramme of the International Workshop on theRehabilitation of Degraded Coastal Systems.Phuket Marine Biological Center, Phuket, Thai-land, January 19–24, p. 25.

Sekula, J. 2000. Circumpolar boreal forests andclimate change: impacts and managerial responses.An unpublished discussion paper prepared jointlyby the IUCN Temperate and Boreal Forest Pro-gramme and the IUCN Global Initiative onClimate Change.

Tri, N.H., Adger, W.N., and Kelly, P.M. 1998. Naturalresource management in mitigating climateimpacts: the example of mangrove restoration inVietnam. Global Environmental Change 8(1):49–61.

Additional Reading

Krankina, O., Dixon, R., Kirilenko,A., and Kobak, K.1997. Global climate change adaptation: examplesfrom Russian boreal forests. Climatic Change36(1–2):197–215.

Section IIIForest Restoration in Modern

Broad-Scale Conservation

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Most people are aware of the global reductionin forest cover as a result of ever-increasinghuman domination of the planet. The impactsare felt on biodiversity and on people as shownin the previous chapters of this book. A naturalreaction to this forest loss is to engage in forestrestoration activities.

Across the planet, conservationists areworking to increase overall forest coverageusing a variety of strategies. In some cases this

includes attempting to intensify agriculture so that it requires less land, focussing on valueover volume in wood products, and concentrat-ing production in (native) plantation forests.Another strategy is to de-intensify agriculturaluses and promote a mosaic of natural andanthropogenic elements, allowing nativespecies and communities to fill in around ouruse of the landscape, and provide necessaryecosystem services to operate more freely.

In any case, the competition for land amonga range of interests and stakeholders necessi-tates that all forest conservation activities,including forest restoration, be strategic and fora specific purpose(s), be it conservation or oth-erwise. This strategic focus should ideally beidentified through a participatory process thatleads to a long-term “vision” for the desiredfuture state of the area. Increasing the qualityand quantity of forest cover is an importantgeneral goal for conservation, both for ecosys-tem services (watershed protection, climateregulation, etc.) and for the needs of thosespecies that depend on forests. However, due to the intense competition for land between the forces of development and conservation,efficiency in how and where forest restora-tion occurs is critical. In other words, whileincreased tree cover will nearly always be ben-eficial from a conservation perspective, if pos-sible, restoration efforts should be focussed insuch a way that multiple conservation andsocial goals are reached (also see sections“Restoring Ecological Functions” and “Restor-ing Socioeconomic Values”). Meeting both

6Restoration as a Strategy toContribute to Ecoregion VisionsJohn Morrison, Jeff Sayer, and Colby Loucks

Key Points to Retain

Ecoregion conservation is a large-scale, long-term, and flexible concept whose purpose is to meet the four goals of biodiversity conservation: representation, maintenanceof evolutionary processes, maintenance ofviable populations, and resilience.

In degraded landscapes and ecoregions res-toration goals and strategies will be criticalto the success of an ecoregion vision.

But as restoration can be energy intensive,its role must be defined in the context ofquantifiable goals related to the four largergoals of biodiversity conservation.

41

42 J. Morrison et al

conservation and social goals simultaneouslymaximises the chances that the activities will be sustainable and that they will have localsupport. An example of this integration is pro-vided by the activities in the Upper ParanáAtlantic Forest. Within this ecoregion forestpatch connectivity is being improved throughthe incorporation of native plants that can alsobe sustainably used by local people (see casestudy “Finding Economically SustainableMeans of Preserving and Restoring the AtlanticForest in Argentina”).

What are the primary conservation goals thatwe should be trying to achieve?

1.1. The Four Goals of BiodiversityConservation and Ecoregion Conservation65

The goals of biodiversity conservation and eco-region conservation are as follows:

1. Representation of all distinct natural com-munities within conservation landscapes andprotected areas’ networks

2. Maintenance of ecological and evolution-ary processes that create and sustain biodiversity

3. Maintenance of viable populations ofspecies

4. Conservation of blocks of natural habitatlarge enough to be resilient to large-scaledisturbances and long-term changes

Because these conservation goals oftenoperate over large spatial and temporal scales,the design of conservation programmes“requires a perspective that spans nations andcenturies.”66 Large-scale conservation initia-tives have become standard in a number of con-servation organisations over the last decade.This evolution is seen as a reaction to the oftendisjointed, isolated, and nonstrategic activitiesthat once characterised site-level conservation.While site-level conservation will always be an important and, many would argue, the mostimportant scale of conservation intervention,site-level activities can be planned in the

context of larger scale (landscape and ecore-gion) visions. The thinking behind using largebiogeographic units as the framework in whichto achieve conservation goals is that naturalcommunities, species, and even human threatsto biodiversity move and operate at largescales, often irrespective of political boundaries.Actions conceived at the same scale as the eco-logical entities and processes that the actionsare trying to protect should be more robust andefficient than uncoordinated efforts at a sitescale. At WWF, the global conservation organ-isation, this evolution has taken the form ofEcoregional Conservation (ERC). Ecoregionconservation is really a philosophy thatespouses using large, biogeographically definedunits as an arena within which to achieve thefour goals of conservation outlined above. Theactual process of ecoregion conservation plan-ning has followed a number of paths, generallyrelying on experts, computer algorithms, oreven a mixture of the two to identify conserva-tion priorities.

A range of spatial scales has been addressedto date, under the heading of “ecoregion con-servation.” A system of ecoregional boundariesof the world has been stitched together byWWF.67 This system is also used by the NatureConservancy. Conservation effort is not appliedequally across this system. WWF has defined825 terrestrial ecoregions (Fig. 6.1), of which alarge proportion is forest ecoregions of varioussubtypes (tropical dry, tropical moist, temper-ate moist, etc.). A further analysis by WWFidentified 237 groupings of these terrestrialecoregions as being of particular importance to conservation and named these the Global200 Ecoregions—it is usually these Global 200ecoregions that are the focus of WWF Ecore-gion Action Programmes.68 In the process ofanalysing ecoregions, “priority areas” or “prior-ity landscapes” are often identified that becomethe subject of further conservation planningand initiatives. Thus the general hierarchicalspatial scale, from largest to smallest, is Global200 ecoregion, terrestrial ecoregion, and prior-ity landscape—but this is not a steadfast rule,

65 Noss, 1992.66 Scott et al, 1999.

67 Olson et al, 2001.68 Olson and Dinerstein, 1998.

6. Restoration as a Strategy to Contribute to Ecoregion Visions 43

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44 J. Morrison et al

and there are very small ecoregions (tens ofkm2) and very large priority landscapes (thou-sands of km2). Most of the principles discussedbelow hold for a range of scales, from the land-scape to the ecoregion.

1.2. Protect, Manage, and Restore

More than likely, any comprehensive conserva-tion strategy in an ecoregion will involve a combination of protection, management, andrestoration, plus the abatement/amelioration ofthreats.The relative proportion of each strategythat is appropriate is a function of both theoverall conservation status of the ecoregion,and the location in the ecoregion—and this willchange over time. For example, restoration isnot necessarily an appropriate strategy in allecoregions or landscapes. One can imagine thatrestoration may not currently be the highest pri-ority in those ecoregions that are composedmostly of wilderness or large forest blocks, suchas in the Amazon. A primary output of manyecoregional visions is a map of priority areas,where conservation activities are more focussedthan in the surrounding matrix of the ecoregion.Yet even in the matrix, some proportion of pro-tection, management, and restoration activitieswill be appropriate, and in the case of thewilderness ecoregions mentioned above, overthe long-term, restoration may rise in priority inthose ecoregions as more comprehensive pro-tection and better management are instituted.

From a conservation standpoint, the deci-sions about how much protection, manage-ment, and restoration will be a naturalconsequence of attempting to achieve theabove four conservation goals in a strategicfashion in an ecoregion or a landscape withinthat ecoregion. Is there enough of a given targethabitat present in the ecoregion or landscape to meet representation objectives that we cansimply protect a (greater) proportion of it? Orwill some areas containing that habitat needactive or passive restoration in order to meetthe prescribed target for that habitat? Canexisting multiuse buffer zones of forest simplybe managed in their current state to providelandscape connectivity, or will some areas needto be rehabilitated to restore connectivity?

Forest “restoration” activities range fromactive planting, to management (e.g., invasivespecies’ removal), to more passive restoration(creating the conditions that will allow naturalprocesses to regenerate high-quality forest).Because active restoration is so resource inten-sive, it should generally be the last optionselected to meet a conservation objective. Thekey point is that from a conservation perspec-tive restoration activities should not be under-taken for the sake of restoration; rather, theactivity should be a strategic response to a spe-cific need identified during the formation ofconservation goals. The Forests of the LowerMekong ecoregion has endeavoured to find theright balance of protection, management, andrestoration—all stemming from the conserva-tion goals highlighted during the ecoregionalvision process.

2. Examples: Restoration andthe Four Conservation Goals

Conceptually, it is a relatively simple matter todecide whether restoration is necessary or not.By selecting conservation targets that are appli-cable to the aforementioned four goals of conservation, it should quickly become clearwhether or not the relevant ecoregion or prior-ity landscape still contains the necessary com-ponents to satisfy all four goals. If there areelements missing or the ecoregion/landscape istoo fragmented, some restoration is probablynecessary. At the basic level of the four conser-vation goals, the following discussion illustrateshow the need for restoration can be identified.

2.1. Representation

Conservationists need to represent all naturalcommunities in some sort of a conservationnetwork, which is generally a mix of differentlevels of protection. It is important that the mixof natural communities is one that has existedbefore a major disturbance rather than theexisting mix. But all of these original commu-nities may no longer be present in the quantity

6. Restoration as a Strategy to Contribute to Ecoregion Visions 45

and quality necessary, and that is where thepotential application of restoration comes in.This is especially true during periods of climatechange when species will need to move inresponse to changing conditions.

One of the first steps in any conservation plan-ning initiative is to obtain or develop a map ofhistoric (sometimes called “potential”) naturalcommunity types across the entire ecoregion/priority landscape. A number of coverages maysuffice for this purpose, including historic vege-tation maps, potential vegetation maps, or mapsof plant communities or ecosystems. In the casewhere land conversion has made this taskimpossible, maps of environmental domains,which are unique combinations of substrate(soils or geology), elevation, and climate classi-fications, may be developed. If these environ-mental domains are carefully developed, theyshould represent unique environmental classesthat correlate with the species living in them.

It is common practice for a target level ofrepresentation to be chosen for each naturalcommunity type (or environmental domain).This is not always easy, but endeavouring todetermine what these levels should be (prefer-ably on an individual habitat-by-habitat basisrather than a blanket prescription) is one of thehighest callings of a conservation biologist. It is altogether appropriate to begin with coarseestimates that can be improved over time.Custom representation targets are preferableto blanket prescriptions. Once an appropriatelevel of representation of each historic naturalcommunity is decided (20 percent, 30 percent,50 percent, etc.), it may be discovered that lessintact habitat of a particular type(s) remainsthan the target representation amount. This is asign that some restoration is in order. Mada-gascar and the dry forests of New Caledonia are prime examples—forest conversion hasproceeded so far in these ecoregions that forestrestoration is required to meet the most basichabitat representation goals.

It should also be noted that each naturalcommunity is itself made up of seral stages, andthe appropriate mix of seral stages, or morelikely the allowable ranges of seral stages, cor-responding to a natural range of variation, mustbe specified.The ability of a natural community

type to support a natural range of seral stagesmust be protected, or if necessary enhanced,and this may also require some forest restora-tion activities. An example is the relative lackof primary, or old-growth forest, in many tem-perate forest ecoregions compared to historiclevels. Efforts to increase the proportion of lateseral stages are an appropriate application offorest restoration in this case.

Many ecoregional programmes, especiallythose in developed or densely populated coun-tries, have found that the amount of lowlandand riparian communities are in short supply—they have already been converted for humanuses. Clearly in such situations, restoration willnecessarily be an important component of theoverall conservation strategy if representationtargets are to be met.

2.2. Viable Populations

The idea behind this goal is that all speciesshould have conserved viable populations, butin practice it is never possible to plan for allspecies (if for no other reason than that allspecies are never really identified). During anylarge-scale conservation initiative, therefore,focal species are selected for special attention.Focal species are chosen because they are “key-stone,” highly threatened endemics, habitat specialists, or because they are very “area-sensitive” and act as umbrellas for a number ofspecies with smaller area requirements. Thenumber of focal species chosen will vary fromecoregion to ecoregion, and certainly from pri-ority landscape to priority landscape, but is gen-erally a manageable number of five to 20species from the above categories.

After determining what the list of focalspecies is, the next step is to determine thenumber of breeding individuals that represent aviable population, or potentially a viable sub-population in the case of a priority landscape.This is not a trivial determination, and there isan extensive literature discussing rules of thumbfor the number of breeding individuals that constitutes a viable population—with little consensus. In some cases a species-specific andresource-intensive population viability analysis(PVA) will be necessary. If a viable population

46 J. Morrison et al

estimate is difficult to come by or there aresevere limits to the number of individuals thatare possible, the bottom line is that a target levelshould be chosen that represents the largestconceivable achievable population level.

For restoration purposes, the specific needsof each focal species must be analysed individ-ually. A number of related metrics, includingminimum patch size, connecting patches toenlarge the effective habitat area or feature(breeding, feeding, or nesting areas/cavities),corridor width, specific habitat requirements(plant species), access to water, etc. must beconsidered. During the course of the analysis to determine the habitat and total area re-quirements for each species, it should quicklybecome clear if there is not enough habitat necessary for a viable population of a particularspecies—and restoration will be necessary. Thisis frequently the case in those ecoregions thathave been highly degraded.

The reconnection of now disjunct habitatpatches is a common application of forestrestoration activities. This is the focus of thecurrent work in the Terai Arc in the EasternHimalayas: reconnecting 10 protected areas by encouraging the growth of community-managed forests (Fig. 6.2). Tigers are loath tocross more than 5km2 of nonhabitat, but theexisting protected areas are not large enough to maintain viable populations of tigers. Somemixing of the respective populations is desir-able. Therefore, community forests are beingencouraged where gaps in forest cover arenoted between the existing protected areas.This will allow tigers, greater-one horned rhi-noceroses, and Asian elephants to dispersebetween patches of prime habitat. Restorationis an important activity in other fragmentedecoregions that still contain large carnivores,including for jaguars in South America’sAtlantic Forest and for wolves and grizzly bears

Figure 6.2. Reconnecting protected areas (dark) with forest restoration (light). (Source: WWF.)

6. Restoration as a Strategy to Contribute to Ecoregion Visions 47

in the ecoregions of the Northern Rockies ofNorth America.

2.3. Ecological and EvolutionaryProcesses

The many evolutionary and ecologicalprocesses that create and sustain biodiversityare complex, and often poorly understood.Gene flow, migration, pollination, seed disper-sal, predator–prey dynamics, and nutrientcycling are some of the many that should beconsidered when a conservation plan is devel-oped. All of these processes can potentiallybenefit from restoration activities, becausemany species (and the processes that they areinvolved in) will respond positively to restoredforest quality, but some of them will benefitmore obviously than others. Gene flow andmigration can directly benefit from restoredforest corridors, as in the above examples. Like-wise, if key processes such as pollination or seeddispersal are threatened by insufficient forestarea to support the species that are performingthese functions, restoration activities would beappropriate.

In some regions, reduced forest cover threat-ens to throw the area into a not-easily-reversible regional climatic shift. Restoration offorest cover (that simultaneously meets finerscale representation targets and is configured to maximise forest block size for area-sensitivespecies) would be a high priority activity.

The Terai Arc is also a good example for thisset of conservation goals. By reconnecting disjunct forest patches and thus tiger subpo-pulations, the ecological processes of subadultdispersal, gene flow, and restoration of pre-dator–prey dynamics can be restored. Becausesystems with large predators are often domi-nated top-down forces (in this case elephantsand tigers), the reintroduction of tigers and elephants across the entire landscape will helpput a number of natural ecological processesback into a more natural dynamic balance.However, the needs of finer-scale habitat specialists (particularly for breeding or feeding) within the larger area should not be overlooked.

2.4. Environmental ChangePlanning for inevitable environmental change(even without the additional spectre of anthro-pogenic climate change) is a key precept in con-servation. Ecological systems are by their verynature dynamic, and it is important to incorpo-rate large habitat areas and sufficient connec-tivity between habitat areas in order to buildresiliency into the protected area network.Increased connectivity is the main option avail-able to conservation planners trying to antici-pate the effects of anthropogenic climatechange. Species’ ranges are already beginningto shift in latitude and altitude; this is true notonly for animals but for plant species as well.Again, reconnecting now disjunct habitatpatches through restored forest corridors is anappropriate application for forest restorationactivities to help migration to keep pace withchanging conditions. In addition, managing thelandscape in such a way that it provides moreflexibility for species and gene flow in times ofstress is an important element of restoration.

This connectivity strategy will be importantfor every ecoregion across the planet to con-sider. Ecoregions likely to be faced with thisthreat in the near term are tropical montaneecoregions that contain significant topographicrelief. Climatological changes are concentratedin narrow bands, and maintaining altitudinalconnectivity will be critical for allowing habi-tats to shift in response to changing tempera-ture and moisture regimes.

Restoration activities are important for allecoregions where human activities have frag-mented the ecoregion, and this includes mostecoregions. Rising temperatures and changingprecipitation patterns will cause natural com-munities to shift latitudinally and altitudinally.Without restoration to reconnect fragmentedhabitat patches with corridors, natural commu-nities will have great difficulty shifting acrosshuman-dominated landscapes. A more specificexample of the need for restoration will be intropical coastal ecoregions with mangroves. Assea level continues to rise, mangrove belts willtend to shift inland (Fig. 6.3). However, if thelandward edge of the mangrove belt has beendegraded, which it commonly is, space and

48 J. Morrison et al

• The current condition of the forest area inquestion—how much effort/time is requiredto restore?

• Proximity to other viable habitats, to allowspecies to disperse or facilitate later reconnection

• Proximity to the existing or anticipatedurban frontier

This last bullet point highlights an entire classof information that can help to assure thatrestoration activities (and in fact any con-servation activities) have the greatest chance ofsuccess. The mapping of human populationdensity, distance from access corridors, govern-ment capacity, ethnic stability and homogene-ity, and similar factors can help a project seewhere the threats and opportunities lie acrossthe ecoregion or landscape. Additionally, theincorporation of socioeconomic informationand consultation will help to assure thatrestoration activities undertaken for ecologicalreasons will also benefit local people eitherthrough ecological services or even throughemployment in restoration activities.

3. Outline of Tools

As already noted, ecoregion conservation inthe WWF network is more of a philosophy thana particular methodology, and a number ofmethodologies have been used to achieve thefour goals of conservation. This is altogetherappropriate, since there is a great variety of

Figure 6.3. Mangrove belts alongcoastal areas are expected to shiftinland with rising sea levels. (Photo ©John Morrison.)

69 Noss, 2001.

restoration activities will be necessary to allowthe continued persistence of the mangroves,and with them the important ecological (andsocial) functions they perform.69

2.5. Deciding Where to DoRestoration When There Are Choices

In the preceding discussion, the need forrestoration fell into two broad categories:increasing the area of a particular forest typefor representation or for particular species/processes, and restoring particular landscapefeatures, especially corridors, which allow spe-cific ecological processes to operate. Sometimesthere are choices of where restoration is mostappropriate. All other things being equal, it isgenerally easier to restore the less degradedexample of a forest type, since less effort ortime will be required.All other things are rarelyequal, however. How does one decide whichsemi-irreplaceable example of a forest type torestore if there are several choices? Obviously,many factors must often be weighed.

The first step is to be clear about the endobjective(s). For example, is primary forest theonly possible objective, or would secondaryforest do just as well (or even better) for thefocal species being considered? Factors to con-sider when determining which area to restoreare the following:

6. Restoration as a Strategy to Contribute to Ecoregion Visions 49

data availability, social structures, infrastruc-ture, and professional capacity in the ecore-gions across the planet. There is no toolespecially tailored to help set restoration prior-ities. These priorities should emerge from ageneric comprehensive planning process.

A full discussion of the tools available forecoregional conservation planning is beyondthe scope of this paper. Some of the primarytools include:

• WWF’s approaches to ecoregion conserva-tion,70 including specific advice about actionsin priority conservation landscapes71 and casestudies72 and a detailed guide to implemen-tation within ecoregions73

• The Nature Conservancy’s approach toecoregion conservation74

• Systematic conservation planning appro-aches as developed in New South Wales,Australia75

The use of a geographic information system(GIS) is practically mandatory when consider-ing spatial planning for conservation. The GISallows spatial maps to display conservationoptions, and more powerfully, allows the user tocombine biological and socioeconomic infor-mation to analyse ways of meeting conserva-tion goals at the least socioeconomic “cost.”Additional tools that work alongside and witha GIS are decision support software tools,which allow numerous competing variables tobe combined. Depending on the particular toolused, a single best conservation configurationmay be generated or a range of choices can beportrayed. In some of these tools, once a deci-sion is made regarding a particular portion ofthe landscape, the entire study area can berecalculated to portray the next best options.

4. Future Needs

Further development is needed for tools to prioritise restoration needs. Current decisionsupport tools are able to identify remaining

habitat for inclusion in protected area net-works, and these tools can be used to work withmaps of previously existing potential vegeta-tion. However, further refinement of these toolsand associated techniques to identify areas thatcould be restored to meet representation goalsis needed.

References

Dinerstein, E., Powell, G., Olson, D., et al. 2000. Aworkbook for conducting biological assessmentsand developing biodiversity visions for ecoregion-based conservation. World Wildlife Fund,Washington, DC. http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/pubs2.cfml.

Groves, C.R., Valutis, L.L., Vosick, D., et al. 2000.Designing a geography of hope: a practitioner’shandbook to ecoregional conservation planning.The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA. www.conserveonline.org.

Loucks, C., Springer, J., Palminteri, S., Morrison, J.,and Strand, H. 2004. From the Vision to theGround: A Guide to Implementing EcoregionConservation in Priority Areas. World WildlifeFund, Washington, DC.

Margules, C.R., and Pressey, R.L. 2000. Systematicconservation planning. Nature 405:243–253.

Noss, R.F. 1992. The wildlands project: land conser-vation strategy. Wild Earth (Special issue) 10–25.

Noss, R.F. 2001. Beyond Kyoto: forest managementin a time of rapid climate change. ConservationBiology 15(3):578–590.

Olson, D.M., and Dinerstein, E. 1998. The global 200: a representation approach to conserving theearth’s most biological valuable ecoregions. Con-servation Biology 12:502–515.

Olson, D.M., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E.D.,et al. 2001. A new map of life on earth. BioScience15:933–938.

Palminteri, S. 2003. Ecoregion conservation: securingliving landscapes through science-based planningand action. A users guide for ecoregion conserva-tion through examples from the field (draft).CD-Rom. World Wildlife Fund US, Washington,DC.

Scott, J.M., Norse, E.A., Arita, H., et al. 1999. Theissue of scale in selecting and designing biologicalreserves. In: Soule, M.E., Terborgh, J. ContinentalConservation; Scientific Foundations of RegionalReserve Networks. Island Press, Washington, DC.

WWF. 2003. Ecoregion Action Programmes A Guidefor Practitioners. WWF International, Gland,Switzerland.

70 Dinerstein et al, 2000.71 Loucks et al, 2004.72 Palminteri, 2003.73 WWF, 2003.74 Groves et al, 2000.75 Margules and Pressey, 2000.

50 J. Morrison et al

Additional Reading

International Tropical Timber Organisation. 2002.ITTO Guidelines for the Restoration, Manage-ment, and Rehabilitation of Degraded and Secondary Tropical Forests. ITTO Policy Develop-ment Series No. 13, Yokohama, Japan.

Moguel, P., and Toledo, V.M. 1999. Biodiversity con-servation in traditional coffee systems of Mexico.Conservation Biology 13:11–21.

Pimentel, D., Stachow, U., Takacs, D.A., et al. 1992.Conserving biological diversity in agriculturalforestry systems: most biological diversity exists in human-managed ecosystems. Bioscience 42:354–362.

Victor, D.G., and Ausubel, J.H. 2000. Restoring theforest: skinhead earth? Foreign Affairs 79(6):127–144.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

The landscape is the spatial and ecological scaleat which the range of different ecological,social, and economic needs and desires ofstakeholders can best be discussed, compared,and integrated.

1.1. Why Restore?

Conservation strategies that rely solely on protected areas and sustainable managementhave proved insufficient either to secure biodi-versity or to stabilise the environment. TheUnited Nations Environment Programme nowclassifies a large proportion of the world’s landsurface as “degraded,” and reversing thisdamage is one of the largest and most complexchallenges of the 21st century. Habitat loss is already so severe that conservation pro-grammes need to include restoration if they areto deliver long-term success. Analysis of theWWF Global 200 ecoregions—identified asthose of the highest conservation importance—demonstrates the problems. Over 80 percent ofthe G200 forest ecoregions need restoration inat least parts of their area; deforestation is a keythreat to water quality in 59 percent of G200freshwater ecoregions, and three quarters ofG200 mangrove ecoregions are under threat.76

Even where forest is stable or increasing, par-allel losses of forest quality create the need forrestoration. In Western Europe, for instance,research by the United Nations EconomicCommission for Europe found that most coun-tries had less than 1 percent of their forests sur-viving in an unmanaged state.77

Forest loss is not only of concern to conser-vationists.The United Nations estimates that 60million people are directly dependent on forest

7Why Do We Need to ConsiderRestoration in a Landscape Context?Nigel Dudley, John Morrison, James Aronson, and Stephanie Mansourian

Key Points to Retain

Restoration is already needed in manyimportant forest ecosystems because lossand degradation have proceeded to a pointwhere the ecosystem is no longer sustainablein the long term.

Approaching restoration on a landscapescale means addressing conservation issueswhile considering social concerns, at a scalewhere optimisation and trade-offs are easierto agree on than at the site level.

Most current restoration activities tend toooften to focus on one or two benefits andmiss the wider picture.

Tools are starting to be developed that helpto negotiate realistic mixes of managementactions, including a suite of restoration activ-ities, and biodiversity protection, at the fulllandscape scale.

51

76 Dudley and Mansourian, 2000.77 Dudley and Stolton, 2004.

52 N. Dudley et al

resources including many of the poorestpeople. A far larger number are indirectlydependent, for example, on environmentalservices from forests such as soil and watershedprotection. Forests also provide a wealth ofrecreational, spiritual, and aesthetic services.

1.2. Why Landscapes?

Many restoration efforts have ended in fail-ure (see “Forest Landscape Restoration inContext”). Some of the reasons for this relateto their limited scope, their lack of engagementwith local people and other stakeholders’ inter-ests and needs, their short-term nature, andtheir failure to address underlying causes offorest loss and degradation. In the last decadeor so it has become increasingly clear to con-servationists that developmental and socio-economic concerns cannot be overlooked ifconservation is to be successful. Conservationactivities, therefore, inevitably take place along-side other aspects of sustainable development,and a landscape approach can help to embraceboth aspects of conservation and development.Because the restoration of forests in landscapesaims to repair and recover forest products andservices that are valuable to people, it has a keyrole to play in development programmes. Bal-ancing competing ecological and social needs isalways difficult, but is most likely to succeed ifwe work on a large enough area to encompasstwo or more interactive ecosystems, as well asdifferent landscape units with different landuses by local people. This facilitates negotiationand trade-offs among different demands.

Thus, rather than relying on a series of indi-vidual projects attempting to restore individualforest values, at the landscape scale it becomespossible to attempt the integration of these projects.Where successful, the net result shouldbe much more than the sum of individual site-based restoration actions. Achieving abalance between the various goods and servicesrequired from restored forest ecosystemsrequires conceptualisation,planning,and imple-mentation on a broader scale. It also assumessome negotiations and trade-offs among thevarious stakeholders involved to identify thoserestoration actions that have enough of a

groundswell of support to be likely to succeed.A landscape or ecoregion approach also allowsforest restoration to be fully integrated with pro-tection and sustainable management of forest.

From the perspectives of biodiversity, long-term viability and ultimately social and eco-nomic values, approaches to restoration need to focus on forest functions and ecologicalprocesses. A key concern in many restorationprojects is increasing the size of core areas offorest habitat. However, where space is limitedby competing land uses, many functions of alarge forest can be simulated by increasing con-nectivity between patches of forest by biologi-cal corridors and ecological stepping stones(patches of habitat that can provide “way sta-tions” for migrating or mobile species). Increas-ing the values of existing forests, for example bychanging management or decreasing interfer-ence, can also play a vital role in restoration.The landscape scale also allows us to considerthe links between different habitat types. Theinterface between habitats may be abrupt (par-ticularly in managed landscapes) or gradual,and they will have a varying ability to allow dis-persal and interchange of species (see “Restor-ing Tropical Montane Forests”). Increasing thepermeability of habitat boundaries to geneticinterchange may be as important as specifichabitat creation such as biological corridors.

1.3. Protect, Manage, Restore in a Landscape

The result of integrating efforts to restore mul-tiple functions at a landscape scale often resem-bles a mosaic, where protected areas, otherprotective forests, and various forms of use and management are combined, depending onexisting and evolving needs, legislative con-straints, and land ownership patterns. Restora-tion becomes a management option that can beused within any part of the landscape to con-tribute to the overall long-term aims for thelandscape. Agreeing on the mosaic and balanc-ing different social, economic, and environ-mental needs on a landscape scale requirescareful planning and negotiation.

A landscape approach recognises that overalllandscape values and services are more impor-

7. Why Do We Need to Consider Restoration in a Landscape Context? 53

tant than individual sites, and that in a world ofcompeting interests, conservation aims need to be integrated with those of, for example,poverty alleviation, human health, and otherlegitimate forms of social and economic devel-opment and welfare. Conservation cannot, orshould not, take place divorced from issuesrelating to human well-being, and peopleworking for conservation are usually also con-cerned about social justice and sustainabledevelopment. The appropriate approach,therefore, is to identify where and how thesedifferent but overlapping interests can best beintegrated into a multifunctional landscape.Such integration will necessarily include nego-tiation and trade-offs.

1.4. The Process of RestoringForest Functions in a Landscape

Deciding what forms of restoration to applyrequires a suite of different activities, includingcareful analysis of what is needed, assessment ofwhat is possible, and agreement amongst rele-vant stakeholders about the aims of restorationand the appropriate actions to undertake. It isaxiomatic of forest landscape restoration that inmost cases we are not looking at a single projector a single forest use, but rather at a range ofdifferent restoration efforts that will, as far as isfeasible, be coordinated and complementary.The extent to which this is attainable in practicedepends on the willingness of different groupsof stakeholders to cooperate, the negotiationskills of those involved, and hard-to-defineissues such as ownership patterns and otherdemands on the landscape. In areas where muchof the land is in private ownership, many“common goods” including conservation canonly be addressed through voluntary agree-ments, land purchase, or overarching policydecisions, and all of these options are slow andlaborious to achieve in most situations.

2. Examples

Some examples show how different countriesor regions have approached issues of restora-tion and how different priorities have shaped

and in some cases distorted options for restor-ing a balanced forest mosaic.

2.1. Switzerland: Restoration forEnvironmental Services but with Additional Economic and Biodiversity Values

Following severe erosion and flooding prob-lems in the past resulting from historical defor-estation, during the 19th and 20th centuriesSwitzerland devised a system of continuouscover forestry to protect slopes and provideresources and fuel. The government has one ofthe few forest policies that explicitly rank socialand protective functions above commercialfunctions.The country has 1,204,047 hectares offorest and woodland, covering 29 percent of the country.78 Trees within managed forests are generally native and around 60 percent areconifers, with almost half the growing stockbeing Norway spruce. Although forest manage-ment is less intensive than in many Europeancountries on a stand level, it affects virtually theentire forest area, and there are very few old-growth forests. Around 0.5 percent of forestsare in natural forest reserves. Landscape-scaleplanning has played a critical role in identifyingwhere best to restore forests, with an emphasisbeing placed on avalanche control, stabilisationof slopes, provision of local firewood, and bio-diversity conservation.79

2.2. Guinea: TraditionalManagement IncludingForest Restoration

Careful research with villages on the forest-savannah interface in Guinea, in West Africa,found that rather than contributing to defor-estation as was once thought, local communi-ties were actually planting and tending forestpatches. Once villages were abandoned (a peri-odic response to declining soil fertility so thatcommunities moved every few decades), suchforests tended to decline and disappear as a

78 Holenstein, 1995.79 McShane and McShane-Caluzi, 1997.

54 N. Dudley et al

result of increased grazing pressure from savan-nah herbivores. New areas were chosen on thebasis of past use and where fertility was likelyto have recovered, thus focussing on differentparts of the landscape at different times to ensurelong-term continuity. Villagers establishedforest patches on the edge of the grassland toprovide needed nontimber forest products andprotected these from fire and grazing.80

2.3. United Kingdom: PlantationsReplacing Natural Forests and Dominating the Landscape

Following the First World War, concern aboutlack of timber led to the establishment of theForestry Commission, which was provided withconsiderable funds and political power toundertake compulsory purchase, to establishfast-growing plantations of trees. The emphasiswas on conifers, particularly Sitka spruce (Piceasitchensis) from Alaska. Many of these planta-tions were established on upland grazing areas(which were originally forested but had losttheir tree cover, in some cases centuries before).Some plantations were also established on thesite of native woodland, which was occasionallycleared with herbicides, and in northeast Scot-land on moor that had never contained trees.Whilst the planting was successful in creating astrategic reserve, it led to resentment about lossof access, native woodlands, and other naturalhabitats, and a limited range of forest functions.Dense forest created access problems and theabrupt boundaries between this and otherhabitat limited usefulness for biodiversity. Plan-ning was usually at site rather than landscapescale. From the 1980s onward, the commissionstarted revising its aims, increasing native plant-ing and playing a more general stewardshiprole in land management; experiments are alsotaking place in returning woodland areas tolocal community control.81

2.4. Costa Rica: Shade-GrownCoffee as a Linking Habitat in Fragmented Landscape with a High Population Density

Although Costa Rica still contains large areasof native forests, some forest ecosystems havedeclined to a fraction of their former size andare no longer ecologically viable, particularly in Talamanca and Guanacaste. In the formerarea, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has beenworking with local communities to link remain-ing forest fragments to allow access for birds.Because pressure on land was too intense toallow space for native woodland as such, shadegrown cacao and coffee production was encour-aged and supported, planned at a landscapescale to link remaining forest fragments. Whilefar from a natural woodland, the trees shadingcoffee provide habitats to allow passage forrare birds, thus allowing them to form viablepopulations.82

The above cases illustrate only a fraction of the possible examples. They show that in mostplaces where restoration is encouraged, itspurpose is generally fairly narrow (also see“Goals and Targets of Forest LandscapeRestoration”): erosion control, strategic re-serves, etc. If other benefits accrue, it has some-times been fortuitous. One of the key aspects offorest landscape restoration is to reduce theelements of chance and increase the sophisti-cation of restoration planning.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Ecoregional Planning Tools

A wide range of possible tools exist to planregional scale forest cover and management(see also previous chapter). Among the mostpopular are the following:

• Ecoregional workshops: used to help estab-lish a vision for an ecoregion, prioritiseactions and conservation landscapes, anddevelop strategies

80 Fairhead and Leach, 1996.81 Garforth and Dudley, 2003. 82 Parrish et al, 1999.

7. Why Do We Need to Consider Restoration in a Landscape Context? 55

• Computer-aided design packages: includingthose involved in the development of sys-tematic conservation planning

• Conservation by design: developed by TNC,using a five-step process (identifying targets,gathering information, setting goals, assess-ing viability, assembling portfolios) and the 5-S framework (systems, stresses, sources,strategies, success)

There are many other examples; a selection areavailable on the Web-based Earth Conserva-tion Toolbox.83

3.2. Protect, Manage, Restore

WWF84 and IUCN have developed a number oflandscape approaches to help address this kindof broadscale decision making, and these orsimilar exercises could provide help in deter-mining where restoration could be used mosteffectively.An outline of one approach is shown

diagrammatically in Figure 7.1 (also see Box 7.1for the detailed steps):

3.3. Implementing Conservation inPriority Areas

WWF also has a science-based methodologyfor continuing ecoregion planning inside prior-ity conservation landscapes, containing a set ofguidelines to develop and implement a conser-vation landscape, which could be used toinclude restoration issues.85

3.4. Reference Forests

Restoration for conservation usually involvestrying to regain something as similar to a nativeforest as possible (for more, see “Identifyingand Using Reference Landscapes for Restoration”).

Defining our own conservation targets

Learning about the needs and expectations of others

Defining the landscape(s)

Assessing current/potential benefits from the landscape

Developing possible land-use scenarios

Reconciling land-use options

Implementation (strategic interventions)

Monitoring and learning

Ada

ptat

ion

asa

resu

lt of

less

ons

lear

ned

The order given is one possibility but in practice many stages may take place simultaneously, or at different times in different parts of the landscape—e.g., stakeholder negotiation is likely to occur throughout this process insome form or other, and early development of a monitoring and evaluation system has proved very valuable.

Identification ofconservation and

other values

Integration ofprotection,

managementand restoration

Negotiation withstakeholders

Implementation

Adaptation

DecisionsConflict resolution

Understandingdevelopment

trajectories

Figure 7.1. Protect–manage–restore approach.

83 www.earthtoolbox.net.84 Aldrich et al, 2004. 85 Loucks et al, 2004.

56 N. Dudley et al

Box 7.1. The stages in a protect–manage–restore process

✓ Defining our own conservation targets:As stakeholders, conservation organisa-tions need to start with some ideas of thelandscape mix that they are aiming for,including ideas about geographical areasand ecological processes of primary inter-est. Reaching these targets will require a mix of protection, management, andrestoration.

✓ Learning about the needs and expecta-tions of others: At an early stage it isimportant to get an initial idea about theother key stakeholders and their relation-ships, what they need and want, and whatthey are planning. While the focus will be on economic or development issues,culture, history, expectations withinsociety, level of development, and spiri-tual needs are all important.

✓ Defining the landscape(s): The concept of“landscape” has many different mean-ings; a conservation programme willusually work within a predetermined“conservation landscape,” but it is impor-tant to identify any “cultural landscapes”nested within or overlapping the conser-vation landscape: e.g., a village, land usedby nomadic pastoralists, or a timber concession.

✓ Assessing current/potential benefits fromthe landscape: The next stage involvesassessment to identify lost, current, andpotential future values from the land-scape. While conservationists tend tofocus on biodiversity, assessment alsotakes full account of social, cultural, andeconomic values. The extent to which thisis a participatory process can be decidedon a case-by-case basis. Including stake-holders also means that assessment is partof the negotiation process.

✓ Developing land-use scenarios: Integra-tion of potential conservation and development actions to develop scenarios

including a combination of elements such as protected areas; other protectedforests (set asides, watershed protectionetc); well-managed forests; areas need-ing restoration; and other compatible and competing land uses.All these factorsinteract. What mosaic will work best? Are we looking at one “master plan” or a pattern that emerges gradually over time?

✓ Reconciling land use options: Theapproach is predicated on the idea thattrades-offs among social, economic, andenvironmental values are often essentialand are acceptable if overall values aremaintained or enhanced within the landscape.

✓ Decisions: In some situations govern-ment(s), nongovernmental organisations,corporate interests, and communities mayagree on a package of actions within oneaction plan. In many other cases, negotia-tions are likely to be continuing and spo-radic. Here it is unlikely that a singlemaster plan could be agreed; rather, deci-sions will be over smaller parcels of landwithin a framework that will continue toevolve.

✓ Implementation (strategic interventions):Some of the resulting actions will takeplace at the site level and may involve creating the right conditions for naturalregeneration, selective tree planting toreconnect forest fragments, or communityinitiatives to improve fire management.Other interventions may be necessary at a landscape or even larger scale, e.g.,working with governments to realignreforestation programmes.

✓ Monitoring and learning: Much of whatwe will be attempting with the landscapeapproach is quite new, and therefore it is especially important to ensure thatprogress is monitored effectively and that

7. Why Do We Need to Consider Restoration in a Landscape Context? 57

3.5. Gap Analysis

Several methodologies exist for identifyinggaps in existing forest systems. For example,a WWF Canada methodology used enduringlandform features to identify likely past vege-tation,86 while another developed by the UnitedNations Environment Programme-World Con-servation Monitoring Centre(UNEP-WCMC)used analysis of current forest cover.87

4. Future Needs

Although restoration needs are increasinglybeing addressed within broader-scale conserva-tion, they generally remain less well supportedin terms of approaches and methodologiesthan, for example, planning of protected areas.These needs include the following:

Prioritisation: There is a need for better toolsfor prioritisation of areas for restoration, forexample to balance the importance of con-nectivity with core areas, identification ofmicrohabitat gaps in current forest cover, cal-culation of minimum viable areas, etc.

Decision support: Methodologies are neededfor balancing social and ecological values,including participatory methods.

Incorporating a range of management schemesinto existing decision support tools: Cur-rently, decision support tools consider anarea either protected, or not, based on theinput of the user. More sophisticated toolsare needed that can handle a wider range of “protection” schemes (e.g., sustainablymanaged forests).

There is also the need for some degree ofadvocacy and explanation, to encourage thoseinvolved in broad-scale planning to considerrestoration, particularly in the case of restoringforest quality. Some of these tools are beingdeveloped during current forest landscaperestoration projects, but it is still too early tojudge their success.

References

Aldrich, M., et al. 2004. Integrating Forest Protec-tion, Management and Restoration at a LandscapeScale. WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

Dudley, N., and Mansourian, S. 2000. Forest Land-scape Restoration and WWF’s Conservation Pri-orities. WWF International, Gland, Switzerland.

Dudley, N., and Stolton, S. 2004. Biological diversity,tree species composition and environmental pro-tection in regional FRA-2000. Geneva Timber andForest Discussion Paper 33. United Nations Eco-nomic Commission for Europe and Food andAgricultural Organisation of the United Nations,Geneva.

Fairhead, J., and Leach, M. 1996. Misreading theAfrican Landscape: Society and Ecology in aForest-Savanna Mosaic. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, UK.

Garforth, M., and Dudley, N. 2003. Forest Renais-sance. Published in association with the ForestryCommission and WWF UK, Edinburgh andGodalming.

Holenstein, B. 1995. Forests and Wood in Switzer-land. Federal Office of Environment, Forests andLandscape. Swiss Forest Agency, Bern.

Iacobelli, T., Kavanagh, K., and Rowe, S. 1994. A Protected Areas Gap Analysis Methodology: Plan-ning for the Conservation of Biodiversity. WorldWildlife Fund Canada, Toronto.

Loucks, C., Springer, J., Palminteri, S., Morrison, J.,and Strand, H. 2004. From the Vision to the

lessons are both used to improve pro-grammes as they develop and are alsotransmitted around and beyond theimmediate conservation programme. At a larger scale, combining monitoring of

many individual projects, along with some additional indicators that transcendindividual project work, will be needed to measure progress over the whole landscape.

86 Iacobelli et al, 1994.87 UNEP-WCMC, 2002.

58 N. Dudley et al

Ground: A Guide to Implementing EcoregionConservation in Priority Areas. WWF-US,Washington, DC.

McShane, T.O., and McShane-Caluzi, E. 1997. Swissforest use and biodiversity conservation. In Freese,C.H., ed. Harvesting Wild Species: Implications for Biodiversity Conservation. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, pp. 132–166.

Parrish, J.D., Reitsma, R., and Greenberg, R., et al.1999. Cacao as Crop and Conservation Tool inLatin America: Meeting the Needs of Farmers andBiodiversity. Island Press/America Verde Publi-cations, The Nature Conservancy, Arlington,Virginia.

UNEP-WCMC. 2002. European forests and pro-tected areas gap analysis 2002. http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/eu_gap/index.htm.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

In most of the places where forest restorationis being considered, from the perspective ofeither conservation or development, the land-scape is already inhabited. Furthermore, theresident or transient populations are unlikely to be a single homogeneous entity. Therefore,forest restoration involves many differentstakeholder groups with their own wants andneeds.87a Agreeing what the restoration priori-ties should be within a given landscape will con-sequently necessitate negotiating trade-offsamong a range of stakeholders.

1.1. Win–Win Situations

It is often assumed that with enough discussionand compromise, questions of land manage-ment and natural resource allocation can beagreed to in ways that satisfy everyone—in thiscase that a sufficient number and variety offorest functions can be restored in a landscapeto satisfy all stakeholder groups: so-calledwin–win situations. The question of how toattain such win–win situations has beenaddressed by many integrated conservation anddevelopment projects, and the consensus seemsto be that in most real-life situations it will beimpossible to satisfy everybody and there willnecessarily be winners and losers.88 From ourperspective, some people will stand to gainmore from the restored functions of a forest,for example with increased availability of fuel-wood or salable products, while others will losefor instance, through access or grazing rights.The realistic aim of a negotiated process is tominimise the losses and to ensure that these donot fall disproportionately on those alreadyamongst the poorest or otherwise disadvan-taged. Indeed, raising false assumptions thatcareful planning and participatory processescan deliver win–win results, and an accompa-nying failure to deal with necessary trade-offsare often major sources of conflict, becausepeople have their expectations raised and thennot met.

8Addressing Trade-Offs in ForestLandscape RestorationKatrina Brown

Key Points to Retain

In questions of land management and naturalresource allocation it will nearly always beimpossible to satisfy all stakeholders andthere will necessarily be winners and losers.

Applying the concept of multifunctionalitycan help to allow different forest functionsto coexist, meeting a wider range of differ-ent stakeholder groups’ interests.

Capacity needs to be created among conser-vationists to engage stakeholders in con-structive trade-off discussions and to dealwith the outcomes of these.

59

87a Sheng (no year). 88 McShane and Wells, 2004.

60 K. Brown

1.2. Identifying Stakeholders

The need for trade-offs arises because differentstakeholder groups have different expectationsor needs from a landscape. To understandtrade-offs when dealing with a restoration pro-gramme in a landscape, the first step is to iden-tify all the stakeholders. Often stakeholders arecharacterised by their degree of influence andimportance.89 The results of such an analysis canbe categorised into primary stakeholders, sec-ondary stakeholders, and external stakeholders.Primary stakeholders have little influence on the outcomes but they have the most to lose from management decisions. A primarystakeholder could be a farmer, a fisher, or a forest-dweller. Secondary stakeholders areoften managers or decision makers, and theyare the ones charged with implementing thedecision, although the outcomes do not impactdirectly on them. External stakeholders arethose who can significantly influence theoutcome even if they are located far away,typically international nongovernmental organ-isations (NGOs). Many more complex stake-holder categories have been suggested, butthese three capture the main groupings.Depending on the objectives of the trade-offprocess, stakeholder analysis can be critical inidentifying who to include and perhaps how toengage them.

1.3. Brokering a SatisfactoryOutcome

The next requirement in an equitable trade-offprocess is to allow genuine discussion on trade-offs between different stakeholders. There isusually a need for someone to help facilitatethis process, ideally a person without a stake(perhaps a trusted outsider) who can act as an“honest broker.”90 The role of the broker is toencourage an open discussion and to help facil-itate a process whereby different stakeholdersfeel that they are gaining something from theprocess, even if that may mean also agreeing tosome sacrifices. For instance, shifting cultivatorsmay need to modify their approach to farming,

but in return they may gain legitimate access tonontimber forest products located in the land-scape. Frequently, conservation or developmentorganisations like to consider themselves as“neutral brokers,” yet the reality is that theyalso have a position and an interest. Conserva-tion organisations are stakeholders just like anyother, with a particular vision that will some-times be in competition with other legitimateeconomic and social “visions,” and conserva-tionists are therefore unlikely to get everythingthat they want.91 “Valid processes require muchmore time, patience and sensitivity to local cul-tures than most outside experts are prepared toallocate. Neutral facilitation and explicit recog-nition of the trade-offs between the interests ofdifferent stakeholders are important ingredi-ents of success.”92

1.4. The Concept ofMultifunctionality

When negotiating trade-offs in attempting torestore forest functions in a landscape, theconcept of “multifunctionality” is important. Ifone stakeholder group, for instance biologists, isthe only one deciding on the restoration out-comes of a given landscape, it may be that anideal landscape for that group is one containingpristine habitat for all identified species in thegiven area.On the other hand,if the single stake-holder is a plantation company, it may be that itsvision for the main function to restore in thelandscape is that of productive monocultureplantations bringing in money from pulp andpaper. For a poor local family, the main functionit may be interested in restoring might be fuel-wood.Applying the concept of multifunctional-ity can help to allow these different functions tocoexist, meeting a wider range of differentstakeholder groups’ interests.

1.5. Types of Trade-Offs93

Restoring a landscape intentionally to meet arange of functions requires negotiating trade-offs. There are different types of trade-offs:

89 Brown, 2004.90 Franks, 2004.

91 Aldrich et al, 2003.92 Sayer et al, 2003.93 Brown, 2004.

8. Addressing Trade-Offs in Forest Landscape Restoration 61

• Trade-offs between different interest priori-ties, as per the example above

• Trade-offs between short and long-term horizons

• Trade-offs between different spatial scales,notably sites and landscapes

• Trade-offs between different sections ofsociety and biodiversity conservation, typi-cally farmers or plantation owners and con-servation NGOs

• Trade-offs between different aspects of bio-diversity, as it may not always be possible torestore a landscape to secure all species in alandscape; decisions on which species willtake priority will require trade-offs

• Trade-offs between different social groups—traditionally more influential groups mayhave taken decisions, but primary stakehold-ers are those whose livelihoods are directlyaffected; in a truly representative process,trade-offs will need to happen across socialgroups and scales.

• Trade-offs among economic priorities, socialwelfare, and conservation.

The skills needed to assess and evaluate suchtrade-offs and support negotiations about themare often lacking amongst conservation organ-isations, although they are more likely to existwithin aid or development bodies. Developingnegotiating skills is one of the key priorities indeveloping the capacity to work at landscape level(see “Negotiations and Conflict Management”).

2. Example: An HypotheticalExample for Negotiating the Restoration of a Landscape

There are as yet few examples where a trulynegotiated discussion and trade-offs led to arestored landscape.

A theoretical process to achieve this was pre-sented at a workshop in Madagascar.94 Possiblesteps to reach a negotiated outcome for a re-stored landscape are as follows:

Each stakeholder group describes the land-scape as it was 50 years ago, the steps that

turned it into the current landscape and themain drivers of the changes.

A facilitated discussion takes place to negotiatethe general state of the landscape and its pos-sible future state(s) (characteristics, products,and services it could offer, etc.).

Each group develops a precise and detailedvision for the landscape 10 years from thepresent, identifying the most important char-acteristics (i.e., the nonnegotiables), categoris-ing the possibly negotiable characteristics andthe definitely negotiable characteristics.

The visions of different groups are then placedside by side, and a negotiation process beginsthat will culminate in a common vision forthe future, restored landscape, that is accept-able to all.

Such a process most certainly takes a signifi-cant amount of time. It requires clear identifi-cation and representation of stakeholders, agenuine neutral broker (or group of brokers),and different tools and processes to allow eachstakeholder group to understand the implica-tions of different decisions.

3. Outline of Tools

Some of the tools available to allow the nego-tiation of trade-offs are as follows:

3.1. Focus Groups

Working in small groups builds confidence,especially amongst stakeholders who may bereluctant to air their views in large meetings orare not used to public speaking. It enables spe-cific stakeholders to rehearse and deliberate ina safe structured environment, prior to largermeetings or workshops.

3.2. Surveys

Surveys can be valuable in generating baselinedata and information to build believable scenarios or visions of the future and to illus-trate management options. They are a means tolearn about and approach different stakehold-ers. A particularly useful contribution is to feedback information generated from surveys tostakeholders as part of a social learning and tri-angulation process.

94 Taken from a presentation by Tom Erdmann given at aworkshop on Forest Landscape Restoration in Madagascarin March 2003.

62 K. Brown

3.3. Consensus Building Workshops

Different stakeholders may be brought to-gether in workshops to negotiate trade-offs andagree on management strategies. A range ofconflict resolution and consensus building techniques can be used, including visioning andscenarios, as well as ranking and voting on cri-teria and scenarios.

3.4. Multicriteria Analysis

Multicriteria analysis is a decision-support toolthat can be used in a sophisticated and dataintensive way or, in deliberative workshops, asa means to help stakeholders take a step backfrom concentrating on outcome to assess whatcriteria should guide decisions. Rather than discussing the outcomes of management, thisforces people to look at why and how decisionsshould be made rather than on the impacts of the decisions. This aids a more consensus-based approach to negotiations.

3.5. Extended Cost-BenefitAnalyses

A range of evaluation techniques can be usedto draw attention to the nonmonetary andnoneconomic impacts of different managementoptions and to learn about how different stake-holders value the multiple functions of re-sources. Again it can help to validate and buildconfidence in stakeholders by recognising theirpriorities and values.

3.6. Scenario-Building

A useful way to discuss different optionswithout them being directly linked to interestsof specific stakeholders is to define scenarios orcoherent, internally consistent, and plausibledescriptions of the future.These must be believ-able and understandable to all stakeholdersand must be linked to specific changes. Dis-cussing and evaluating scenarios are a way oftalking about management options withouthaving to argue against one person’s project or

strategy, and therefore can be useful for build-ing consensus.95

4. Future Needs

Evaluating and negotiating trade-offs is rarelypart of conservation projects, let alone restora-tion ones. Much more practical experience is needed in negotiating trade-offs when look-ing at restoring forest functions in a landscape.This is particularly the case when consideringlimited resources and the urgency of somerestoration needs. In other words, how does onebalance a truly participatory trade-off analysiswith urgent needs to restore habitat for athreatened species?

Capacity needs to be created among conser-vationists to engage stakeholders in construc-tive trade-off discussions and to deal with theoutcomes of these.

References

Aldrich, M., Belokurov, A., Bowling, J., et al. 2003.Integrating Forest Protection, Management andRestoration at a Landscape Scale, WWF, Gland,Switzerland.

Brown, K., Tompkins, E., and Adger, W.N. 2002.Making Waves: Integrating Coastal Conservationand Development. Earthscan, London.

Brown, K. 2004. Trade-off Analysis for IntegratedConservation and Development. In: Mc Shane, T.,and Wells, M.P., eds. Getting Biodiversity Projectsto Work. Columbia University Press, New York.

Franks, P., and Blomley, T. 2004. Fitting ICD into a Project Framework: A CARE Perspective. In:Mc Shane, T., and Wells, M.P., eds. Getting Biodi-versity Projects to Work. Columbia UniversityPress, New York.

Mc Shane, T., and Wells, M.P. 2004. Getting Biodi-versity Projects to Work. Colombia UniversityPress, New York.

Sayer, J., Elliott, C., and Maginnis, S. 2003. Protect,manage and restore: conserving forests in multi-functional landscapes. Paper prepared for the WorldForestry Congress, Quebec, Canada, September.

Sheng, F. (No date.) Wants, Needs and Rights:Economic Instruments and Biodiversity Conser-vation, a dialogue. WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

95 Brown et al, 2002.

Part BKey Preparatory Steps Toward

Restoring Forests Within a Landscape Context

Section IVOverview of the Planning Process

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Why Planning?

Restoration of natural systems is a difficult,energy-consuming, and expensive undertaking.It is almost always a long-term, complex, andtransdisciplinary process.96 This is particularly

true when dealing with highly degraded ecosys-tems and landscapes. Inevitably, conflicts ofinterest and other problems arise.

Ecologically speaking, the restoration ofhighly degraded forest usually requires initiat-ing an embryonic ecosystem within a few years(usually less than 10 to 15 years after degrada-tion), which will be only fully restored—veryoften after additional corrective or fine-tuninginterventions—after a period of at least 50years in the tropics, and of 100 years or more inthe extratropical zones. However, forest poli-cies and restoration programmes are generallyfinanced only on a short- to medium-term basis.A 10- to 15-year project span, in most cases, isthe longest possible perspective, both for polit-ical and financial reasons. Bearing this in mind,restorationists should (1) adapt short-termrestoration goals and techniques to minimisethe number of costly corrective actions; and (2)plan ahead to secure funds for carrying outmonitoring and evaluation, corrective actions,or “aftercare” in the long term.

Also, forest restoration requires inputs andexpertise from various academic and practi-tioner fields97 like ecology, silviculture, eco-nomics, public policy, and the social sciences,which need to be combined in an efficient way.

Meanwhile, the relative lack of experiencewith broad-scale conservation means that fillingthe knowledge gaps through research pro-grammes also takes time. Five to 10 years is theminimum period needed to investigate critical

9An Attempt to Develop a Frameworkfor Restoration PlanningDaniel Vallauri, James Aronson, and Nigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

While no two restoration experiences willfollow the same pattern, indicative steps toplanning a restoration initiative are impor-tant, particularly when dealing with largescales or landscapes.

Success depends on wise planning, balancingshort-term with long-term goals, and allocat-ing the funding available for the restorationprogramme as efficiently as possible.

Learning from past restoration programmesand their successes and failures is an impor-tant starting point to help plan better res-toration actions in the future.

There are few tools dealing with planningrestoration in large scales. A five-step logicalplanning process is being proposed.

65

96 Pickett and Parker, 1994. 97 Clewell and Rieger, 1997.

66 D. Vallauri et al

questions like natural dynamics, nursery andplantation techniques for native species, etc.However, very little money is available tofinance pure research programmes unless theycan be linked to real implementation andvisible successes in the field. Bearing this inmind, restorationists should define short-termgoals and activities that get restoration under-way, along with long-term goals for how it canbe sustained over the time period required. Acritical, pragmatic aim is to achieve at leastsome rapid field results, for example on care-fully selected pilot sites, to build support forlonger term efforts.

Finally, forest landscape restoration, asdeveloped in this book, requires a concertedapproach among stakeholders and communi-ties, to develop a shared and accepted visionand goals for the future of the landscape inquestion. This also takes time and should beplanned for, but at the same time should leadrapidly to tangible changes or outcomes thatreally engage stakeholders and people living inthe region in a lasting and meaningful manner.

Success in forest restoration depends on wiseplanning,98,99 both in time and in space, balanc-ing short-term goals with long-term goals, andallocating the funding available for the restora-tion programme as efficiently as possible.Accordingly, a clear step-by-step plan of actionis needed for success. This was very oftenlacking in past restoration programmes, espe-cially site-oriented ones, and has led to manyfailures or difficulties that often emerge onlydecades after the first restoration efforts werebegun.

1.2. Restoring Step by Step

Where restoration is to be carried out as partof a wider conservation effort, at the landscapeor ecoregional levels, we would propose that itbe planned as an embedded element within anintegrated programme that also involves pro-tection of whatever is left of untouched nature,and the promotion of good ecosystem man-agement, as guided by the principles of ste-

wardship, sustainability, and sustained use. Wehave already outlined some possible elementsin a protect–manage–restore programme in the introduction to this book. This approachincludes identifying a series of conservationtargets—in this context, what forest functionswe wish to restore—and “reconciling” thesewith the needs, tastes, and expectations of other stakeholders, especially the indigenouspopulations.

Conceptualisation of the process of imple-menting restoration programmes is very new.We propose below an outline of a planningframework, following a five-step logical plan-ning process. In the context of a broad-scaleconservation strategy, then, the following stepshelp lead to the development and realisation ofrestoration achievements.

1.2.1. Step 1: Initiating a RestorationProgramme and Partnerships

An essential first step of any forest landscaperestoration programme is the identification ofthe problem being addressed and agreement onthe solutions and the targets for restoration.Such targets should ideally contribute to widerecological and socioeconomical objectives at alandscape scale.Very often, restorationists muststart from zero to raise awareness on the stateof degradation in the landscape, analyse theroot causes, and then convince other stake-holders of both the need for and the feasibilityof forest restoration. Depending on the context(the existing level of awareness, politics, fundsavailable, etc.), this step could last for severalyears and require extensive effort.

Experience suggests that restoration usuallyonly works in the long term if it has supportfrom a significant proportion of local stake-holders. Finding out the needs and opinions of stakeholders is therefore important: Whatforest functions do they want to restore and arethere potential clashes of interest? It should berecognised that the restorationists (conserva-tion NGO or other) are themselves stakehold-ers with a particular interest (i.e., restoringbiodiversity), which may need to be reconciledwith other stakeholders’ priorities.

98 Aronson et al, 1993.99 Wyant et al, 1995a,b.

9. An Attempt to Develop a Framework for Restoration Planning 67

Outputs of this step are:

• recognition and common understanding ofthe degradation, root causes, and solutions;

• stakeholders’ involvement and participation;• partnership development for an efficient

restoration programme (written key ideas ofthe programme and memorandum of under-standing); and

• secured budget for the restoration pro-gramme for at least a first pluri-annual period(e.g., five years).

1.2.2. Step 2: Defining RestorationNeeds, Linking Restoration to Large-Scale Conservation Vision

Here is a step that is not necessarily easy to“sell” to local stakeholders. The geographicalscope can be much wider than many people are used to working with or even concep-tualising (or want to work with, as it has some implications for development, too).Ideally, as mentioned above, a vision and strategy for restoration should be developedwithin an integrated “protect–manage–restore”approach, especially because the investmentneeded to restore has to be reinforced throughsynergy with management and protection activities.

Assessment is needed to determine howrestoration targets might be achieved, includingdetermining current or potential benefits fromforests in the landscape (biodiversity, environ-mental services, and resources for subsistenceor sale) and the potential for restorationthrough use of reference forests and other tech-niques. An important part of the process isdeciding the realistic boundary of the area orareas that we wish to restore. Definition of keyareas for protection, analysis of degradation,and the predictive anticipation of threats can allhelp to define priority landscapes where invest-ment in restoration is most justified.

Outputs of this step are:

• definition of conservation targets at variouspertinent scales (ecoregion, landscape);

• analysis of the broad consequences on thelandscape of past degradation, active pres-sure, and potential threats;

• definition of the role of restoration alongwith identification of protection and man-agement needs; and

• identification of the priority areas thatrequire restoration and explanation of thereasons why: Which landscapes, landscapeunits, or landscape functions do we need torestore? Which species do we need to eradi-cate, control or reintroduce?

1.2.3. Step 3: Defining RestorationStrategy and Tactics, Including Land-Use Scenarios

Considering ecological characteristics, but alsosocioeconomical context or goals assigned tothe restoration project, several trajectories andrestoration options could be developed for thesame project. Choosing among these optionsrequires careful study and data gathering.

This will necessarily mean reconciling differ-ent points of view and opinions.Agreement canbe a phased and continuing process; that is, itmay be possible to agree to some specific anduseful restoration interventions without reach-ing agreement about the whole future of thelandscape. The way in which such agreementsare reached will naturally depend on the polit-ical and social realities of particular countriesor regions; the general principle that decisionsshould be as participatory as possible appliesthroughout.

Outputs of this step are:

• assessment of current/potential benefits from the landscape for people, and for biodiversity;

• assessment of the current, past, and referencelandscape states;

• definition of what we can expect to restore;• development of possible land-use scenarios

in space (including maps);• development of possible restoration trajec-

tories to achieve short-term and long-termgoals (including models, time frames, andmaps);

• reconciliation of land-use options: how canwe achieve specific goals while meeting orreconciling conflicting demands, tastes, andneeds?;

68 D. Vallauri et al

• set of goals, strategies, and tactics for eachzone and problem in the landscape;

• set of priorities in space and time;• identification of restoration trajectories, tech-

nical options, steps, and phases, (especiallyremembering the monitoring and “fine-tuning” phases necessary to fully achievelong term restoration goals); and

• A written restoration plan, strategy, and setof tactics, with identified time frames, maps,allocated funds, and quantified targets.

1.2.4. Step 4: Implementing Restoration

This step is the most visible part of the work,and usually the most costly. Some projects start here, for example, by directly investing allthe available funds to plant trees on anemblematic or strategic site. However, thisignores the previous planning steps recom-mended above and can easily end up wastingtime and resources in restoration activities thateither do not work or are in suboptimal loca-tions. It is of course judicious to start small-scale actions, such as one or more pilot sites, forthe sake of “learning by doing,” to demonstratethe feasibility of key restoration goals and totest silvicultural techniques (for example plant-ing, but also natural regeneration). But wewould strongly recommend that larger scaleactivities also be undertaken in the context ofcareful planning and assessment as outlined insteps above.

Outputs of this step are:

• development of pilot sites;• implementation of large-scale actions;• lessons learned from first results, both suc-

cesses and failures; and• design and implementation of changes/

adaptation in the restoration programme.

1.2.5. Step 5: Piloting Systems TowardFully Restored Ecosystems

In practice, a few years or decades after start-ing implementation, even if restoration hashitherto been successful, unexpected results of previous work or changing circumstances

(evolution of the socioeconomic context, forexample) could alter the most preferablerestoration trajectory. This could even lead insome cases to redefining overall project goals.Such modifications should not be considered asa failure of the overall programme, but ratheras a normal step in the restoration of a complexset of ecosystems within a larger landscapematrix.

Thus, the restoration work is not “finishedafter planting.” To sustain restoration success in the long run, and to anticipate potentialproblems, a simple monitoring and evaluationframework (see section “Monitoring and Eval-uation”) needs to be set up from the outset ofthe programme in order to facilitate adaptivemanagement and corrective actions.

Outputs of this step are:

• regular evaluation (social, economical,ecological);

• restoration trajectory reappraisal; and• design and implementation of corrective

actions.

2. Examples

As yet, there are few full-scale forest landscaperestoration programmes, although their num-bers are rapidly increasing. The following ex-amples show both the need for planning andbroad-scale restoration planning in practice.These examples show not only how a planningframework can be implemented, but also howproblems can arise by forgetting one step.

2.1. New Caledonia: FromAwareness to Restoration of Tropical Dry Forests (Step 1)

It took 15 years from the first alarm signals byscientists to the first significant pilot plantings orprotection of sites within a forest landscaperestoration initiative in New Caledonia. Atten-tion to the tropical dry forests of New Caledo-nia began to grow in the early 1990s. In 1998,WWF, the global conservation organisation,launched an effort to organise a consortium of

9. An Attempt to Develop a Framework for Restoration Planning 69

research institutions, local government agencies,and NGOs (10 partners) to create a tropical dryforests programme. Underway since 2001, thisprogramme has already carried out much of thepreliminary reconnaissance and mapping in dif-ferent tropical dry forest fragments, as well as ecological, silvicultural, and horticulturalstudies of great importance to restorationefforts slated to begin in the field in 2005.Two ofthe authors (Aronson and Vallauri), who havebeen involved in this restoration programme,consider that partners should work to preparenow as soon as possible a protect–manage–restore approach and restoration at broad scalein a large priority landscape,like the ecologicallyoutstanding landscape of Gouaro Deva (see“Restoring Dry Tropical Forests”).

2.2. Vietnam: IntegratingRestoration into a Landscape Approach Across SevenProvinces (Step 2)

The Central Truong Son initiative, coveringseven provinces in central Vietnam inland fromDalat, is developing an integrated approach toforest protection, management, and restora-tion. Comparatively large areas of naturalforest remain standing, although often in pooror highly degraded condition. There are majorplantation developments of varying success,and the government is committed to maintain-ing protected areas. The new Ho Chi MinhHighway is bringing rapid social and envi-ronmental changes, some of which directlythreaten remaining natural forests. The CentralTruong Son initiative has identified prioritylandscapes and used a gap analysis, coupledwith a detailed study of forest quality, to pin-point the most effective areas for restoringnatural forest in terms of increasing forest con-nectivity and protecting biodiversity; these arecurrently around the buffer zone of Song Thanhnature reserve and in a so-called green corridorarea linking several patches of natural forest.Elsewhere, more generally the project isseeking to increase the proportion of forestrestoration funds used for natural regeneration(see case study “Monitoring Forest LandscapeRestoration—Vietnam”).

2.3. France: The Consequences of aLack of Ecological Monitoring (Step 5)

In the early 1860s, an ambitious “Restoration ofMountain Lands” initiative was set up by theFrench forest administration in the southernAlps, primarily for the purpose of erosioncontrol. A wide range of plant material wasused, including native shrubs and grasses, butno particular preference was given to nativetrees for replanting. Over 60,000 hectares were thus planted between 1860 and 1914, usingmainly Pinus nigra Arn. subsp. nigra Host.These efforts have proved effective at stoppingthe average erosion rate (of 0.7mm per year)on black marls. Nevertheless, although rehabil-itated in the sense that erosion has been haltedand badlands forested, these ecosystems werenot fully restored. No fine-tuning assistance and ecological evaluation was carried out untilrecently.100 The forest soils were now better pro-tected, as shown by the study of soil biologicalactivity, especially earthworm communities.However, the rehabilitated ecosystems werefacing two new ecological problems: lack ofnatural regeneration, and development of aninfestation of the pine trees by mistletoe(Viscum album). Once management prioritieshave been revised, the goal for the future is torestore the diversity, structure, and functioningof a native forest ecosystem. The absence oflong-term monitoring and evaluation for about100 years did not allow a rapid adaptation ofthe restoration trajectory. After a necessaryshort pioneer stage with Austrian pine, therestoration strategy should have been pursued30 years later by a phase of autogenic restora-tion of native biota [oak (Quercus), maple(Acer), mountain ash (Sorbus), and others].

3. Outline of Tools

There are still few specific planning toolsdesigned specifically for restoration. However,many existing conservation planning toolscould be adapted for or could include a restora-

100 Vallauri et al, 2002.

70 D. Vallauri et al

tion component. For example, ConservationInternational has developed guidelines for cor-ridors that include reference to restoration tofill gaps in existing forest cover, although withlittle detail.

The reader will find more details on thepotential tools step by step in the following sec-tions. They include among others:

Step 1. Initiating a restoration programme andpartnerships• Lobbying• Participatory approaches• Capacity building

Step 2. Defining restoration needs, linkingrestoration to large-scale conservation vision• Ecoregional planning process (WWF)• 5-S process and systematic conservation

planning (The Nature Conservancy)• Landscape planning

Step 3. Defining restoration strategy andtactics, including land-use scenarios• Conceptual modelling• Geographic information systems• Ecological modelling• “Restoration vision and strategy” meetings

Step 4. Implementing restoration• Tools on plantation, natural regeneration,

species’ selection, etc., are covered in othersections of this book.

Step 5. Piloting systems toward fully restoredecosystems• Restoration projects’ databases:A lot could

be learned from past restoration successesand failures. The analysis of databases of long-term restoration projects is veryuseful, like the world restoration data-base launched by UNEP-WCMC (http://www.unepwcmc.org/forest/restoration/database.htm) or the database of evaluatedrestoration programmes in the Mediter-ranean (http://www.ceam.es/reaction/)

• Criteria and indicators for monitoring (seesection “Monitoring and Evaluation”)

4. Future Needs

Restoration planning in landscapes or largescales is still in its infancy. Much further workis needed to refine and improve the planningprocess and define appropriate tools. Thus, spe-cific work on restoration planning is highlyneeded in the coming years, both in theory andin practice. Learning from past restoration pro-grammes and their successes and failures couldprove an efficient starting point. In time, lessonsmight usefully be captured in a step-by-stepguidebook or manual specifically on thissubject and perhaps with associated softwareprogrammes if appropriate.

References

Aronson, J., Floret, C., Le Floc’h, E., Ovalle, C., andPontanier, R. 1993. Restoration and rehabilitationof degraded ecosystems in arid and semi-aridlands. I. A view from the south. RestorationEcology 1:8–17.

Clewell, A., and Rieger, J.P. 1997. What practitionersneed from restoration ecologists. RestorationEcology 5(4):350–354.

Pickett, S.T.A., and Parker, V.T. 1994. Avoiding oldpitfalls: opportunities in a new discipline. Restora-tion Ecology 2(2):75–79.

Vallauri, D., Aronson, J., and Barbéro, M. 2002. Ananalysis of forest restoration 120 years after refor-estation of badlands in the south-western Alps.Restoration Ecology 10(1):16–26.

Wyant, J.G., Meganck, R.A., and Ham, S.H. 1995a. Aplanning and decision-making framework for eco-logical restoration. Environmental Management6:789–796.

Wyant, J.G., Meganck, R.A., and Ham, S.H. 1995b.The need for an environmental restoration deci-sion framework. Ecological Engineering 5:417–420.

Section VIdentifying and Addressing

Challenges/Constraints

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

The key to any successful restoration pro-gramme lies in good project design that is basedon sound science, a thorough understanding ofthreats and opportunities, and a strategic andpragmatic suite of interventions chosen to mit-igate identified threats while capitalising on keyopportunities. A comprehensive threat assess-ment goes beyond merely identifying thefactors, behaviours, and practices that pose achallenge to forest restoration, but includes an

analysis of the underlying social, economic, andpolitical incentives that drive such behaviours.

1.1. Information Needed for Threat Assessment

For restoration programmes, a good threatassessment provides actionable informationthat can be used to define the scope of inter-ventions. Information should be timely, verifi-able, and collected in a cost- and time-effectivemanner. Restoration programmes are notimmune to the all too common pitfall of invest-ing considerable time and resources in collect-ing a tremendous amount of data that, whileperhaps new and interesting, is not particularlyrelevant to making decisions about the bestway to undertake restoration activities. Toavoid this pitfall it is often useful to frame athreat assessment by exploring different typesof threats—direct, indirect, and potential.

1.2. Types of Threats

Direct threats are those with immediate andclear causal links to the negative impact offorest degradation or loss. Indirect threats,often referred to as root causes,101 are theunderlying drivers behind direct threats. Poten-tial threats are those threats that, while cur-rently not posing a significant challenge toforest restoration, have the potential to under-

10Assessing and Addressing Threats inRestoration ProgrammesDoreen Robinson

Key Points to Retain

Threats may be direct, indirect, or potential.Before undertaking a large-scale restorationeffort, it is important to understand threatsin all three categories.

A variety of tools for undertaking threatassessment and integrating the results intoforest restoration programmes have beentested around the world. In most cases, toolswill need to be used in conjunction withothers or may need to be modified to fit localcircumstances.

A key challenge for restoration programmesis to expand the breadth of expertise inte-grated into assessment and analysis throughmultidisciplinary teams.

73

101 Wood et al. 2000.

74 D. Robinson

mine such investments in the future. Given thatforest restoration is a necessarily long-termconservation intervention, it is important toinclude such a temporal component in threatanalysis.

For restoration programmes around theworld a number of common direct threats havebeen identified, including habitat fragmen-tation, unsustainable use, and overharvesting of forest resources, pollution, and invasivespecies—all contributing to the breakdown ofecological processes that are critical to thehealthy functioning of natural forest systems.

Underlying drivers of such threats are oftenrelated to policies that favour rapid and unsus-tainable conversion of forests for short-termeconomic gains. Markets for forest products,including global markets for products liketimber and palm oil or local markets for fuel-wood, can drive forest degradation and loss,particularly when market dynamics externalisetrue costs.

Persistent conflict and civil unrest may forcelocal dependence on forest resources to expandrapidly, given both a lack of alternatives to meetlivelihood needs or an influx of migrants anddisplaced persons fleeing from conflict zonesinto forest areas. Moreover, in many cases,forest resources are the only resources readilyavailable to generate the cash necessary to con-tinue such conflicts. In such situations, theprospects for successful restoration are limitedif underlying governance and conflict issues arenot addressed.

Other common indirect threats to forestrestoration include a lack of knowledge andskills regarding the science and research behindappropriate habitat restoration and a lack oftechnical capacity to implement activities onthe ground. A lack of political will and broadstakeholder support for restoration activitiesplagues many restoration programmes world-wide. Such a lack of support is often tied to aperception of high transaction costs or limitedbenefits associated with undertaking restora-tion. Given the time frame required for restora-tion projects, both a lack of sustained financialresources and unsure resource and land tenurerights combined can create a strong disincen-tive for undertaking restoration activities.

2. Examples

2.1. MadagascarIn southern Madagascar the U.S. Agency forInternational Development is partnering withthe Communes of Ampasy-Nahampoana andMandromodromotra, the Department of Waterand Forests (La Circonscription des Eaux etForêts–CIREF) and QIT Madagascar Minerals(QMM) to undertake forest restoration activi-ties in the Mandena Conservation Zone. Theregion’s forests are highly fragmented as aresult of extraction of forest resources to meetthe rising fuelwood needs of a growing popula-tion and increasing slash-and-burn agriculture,among other threats. This is one of the poorestregions of Madagascar, and the reliance of localpopulations on the forests to meet livelihoodneeds is driving forest loss and degradation.

A thorough understanding of the threats andopportunities of this region identified by QMMin collaboration with the communes, commu-nity leaders, and regional government repre-sentatives produced a diverse set of innovativeactivities intended to mitigate direct threats offorest fragmentation and indirect threats asso-ciated with poverty. For example, in exchangefor rights to mine ilmenite across the region—intended to stimulate economic growth andgenerate income within the region—QMM hasagreed to invest in forest restoration in blocksadjacent to existing protected areas of primaryforest harbouring significant biodiversity. Therestoration will not only expand the area ofcontiguous forest, but also improve the healthof the forest, protect critical water cyclingprocesses, and is also tied to investment anddevelopment of ecotourism in the region. Tomitigate deforestation of remaining intact areasdriven by increasing local demand for fuelwoodand charcoal, plantations of fast-growingspecies on already degraded or deforested landare also being supported.

Even with a solid understanding of threats,the ability to address forest restoration, bio-diversity, and local development needs insouthern Madagascar is certainly not withoutchallenges.A lack of knowledge and capacity inlocal forest ecology made the identification of

10. Assessing and Addressing Threats in Restoration Programmes 75

relevant native pioneer species a significantchallenge, requiring over 8 years of researchand a multimillion dollar investment to developappropriate protocols for forest restoration.Perhaps the greatest challenges faced by part-ners now are how to scale up interventionsbeyond initial target restoration sites and toengage new collaborators in order to effectivelyaddress the true magnitude of threats drivingforest degradation and loss across the entireregion.

2.2. Atlantic Forest in Argentina

In the Andresito region of Misiones,Argentina,Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina (FVSA)and WWF are helping to restore key areas offorest adjacent to the Green Corridor, thelargest remaining area of contiguous Atlanticforest in the world. The area has been signifi-cantly deforested by rapidly growing humanpopulations to support small-scale agricultureand meet human fuelwood needs.

To develop a detailed restoration strategy forthe region, FVSA undertook a thorough analy-sis of threats and opportunities, combining on-the-ground surveys, economic analyses, andGIS tools. FVSA began by developing detailedland use maps for each parcel of land in theregion based on the current tenure. Detailedland use maps were then overlaid with biolog-ical and socioeconomic data to identify keyopportunities for creating forest restorationcorridors that could meet overarching forestrestoration goals. Research on biodiversity-friendly production practices for local forestand shade products was also undertaken withseveral universities in Argentina to assesspotential economic gains from alternative con-servation friendly enterprises. Pilot restorationplots using different species and productiontechniques were established to assess both eco-logical and economic costs and benefits (alsosee case study “Finding Economically Sustain-able Means of Preserving and Restoring theAtlantic Forest in Argentina”).With poverty onthe rise in the region, alternative income gen-eration opportunities are a critical incentive for landowners to begin undertaking forestrestoration.

Armed with these analyses and researchresults, FVSA continues to engage in a par-ticipatory process with individual privatelandowners, local cooperatives, governmentrepresentatives, and others to develop appro-priate long-term land use management optionsthat include a mix of reforestation, timber har-vesting, nontimber forest product production,and other uses. By including a spatially explicitcomponent of such land use management plans,stakeholders are continuously able to see notonly how restoration practices benefit them, butalso how they are contributing to a broader sustainable vision for the entire region. Cur-rently, the major challenge for this project also involves scaling up. FVSA is focussed on helping stakeholders expand the adoption of new production alternatives, sustainableresource use management practices, and devel-oping carbon credit schemes to mitigate highrestoration costs in order to achieve restorationgoals over the long term.

2.3. Using a Three-DimensionalModel to Identify Threats in Vietnam

In the area surrounding the Song Thanh NatureReserve in the Quang Nam Province ofVietnam, WWF and partners undertook a par-ticipatory landscape planning process withcommunity members from nine villages.102 A“papier-mâché” 1 :10,000 model of the 30,000-hectare landscape surrounding the reserve was used to facilitate planning and decisionmaking amongst villagers and forestry sectoremployees.

Using paints, pins, and yarn to depict landuse, natural resource elements, threats, andrelationships, animated discussions and debateshelped inform an integrated management planfocussed on a suite of protection, management,and restoration activities. In particular, throughthe modelling process, threats from illegal goldmining activities were identified and hotlydebated, and have been raised with relevantauthorities. Elderly people, women, and chil-dren were all able to contribute to the model-

102 Hardcastle et al, 2004.

76 D. Robinson

ling exercise, facilitating broader communityinvolvement in decision making and buy-in for the planning process. While the three-dimensional (3D) mapping of threats provideda good way to engage communities in restora-tion planning, solid facilitation and conflict res-olution skills were critical in ensuring success.This relatively cost-effective activity is nowbeing replicated in other areas in the region inorder to develop an integrated land andresource management plan at a larger land-scape scale.

3. Outline of Tools

A variety of tools for undertaking threat assess-ment and integrating such analysis into forestrestoration programmes have been testedaround the world. While no one tool is ideal forall situations, certain aspects are useful for pro-gramme implementers to consider when select-ing and modifying existing tools to meet specificforest restoration goals, including stakeholderparticipation, flexibility/adaptability of analysis,costs (e.g., time, human resources, financialresources, etc.), iterative nature of informationgathering and analyses, processes to includenew and updated information, communicabilityof outputs to appropriate audiences, and abilityto incorporate different types of data (i.e., qual-itative vs. quantitative).

Research studies, literature reviews, ecologi-cal and socioeconomic surveys, focus groups,and key informant interviews are all techniquesthat are used to gather relevant informationneeded to undertake threat analyses.A numberof tools can be used, singularly or in combina-tion, to carry out the actual analysis.

Conceptual modelling103 is commonly used to show linkages and complex relationshipsbetween threats and their impacts while pro-viding a strategic framework for thinking aboutappropriate project interventions. Conceptualmodels explicitly identify the restorationfactors that programmes are intended to influ-ence while characterising both direct and indi-rect forces affecting these factors. Conceptual

models are particularly good for teasing outroot causes, integrating interdisciplinary per-spectives and are generally supported by a mixof quantitative and qualitative backgrounddata. They can be quite participatory if multi-ple stakeholders are brought in as part of facil-itated discussions. However, conceptual modelscan get very complex and make it challengingto identify and prioritise interventions.

Threat matrices are a useful way to link threat assessment to project goals and specificactivities. Matrices can vary from relativelysimple to complex logframes where forestrestoration targets are explicitly stated, withrelevant threats, activities, and potential indica-tors for monitoring change over time explicitlytied to these targets. Matrices are good for tyingthreat analysis to specific activities and strate-gic interventions and are easily updated asadaptive management is practised. The under-lying assumptions linking threats to targets andactivities can be obscure and should be explic-itly stated and supported by both qualitativeand quantitative analysis.

Threat mapping104 can be used to assessthreats for a forest restoration area—in theform of either a pictorial map or 3D modelsmade out of clay, wood, or other materials (seeabove example in Vietnam).These maps are thebasis for discussion of changes in forest habitatquantity or quality, often with communitygroups. The process involves facilitated discus-sion to ensure that different members of thecommunity with differential knowledge ofthreats offer their insights. For example, eldersmay have knowledge of the historical extent ofthe forest, women and men may have very dif-ferent perceptions of threats related to the dif-ferent forest resources they use and manage,and so on. When used appropriately this is a highly participatory tool that effectively incorporates qualitative data and generates aproduct that multiple stakeholders can use.Threat mapping is often most effective whenused in combination with some of the othermore quantitatively oriented tools.

GIS-based tools offer more advanced threatmapping by reflecting quantitative data in

103 Robinson, 2000; WCS, 2004. 104 Biodiversity Support Programme, 1995.

10. Assessing and Addressing Threats in Restoration Programmes 77

sophisticated spatial maps. Direct threats, suchas habitat fragmentation, can be represented inmaps by showing changes in data over time.GIS-based threat assessment tools can rangefrom simple maps that reflect data collected on the ground to complex decision-supportsystems incorporating threat data into pro-grammes that model alternative scenarios andoutcomes using criteria established by users.Visual products reflect alternative scenarios,and an appropriate and transparent criteria andvalue-setting process can help generate signifi-cant buy-in from stakeholders engaged in theprocess.These tools are heavily reliant on quan-tifiable data, and depending on the specifictechnology, their utility may suffer from limitedor unreliable data. GIS-based threat assess-ment requires technical skills and equipment.These tools are particularly useful for gener-ating baseline data sets and for monitor-ing change over time from restoration interventions.

4. Future Needs

A key challenge to forest restoration pro-grammes is more effective integration of rele-vant threat analysis that is critical for makingpragmatic and real decisions. Threat analysishas been seen as a discrete backgroundresearch activity that, once completed, oftengets put on a shelf, never to be revisited as partof strategic programme development and adap-tive management. The gap between threatassessment, often seen as primarily scientificand academic investigations, and actual projectimplementation needs to be more effectivelybreached.

To improve the rigour and utility of threatassessments for forest restoration, approachesfor undertaking integrated and multidisci-plinary analyses also need to be refined.Biologists, social scientists, conservation prac-titioners, policy makers, economists, communityleaders, and investors all bring a different lensto threat analysis. Through a combined view of

the factors affecting restoration, more informedand pragmatic decisions can be made regardingtrade-offs that inevitably must be made in thereal world.

References

Biodiversity Support Programme. 1995. Indigenouspeoples, mapping and biodiversity conservation:An analysis of current activities and opportunitiesfor applying geomatics technologies. Washington,DC, 83 pp.

Hardcastle, J., Rambaldi, G., Long, B., Le Van Lanh,and Do Quoc Son. 2004. The use of participatorythree-dimensional modelling in community-basedplanning in Quang Nam province, Vietnam. PLANotes 49:70–76.

Robinson, D. 2000. Assessing Root Causes—AUser’s Guide. WWF Macroeconomics ProgrammeOffice, Washington, DC, 40 pp.

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). 2004. Creat-ing conceptual models—a tool for thinking strate-gically. Living Landscapes Technical Manual 2,8 pp.

Wood, A., Stedman-Edwards, P., and Mang, J. 2000.The Root Causes of Biodiversity Loss. WWF/Earthscan, 398 pp.

Additional Reading

Salafsky, N., and Margoluis, R. 1999.Threat reductionassessment to: a practical and cost-effectiveapproach to evaluating Conservation and Devel-opment Projects. Conservation Biology 13(14):830–841.

Verolme, H.J.H., and Moussa, J. 1999.Addressing theUnderlying Causes of Deforestation and ForestDegradation—Case Studies, Analysis and PolicyRecommendations. Biodiversity Action Network,Washington, DC, 141 pp.

Wildlife Conservation Society. 2004. Participatoryspatial assessment of human activities—a tool forconservation planning. Living Landscapes Techni-cal Manual 1, 12 pp.

WWF. 2000. A guide to socio-economic assessmentsfor ecoregion conservation. Ecoregional Conser-vation Strategies Unit, 18 pp.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

In some countries, government incentives forparticular kinds of restoration have distortedapproaches to the conservation, restoration,and management of forests. Government incen-tives to the forest industry for restoring forestcover have traditionally been aimed mainly atsupporting plantation development. In light ofthe financial costs of these incentive schemes,and criticism from some environment and

social welfare groups, questions have beenraised about the economic, environmental,and social benefits of these schemes. Althoughmany public incentives in forestry have pro-vided some employment and income opportu-nities, questions remain about the overall costsof such schemes and about who will bear thesecosts in the longer term. For example, somestudies have pointed out social and equity con-cerns when subsidies are captured by a fewactors, such as large companies and landowners.In Chile, 80 percent of public incentive pay-ments for the establishment of plantations havegone to three companies.105 Other poorlydesigned incentive schemes have resulted inincreased conversion of natural forests andland degradation. The key question is: Arepublic funds for afforestation and reforestationdirected toward projects that provide net ben-efits to society?

A case study review by Perrin106 showed thatgovernment incentive programmes in refor-estation and afforestation activities tend tosuffer from poor design, a lack of enforcementmechanisms, and little or no monitoring. Publicincentives are often applied for short-term treeplanting activities that inadequately addresssustainability, biodiversity, and livelihood con-cerns. Little emphasis is paid to ensuring thatpublic incentives contribute to restoring forestfunctions and resources, and they seldombenefit from adequate stakeholder participa-

11Perverse Policy IncentivesKirsten Schuyt

Key Points to Retain

Many government incentive programmes inreforestation and afforestation suffer frompoor design, lack of enforcement, and lack ofmonitoring, and are aimed at short-termtree-planting activities.

As a result, government support for suchschemes acts as a perverse incentive that cansometimes undermine efforts at introduc-ing more balanced or equitable forms ofrestoration.

Instead, incentives need to be redirectedtoward a wider more integrated approach.This allows broader benefits to society, theinvolvement of local partners and stake-holders, and effective monitoring and evaluation.

78

105 Bazett and Associates, 2000.106 Perrin, 2003.

11. Perverse Policy Incentives 79

tion. There is also a general lack of adequatemonitoring and enforcement mechanisms,meaning that incentives are easily misused.

The Convention on Biological Diversity107

identifies three common types of perversepolicy incentives:

• Environmentally perverse government subsi-dies: Many different definitions exist in theliterature as to what a subsidy is. In general,they include direct subsidies (such as grantsand payments to consumers or producers);tax policies (tax credits, exemptions, allo-wances, and so on); capital cost subsidies(preferential loans or debt forgiveness);public provision of public goods and servicesbelow cost; and policies that create transfersthrough the market mechanism (such asprice regulations and quantity controls).Such subsidies may have a negative impacton biological resources by directly encourag-ing behaviour that leads to biodiversity loss.Another example of perverse effects of sub-sidies is that they may drain scarce publicfinances that could have been used to con-serve biodiversity.

• Persistence of environmental externalities:Some governmental policies may contributeto the persistence of negative externalities.For example,government policies may weakentraditional property rights systems, where suchrights reside within customary law or culturaltraditions. This absence of well-defined prop-erty rights at private or communal level may lead to pollution and overexploitation of natural resources, resulting in negativeexternalities or costs to third parties.

• Laws and customary practices governingresource use: An example of formal law gen-erating perverse incentives is beneficial uselaws requiring land users to make productiveuse of water and forest resources to secureland entitlement. On the other hand, theclearing of land may be rooted in customarylaw to indicate a claim to an area, leading toperverse incentives.

Perverse incentive schemes, however, can beredirected to promote restoration practices that

will offer benefits to conservation and to a widerange of stakeholders. In this respect, forestlandscape restoration offers important tools forgood practices in restoration, and the key liesin promoting these tools to redirect existingperverse incentive schemes toward restorationthat benefits conservation and society. Someexamples are provided below.

2. Examples108

2.1. Public Incentives for PlantationDevelopment, Indonesia

Deforestation is a major problem in Indonesia.The Indonesian government began promotingthe development of industrial tree plantationsin the 1980s to boost industrial development in wood-based industries and the oil palmsector. Several government incentives were put in place to stimulate timber plantationdevelopment, including interest-free loans, allo-cation of state-owned land, absence of landtaxes, and so on. Large sums of money couldalso be obtained through the ReforestationFund. Another incentive came from the International Monetary Fund–backed restruc-turing of the corporate and banking sector inthe late 1990s, which was poorly implementedand led to subsidies and financing being pro-vided to badly managed and corrupt forestcompanies.

In an attempt to redirect some of these public incentives,WWF, the global conservationorganisation, has collaborated with the Centrefor International Forestry Research (CIFOR)to restructure debt agreements related to theforest and oil palm assets of the IndonesianBank Restructuring Agency. This reform is toinclude a series of checks and balances amongthe state, private sector, and civil society to mit-igate structural pressures on the economy andforests, which should help prevent the use offunding for unsustainable and sometimes illegalplantation development as has happened in thepast.

107 CBD, 2002. 108 Perrin, 2003.

80 K. Schuyt

2.2. CAP and SAPARD Forestry-Related Incentives,European Union

Two key programmes of the European Com-mission (EC) that provide incentives forafforestation and reforestation are the Com-munity Regulation Directive 2080/92 (laterintroduced as part of the Common AgriculturalPolicy, CAP), which promotes afforestation ofagricultural land, and the Special Action forPre-Accession Measures for Agriculture andRural Development (SAPARD), which focusseson rural development in European Union (EU) accession countries and includes fund-ing for afforestation. Both of these schemeshave been widely criticised as perverse incen-tives (also see the case study that follows thischapter).

Under the CAP, detailed analysis in 1997 suggested that the decrease in utilised agricul-tural land was marginal and that the role of afforestation under CAP had been over-estimated. Also, the application of the direc-tive varied between member states, with sixcountries accounting for more than 90 per-cent of total area planted. Lastly, the analysisfound examples where funds had been mis-spent—for instance, in Spain, where farmersfrequently planted, cleared, and replanted thesame plots, all with subsidised funds from theEU.

Under SAPARD, it has been noted that theprocedures have proven to be a big burden formany countries. In addition, concerns havebeen raised about some of the damagingimpacts of SAPARD, such as the use of chem-ical protection, fence building, and constructionof new roads. Also, no requirements are givenunder SAPARD for a minimum percentage of native tree species to be planted or incen-tives to enhance environmentally sound man-agement practices. Environmental measuresrelated to forests are only marginally includedin national plans.

WWF is working both in the context of CAP and the EU enlargement process toensure that EC policies promote sustainablerural development. For example, in 2001 WWF

undertook a comprehensive review study ofSAPARD-related forestry measures, and it also took part in the midterm review of theCAP. Some of the main issues that emergedrelate to improving monitoring and follow-upwith different beneficiaries of afforestation subsidies.

2.3. Grain-for-Green Programme, China

The goal of China’s Grain-for-Green pro-gramme, launched in 2000, was to convert steepcultivated land to forest and pasture. It was ini-tiated as a result of severe flooding in Chinathat was blamed on excessive logging and cul-tivation along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers.The programme is expected to turn more than340,000 hectares of farmland and 430,000hectares of bare mountain back to forests.These activities are to be carried out by thecommunities and subsidised by the govern-ment. In return for afforestation and reforesta-tion activities, communities receive grain, cash,and seedlings.

The positive effects of the incentive pro-gramme so far are that the incentives have contributed to afforestation and reforesta-tion activities as well as natural forest protec-tion. However, the long-term sustainability of the programme remains uncertain along with its ability to prevent soil erosion. Muchrestoration has involved planting orchards on steep slopes, which do little or nothing to stop soil erosion. An important weakness of the programme has been a lack of monitoringand virtually no evaluation of the policy implementation.

The Chinese government has been open toreviewing its scheme following preliminary rec-ommendations by WWF. The Centre for Inter-national Forestry Research has also undertakena thorough assessment of the lessons learnedfrom this scheme (see “Local Participation,Livelihood Needs, and Institutional Arrange-ments”) as well as other reforestation/rehabili-tation efforts in China and provided a numberof concrete recommendations.

11. Perverse Policy Incentives 81

3. Outline of Tools

Options to remove or mitigate public perverseincentives in the forestry sector are describedhere. Perrin109 recommends redirecting publicincentives within the context of the forest landscape restoration approach. This meansgovernments and donor agencies need to (1)allocate resources to the development of alter-native forms of afforestation and reforestationactivities that provide broader benefits to theenvironment and society, (2) involve local part-ners and stakeholders in incentive schemes(mechanisms for consultation and participationneed to be put in place), and (3) spend resourceson regulating the application of incentive pro-grammes for afforestation and reforestationactivities and monitoring the impacts of suchactivities (including developing sets of indica-tors and criteria to assist monitoring). Thisneeds to be accompanied by the necessarypolicy measures, institutional arrangements,and monitoring and compliance mechanisms.In this respect, the CBD110 recommends threeideal phases:

• Identify policies or practices that generateperverse incentives. This includes: analysingunderlying causes of biodiversity loss, identi-fying the nature and scope of perverse incen-tives, identifying costs and benefits to societyfrom removing the perverse incentives, doinga strategic environmental assessment, and so on.

• Design and implement appropriate reformpolicies. Reforms can include the totalremoval of policies or practices, or theirreplacement with other policies with thesame objectives but without perverse incen-tives, or with the introduction of additionalpolicies, and so on.

• Monitor, enforce, and evaluate these reformpolicies.This includes institutional and admin-istrative capacity building, development ofsound indicators, stakeholder involvement,and transparency.

4. Future Needs

Despite the fact that numerous suggestions onhow to address perverse policy incentives canbe found (as described in the previous section),the reality is that many perverse policies stillexist in the forestry sector. The key need is tostart putting these new policies into practice,including the need for redirecting public incen-tives toward a forest landscape restorationapproach at all levels in cases where policieshave promoted habitat alteration or destruc-tion and unsustainable use of natural resources.We also need to improve our understanding ofthe impacts caused by policies and practices onbiodiversity. In this respect, the CBD111 recom-mends undertaking further work on the use ofvaluation tools to assess the extent and scopeof negative impacts of policies and practices onbiodiversity.

References

Bazett, M., and Associates. 2000. Public Incentives forIndustrial Tree Plantations. WWF, Gland, Switzer-land, and IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). 2002.Proposals for the Application of Ways and Meansto Remove or Mitigate Perverse Incentives. Note bythe Executive Secretary, Quebec, Canada.

Perrin, M. 2003. Incentives for Forest LandscapeRestoration: Maximizing Benefits for Forests andPeople. WWF Discussion Paper, WWF, Gland,Switzerland.

Additional References

Myers, N., and Kent, J. 1998. Perverse Subsidies—Tax$ Undercutting our Economies and EnvironmentsAlike. International Institute for SustainableDevelopment, Winnipeg, Canada.

Sizer, N. 2000. Perverse Habits, the G8 and Subsidiesthe Harm Forests and Economies. WorldResources Institute, Washington, DC.

109 Perrin, 2003.110 CBD, 2002. 111 CBD, 2002.

The European Commission has been promot-ing afforestation since 1992 under theCommon Agriculture Policy (CAP) (Direc-tive 2080/92) as a solution to reducing agri-cultural land and therefore, agriculturalsurpluses (which are currently supportedfinancially through subsidies). More recentlya sister scheme has been developed, theSpecial Action for Pre-accession Measures for Agriculture and Rural Development(SAPARD), which is applicable to EuropeanUnion (EU) accession countries and coversthe period 2000 to 2006, with a budget of over333 million Euros.

Today, Directive 2080/92 is part of the RuralDevelopment Regulation (RDR), whichestablishes a new framework for EuropeanCommunity support for sustainable ruraldevelopment.

While the afforestation measures under theEU had spent four billion euros by 1999 andplanted 900,000 hectares of trees, the resultsin terms of the original aims of the scheme,and also in terms of restoring forest cover andforest functionality remained disappointing.

Some of the key problems with the CAPafforestation directive include the following:

• Limited role in taking land out of agricul-ture: In most member states, only 1.3 to 1.4percent of land has actually been set asidefrom agriculture following its application.

• Conflicting objectives: While the subsidyscheme was largely centred around taking

land out of agriculture, many governmentsand companies used the scheme to establishtimber plantations. In Ireland, for example,the subsidies were used to establish planta-tions with a high economic return (Sitkaspruce, pines) in order to achieve thecountry’s aim to double its forest area overthe next 30 years.

• Unequal distribution of subsidies and“double dipping”: Six countries accountedfor more than 90 percent of the total areaplanted (Spain, the U.K., Portugal, Ireland,Italy, and France). In addition, individualexamples show that funds were easily mis-spent. In Spain, the largest recipient of theEU afforestation funds, “double dipping”was discovered to be common, with farmersplanting, clearing, and replanting the sameplots all with subsidised funds from the EU.

• Unnecessary manipulation of naturalprocesses: In many cases, subsidies wereapplied to reforest areas that were regener-ating naturally. It is estimated that up to62.5 percent of the area benefiting from thesubsidy did not actually qualify as produc-ing an oversupply of crops.

• Inappropriate methods and species: Over65 percent of afforestation was carried outin areas believed at risk of fire underCouncil Regulation (EEC) No. 2158/92 onprotection of the community’s forestsagainst fire. Planting was often done in anad hoc fashion, without selecting optimal

Case Study: The European Union’sAfforestation Policies and Their RealImpact on Forest RestorationStephanie Mansourian and Pedro Regato

82

Case Study: The European Union’s Afforestation Policies 83

areas to restore forest cover, nor were theseproperly integrated into land use plans.

References

Perrin, M. 2003. Incentives for forest landscaperestoration: maximizing benefits for forests and

people. WWF Discussion Paper, WWF, Gland,Switzerland.

Report to Parliament and the Council on the appli-cation of Regulation No. 2080/92 instituting acommunity aid scheme for forestry measures inagriculture, 1996.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Forest Ownership:An Overview

The reports “Who Owns the World’s Forests”112

and “Who Conserves the World’s Forests?”113

indicate that globally, 77 percent of forestlandsare owned by governments, 7 percent by indige-nous and local communities, and 12 percent byindividual and corporate landowners, and thatin the last 15 years the forest area owned and

administered by indigenous and local commu-nities has doubled, reaching nearly 400 millionhectares. This reflects important changes inforest ownership worldwide.

This chapter discusses the relationshipsbetween forest ownership and restoration,more specifically, the implications of thevarious types and conditions of forest owner-ship for successful restoration of forestlands.The basic assumption in this chapter is thatforest ownership regimes matter for restorationbecause the end result of forest restoration,trees, are the centrepieces of the ecosystem, andtheir consequent, associated goods and ecolog-ical services are of direct value to people. Inother words, the basic nature of the linkbetween forest ownership and forest restora-tion is the fact that forest owners (whatevertheir specific regime and bundles of rights) aredriven to restore (or not) by the expectation ofgoods and services that restored forests offer.

1.2. Definitions

The literature often does not distinguish “tenure”from “property” or “ownership” of forests,although in a more general sense “tenure” couldbe linked to custom-defined bundles of rightsthat are socially acknowledged, and “property”would be identified as a status in which custom-ary tenure becomes more “institutional” throughlegal and political procedures and means.

Ownership or property itself is in essence abundle of rights which are defined according tothe nature of the subject and the legal frame-

12Land Ownership and Forest RestorationGonzalo Oviedo

Key Points to Retain

Forest ownership regimes matter for forestrestoration because the end result of restora-tion, the trees, are the centrepieces of theecosystem, and their consequent, associatedgoods and ecological services are of directvalue to people. The ownership regimedetermines how such goods and services areaccessed and distributed, and therefore, isthe basis for restoration incentives.

It is necessary to undertake further researchon experiences (successful and unsuccessful)of forest restoration under different types ofownership, to better understand how owner-ship rights’ systems impact on the results.

84

112 White and Martin, 2002.113 Molnar et al, 2004.

12. Land Ownership and Forest Restoration 85

work in a given situation. Such rights can belisted114 as the rights to (1) possess and exclu-sively physically control, (2) use, (3) manage, (4)draw income, (5) transmit or destroy capital, (6)have protection from expropriation, (7) disposeof interest on death, (8) potentially hold prop-erty forever, (9) reversionary/residual interestsarising on expiration, (10) liability to seizure fordebts, and (11) prohibitions on harmful use.There are many differences in the way in whichthese various rights are defined and apply toforests in different countries and social and his-torical contexts; some of these specific rightsappear to be particularly important whendealing with sustainable forest managementand forest restoration, as will be discussed later.

The literature distinguishes four main typesof property applicable to lands and forests:private (individual or corporative), state, com-mon or communal, and open access. Thesesystems have been studied extensively, andtheir advantages and disadvantages with regardto natural resource use are well documented(for a useful typology and comparative analy-sis, see GTZ, 1998).

In country regimes of the 20th and 21st cen-turies, the rule for forest ownership is typicallya combination of these four types of property,with significant changes in the composition ofproperty according to historical moments andwith great differences among countries. Gener-ally, however, the predominant pattern is forthe majority of forest areas to be in the handsof government, and only a small proportionbeing communal forests. In modern times,legally speaking there is little if any open accessin forestlands, as any forestlands withoutprivate owners are automatically converted bylaw to state lands. In practice, however, state-owned forest has in many cases meant openaccess, as governments, particularly in develop-ing countries, have had little capacity to controlaccess to their forests. In developing countries,however, the establishment of large state-owned forest areas was in most cases the resultof the expropriation of forestlands from theirtraditional users, who until colonial times wereowners of those lands (or parts of them) under

customary tenure. In this sense, and in caseswhere traditional forest-owning communitiesstill exist and inhabit their traditional lands,there is an overlap of state property and com-munal, customary tenure.

Partly due to the recognition of customarytenure as legal communal (or individual) prop-erty, forest ownership is undergoing a majorchange in the world, with the main trend beingthe transfer or “devolution” of ownership rightsto the local level, and the consequent expansionof community-owned forests.

1.3. Degree of Dependence on Forests

From the perspective of goods and services thatforests (standing or future) offer, there areroughly two types of owners: forest-dependentpeople and non–forest-dependent people (andinstitutions). This distinction is importantbecause of the expectations of the end result of forest restoration and their implications.Forest-dependent communities basically expectfrom restored forests an array of goods andservices of direct economic value. They mayvalue other associated benefits, such as ecolog-ical services at a landscape scale—climatechange mitigation, regulation of the hydrologi-cal cycle, watershed protection, etc.—but theywill normally not place higher values on asso-ciated ecological services than on those relatedto direct forest produce.115 In the cases ofnon–forest-dependent owners, such as theabsentee forest owner and the state and publicagencies, the scale and hierarchy of values mayvary for some areas, and their expectations,therefore, may not directly be linked to the economic importance of forest produce, but toecosystem protection and services, biodiversityconservation, aesthetic aspects (which in turncan become economic values for example fromtourism), etc.

114 Ziff, 1993, cited by Clogg, 1997.

115 Some exceptions exist to the hierarchy of values offorest restoration from the perspective of forest-dependentowners, but they are exceptions that do not contradict theprimary expectations on forest produce or alternativelivelihoods. For example, this is the case of restoration ofdegraded forest areas with sacred or particular spiritualvalue to local communities.

86 G. Oviedo

1.4. Ownership of Land but Also ofForest Goods and Services

Forest ownership differs significantly fromother types of land and resource tenure—agri-cultural land, for example. The differences relybasically on the wide array of goods and serv-ices of the forest, and more specifically on thefact that forest ownership consists of a complexmixture of three types of ownership rights:rights to the land, rights to the forest resources,and rights to the trees. Further, ownershiprights in forestlands overlap frequently with,and are different from, user rights. As Neef andSchwarzmeier116 illustrate for Southeast Asia, insome cases groups or individuals holding theproperty of the land recognise rights of otherindividuals or groups to use the trees existingon that land, as long as there are no competinguses over the trees. There could even be multi-ple layers of rights on a single plot of land; forexample, when a group or individual has prop-erty on the land, another group has rights onnontimber forest products, and another groupholds rights on timber exploitation.

1.5. Opportunity Cost andIntergenerational Equity

Tree growth takes place over long or relativelylong periods, when the forest ecosystem underrestoration can offer only limited services;therefore, we are dealing with situations wherethere is a high, or relatively high, opportunitycost in the use of the land for forest-dependentpeople. In these conditions, only significantincentives and economic alternatives can coverthe opportunity cost of forest restoration. Thenature of benefits and incentives from forestrestoration in terms of the time horizon (espe-cially in cases of slow-maturing tree species)adds a time perspective to tenure security. Forforest owners and users, it is not sufficient toknow that their rights to forests and trees aresecure now; it is more important to know thatthey will be secure and enforceable after onegeneration or more. In this sense, changingownership and rights policies are even worse

than the absence of them, since they cause agreat lack of confidence in restoration as some-thing socially beneficial.

1.6. Stability of Forest Ownership

In the case of China, Liu Dachang116a finds noconclusive evidence that user rights on trees arethe best option (e.g., compared to state regula-tions), but does find evidence that changingrights policies were the basis of ups and downsin forest cover, and especially that lack of sta-bility of forest ownership policies was the mainreason for decline in forest cover and treeplanting in certain periods; in fact, over approx-imately 25 years of China’s modern history(from 1956 to the early 1980s), there was a suc-cession of at least five major forest ownershippolicy paradigms, thus an average of a majorpolicy change every 5 years. In practice, a fewyears after villagers planted trees, a majorpolicy change would affect dramatically theirrights to those trees and forests. The resultswere simply lack of confidence in the systemand lack of incentives for tree planting.

Generally, the evidence is that where tenuresecurity was greatest, tree planting was mostsuccessful. Tenure security means basicallythree levels: land tenure security, forest owner-ship security, and also user rights security.

1.7. Communal Systems

Several researchers have pointed to the factthat communal forest tenure, especially in conditions of market economies, requires a“critical group size” to be effective, whereenforcement of rights and regulations can beoptimally implemented, and where economiesof scale and diversification make opportunitycosts affordable, particularly when the commu-nity has to invest in forest restoration or refor-estation. In other words, in any particularsituation of communal forest ownership, itseems that there is a certain size of the groupwhere forest management works best; if it is toosmall or too big, management is inefficient.

In many places, forest communities havetended to solve this issue by establishing a dualcommunity/user group system, where forest

116 Neef and Schwarzmeier, 2001. 116a Dachang, 2001.

12. Land Ownership and Forest Restoration 87

ownership remains at the community level, butuser rights (especially for trees) are allocated to smaller groups that act as forest manage-ment units. For example, in Honduras group-based management has proven better thancommunity-based management, but the experi-ence also shows that links between both arecritical at decision-making levels on broaderissues such as natural resources linked toforests: “What is required, therefore, is an insti-tutional arrangement that retains forest man-agement under group control, but which alsoprovides a protocol for liaison between groupand community and possibly some form ofprofit-sharing”117 i.e., an arrangement whereland and forest ownership remains in the com-munity, where decision making for the entirearea or landscape lies, while user rights for treesand other products are allocated to forestrygroups who act on behalf of the community.

The same logic applies to the duality community-households in many communalownership regimes.

An effective articulation of forest ownershipand use rights between small units (even indi-viduals) and larger units (community) seemstherefore a critical element for successful forestmanagement and restoration (although not theonly element, as already indicated). It is also afundamental tool to deal with the very impor-tant elements of equity and social stratificationor differentiation. It has been documented thatas much in agricultural lands as in forestlands,the egalitarianism that dominated ideologicalparadigms of agrarian reform and forest estatereform in the 20th century produced large frag-mentation of lands and forests as a result of thedistribution of family plots. The intention of the reformers, who were probably aware of the need to address problems of stratificationwithin rural communities, was to overcomecommunity differentiation by allocating equalplots to all families.118

In areas where this type of reform took place,fragmentation often made forest managementextremely inefficient, and restoration virtuallyimpossible, as a “critical size” is required inplots of forestland to make restoration or refor-estation viable; tree planting in these conditionsis often reduced to small numbers of treesaround houses and within agricultural plots—normally fruit trees.

1.8. Equity Issues

Stratification of local communities in relationto forest ownership is one of the equity issuesthat need to be addressed in community-ownedforests. Experience shows that often the mostforest-dependent groups have the least userrights, especially women,119 a situation thatcreates obstacles to developing solid, long-term, rights-based incentives for forest restora-tion. As in the case of the relationshipgroup/community, finding the appropriatearticulation of forest ownership and use rightsbetween specific groups of users, including indi-vidual users, and larger units (forests groupsand communities), in a stable, long-term policyframework, is critical to forest rehabilitationsuccess.

2. Examples

2.1. China: Restoration Benefitsand Incentives

Liu Dachang120 has extensively researched theexperience of China on forest policies, and con-cludes that generally user rights on trees are ofgreater importance than forest ownership perse for sustainable management and particularlyfor tree planting, reforestation, and restoration.For example, Liu Dachang shows that despiteclear tenure policies on forestlands in China, inperiods of stringent protective regulations ontrees there was no incentive for reforestation;strict market regulations, aimed at protectingforests by discouraging commercialisation of

117 Markopoulos, 1999, p. 46.118 As an example, in China, under the Land Reform Cam-paign initiated in 1950, “all rural households in a given geo-graphical area were given equal forest resources” (LiuDachang, 2001, p. 241). Exceptions to this policy were Tibetand the ethnic minority areas in the South of Yunnan,where community forests were established.

119 Neef and Schwarzmeier, 2001.120 Dachang, 2001, 2003.

88 G. Oviedo

timber, ended up discouraging tree plantingand therefore slowing down or totally stoppingreforestation of degraded lands owned by villagers. The conclusion here is that, at least inthe case of China, regulations to protect forestsby restricting tree owners’ rights to trees andtimber in fact removed incentives for treeplanting and therefore for reforestation andrestoration. Successful forest restorationdepends on incentives for tree owners to usethe trees when they are mature, and for forestowners to use also other forest products andservices; it thus depends on the clarity, extent,and enforceability of user and owner rightsover trees and forest products, where timberuse seems to play a major role.

But, if forest ownership rights are insufficientor even ineffective for successful restorationwhen not combined with user rights on treesand products, total lack of regulations on theuse of timber and forest products can createperverse market incentives, especially when theconditions of clarity and enforceability of rightsare not present in other adjacent forest areas.In such conditions, perverse market incentivesdiscourage owners and users from tree plant-ing, as the pressures from unregulated marketswhere competition exists from unsustainablymanaged forest areas (for example, areassubject to illegal timber extraction) wouldmake it impossible for forest owners to meetthe opportunity costs of tree planting and forestrestoration.

2.2. Forest Rights in Ethnic Groupsof Thailand and Vietnam

“The concept of individual rights to plantedtrees on agricultural fields applies to virtuallyall ethnic minority groups in the uplands ofnorthern Thailand and Vietnam,”121 but thereare considerable differences in gender-specificrights to plant trees due to distinct inheritancelaws.

“In strictly patrilineal societies like the Hmong,women are not allowed to inherit land. Thus, treeplanting by women is usually limited to the area

around the houses. . . . In contrast to the Hmong, theBlack Thai and Tay societies have strong matrilinealelements.Although land inheritance of women is notcommon, there are a few exceptions giving womenfully individual use rights, including the rights toplant trees. . . . Marketing of forest products such asbamboo shoots, medicinal plants and fuelwood ismainly done by women. Despite the strong involve-ment of women in collection and marketing of prod-ucts from the forests, they do not play a role insetting management rules.”121a

2.3. Strengthening User Rights forForest Restoration in Northeast Highlands of Ethiopia122

The Meket district in the North Wollo adminis-trative zone of Ethiopia ranges in altitude from2000 to 3400m above sea level and has a mix ofagroclimatic zones. Its inhabitants are almostwholly dependent on agriculture. As risingnumbers of people have put more pressure onthe land, fallow periods have shortened, andcontinuous ploughing has become common-place. Local people say that within a genera-tion, there has been dramatic deforestation, andthe grazing has declined in both quantity andquality. Expanding cultivation and increasingdemand for wood have left even the steepestslopes unprotected. Only about 8 percent of thetotal area remains under forest. Much of therainfall is lost through runoff, causing severesoil erosion and floods. Indigenous trees are notcommonly allowed to regenerate (except onsome church lands), and efforts to plant treeshave had little impact.

The Ethiopian people have had negativeexperiences of land reallocation over the last 20years, and are hence unwilling to invest effortin reforestation or regeneration activities. Dif-ferent types of forest ownership (individual,church, service cooperative, and community)can be found in the district, but none hasreversed the natural resource depletion.

Weak land-tenure and user rights wereclearly hindering effective community-led environmental conservation in Meket.

121 Neef and Schwarzmeier, 2001, p. 22.

121a Neef and Schwarzmeier, 2001.122 International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, 2000.

12. Land Ownership and Forest Restoration 89

In mid-1996, SOS Sahel, an internationalnongovernmental organisation (NGO), beganworking with local authorities and agricultureministry staff to seek a way to work with com-munities and solve these problems. Central tothese was the establishment of official userrights for villagers.

In the community reforestation project,communities were allowed to define their ownobjectives for their sites, but long-term plans (5to 10 years, or more if indigenous trees wereestablished) were required. Within communi-ties, reforestation groups were established, andeach group decided how to share the benefitsamong its members, and this had to be includedin the management plan. Similarly, each villagedeveloped its own strategy for guarding the site.

The proposed plan was then presented forapproval at the kebele (subdistrict) level byrelevant bodies: community representatives,subdistrict officials, and church leaders. It wasthen submitted to district officials and the agri-culture office. If the plan was approved, officialuser rights were given to the group for theirsite.

As a result of this approach, farmers’ partic-ipation in reforestation efforts increased. Atfirst, 14 villages received official user rights;20 more communities have since becomeinvolved, directly benefiting more than 2000households.

Natural regeneration of indigenous grass,shrub, and tree species has been dramatic.There are very clear differences when com-pared with unprotected sites.

Sufficient short-term benefits have beenrealised—such as improved forage andincreased production of thatching grass—tomotivate communities to strengthen andexpand their enclosure sites.

More secure user rights have created confi-dence among the communities. They haveexpressed strong interest to plant indigenousspecies (e.g., Hagenia abyssinica, Juniperusprocera, Olea africana) instead of eucalyptus.

Communities have started to expand theirsites, and new communities want to establishtheir own enclosures. Some are seeking com-pensation from the subdistrict administrationfor individual farmers who are cultivating land

within the future enclosures. Some villages haveeven begun a similar process without outsideintervention or support.

Farmers seem to have accepted the introduc-tion of cut-and-carry fodder systems. This mayprove to be one of the most significant impactsfor the Ethiopian highlands.

2.4. Limited Success in theProtection Forest Walomerah,Indonesia123

The province of East Nusa Tenggara consists ofthe main island of Flores, Sumba, the Westernpart of Timor and a number of smaller islands.In 1992 the population of the province totalled3.3 million. With an average rainfall rangingfrom 2196mm in Manggarai district to 805mmin Alor district and not so fertile soils, the con-ditions for agriculture are not very favourable.

About 36 percent of the land area of theisland of Flores has by ministerial decree beenclassified as forest land and one third of thisforest land as Protection Forests. The largestpart of this has in reality little or no tree coverand has for generations been tilled by the pop-ulation living there.

The protection forest of the mountainWalomerah in Ngada district is one such area.As part of the Presidential Instruction Pro-gramme (INPRES) for the development ofIndonesia, this particular protection forest wasto be reforested. The project, which began in1995, was to start with the reforestation of 500hectares, including part of the village Wangka,which covers 9000 hectares. Almost all of the2400 inhabitants secure their livelihoods fromsubsistence farming, as their ancestors havedone for generations. They are totally depend-ent on the land. Their traditional rights to landhad been recognised by the government, but all 9000 hectares of this village lie within theprotection forest. According to the legislationapplying to such areas, the villagers were notallowed to occupy this area on a permanentbasis.

123 Vochten and Mulyana, 1995.

90 G. Oviedo

The Forest Service decided it was necessaryto consult with these villagers with the purposeof better understanding their living situationand see to what extent the reforestation projectcould be modified to accommodate their needsand aspirations. Several problems directly orindirectly connected with the proposed refor-estation were identified by the villagers whotook part in such consultations. The problemconcerning the status of their land tenure rightssurfaced as a key conflict. Even though theyhad been paying their land ownership taxesregularly, rights to use forest products could notbe granted to them.

This key issue, land tenure rights, was notsolved in this reforestation project. Some usefulcompromises were reached, and an attempt wasmade to balance the undisputed need for refor-estation with the primary need of farmers—land. But clearly it was not possible to moveahead with enough confidence in the project’ssuccess without addressing further the issue ofland and forest produce rights.

3. Outline of Tools

Tools useful to addressing ownership issues in forest restoration are basically the same that have proven useful in the case of examin-ing land and resource tenure in different conditions.

1. Land and resource mapping: This can bedone at any level, to learn about the environ-mental, economic, and social resources in thecommunity. A variation of mapping is the tech-nique of transects, which focusses on specificareas of a community’s land, for learning aboutthe community’s natural resource base, landforms, and land use, location and size of farmsor homesteads, and location and availability of infrastructure and services, and economicactivities.

2. The International Tropical Timber Organ-isation (ITTO) restoration guidelines are auseful tool addressing ownership issues. Toensure secure land tenure, these guidelines rec-ommend (recommended actions 13 to 16): “13)Clarify and legitimise equitable tenure, access,use and other customary rights in degraded and

secondary forests among national and localstakeholders. 14) Strengthen the rights of forestdwellers and indigenous people. 15) Establish atransparent mechanism for conflict resolutionwhere property and access rights are not clear.16) Provide incentives for stabilizing colonists/farmers in agricultural frontier zones.”

3. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) orparticipatory rapid rural appraisal have beendescribed many times in the literature.124 Amethodological illustration of a PRA exercisefor forest restoration in Indonesia125 is asfollows:

The PRA facilitator team included 14 people:from the government . . . , from local NGOs . . . ,and the authors. . . . The main actors were the res-idents of two of the four hamlets of the villageWangka, which adjoined the proposed reforesta-tion site.They collected the information, analysedthe problems, considered the options, and drewup the final reforestation plan. The facilitatorssupported this by introducing certain techniquesto structure the information. They also listenedand learned. The entire PRA lasted only threedays in the field, from October 12–14, 1993. It waspreceded by a one day gathering of the facilita-tors to exchange information about the PRAtechniques to be used and to inform themselvesabout the village of Wangka. At the start of thePRA, the facilitators introduced themselves andthe purpose of their visit and then split into twogroups each to cover one of the hamlets. On thefirst day a map of the village including the pro-posed reforestation site was made. Then a sea-sonal calendar, presenting the main events andactivities of the community (agricultural, reli-gious, festivals, etc.) was made. On the second daya transect of the respective hamlets and the pro-posed reforestation site was made. Later in theday a matrix ranking was done to learn about thepreferred tree species. On the final day the resultsof the PRA exercise in both hamlets were com-bined and presented by the villagers who hadbeen involved in the PRA at a village meeting.This was also attended by representatives fromthe other two hamlets, the village head (kepaladesa), and the head of the Forestry Service ofNgada District. During this meeting, spiced withanimated discussions, problems were reviewed

124 Notably, Chambers, 1994; Chambers and Guijt, 1995.125 Vochten and Mulyana, 1995.

12. Land Ownership and Forest Restoration 91

and compromises made. Finally a work pro-gramme for implementing the reforestationproject was produced. To ensure its future imple-mentation the facilitators met with representa-tives of the concerned government agencies andpresented the proposal to them the next day.

4. FAO’s Socio-economic and GenderAnalysis (SEAGA): This is an approach todevelopment based on an analysis of socioeco-nomic patterns and participatory identificationof women’s and men’s priorities. The objectiveof the SEAGA approach is to close the gapsbetween what people need and what develop-ment delivers. It uses three toolkits: the Devel-opment Context Toolkit, for learning about theeconomic, environmental, social, and institu-tional patterns that pose supports or constraintsfor development; the Livelihood AnalysisToolkit, for learning about the flow of activitiesand resources through which different peoplemake their living; and the Stakeholders’ Prior-ities for Development Toolkit, for planningdevelopment activities based on women’s andmen’s priorities.

5. Dachang approaches the analysis ofdrivers for forest restoration in South Chinathrough a logical procedure consisting of threestages: diagnosis, design, and delivery (Tri-D).This procedure is the result of an adaptation offarming system approaches and rapid ruralappraisal (RRA) or PRA to the identificationof problems and to the design and testing offorestry and agroforestry options. This proce-dure has been used commonly in community-based agroforestry research.

6. User rights/stakeholder analysis: Ageneral long-term objective is to gain knowl-edge about the community, and to appreciate“how to approach and structure a collaborationprocess.”126 For WWF, stakeholder analysis “isthe process by which the various stakeholderswho might have an interest in a conservationinitiative are identified. A stakeholder analysisgenerates information about stakeholders andtheir interests, the relationships between them,their motivations, and their ability to influenceoutcomes. There are numerous approaches tostakeholder analysis, ranging from the formal

to informal, comprehensive to superficial.” Afrequent problem of these approaches, however,is a narrow understanding of stakes and differ-entiation within communities, associated withthe absence of consideration of tenure rights. Asecond conceptual and methodological problemis that often conservation organisations defineprimary stakeholders as “those who, because ofpower, authority, responsibilities, or claims overthe resources, are central to any conservationinitiative,” while in reality primary stakeholdersare those with closer dependence and rights onthe resources involved.

7. The German agency GTZ proposes fourprinciples to assist decision makers in theprocess of drafting and enforcing propertyrelated legislation. The principles also serve asyardsticks for evaluating existing land tenuresystems and reforms, and thus they can be usedto assess the forest ownership situation in anygiven country, and monitoring progress inestablishing clear tenure systems. The proposedprinciples are (1) certainty in law, (2) the ruleof law and human rights, (3) political participa-tion of the population in land issues, and (4)definition of property in market economies.Ideally, the development of forest restorationinterventions should be preceded and accom-panied by a process by which these principlesguide an appraisal of the situation of forestownership, and help identify the critical inter-ventions to follow to ensure success of the ini-tiatives in the long term.

8. The International Institute of RuralReconstruction127 offers advice as shown in Box12.1 on addressing land tenure issues. This islargely applicable to situations where forestrestoration is planned, and where forest own-ership is an issue requiring specific actions.

4. Future Needs

The following areas require further development:

• Understanding better the complex issues ofrights and how they interact with variousfactors, such as incentives and policy environ-

126 WWF-US, 2000a,b. 127 International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, 2000.

92 G. Oviedo

ments, is a task that needs to be undertakenon the basis of specific cases of forest restora-tion. It is therefore recommended that suchinitiatives include in their plans the ongoingaccompaniment of the process by researchersequipped to understand the links betweenrights and incentives.

• Use experience to synthesise guidance in the form of option menus for dealing withtenure issues in different situations. For themoment, most of the experiences of forestrestoration offer lessons of mostly local ornational value on ownership matters, difficultto generalise and to apply to other situations.An analytical effort of learning more fromthose lessons and then systematising themfor guidance would be valuable, always withthe understanding that lesson-based guid-ance is indicative only, and any mechanisticapplication of experiences from one place toanother needs to be avoided.

• Research further on experiences (successfuland unsuccessful) of forest restoration underdifferent types of ownership, to better under-

stand how rights’ systems (including from creation or granting of rights to law enforce-ment and judicial processes) impact on theresults—in the short, medium, and longterms. In undertaking such research, it is fundamental to use a conceptual and meth-odological framework that is based on theunderstanding of the complexities of thebundle of forest ownership rights, avoidingfor example an exclusive focus on landtenure.

References

Chambers, R. 1994a. The origins and practice of par-ticipatory rural appraisal. World Development22(7):953–969.

Chambers, R. 1994b. Participatory rural appraisal(PRA): analysis of experience. World Develop-ment 22(9):1253–1268.

Chambers, R. 1994c. Participatory rural appraisal(PRA): challenges, potentials and paradigm.World Development 22(10):1437–1454.

Box 12.1. Do’s and Don’ts from International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (2000)

Do’sBegin with a clear understanding of the local

situation and policy context.Use a two-pronged approach for advocacy

and lobbying work—at the top with policymakers, and on the ground to demonstrateimpact.

Start with a clear shared vision with partnersat all levels.

Have a clear understanding of policies andstrategies.

Prepare clear guidelines in the local lan-guage and share with all stakeholders.

Actively share experiences and ideas.Be patient: be prepared to invest a lot of

effort and time.Strive to build the technical and managerial

capacity of communities.Full coordination with local government

officials and line agencies is essential; they

can play a key role in monitoring theentire process.

Work toward establishing official legislationfor user rights to greatly strengthen theprocess.

Help communities understand that a short-term reduction in fuelwood availabilitywill result from enclosure, and assist themto find ways to deal with this problem.

Don’tsDon’t start with sensitive issues (e.g., dis-

cussing the problems of the land-tenuresituation).

Don’t allow conflicts to become too large.Try to resolve them as soon as possible.

Don’t impose plans.Don’t monopolize the intervention. Partners

should be key players in the process.

12. Land Ownership and Forest Restoration 93

Chambers, R., and Guijt, I. 1995. PRA—Five yearslater. Where are we now? Forests, Trees andPeople Newsletter 26/27:4–13.

Clogg, J. 1997. Tenure reform for ecologically andsocially responsible forest use in British Columbia.A paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmen-tal Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirementsfor the degree of Master in EnvironmentalStudies, York University, North York, Ontario,Canada.

Dachang, L. 2001. Tenure and management of non-state forests in China since 1950: a historicalreview. Environmental History 6(2):239–263.

Dachang, L., ed. 2003. Rehabilitation of DegradedForests to Improve Livelihoods of Poor Farmers inSouth China. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia.

International Institute of Rural Reconstruction.2000. Sustainable Agriculture Extension Manual.IIRR, Silang, Cavite, Philippines.

Markopoulos, M.D. 1999. The Impacts of Certifica-tion on Campesino Forestry Groups in NorthernHonduras. Oxford Forestry Institute (OFI),Oxford, UK.

Molnar, A., Scherr, S., and Khare, A. 2004. Who conserves the world’s forests? Comunity-drivenstrategies to protect forests and respect rights.Forest Trends, Ecoagriculture Partners,Washington,DC.

Neef, A., and Schwarzmeier, R. 2001. Land TenureSystems and Rights in Trees and Forests: Interde-pendencies, Dynamics and the Role of Develop-ment Cooperation, Case Studies from MainlandSoutheast Asia. GTZ, Division 4500 Rural Devel-opment, Eschborn, Germany.

Vochten, P., and Mulyana, A. 1995. Reforestation,protection forest and people—finding compro-mises through PRA, Forests, Trees and PeopleNewsletter, FAO, issues 26/27.

White, A., and Martin, A. 2002. Who Owns theWorld’s Forests? Forest Tenure and Public Forestsin Transition. Forest Trends, Washington, DC.

World Wildlife Fund USA. 2000a. A Guide toSocioeconomic Assessments for Ecoregion Con-servation. WWF–US Ecoregional ConservationStrategies Unit, Washington, DC.

World Wildlife USA. 2000b. Stakeholder Collabora-tion: Building Bridges for Conservation. WWF–

US Ecoregional Conservation Strategies Unit,Research and Development, Washington, DC.

Ziff, B. 1993. Principles of Property Law. Carswell.Scarborough, Canada.

Additional Reading

Agrawal, A., and Ostrom, E. 1999. Collective action,property rights, and devolution of forest and pro-tected area management. Research paper. S/l.

Barton Bray, D., Merino-Perez, L., Negreros Castillo,P., Segura-Warnholtz, G., Torres, J.M., and Vester,H.F.M. 2003. Mexico’s community-managedforests as a global model for sustainable land-scapes. Conservation Biology 17(3):672–677.

Chambers, R. 1983. Rural Development: Putting theLast First, Longman, London.

Chambers, R. 1993. Challenging the Professions.Frontiers for Rural Development. IntermediateTechnology Publications, London.

Chambers, R. 1996. Whose Reality Counts? Inter-mediate Technology Publications, London.

Chambers, R. 2002. Participatory Workshops: ASourcebook, Institute of Development Studies,Brighton, UK.

Chambers, R., and Leach, M. 1990. Trees as Savingsand Security for the Rural Poor. Unasylva161(41):39–52.

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UnitedNations, FAO. 2001. SEAGA—Socio-Economicand Gender Analysis Package. FAO Socio-Economic and Gender Analysis Programme.Gender and Population Division, SustainableDevelopment Department, Rome.

GTZ. 1998. Guiding Principles: Land Tenure inDevelopment Cooperation. Deutsche Gesel-lschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, Abt. 45,Div. 45.

Jaramillo, C.F., and Kelly, T. 2000. La deforestación ylos derechos de propiedad en América Latina.http://www.imacmexico.org/ev_es.php?ID=5587_203&ID2=DO_TOPIC.

Lamb, D., and Gilmour, D. 2003. Rehabilitation andRestoration of Degraded Forests. IUCN/WWF,Gland, Switzerland.

1. Introduction

Since the start of its Forest Landscape Restora-tion programme in 2000, WWF, the global conservation organisation, has faced a numberof challenges related to (1) the planning ofrestoration in large scales, (2) the integration ofsocial and ecological dimensions, and (3) theimplementation of restoration programmes ona large scale. A more detailed analysis of specific lessons learned from forest landscaperestoration projects can be found in this bookin the part entitled” Lessons Learned and theWay Forward.”This chapter focusses instead onspecific challenges anticipated for future pro-grammes to restore forest functions in land-scapes, based on experience in the first 4 yearsof WWF’s restoration programme. While this

draws on experience within one organisation,we hope that the brief summary of some of the tasks we have identified will also be usefulto governments, nongovernment organisations,(NGOs) and others interested in developingrestoration projects, large or small.

We started WWF’s restoration initiative withsome concepts (e.g., the need to integrate socio-economics, the concept of trading off land useswithin landscapes, the idea of working at a landscape scale), and also some principles (e.g.,balancing ecological and social needs, adoptingwhere possible a participatory approach). Forthe last 4 years, we have been testing out thesetheories in practice in field programmes aroundthe world. One early result was recognition thatthere was a lack of succinct information forpractitioners, which was the driving forcebehind this book. In light of WWF’s experienceto date, a number of future challenges andopportunities have been identified128:

1.1. Setting Realistic Goals for Restoration Within a Landscape

A failure of past restoration efforts can betraced back to having started with unrealisticgoals or alternatively with very narrow goalsthat fail to take into account local and sur-rounding socioeconomic realities. For thisreason it is important to set goals that are atonce realistic but also consider the many dif-

13Challenges for Forest LandscapeRestoration Based on WWF’sExperience to DateStephanie Mansourian and Nigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Some of the most important challenges iden-tified by WWF’s forest landscape restorationprogramme in its first four years, include thefollowing:

The need to better value forest goods andservices

The need to increase capacity to deal withlandscape restoration issues

The need to better monitor the return offorest functions at a landscape scale

94

128 Mansourian, 2004.

13. Challenges for Forest Landscape Restoration 95

ferent outputs required from most landscapes.In a landscape context, restoration goals forconservation organisations will often be closelylinked to other activities relating to protectedareas and sustainable forest management.Thus,restoration may seek to complement a pro-tected area or relieve pressure on it. Equally,restoration can happen within and around theestate of a managed forest. Forest restorationgoals within a landscape generally have toaddress both social and ecological needs; theymay, for instance, relate to restoration ofspecies’ habitat in one location but also to theestablishment of fuelwood plantations else-where. In all cases, the key will be to attempt tobalance those goals to provide optimal benefits(also see “Goals and Targets of Forest Land-scape Restoration,” “Negotiations and ConflictManagement,” and “Addressing Trade-Offs inForest Landscape Restoration”).

1.2. Ensuring that Restoration IsNot Used as an Excuse for Uncontrolled Exploitation

One reason many conservationists still balk atrestoration is that it can be seen to provide ajustification for failing to address the problemsof degradation. Given the cost, duration, anddifficulty of restoration, we do not believe thatthis is a viable argument. However, the fact thatconservation organisations encourage restora-tion should not be interpreted as licence fordegradation, because in many circumstancesrestoration activities will not be able to recoverall of the values that have been lost. There is afine line between actively offering restorationas a solution to dwindling natural resourceswithout undermining efforts at protection orgood management of these resources.

1.3. Active or Passive Restoration?

In some cases it is clear that restoration isalready urgently necessary. At this point thefirst question for a community, conservationorganisation, or government becomes one ofchoice between passive and active restoration.Passive restoration, which means creating suitable conditions for restoration to happen

through natural processes (e.g., by fencing anarea against grazing or preventing artificial fire)is usually considered to be the most desirablesolution, being simpler, cheaper, and more akinwith natural processes. However, there comes a point (a status of degradation or particular set of ecological and social conditions) whenactive restoration is necessary, either becauserecovery needs to be speeded up to protectthreatened biodiversity or because ecologicalconditions have changed so profoundly thatnatural processes need some assistance. Thechallenge for conservation planners is some-times whether to wait for passive restoration,and risk further degradation and in the futurea more expensive restoration process, or tojump straight into active restoration. Develop-ment of a more sophisticated set of criteria or tools for helping make these kinds of deci-sions will be one of the major needs in thefuture.

1.4. Promoting the Concept ofMultifunctional Landscapes

If conservation organisations are to address the big emerging issues related to forestry andbiodiversity, we will need to engage much more closely with social actors, an example isthe emerging WWF-CARE partnership. Anemphasis on “multifunctional landscapes,” thatis, landscapes that provide a mixture of envi-ronmental, social, and economic goods andservices through a mosaic of sites managed withdiffering but harmonised objectives, can help toprovide balanced approaches in landscapes thatcontain both environmental and social prob-lems. One implication of this is that forestrestoration in most cases will not be a viableactivity unless it goes hand in hand with forestmanagement and usually also with forest protection.

1.5. Sustainability of Restoration—Valuing Forest Goods, Services,and Processes to be Restored

Active restoration is an expensive process,and in most cases conservationists (both stategovernment and NGOs) still opt to direct avail-

96 S. Mansourian and N. Dudley

able conservation budgets toward protectioninstead. However, in many cases these decisionsare not being taken in full knowledge of thelong-term costs and benefits. For instance, it isoften easier to build political support for settingaside a mountainous area of forest to protec-tion because it appears to entail limited cost, orat least delayed costs, whereas the apparentcost of restoring a more accessible or econom-ically valuable habitat such as a lowland forestappears immediately. But if the long-term valueof a restored forest were properly estimated,then on balance the net costs might not appearto be as high. In some cases, it may make moresense to focus efforts on protection, in othersmore on restoration or a mixture of both. Onefuture challenge is to increase skills and toolsfor valuation of the costs and benefits of variousapproaches so that more balanced judgementscan be made.

1.6. Long Term Monitoring andEvaluating Impact of Restoration within Large Scales

Monitoring and evaluation are essential in anyconservation programme, to help facilitateadaptive management, and have been identi-fied as one of the most critical elements insuccess. They become particularly crucial in alarge-scale restoration effort, which will spanseveral decades and will involve many differentactors. Mistakes need to be redressed andimprovements need to be made. Proper moni-toring tools that are adapted to a large scaleneed to be developed and then applied rigorously.

1.7. When Can We Claim Success?When Is a Landscape Restored?

There is no clear end point for restoration. Anatural forest is itself not a fixed or staticecosystem but is generally in constant evolutionand flux. In any case, many restoration projectswill not be aiming to re-create an “original”forest.Agreeing and then finding ways of meas-uring an end point is therefore a challenge

particularly for organisations such as WWF,which work in time-limited programmes and totargets that are often agreed to between NGOsand donors. In practice, targets need to be setat the level of a specific landscape. For instance,is the ultimate aim of a forest landscaperestoration programme to return a certainendangered animal species to a viable popula-tion? Or is it to improve water quality? Or is itto reverse the decline in forest quality? Manyrestoration projects have multiple aims, such asrestoring habitat for species but also increasingnontimber forest products for local communi-ties. By setting goals, conservation organisa-tions should be able to establish meaningfulprogrammes, whilst recognising that forestlandscape restoration is never a short-termproject with a clear beginning and end. Effortsshould be longer term, and specific measures ofsuccess will necessarily be steps along a trajec-tory toward a healthier and more sustainableforest landscape.

1.8. Resources

Forest restoration at the scale of large land-scapes can be enormously costly. In addition,the longer we wait before undertaking restora-tion, the more degraded the landscape is likelyto have become (for instance, seeds of originalspecies may no longer be present, soil condi-tions will have changed) and therefore thehigher the costs of restoration are likely to be.Many restoration efforts have failed throughlack of resources. Ideally, systems that integratethe cost of restoration within landscape-levelactivities via taxes (for instance on ecotourists)or via payment for environmental services (forinstance, for the provision of clean water, alsosee “Payment for Environmental Services andRestoration”) should provide long-term andsustainable financing for restoration activities.However, this assumes both that costs and ben-efits can be measured accurately, which is stilloften a challenge, and that there is sufficientpolitical support for restoration that such payments can be levied. Establishing means for long-term funding that go beyond donorproject cycles remains a key challenge for thefuture.

13. Challenges for Forest Landscape Restoration 97

1.9. Capacity

A restoration programme carried out overlarge areas is likely to require many differentskills, for instance negotiating skills, lobbyingskills, monitoring skills, small enterprise devel-opment skills, plantation skills, nursery devel-opment skills, etc. It is important to ensure thatlocal capacity to support the long-term restora-tion effort exists. In many cases this requirestraining as well as the partnering of differentinstitutions to share their respective knowledgeand expertise.

2. Examples

These examples demonstrate some of the practi-cal challenges that have been encountered. Theymay not all be as fundamental as those listedabove, but are interesting to highlight as theydemonstrate the full range of challenges that mayemerge from real experiences.

2.1. Vietnam: The Challenge ofDealing with Pressures on Remaining Forests

The government of Vietnam is well aware ofthe importance of its forests, for instance toensure water quality, and has taken significantforest areas out of production. But pressuresremain because local people face serious landshortages, and restoration efforts have untilnow mainly been aimed at intensive plantationsthat supply only a small proportion of thepotential goods and services. Restorationefforts in Vietnam therefore need to embracedemonstration projects both to show what ispossible and to work with government author-ities to modify current restoration policies (see case study “Monitoring Forest LandscapeRestoration in Vietnam”).

2.2. Madagascar: The Challenge ofChoosing a Priority Landscape for Restoration

In a country like Madagascar that has lost over90 percent of its forest, it would seem straight-

forward to decide where to restore. Nonethe-less, given scarce resources and given a difficultsocioeconomic context (Madagascar is one ofthe poorest countries on the planet, and poorpeople survive largely from slash and burn agri-culture), it is necessary to select priority area(s)to begin a large-scale restoration programme.In 2003 WWF brought together a number ofstakeholders from government, civil society,and the private sector to define together whatmight be criteria for choosing a priority land-scape in which to restore forest functions.

The group identified the following categoriesof criteria:

1. Sociocultural2. Economic3. Ecological/biophysical4. Political

Within these categories, some of the 24 criteria were, for example:

• Type of land tenure• Values attributed to forests by local people• Proximity of fragments to a large forest plot• Level of diversification of revenue sources• Presence of management entity for the

landscape• Numbers of species used by local communi-

ties that have been lost• Level of involvement of communities in local

environmental actions

Members of the national working group onforest landscape restoration then visited ashort-listed selection of landscapes and ratedeach against the 24 criteria. The outcome was aprioritised list of landscapes that need to berestored based on criteria that were developedlocally and that were very specific to local conditions.129

2.3. New Caledonia:The Challenge of Dealing with Multiple Partners

It took 2 years to develop an agreed to part-nership, strategy, and plan, and to engage eightother partners in the dry forest restoration

129 Allnutt et al, 2004.

98 S. Mansourian and N. Dudley

programme for New Caledonia. While this mayseem a long time to invest in building a part-nership, the fruits of such an effort are nowbeing felt as the programme is taking off.The programme carries much more weight inthe eyes of all stakeholders because of the partnership.

2.4. Malaysia: The Challenge ofIdentifying Priority Species for Restoration

While restoration along the Kinabatangan riverwas identified as a priority in order to recon-nect patches of forest for biodiversity, the selec-tion of appropriate species was not clearlydone. For this reason a demonstration site hasbeen set up where different species and tech-

niques (from simply fencing to weeding oractive planting) are being tested and monitoredin order to identify the approach that is bestsuited to local conditions and which can thenbe propagated along the corridor.

References

Allnutt, T., Mansourian, S., and Erdmann, T. 2004.Setting preliminary biological and ecologicalrestoration targets for the landscape of Fandriana-Marolambo in Madagascar’s moist forest eco-region. WWF internal paper. WWF, Gland,Switzerland.

Mansourian, S. 2004. Challenges and opportunitiesfor WWF’s Forest Landscape Restoration pro-gramme. WWF internal paper. WWF, Gland,Switzerland.

Section VIA Suite of Planning Tools

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

A broadly shared understanding and accept-ance by all stakeholders is fundamental to thesuccess of any restoration project. There are

countless examples of attempts at restorationfailing because one person’s “restoration” isoften another person’s degradation. Here aresome examples:

• Attempts by the Indonesian Ministry ofForestry to “restore” Imperata grasslands by planting trees failed because local peoplehad no use for the trees (they belonged to the foresters) but they made extensive usesof the grasslands. The grasslands providedfodder for their cattle and grass for roofing.

• Attempts to plant spruce forests to restorethe degraded moorlands of northernEngland and Scotland were opposed byamenity and conservation groups becausethe moorland scenery had come to beaccepted as “natural” and “beautiful” and itwas the habitat of rare birds.

• Government attempts to restore tree coveron the uplands of Vietnam were opposed by local people because the types of treesplanted by the government were not the onesthat local people needed or could use.

• Government-sponsored tree plantingschemes in China have denied local peopleaccess to medicinal plants and have damagedthe habitats of rare plants and animals in thedry mountainous areas of South Western andWestern China.

• Attempts to restore pristine nature indegraded areas in the United States areopposed by some conservationists who con-sider that such artificially restored areas cannever have the value of a pristine landscape.

14Goals and Targets of ForestLandscape RestorationJeffrey Sayer

Key Points to Retain

Outside experts cannot alone set goals andtargets because they are never self-evident.

Careful multi-stakeholder processes areneeded to set goals and targets that will bebroadly accepted.

Goals and targets will change with time andneed to be adapted.

Pristine “pre-intervention” nature is onlyone of many possible goals.

101

The most fundamental (question) relates to the defi-nition of the goals and targets for restoration projects.It would seem that definition would be simple, but it is often complex and involves difficult decisions and compromises. Ideally, restoration reproduces theentire system in question, complete in all its aspects—genetics, populations, ecosystems, and landscapes.This means not merely replicating the system’s com-position, structure and functions, but also its dynam-ics—even allowing for evolutionary as well asecological change (Meffe and Carroll, 1994).

102 J. Sayer

Pretending that restoration is possible is seenas a ploy by commercial interests to justifyactivities that degrade nature.

The basic problem is that what is perceived as“degraded” by one interest group may be per-ceived as desirable by another group. Forestersconsider land degraded if it does not support acrop of commercially valuable trees. Ecologistsconsider a forest degraded if it does not havemultiple layers of vegetation and a reasonablenumber of dead or decaying trees as habitat forbirds and invertebrate. Amenity groups do notlike dense forests; they want mosaics of wood-land and open land with extensive views.The listis endless. The basic lesson is that there cannever be a single vision of an “end point” forrestoration that will automatically meet withthe approval of all interested parties.

2. Steps to Success

The first task in any broad-scale restoration ini-tiative, therefore, is to find out what everyonewould ideally like to see as an outcome andthen to negotiate compromises between whatwill inevitably be a collection of different view-points and attempt to come up with a scenariothat is acceptable to all.

It is unwise to assume that once an end pointhas been negotiated that the “visioning thing”is done. As landscapes change so the percep-tions and needs of interest groups will evolve.Restoration is often a moving target. Markets,recreational needs, conservation priorities, etc.all change with time, and what people wanttoday will not necessarily be what they willwant tomorrow.

Dunwiddie130 has argued that objectives forrestoration projects should be defined as“motion pictures” rather than “snapshots.” Theproblem is that objects such as species are mucheasier to specify and monitor in projects thanare processes such as ecosystem function andcommunity dynamics.

The following concepts and approaches canbe used as tools to ensure that forest landscape

restoration projects are moving in the rightdirection:

2.1. Answer the Questions:Restoring What, for Whom and Why

These are the most important questions yetthey are frequently not properly addressed inrestoration projects.

These questions should be answered by real stakeholders—local people, conservationorganisations, etc.—those who will do the workor incur the costs and benefits.

Avoid programmes that are “expert driven”and ensure that development assistance agen-cies stay honest, that they are explicit abouttheir real objectives and recognise that theyalso are interested parties.

2.2. Work with Scenarios, Visions,and Stakeholder Processes

There is an abundant literature on methods forinvolving stakeholders in the development ofscenarios and visions. Care has to be taken toensure that the interests of less powerful groupsare addressed. Achieving genuine public par-ticipation is not just common sense—it requiresprofessional skills. Neutral professional facili-tation is almost always necessary. The Centrefor International Forestry Research (CIFOR)and the International Institute for Environmentand Development (IIED) Web sites provideaccess to the literature on these approaches.

Simple modelling tools exist for exploringoptions and making assumptions explicit.STELLA, VENSIM, and SIMILE are widelyused. These models are the best tools for devel-oping scenarios, understanding the drivers of change in a system, making stakeholderassumptions and understanding explicit, andthen tracking progress toward goals that areidentified as desirable.

The concept of getting into the system131 isfundamental.This means engaging for the long-term, becoming a stakeholder, and makingone’s interest explicit. In the case of WWF, as

130 Dunwiddie, 1992. 131 Sayer and Campbell, 2004.

14. Goals and Targets of Forest Landscape Restoration 103

with other conservation organisations, thisinterest is principally biodiversity, and we haveto make commitments for what we are pre-pared to contribute in cash or other contribu-tions to support the achievement of ourbiodiversity goals.

2.3. Understand DevelopmentTrajectories

What would happen if we did not intervene?What is the underlying development trajec-tory? What are the principal drivers of change?It is vital to get the correct answers to thesequestions. Modelling can help. Normally only a small number of drivers of change are sig-nificant at any one time. We have to know which ones they are and how they can be influenced.132

We must also understand the underlyingprocesses of ecological succession.133 Thefactors that influence restoration at a singlelocation are not necessarily confined to thatplace. A variety of extrasectoral influences such as economic and trade policies and levelsof public understanding of issues will have acontinuing and variable influence on restora-tion processes.

2.4. Use Monitoring and Evaluationas a Management Tool

Monitoring and evaluation have to be linked tothe desired outcomes of interventions. Negoti-ating these outcomes is the first and mostimportant activity in any programme. Indica-tors of the desired outcomes have to be agreedto or negotiated at the beginning, and they thenbecome the tools for adaptive management.134

The book by Sayer and Campbell has a chapteron this issue that gives further references to themonitoring and evaluation literature.134a

2.5. Find and Protect ReferenceLandscapes

Whether or not the objective of forest land-scape restoration is to restore the “original”vegetation cover, it will always be useful to havereference areas that are as near as possible tothe natural conditions of the area (see “Identi-fying and Using Reference Landscapes forRestoration”). These are useful as benchmarks,for understanding ecological processes, for edu-cation, and as sources of plants and animals tobe used in assisted restoration.

Much has been written about attempts torestore a pristine, climax, “natural” land cover.There are lots of problems with this approach,not least of which is the difficulty of knowingwhat the preintervention situation was. It is alsoimportant to avoid falling into the trap ofassuming that natural systems reach a climaxcondition and are then constant—this is rarelythe case. Even in the remotest and least dis-turbed parts of the Congo Basin or the Amazonthe species’ composition of the forests today isnot the same as it was 100, 500, or 5000 yearsago. Natural landscapes are highly dynamic,and decisions to restore to “natural” conditionswill always be arbitrary and open to multipleinterpretations. Reference landscapes, or plots,with minimal intervention remain valuable inhelping us to understand landscape processesand can be useful components of any large-scale restoration programme. They can be valu-able as examples to look at during negotiationprocesses.

Normally restoring “natural conditions” isjust one of a range of possible objectives, andin most situations what one restores will bedefined by more precise production and envi-ronmental objectives.

2.6. Be Realistic About DesignerLandscapes

Once a comprehensive stakeholder participa-tion process is engaged, it will graduallybecome possible to begin to talk about desir-able outcomes. Eventually a vision of a“designer landscape” may begin to emerge.Different approaches and tools are useful to

132 See the Web site of the Resilience Alliance and publi-cation by Berkes et al, 2003.133 Walker and del Moral, 2003.134 CIFOR’s work on Adaptive Collaborative Managementprovides guidance.134a Sayer and Campbell, 2004.

104 J. Sayer

explore what the landscape should look like inorder to respond to the needs and wishes of dif-ferent interest groups.

3. Outline of Tools

Stakeholders may decide that a certain land-scape configuration and condition is ideal fortheir objectives. But usually different stake-holders have different ideals. To fine-tune alandscape vision, some specific approaches canbe used depending on the restoration goal:

Biodiversity: Modelling tools developed by theUnited Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre(UNEP-WCMC) are useful.135 Some assump-tions about corridors and connectivity haveto be treated with caution.136 One should notalways assume that protected areas should beas big as possible. There are often significantopportunity costs that protected areas createfor local people. Protected areas should be of an optimal size, not necessarily as big aspossible.136 The importance of seral stages in vegetation development is often underes-timated. Many wildlife species require earlysuccessional vegetation for their survival.

Poverty mapping and assessment: The WorldAgroforestry Centre has a lot to offer on thistopic (see “Agroforestry as a Tool for ForestLandscape Restoration”).

Land care: The Landcare programme in Aus-tralia and now expanding elsewhere is aninteresting model for participatory multi-stakeholder restoration programmes.

Water: Lots of common assumptions about thevalue of land cover for water quality andquantity are not borne out by empirical evi-dence. Forest cover may consume morewater than it conserves; it all depends on thetype of trees, the frequency and intensity ofrainfall, and the nature of the underlying sub-strate. Expert advice should be sought on thehydrological implications of restoration pro-

grammes (also see “Restoring Water Qualityand Quantity”).

Amenity: The Netherlands, the UnitedKingdom, and the United States haverestoration programmes with a heavyemphasis on amenity. This is the realm oflandscape architecture.138

Avalanche control: This is an important issue intemperate and boreal countries and there isan abundant literature.

Timber:Timber is the real objective of much so-called restoration. Caution is needed becausenarrow timber production objectives arerarely consistent with the broader objectivesof local people and the environment.

Tree crops: Tree crops include oil palm, coffee,cacao, rubber etc. More can be found on thistopic in the chapter on agroforestry, citedabove, but also in publications on extractivereserves and jungle rubber.

4. Future Needs

4.1. Improved Economic Analysis

Restoring landscapes is expensive, but can andshould yield economic benefits. The valuationof environmental goods and services is still animprecise science. The valuation of the sub-sistence products used by poor subsistencefarmers is also a challenge. But all large-scalerestoration initiatives have to be rooted in economic realism. The cost-benefit ratios areessential in determining what is possible anddesirable. There are countless examples offorest restoration programmes that have cost alot of money and yielded few real benefits.

It is especially important to remember thatinvestments in restoration carry opportunitycosts—the same money could be invested inemployment creation, establishing protectedareas, etc. Even though complete economic val-uation will only rarely be possible or necessary,it is always important to thoroughly examineoptions from an economic perspective.

135 UNEP-WCMC, 2003.136 Simberloff et al, 1992.137 Zuidema et al, 1997. 138 Liu and Taylor, 2002.

14. Goals and Targets of Forest Landscape Restoration 105

4.2. A Capacity for Learning by Doing

The above consideration may suggest a needfor heavy planning processes, but this should beavoided at all costs. It is much better to startimmediately with a few experimental restora-tion activities on the basis of outcomes of theinitial discussions amongst stakeholders. Thesetrials will establish the credibility of outsidestakeholders and will permit learning. They willgreatly enrich ongoing stakeholder negotia-tions that should continue throughout the pro-gramme.The initial objective should be to builda community of interest groups that can exper-iment and learn together.

A sense of community or “social capital” canreally enhance efforts to restore landscapes.Voluntary groups have accomplished someremarkable restoration achievements. Peoplecan work together and develop a shared passionfor restoring the habitat of a rare animal or thebeauty of a disfigured landscape. Such commu-nities will fine-tune their objectives and adapttheir programmes as they advance. They willprovide an excellent mechanism for setting andupdating goals and end points.

To get real “buy-in” from diverse interestgroups, it is important to start small, provideoutside inputs as drip-feeding, not as big cashinjections, avoid setting up bureaucracies, andlearn and adapt as you progress.

4.3. Tracking Tools for“Landscapes”

As restoration programmes unfold it is essen-tial to have feedback mechanisms so thatsuccess can be assessed, stakeholders consulted,and activities adapted to reflect changed per-spectives. Such tracking tools (or monitoringand evaluation) need to be negotiated at thebeginning of the process to ensure that theygenuinely track the attributes of the site thatpeople value. Since landscapes are complex andstakeholders’ views often divergent, such track-ing tools will inevitably be complicated.139

References

Berkes, F., Colding, J., and Folke, C. 2003. NavigatingSocial-Ecological Systems. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, UK.

Dunwiddie, P.W. 1992. On setting goals: from snap-shots to movies and beyond. Restoration Manage-ment Notes 10(2):116–119.

Liu, J., and Taylor, W.W. 2002. Integrating LandscapeEcology into Natural Resource Management.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Meffe, G.K., and Carroll, C.R. 1994. EcologicalRestoration. In: Principles of ConservationBiology, pp. 409–438. Sinamer Associates, Inc.,Sunderland, MA.

Sayer, J.A., and Campbell, B. 2004. The Science ofSustainable Development. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, UK.

Simberloff, D., Farr, J.A., Cox, J., and Mehlman, D.W.1992. Movement corridors: conservation bargainsor poor investments? Conservation Biology 6:493–504.

UNEP-WCMC. 2003. Spatial analysis as a decisionsupport tool for forest landscape restoration.Report to WWF.

Walker, L.R., and del Moral, R. 2003. Primary Suc-cession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, UK.

Zuidema, P.A., Sayer, J.A., and Dijkman, W. 1997.Forest fragmentation and biodiversity: the case forintermediate-sized conservation areas. Environ-mental Conservation 23:290–297.

Additional Reading

Aide, T.M., Zimmerman, J.K., et al. 2000. Forestregeneration in a chronosequence of tropicalabandoned pastures: implications for restorationecology. Restoration Ecology 8(4): 328–338.

Ashton, M.S., Gunatilleke, C.V.S. et al. 2001. Restora-tion pathways for rainforest in Southwest SriLanka: a review of concepts and models. ForestEcology and Management 154:409–430.

Bradshaw, A.D., and Chadwick M.J. 1980. TheRestoration of Land:The ecology and reclamationof derelict and degraded land. Blackwell ScientificPublications, Oxford, UK.

Buckley, G.P., ed. 1989. Biological Habitat Recon-struction. Belhaven Press, London.

Cairns, J., Jr., ed. 1988. Rehabilitating DamagedEcosystems, vols. 1 and 2. CRC Press, Boca Raton,Florida.139 See penultimate chapter in Sayer and Cambell, 2004.

106 J. Sayer

Gobster, P.H., and Hull, R.B., eds. 1999. RestoringNature: Perspectives from the Social Sciences andHumanities. Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Holl, K.D., Loik, M.E., et al. 2000. Tropical montaneforest restoration in Costa Rica: overcoming bar-riers to dispersal and establishment. RestorationEcology 8(4):339–349.

IUFRO. 2003. Occasional paper no. 15. Part 1:Science and technology—building the future ofthe world’s forests. Part II: Planted forests and bio-diversity. ISSN 1024-1414X. IUFRO, Vienna, pp1–50.

Jordan, W.R. III, Gilpin, M.E., and Abers, J.D., eds.1987. Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approachto Ecological Research. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, UK.

Lamb, D. 1998. Large scale ecological restoration of degraded tropical forest lands: the potential role of timber plantations. Restoration Ecology6(3):271–279.

Luken, J.O. 1990. Directing Ecological Succession.Chapman and Hall, London.

Nilsen, R., ed. 1991. Helping Nature Heal: An Intro-duction to Environmental Restoration. A WholeEarth Catalogue, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, Cali-fornia (Deals with restoration in a U.S. context.)

Perrow, M.R., and Davy, A.J. 2002. Handbook orEcological Restoration, vols. 1 and 2. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, UK.

Reiners, W.A., and Driese, K.L. 2003. Propagation of Ecological Influence Through EnvironmentalSpace. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,UK.

Smout, T.C. 2000. Nature Contested; EnvironmentalHistory in Scotland and Northern England Since1600. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, UK.

Whisenant, S.G. 1999. Repairing Damaged Wild-lands—A Process-Oriented, Landscape-ScaleApproach. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, UK.

Starting in March 2003, WWF, the global con-servation organisation, and its partners begandeveloping a Forest Landscape Restorationprogramme in the moist forest ecoregion ofMadagascar.This case study highlights the dif-ferent steps in the process.

Only about 10 percent of Madagascar’sforests are left, and much of this is in poorcondition. For this reason forest landscaperestoration was identified as a useful approachto tackle conservation and development concerns in the country. In March 2003,when WWF began its restoration programme,a moist forest ecoregion process was alreadyunderway to develop a comprehensive conservation programme for the whole area (i.e., data were being gathered, mapsdeveloped highlighting key habitats, the range of different species were being sur-veyed, etc.) which helped to feed crucial datainto the development of the restoration initiative.

The key steps in the development of therestoration programme are as follows:

1. Short-listing priority landscapes (March2003): In a national workshop with partici-pants representing civil society, researchers,government, and the private sector, a numberof potential landscapes were selected forrestoration based on coarse criteria developedtogether in the workshop.

2. Reconnaissance to focus on one land-scape (June–August 2003): The criteria werethen further refined by a national workinggroup set up at the workshop. Using theselected criteria (which included both ecolog-ical and social issues, for instance, distancefrom large forest patch, literacy rate, presenceor absence of land tenure conflict), themembers of the national working groupvisited the five short-listed landscapes andrated each according to the criteria in order toselect one priority one.

3. Proposal development and funds raised(August 2003–June 2004): A proposal wasdeveloped, submitted, and approved for thepriority landscape.

4. Beginning the process for selecting bio-logical and ecological targets (June 2004): Tobegin identifying the biological and ecologicalpriorities for the landscape, data from theecoregion process was used to define whatmight be priority areas for restoration withinthe landscape and with which biological/ecological objective (e.g., restoring the habitatfor a specific lemur, buffering a protectedarea, etc.).

5. Socioeconomic analysis (September–December 2004): Before taking the biologicaldata further, it was felt that a better under-standing of the social and economic situationinside the landscape was needed, leading to thecommissioning of a socioeconomic analysis.

Case Study: Madagascar: Developing a Forest Landscape RestorationInitiative in a Landscape in the Moist ForestStephanie Mansourian and Gérard Rambeloarisoa

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108 S. Mansourian and G. Rambeloarisoa

Next Steps

Some of the key next steps that have beenalready identified include the following:

• Setting common targets in landscape: Usinga merge of the ecological and the socioeco-nomic data, it will be possible to identify“compromise targets” for the landscape inconsultation with stakeholders.

• Partnerships: Key partnerships with stake-holders will be important to the process,from a point of view of both political sup-port and technical complementarity.

• Setting up a monitoring system at the land-scape level: To measure progress against

those targets, a monitoring system will needto be set up.

• Beginning small-scale activities: Small-scaleactivities need to start rapidly to identifythe most suitable techniques, species,species’ mix, training needs, and alternativeeconomic activities that the population canengage in.

• Extracting lessons learned from the processand revisiting the work plan: On an annualbasis, it is necessary to revise work plansand review data to determine whether theprocess is progressing according to plan orif adjustments are necessary.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Because forest restoration is a process, a goodrestoration programme starts with a fairly clearidea of what type of forest is being created, thatis, the target for restoration and the associ-ated activities. This can only be approximate,because ecosystems change and evolve, but canhelp set the approach and time scale.140 Therecan be many different aims and end points, forinstance:

• Restoration of deforested land with a stagedprocess leading to a more natural forest overtime, e.g., as in Guanacaste, Costa Rica,where exotic species are used as nurse cropsfor natural forest141

• Restoration of forest with specific socialvalues, e.g., tembawang fruit gardens ofwestern Borneo, which are planted for theirnontimber forest products but are also highrepositories of biodiversity

• Restoration of specific values within man-aged forests by specific interventions, such asre-creation of dead wood components insouthern Swedish and Finnish forests

• Restoration as a centuries-long process,where initial intervention is then augmentedby natural changes and aging, as in the pre-viously deforested Agathis forests of north-ern New Zealand

Although it is often assumed that restorationaims to re-create a “natural” forest, this is notalways the case. Many efforts aim instead at culturally important forests, as in parts of theMediterranean, or even seek to limit the spreadof trees to maintain game animals, as in manyof the eastern African savannahs. Whatever theaims, good restoration needs to be planned andmonitored against some framework, usually asimilar forest type that identifies a template forthe type of forest being restored.

Reference forests provide a model to follow.The best reference forests are those that have

15Identifying and Using ReferenceLandscapes for RestorationNigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Reference forests are carefully preservednatural or near-natural forests that canprovide information about natural species’mix and ecology, that can be used in planningand measuring the success of restoration.

Formal and informal networks of referenceforests are building up around the world.

Use of reference forests often needs to besupplemented with other data such as his-torical records, old maps, identification ofpast vegetation through pollen mappingfrom peat cores, etc.

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140 Peterken, 1996. 141 Janzen, 2002.

110 N. Dudley

been identified, protected, and monitored overtime, so that they have an associated body ofunderstanding about their ecology. They willoften, although not invariably, be old forests,although younger forests can provide valuablereference for successional stages. Even quitenewly identified reference forests can providevaluable information if their history is knownand it will often be necessary to find a referenceforest or reference landscape as part of theplanning for forest restoration at a landscapescale. Sometimes reference forests need to bere-created theoretically from historical recordsand pollen diagrams.Although most valuable inrelating to forest types in the same ecosystem,reference forests also provide information ofvalue to forests far away. It is important tounderstand the relationship between the his-torical reference forest and the future forestbeing re-created or modified; the referenceforest is not necessarily the same as the targetforest being restored. Sometimes it will be pos-sible, over time, for the latter to become verysimilar to its reference, while in other cases thiswill be impossible either because of other pres-sures on and needs from the forest or becauseconditions have changed and certain elementsof the original forest are irrecoverable. A clearunderstanding of this relationship is importantwhen setting targets for restoration.

Reference landscapes provide informationon different aspects of ecology, particularlycomposition, ecological processes and function-ing, and, crucially but often the most difficult topinpoint, cyclical changes over time. Locatingforests undisturbed enough to exhibit naturalchanges either through a gradual process ofaging and renewal or from evidence of naturalcatastrophic events is now increasingly difficultin many areas, yet an understanding of howforests renew themselves is important in re-creating near-to-natural forests and in under-standing likely pressures on managed forests.

Other elements to consider in definingtargets for restoration include long-termhuman interaction with forests and the evolu-tion of cultural landscapes (many forests havenever existed without the presence of humansso that the idea of a pristine, human-freeecosystem is often little more than a myth).The

probability of future climate change and otherforms of environmental disturbance means thattargets should be tailored with this in mind, alsosuggesting the limitation of following referencelandscapes too closely, when they may beundergoing change themselves. More generally,targets for restoration should be developedwith an understanding of likely changes. Theidea that vegetation evolves to some climaxtype and then stays the same is now largely dis-proved, at least at the level of a particular stand,where flux is expected and is likely to be con-stant. In the end, choices usually need to bemade about levels of biodiversity, naturalness,and livelihood values contained in particularrestored forests, and reference forests can onlyprovide information to help with these morepolitical choices.

2. Examples

The presence of reference forests has played a fundamental role in understanding forestecology and in developing responses to forestloss and degradation. Some reference forestsare outlined below.

2.1. Oregon, United States

The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest wasprotected by the U.S. Forest Service in 1948 aspart of a network of forests intended to serveas living laboratories for studies by the service’sscientific research branch. The forest is admin-istered cooperatively by the U.S. Department ofAgriculture (USDA) Forest Service PacificNorthwest Research Station, Oregon StateUniversity, and the Willamette National Forest,with funding from the National Science Foun-dation, U.S. Forest Service, Oregon State Uni-versity, and others. Long-term field experimentshave focussed on climate dynamics, stream flow, water quality, and vegetation succession.Currently, researchers are working to developconcepts and tools needed to predict effects of natural disturbance, land use, and climatechange on ecosystem structure, function, andspecies’ composition. Over 3000 scientific pub-lications have used data from the forest. The

15. Identifying and Using Reference Landscapes for Restoration 111

research has been used in developing ways ofrestoring old-growth characteristics withinmanaged forests in the Pacific Northwestthrough “new forestry,” including retention ofstanding dead wood and coarse woody debrisin streams.142

2.2. Centre for Tropical ForestScience (CTFS), Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC

The CTFS has developed an internationalnetwork of standardised forest dynamics plots.Within each plot, every tree over 1cm in diam-eter is marked, measured, plotted on a map, andidentified according to species. The typicalforest dynamics plot is 50 hectares, containingup to 360,000 individual trees. An initial treecensus and periodic follow-up censuses yieldlong-term information on species’ growth, mor-tality, regeneration, distribution, and productiv-ity, which currently provides an almost uniqueinformation source for developing restorationstrategies within managed tropical forests. Util-ising the data from the standardised, intensiveforest dynamics plots throughout the tropics,CTFS researchers are exploring tropical forestspecies’ diversity and dynamics at a globalscale. Plots currently exist in Panama, PuertoRico, Ecuador, Colombia, Cameroon, Democ-ratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Thailand,Sri Lanka, India (see below), the Philippines,Singapore, and Taiwan.

2.3. India

The Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary andBandipur National Park are part of the wildlife-rich protected areas within the Nilgiri Biosphere in the Western Ghat Mountains ofsouthern India.These reserves are sites of long-term ecological research by the Centre for Eco-logical Sciences. A 50-hectare permanent plotin Mudumalai, where the dynamics of a tropi-cal dry forest is investigated in relation to fireand herbivory by large mammals, is part of theinternational network of large-scale plots coor-dinated by the CTFS (see above).

2.4. Europe

Under the auspices of the European Coopera-tion in the Field of Scientific and TechnicalResearch (COST) programme of the EuropeanCommission, a network has been established tohelp coordinate research taking place in strictforest reserves in 19 European countries. Theprocess established protocols for data collec-tion both in a core area and over the wholereserve, primarily to develop repeatablemethods of describing the stand structure and ground vegetation. A Web-based forestreserves databank is helping to coordinateinformation. Natural forests are perhaps morecritically threatened in Europe than in anyother region, and the information will be usedto help identify and manage protected areasand increase component of naturalness inmanaged forests.143

2.5. Mediterranean Europe

In some cases, changes have progressed so farthat fully natural or near to natural referenceforests have been lost.The origin of many of thefruit trees commonly found in Mediterraneanforests is often only very generally known forexample. Here the most useful references areoften old cultural forests that contain many elements of biodiversity, and restoration pro-grammes often aim to re-create these.144

Changes in access to reference forests candramatically increase our level of understand-ing of forest dynamics and therefore manage-ment options. For example, when Finnish forestecologists gained access to more natural forestsin the Russian Federation at the end of the1980s, they revised their understanding aboutdisturbance patterns, recognising that snowdamage was a proportionately larger agent ofchange than had been suspected. However,reference forests seldom provide all necessaryinformation, particularly when changes havebeen so profound that no natural forestremains. Living reference forests are thereforea useful tool but by no means the only method

142 Luoma, 1999.

143 Broekmeyer et al, 1993.144 Moussouris and Regato, 1999.

112 N. Dudley

for determining targets. Some of the other toolsthat may be used as surrogates for living refer-ence forests are outlined below.

3. Outline of Tools

In most cases, reference landscapes are devel-oped using a suite of different tools, the mainones of which follow:

• Reference forests: As described above, theseare probably the most valuable single sourceof information.

• Comparison with other ecologically similarforests: Even if no nearby forests exist to actas a reference, use of cumulative data aroundthe world can help to build our understand-ing about a forest’s ecology. For example,knowledge about breeding patterns and pop-ulation in many birds of prey allows ornithol-ogists to make reasonably good predictionsabout stable reproduction rates for speciesbased on body weight. Understanding aboutforest fire ecology can, with caution, be trans-ferred from one ecosystem to another, atleast to develop working hypotheses. Other

elements, such as old growth characteristics,have been found to translate rather poorlyfrom one forest ecosystem to another.

• Comparison with “original” forest types:Although it is often impossible to find awholly unaltered forest ecosystem, numerouswell-thought-out attempts have been madeto describe ancient or natural forests: someexamples are given in Table 15.1.

• Historical records: Written records can tell us a great deal and sometimes stretch backfor hundreds or even thousands of years.The oldest known written records of forestmanagement are 2000 years old and refer to forests maintained to supply timber forShinto temples in Japan. Records fromwritten histories, religious scriptures, sagas,and trade accounts can all provide valuable,albeit usually fragmentary, informationabout forests. Many supposedly “natural”forests in the U.K. can be traced back torecorded planting (often with the names ofthe people who planted them). More recenttravellers’ accounts are frequently used toprovide information on past vegetation patterns, such as the records kept by Italiantravellers in Eritrea a century ago that

Table 15.1. Definitions of original forests.

Definition Explanation

Ancient woodland Woodland that has been in existence for many centuries: precise time varies but in the U.K., 400 years is commonly used1

Frontier forest “Relatively undisturbed and big enough to maintain all their biodiversity, including viable populations of the wide-ranging species associated with each forest type”;criteria include primarily forested; natural structure, composition, and heterogeneity; dominated by indigenous tree species2

Native forests Meaning is variable: often forests consisting of species originally found in the area—may be young or old, established or naturally occurring, although in Australia often used as if it were primary woodland3

Old-growth in the Pacific “A forest stand usually at least 180–220 years old with moderate to high canopy Northwest, United States cover; a multi-layered multi-species canopy dominated by large over-storey trees”4

Primary woodland “Land that has been wooded continuously since the original-natural woodlands werefragmented. The character of the woodland varies according to how it has been treated.”5

Wildwood “Wholly natural woodland unaffected by Neolithic or later civilisation”6

1 Bunce, 1989.2 Bryant et al, 1997.3 Clark, 1992.4 Johnson et al, 1991.5 Peterken, 2002.6 Rackham, 1976.

15. Identifying and Using Reference Landscapes for Restoration 113

now provide information for restorationactivities.

• Forest fragments: Even quite unnaturalforest fragments or remnant microhabitatscan with care and caution, be used as partialsurrogates in areas where full referenceforests no longer exist. For instance, parkland and hedgerows both contain importantelements of natural forests in WesternEurope and can help set targets for restora-tion. Similarly sacred sites, preserved for religious reasons, can contain species thathave disappeared from the surrounding area,as in forest gardens and sacred groves in,for instance, Indonesia, Laos, China, Kenya,and Malawi.

• Pollen analysis and soil microcarbon analysis:Analysis of pollen in peat cores, lake beds, orsoil profiles can identify plants from thou-sands of years ago, as pollen is highly resist-ant to decay, particularly in the anaerobicconditions found in peat, and can often beidentified to the level of individual species.Analysis along a core can show how vegeta-tion changed over time, the presence and fre-quency of fires, and sometimes informationabout pollution. Such analysis is often theonly sure way of building a picture of pastvegetation where changes have been dra-matic and living reference landscapes havedisappeared.

• Gap analysis using enduring features: Thisapproach consists of a coarse-filter conserva-tion assessment of protected areas based ona landscape approach using “enduring fea-tures” (essentially land forms or physicalhabitats) as geographic units that reflect bio-logical diversity. The gap analysis involvesthree main stages. First, natural regionalframeworks are reviewed to ensure thatnatural region boundaries reflect broad phys-iographic and climatic gradients. Next, withineach natural region maps are used to identifyenduring features. An enduring feature is aland form or landscape element or unitwithin a natural region characterised by rel-atively uniform origin of parent material,texture of parent material, and topography-relief. Finally, the relationship of biodiver-sity to enduring features of the landscape

is derived from more detailed tertiarysources.145

4. Future Needs

Although a lot of the tools are in place, there isstill little experience in combining them todevelop realistic targets for restoration exer-cises. Gaps go right back to the philosophicalroots of restoration and at what is being aimedfor—for example, original vegetation or just aworkable ecosystem at the present time. Muchbetter understanding of the likely process offorest restoration itself is needed, along withmore accurate methods of measuring progress.

References

Broekmeyer, M.E.A., Vos, W., and Koop, H., eds.1993. European Forest Reserves. Pudic ScientificPublishers, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

Bryant, D., Nielsen, D., and Tangley, L. 1997.The LastFrontier Forests: Ecosystems and economies onthe edge. World Resources Institute, Washington,DC.

Bunce, R.G.H. 1989. A Field Key for ClassifyingBritish Woodland Vegetation. Institute of Terres-trial Ecology and HMSO, London.

Clark, J. 1992. The future for native logging in Australia. Centre for Resource and Environmen-tal Studies Working Paper 1992/1. The AustraliaNational University, Canberra.

Iacobelli, T., Kavanagh, K., and Rowe, S. 1994. A Protected Areas Gap Analysis Methodology: Plan-ning for the Conservation of Biodiversity. WorldWildlife Fund Canada, Toronto.

Janzen, D.H. 2002. Tropical dry forest: Area de Con-servación Guanacaste, northwestern Costa Rica.In: Perrow, M.R., Davy, A.J., eds. Handbook ofEcological Restoration, vol. 2, Restoration in Prac-tice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK,pp. 559–583.

Johnson, K.N., Franklin, J.F., Thomas, J.W., andGordon, J. 1991. Alternatives to Late-SuccessionalForests of the Pacific Northwest. A Report to theUS House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Luoma, J.R. 1999.The Hidden Forest:The Biographyof an Ecosystem. Owl Books, New York.

145 Iacobelli et al, 1994.

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Moussouris, Y., and Regato, P. 1999. Forest harvest:Mediterranean woodlands and the importance ofnon-timber forest products to forest conservation.Arborvitae supplement, WWF and IUCN, Gland,Switzerland.

Peterken, G.F. 1996. Natural Woodland: Ecology andConservation in Northern Temperate Regions.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Peterken G. 2002. Reversing the Habitat Fragmen-tation of British Woodlands. WWF UK, Goldalm-ing, UK.

Rackham, O. 1976.Trees and Woodland in the BritishLandscape. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Successfully planning, implementing, and mon-itoring projects that aim to restore forest land-scapes involves the management and analysisof spatial information, that is, quantitative andqualitative two-dimensional data covering thearea of interest. For example, understandinghow a potential restoration site may or may notmeet a biodiversity goal such as “increaseoverall habitat connectivity from x to y to main-tain the viability of species z” requires mapsand basic statistics (size, isolation, etc.) for allforest patches that occur across the landscape.Many other spatial variables influence the suit-ability and likely success of a given area forrestoration.Therefore, map-based technologies,such as satellite remote sensing, aerial photo-

graphy, and geographic information systems(GIS) have and will continue to provide manybenefits to forest landscape restoration.

There are many ways GIS and other spatialtechnologies can assist forest landscape resto-ration projects. At one end of the spectrum,simple maps of forest cover, elevation, rivers,communities, and roads are inherently usefulfor understanding the ecological and humancontext of the landscape. At the other extreme,sophisticated and custom spatial models maybe constructed to simulate, for example, thehydrological effects of forest restoration ondownstream watersheds. Here we focus on theuse of spatial data to develop spatial scenariosthat meet biological and socioeconomic targets.Known as “suitability modelling” or “multicri-teria evaluation,” this approach is one type ofGIS-based modelling utilising readily availablecommercial GIS packages.

Specifically, in this chapter we provide (1)examples of the types of spatial data and somecommon map-based measures useful for plan-ning and monitoring restoration of forest land-scapes, (2) examples of spatial tools andtechnologies for deriving this information, and(3) reviews of several recent applications ofspatial technologies to restoration.

1.1. Mapping Areas to Meet or Set Targets

The targets and goals of the project determinethe types of spatial data to collect and spatialanalyses to conduct. There are two main types

16Mapping and Modelling as Tools toSet Targets, Identify Opportunities,and Measure ProgressThomas F. Allnutt

Key Points to Retain

Forest landscape restoration can benefitfrom mapping and use of geographical infor-mation systems (GIS) in several key ways,but in particular by measuring and monitor-ing progress toward meeting biological andsocioeconomic targets via restoration.

Many potential methods exist to utilise mapsand GIS for landscape-scale restoration,from the simple to the highly customised andexperimental.

115

116 T.F. Allnutt

of targets, biological and socioeconomic. Al-though not all targets are spatial in nature (e.g., “prevent the extinction of species x”),many are. Some examples of spatial targetsinclude “Protect x hectares of habitat y” or“Establish x hectares of community forestreserves.” Planning for and evaluating progresstoward a target such as the latter type requiresappropriate spatial data.

1.1.1. Biological Targets

Often, biological targets are derived directlyfrom existing large-scale conservation plan-ning processes such as ecoregion conservation(ERC).146 An initial product of an ERC visionis a set of priority landscapes designed to meetspecific biological objectives, such as the con-servation of an endangered primate.Where thisis the case, these targets can be used directly toprioritise and implement restoration areas, forexample, preferentially conduct restorationadjacent to known populations of the targetprimate.

In other cases, no such information may exist.Here, participants may rely on basic principlesof biological conservation to guide what targetsto select, and thus what spatial data sets areneeded. In general, space-based biological tar-gets involve individual species (e.g., cheetah),147

habitat, or vegetation types (e.g., wetlands), orecological and evolutionary processes (e.g.,migration, hydrology).148 Targets for these fea-tures are typically expressed as quantitativeareas or percentages of the total distribution ofthe biological element in question (e.g., 1000hectares of oak-savannah).

Once biological targets are established,several classes of spatial data are necessary tomap where they may be achieved on theground. In many cases, existing map sourcesmay be used; in others, maps will have to becreated using modelling or technologies such asremote sensing.

To evaluate species-based targets, one firstneeds to know the current distribution of alltarget species within the landscape at the finestlevel of detail possible. Range maps are onepotential surrogate for this information andthey are increasingly available for a number oftaxa worldwide.149 In other cases, modellingmay be used to predict species’ distributionsfrom field collections coupled with environ-mental data.150 Often, and particularly at finescales, field-based inventories will be requiredto assess the presence or absence of certain keyspecies.

Another common type of biological targetinvolves particular habitat and/or vegetationtypes. Several sources of data are available toevaluate this type of target. Existing maps andclassifications are often used, from national orregional inventories, for example. In othercases, new maps may be created from raw pho-tographs or the processing of photographs ordigital images. The most widespread source is remote sensing—typically photographs ordigital imagery from airplanes or satellite-borne sensors. New, high-resolution imagery(submetre) provides a good source for mappingnatural habitats as well as human land uses,though cost can be a significant constraint.

In areas of high species and habitat hetero-geneity, optical remote-sensing may not be ableto distinguish biological differences to a neces-sary degree. Forest that is indistinguishablespectrally—from the perspective of a camera or satellite—is often very diverse biologically.Here, habitat modelling can be used to mapareas where one expects species to differ sig-nificantly. A range of approaches are available,from the quick and approximate, to moreformal statistical methods.151 Elevation, forexample, is often used as a proxy for species’distributions, and can be used to quickly dividea continuously mapped forest type into severalor more forest habitats (lowland, sub-montane,montane, etc.).

146 Dinerstein et al, 2000.147 Lambeck, 1997.148 Pressey et al, 2003.

149 Ridgely et al, 2003.150 Boitani et al, 1999.151 Ferrier et al, 2002.

16. Mapping and Modelling 117

The spatial configuration of the restorationlandscape is of critical importance for biodi-versity conservation for several reasons. One,the long-term survival of many species oftendepends directly on the size and connectivity ofavailable habitat. The reasons for this are gen-erally (a) individuals and populations requiresufficient outbreeding opportunities that areonly available in habitat blocks of a particularsize, and (b) the species in question has ecolog-ical requirements (e.g., seasonal migration) thatrequire large connected blocks of habitat. Inboth cases, research may be necessary to assessthe habitat configuration necessary for thetarget species. Two, many environmental andecological processes will not be maintainedonce habitat fragments drop below a particularthreshold of isolation or fragmentation. Themaintenance of natural hydrological flows inwatersheds, for example, can depend on the sizeand connectivity of intact forest blocks.

1.1.2. Socioeconomic Targets

The second major class of targets are socioeco-nomic. In some cases, socioeconomic targetswill have been specified when the landscapewas identified within a priority setting exercise(e.g., the visioning process in ecoregion conser-vation), though this is less often the case thanwith biological targets. Socioeconomic targetsthat require spatial data generally specify targetamounts of land uses within the landscape. Thismay involve zoning one portion of the land-scape for a particular land use. For example,participants may wish to have one third of thelandscape devoted to community forestry. Inother cases, the entire landscape (apart fromthose areas reserved for biodiversity conser-vation) may be zoned for particular land uses,akin to a traditional land-use plan or zoningmap.

Mapping areas to meet socioeconomictargets requires a detailed and up-to-date land-cover map. This map shows the current distri-bution of natural and human-oriented areas inas much detail and at as fine a scale as possibleand it can be derived from existing land-use/land-cover maps for the area, or may be created

from aerial and remote sensing sources coupledwith ground truth.The map of current land usesserves as the starting point; a map of future landuses shows those areas where changes in landuses will be necessary to meet socioeconomictargets.

1.1.3. Land Tenure and Land Value

The legal status and ownership of land (landtenure) within the landscape, and the economicvalue of that land are also important for plan-ning forest landscape restoration. Sometimesthis information can be derived from existingmaps available from local or national govern-ment organisations, particularly in the case ofland tenure. In other cases, ground surveys willneed to be conducted to establish tenure andland value of unknown areas. Spatial economicmodelling has also been used to estimate landvalue. Rules are constructed that allow one toestimate the value of every parcel of landwithin the area of interest, based on variablessuch as market access, for example.

1.3. Mapping Opportunities:Integrating Biological and Socioeconomic Data to MeetTargets and Map Opportunities

Some areas are more suitable than others forparticular uses. Analysis of spatial data has thepotential to efficiently allocate areas to one useor another. This idea is formalised in land-useplans or more formally via suitability modellingotherwise known as multicriteria evaluation(MCE).152

Suitability modelling or MCE using GIS can be used to systematically combine spatial,biological, physical and socioeconomic datadetailed above in order to meet biological andsocioeconomic objectives via restoration. Hereare two generic examples:

1. Map suitability for a single biological orsocioeconomic target. As an example, imagine

152 Eastman et al, 1993.

118 T.F. Allnutt

one biological target for the landscape is tomaintain a viable population of a primate. It is estimated that the target primate requires25,000 hectares of habitat between 1000 and3000m in elevation, in a single, connected blockof forest. There are currently only 15,000hectares of suitable forest within the landscape,in two disconnected blocks. Therefore, the chal-lenge is to map at least 10,000 hectares torestore based on the habitat criteria requiredfor the species: elevation, size, and connectivity.Three maps are created. One shows all areas inthe target range of 1000 to 3000m, one ranksareas according to their potential to rejoin thedisconnected blocks, and one ranks areas bytheir proximity to existing good habitat for theprimate. These three maps are standardised toa common numeric range, and then combinedby means of a weighted average, to produce acontinuous map of suitability.The most suitableareas are those that are close to existing intacthabitat, connect the two blocks, and are theright elevation.The highest scoring areas (thosethat come close to meeting all three criteria)are selected until the target of 10,000 hectaresis met.These form the priority restoration areasfor this biological target. The same process maybe used to map suitable areas for socioeco-nomic targets.

2. Incorporating socioeconomic data as aconstraint on suitable areas for biologicaltargets. Just as physical and biological criteriamay be combined to identify suitable restora-tion areas to meet biological targets, socioeco-nomic criteria, such as land use or land value,can also be incorporated in the process. Forexample, imagine two parcels of land that, whenrestored, would be equal in every way formeeting the above biological target. They areequivalent in elevation, in proximity to existingforest, and in terms of connecting the two forestblocks. One parcel is currently actively used foragricultural production, whereas the other hasbeen abandoned for several years. For severalreasons, it would likely be easier to restore theabandoned parcel. Thus, including socioeco-nomic data in the MCE process can help to efficiently identify restoration priorities whenthere are choices of areas to meet biologicaltargets.

1.4. Monitoring

A key benefit of using quantitative spatial dataand targets for both biological and socioeco-nomic variables throughout the planning andimplementation process is that it facilitateslong-term monitoring as the project proceeds.Remote sensing in particular provides a rela-tively quick and inexpensive, synoptic, repeat-able view of large-scale changes to land usesand land cover over time within the landscape.Clearly this will have to be paired with reviewsof progress toward those biological and socio-economic targets that cannot be measuredremotely. A current disadvantage is the lack oflong-term large-scale attempts at systema-tic monitoring of conservation programmes,though efforts are currently underway at anumber of places and institutions.

2. Examples

Examples abound of the use of maps and GISin the fields of planning and conservation.153

Generally speaking, however, there are fewexamples of its application to forest restorationplanning. One exception is the recent work ofJ. Halperin, in which GIS was used for partici-patory, community-based, large-scale restora-tion planning in Uganda.154

The WWF network has only recently begunto apply GIS to its restoration initiatives. TheUnited Nations’ Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre(UNEP-WCMC) used GIS to prioritise areasfor WWF-based restoration projects in NorthAfrica.155 Biological attributes such as species’richness, forest integrity, and patch size werebalanced against human pressures includingroad density, grazing pressure, and resource use.As of early 2004, there are two additional proj-ects underway. In one, in the Andresito land-scape (Argentina) of the Atlantic Forest, thereare plans to use suitability modelling withIDRISI to identify key restoration corridors in

153 see e.g., Eghenter, 2000; Herrman and Osinski, 1999.154 Halperin et al, 2004.155 UNEP-WCMC, 2003.

16. Mapping and Modelling 119

conjunction with a set of stakeholders from the region. Similarly, GIS is being used inMadagascar to map and prioritise suitableareas for restoration within a large landscapethat needs to be restored. Here, biologicaltargets are being established for six IUCN red-listed vertebrates. Criteria are being establishedto map suitable habitat for each species in orderto evaluate current status within the landscape.Where current habitat is insufficient for long-term viability of each population, areas will beprioritised for restoration based on connectiv-ity, proximity to known populations, and habitatcharacteristics. Socioeconomic data will be usedas a constraint where options exist to meet bio-logical targets. This work is in its initial stagesand is expected to continue through 2005.

3. Outline of Tools

Standard vector-based GIS software—ESRI(ArcMap, ArcView, Arcinfo)—is the standardGIS virtually worldwide. It is available at lowcost to conservation organisations, and it per-forms all types of GIS functions, from basicmapping to advanced analyses, especially whencustomised or linked to other programmes(e.g., statistical software, etc.).

Standard raster-based GIS—IDRISI, ESRI(Spatial Analyst, GRID for Arcview, ArcMap,and Arcinfo), ERDAS. The IDRISI and ESRIproducts are low cost (for educational or non-profit companies) GISs capable of doing raster-based analyses (e.g., most analyses involvingremotely sensed imagery). IDRISI includesfunctions for easily stepping through suitabilitymodels and MCE as part of its decision supportpackage. ERDAS is a much more expensivesoftware designed primarily to analyse satelliteimagery and other remotely sensed data.

4. Future Needs

A key need is for participatory GIS-based deci-sion-support tools designed specifically forrestoration in a biodiversity conservation con-text. Similarly, research is needed into tools tostrengthen linkages between site-based restora-

tion research and spatial decision making withGIS. Recently, several new GIS models are inuse that have been used extensively for spatialplanning in conservation, notably C-Plan156 andSITES/Marxan.157 These particular applicationsare currently, generally speaking, spatial opti-misation tools designed to meet representationtargets in conservation plans. There is tremen-dous potential, however, especially with thesimulated-annealing algorithm used by Marxan(and now SPOT among other tools) to optimiseany given set of objectives (such as restoration)in a spatial model. Research is urgently neededto expand these tools to meet other objectivesbeyond simple reservation and representation.

References

Boitani, L. (coordinator), Corsi, F., De Biase, A., etal. 1999.A databank for the conservation and man-agement of African Mammals. Institute of AppliedEcology, Rome, Italy.

Dinerstein, E., Powell, G., Olson, D. et al. 2000.A Workbook for Conducting Biological Assess-ments and Developing Biodiversity Visions for Ecoregion-Based Conservation. ConservationScience Programme, World Wildlife Fund,Washington, DC.

Eastman, J.R., Kyem, P.A.K., Toledano, J., and Jin, W.1993. GIS and Decision Making, UNITAR. Explo-rations in GIS Technology, Vol. 4. UNITAR,Geneva.

Eghenter, C. 2000. Mapping People’s Forests: TheRole of Mapping in Planning Community-BasedManagement of Conservation Areas in Indonesia.Biodiversity Support Programme, Washington,DC.

Ferrier, S. 2002. Mapping spatial pattern in biodiver-sity for regional conservation planning: where tofrom here? Systematic Biology 51:331–363.

Halperin, J.J., Shear, T.H., Munishi, P.K.T., and Wentworth, T.R. 2004. Multiple-objective forestryplanning in biodiversity hotspots of east Africa.In preparation.

Herrman, S., and Osinski, E. 1999. Planning sustain-able land use in rural areas at different spatiallevels using GIS and modelling tools. Landscapeand Urban Planning 46:93–101.

156 Pressey et al, 1995157 Leslie et al, 2003; McDonnell et al, 2002.

120 T.F. Allnutt

Lambeck, R.J. 1997. Focal species: a multi-speciesumbrella for nature conservation. ConservationBiology 11:849–856.

Leslie, H., Ruckelshaus, R., Ball, I.R., Andelman, S.,and Possingham, H.P. 2003. Using siting algorithmsin the design of marine reserve networks. Ecolog-ical Applications 13:S185–S198.

McDonnell, M.D., Possingham, H.P., Ball, I.R., andCousins, E.A. 2002. Mathematical methods forspatially cohesive reserve design. EnvironmentalModelling and Assessment 7:107–114.

Pressey, R.L., Cowling, R.M., and Rouget, M. 2003.Formulating conservation targets for biodiversitypattern and process in the Cape Floristic Region,South Africa. Biological Conservation 112:99–127.

Pressey, R.L., Ferrier, S., Hutchinson, C.D., Sivertsen,D.P., and Manion, G. 1995. Planning for negotia-tion: using an interactive geographic informationsystem to explore alternative protected area net-works. In: Saunders, D.A., Craig, J.L., Mattiske,E.M., eds. Nature Conservation: The Role of Net-works. Surrey Beatty and Sons, Sydney, pp. 23–33.

Ridgely, R.S., Allnutt, T.F. Brooks, T., et al. 2003.Digital Distribution Maps of the Birds of theWestern Hemisphere. Version 1.0. CD-ROM.NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia.

UNEP-WCMC. 2003. Spatial analysis as a decisionsupport tool for forest landscape restoration.Report to WWF.

Additional Reading

George, T.L., and Zack, S. 2001. Spatial and tempo-ral considerations in restoring habitat for wildlife.Restoration Ecology 9:272.

Huxel, G.R., and Hastings,A. 2001. Habitat loss, frag-mentation, and restoration. Restoration Ecology7:309.

Jankowski, P., and Nyerges, T. 2001. GeographicInformation Systems for Group Decision Making.Taylor and Francis, New York.

Loiselle, B.A., Howell, C.A. Graham, C.H., et al.2003.Avoiding pitfalls of using species distributionmodels in conservation planning. ConservationBiology 6:1591–1600.

Wickam, J.D., Jones, B.K., Riiters, K.H., Wade, T.G.,and O’Neill, R.V. 1999. Transitions in forest frag-mentation: implications for restoration opportuni-ties at regional scales. Landscape Ecology 14:137–145.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Localised and site-based interventions to re-store habitat can be very useful, and much ofwhat we have learned about ecological res-toration comes from small-scale initiatives,primarily carried out by nongovernmentalorganisations (NGOs) and local communitiesbut also to an increasing extent by forward-looking companies and government depart-ments. We also describe further in this book(see “Practical Interventions that Will Sup-port Restoration in Broad-Scale ConservationBased on WWF Experiences”) how strategicuse of such initiatives can have wider benefits,

for example by linking patches of existinghabitat, by providing fuelwood to places thatare otherwise without energy sources, or bypreventing erosion. However, small-scale ini-tiatives are inevitably limited in what they canachieve on their own and are usually expensive,stretching the resources of the organisations orcommunities that carry them out. Accordingly,it is often more effective to spend effort inchanging policies at local, provincial, national,regional or even global level to encouragerestoration at a broader scale. Many NGOsundertake restoration initiatives to use them as a lever to change policies, by, for example,showing that different approaches can be moreeffective or cost less money. But althoughworking examples can be powerful tools instimulating change, they usually need to beaccompanied by effective advocacy and a thor-ough understanding of the policy climate.

Policy change can operate at many differentlevels. At the most local level, it can includechanging policies within a single community158

or landscape to stimulate forest restoration.Examples include:

• Agreed changes in grazing regimes to allownatural regeneration, perhaps agreeing toprotect different zones at different times

• Voluntary controls on collection of nontim-ber forest products to ensure that these arenot degraded

17Policy Interventions for ForestLandscape RestorationNigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Changing policy toward restoration or landuse is often the most effective way of stimu-lating large-scale restoration.

Such policy changes can be addressed, in dif-ferent ways, at a local scale (e.g., changinggrazing patterns), a national scale (e.g.,modifying forestry laws), or a global scale(e.g., ensuring that international conventionsfavour high-quality restoration).

Key tools in policy interventions includegood analysis, especially economic analysis,case studies, and advocacy.

121

158 Sithole, 2000.

122 N. Dudley

• Collective investment in tree planting, forinstance to establish fuelwood plantations

Whilst such interventions are already aregular feature of many large conservation orconservation and development projects, theyare again quite limited in scope. A far more sig-nificant change can be affected if national poli-cies are changed in favour of more sympatheticrestoration, for example:

• Modification of national forestry laws toallow old-growth forest to remain, facilitateretention of deadwood, or remove perverseincentives that discourage restoration

• Changing national forest restoration or af-forestation programmes to increase therange of goods and services that they provide(for example, reducing the proportion ofintensive plantations and increasing assistednatural regeneration)

There are also increasingly opportunities to change policies that transcend nationalborders,159 thus potentially having an impact ona global or a regional scale. Along with inter-governmental bodies, such transnational policycan also involve companies that operate inmany countries or bilateral and multilateraldonors, including the following:

• Introduction of pro-restoration clauses with-in international treaties or incentives, such as using carbon offsets for forest restora-tion under the U.N. Framework Conventionon Climate Change, or specific policy recom-mendations of global forest initiatives such asthe U.N. Forum on Forests

• Integration of restoration into funding op-portunities or legislative requirements fromregional agreements such as those of theEuropean Community

• Development of company policies for res-toration after mineral extraction, infrastruc-ture developments, etc.

• Modification of projects funded by bilateralor multilateral donor agencies

2. Examples

2.1. Altai Sayan, Russia

Russia’s first woodland area to be certifiedunder the Forest Stewardship Council is stillmanaged collectively and includes large areasof woodland on sandy soils dominated bybirch—used for specialist products sold by theBody Shop chain. The certification processincluded agreement by farming cooperatives onchanges in sheep grazing to leave some areasuntouched for long enough to foster regenera-tion of birch woods.159a

2.2. Latvia

Latvian forestry inherited legislation crafted bythe Soviet Union, which included the use oflarge clearcuts and a requirement to manageforests including removal of deadwood. As aresult, dead standing and lying timber is in shortsupply in many woodlands, leading to a de-cline in many saproxylic (deadwood living)species.160 This is particularly serious at a Euro-pean scale because Latvia’s forests containsome of the richest biodiversity in the conti-nent. WWF in Latvia has worked with the gov-ernment to change the forestry regulations to allow retention of deadwood in managedforests, thus opening the opportunity of increas-ing this threatened microhabitat.

2.3. Vietnam

The government’s five million hectare refor-estation programme aims to restore forestcover but in practice hampers local flexibility.Although large plantations have been estab-lished, it seems likely that in several provincesmuch money has been wasted in places whereforest cover remains high. In theory fundingcan be used to support natural regeneration, forexample in the buffer zones of protected areas,as is already happening around Song ThanhNature Reserve. The WWF Indochina Pro-gramme is working with the government to

159 Tarasofsky, 1999.

159a Information drawn from site visit as part of certifica-tion team, 1998.160 Rotbergs, 1994.

17. Policy Interventions for Forest Landscape Restoration 123

modify the way in which funds are used, bothto increase natural forest restoration and toensure that established forests are retained andgain higher value (see detailed case study“Monitoring Forest Landscape Restoration inVietnam”).

2.4. European Community

Throughout the European Union (EU) region,restoration of natural woodlands is hamperedin areas of sheep or goat grazing becausefarmers receive hectare-based payments de-pending on the area capable of being grazed.161 To obtain maximum funds, wood-lands are opened to grazing, which means thatyoung seedlings fail to establish, resulting ingradually aging forest. In some cases, wood-lands that have been fenced with EU funds toencourage regeneration are now being openedup again. It is recognised that the key to facili-tating regeneration in many areas is not furthergrants for tree planting but a removal of per-verse incentives (see “Perverse Policy Incen-tives” and case study “The European Union’sAfforestation Policies and their Real Impact onForest Restoration”) by changing incentives’schemes within the Common AgriculturalPolicy to reduce the reasons for allowing sheepgrazing in woodlands.

2.5. Central America

The Kyoto protocol of the U.N. FrameworkConvention on Climate Change allows for gov-ernments to offset some of their carbon emis-sions, or trade other countries’ emissions,through tree planting. Initial proposalsfocussed largely on the establishment of inten-sive plantations of exotic species, but researchsuggests that the long-term carbon sequestra-tion benefits of such plantations are verylimited, as they are used mainly for short-termproducts such as paper and cardboard that arequickly abandoned and break down. CentralAmerican governments have been amongstthose most active in lobbying for modificationof the Kyoto protocol to allow different kinds

of forest management including natural regen-eration and increase of retention of deadwoodand humus components. Research suggests thatinnovative use of carbon markets has aidedforest regeneration, with the side benefit of alsoincreasing tourism in these areas.162

2.6. Lafarge—Quarry Restorationin Kenya

Lafarge, based in France, is now the largestquarrying company in the world. The devel-opment of its policy toward forest landscaperestoration is an example of how small-scaleinterventions can lead to larger restorationpolicy initiatives.

Lafarge’s forest restoration work startedwith a series of site-based interventions. Theformer quarry of the Bamburi cement plantnear Mombasa in Kenya was mined for 20years. In the early 1970s, a rehabilitation pro-gramme was started to restore the site as anature reserve. After a phase of soil formationusing the leaf litter of introduced pioneer trees,a large number of tree and other plant speciestypical of the indigenous coastal forests werealso planted. The success of these was observedover time in order to select those species thatproved suitable for planting on a larger scale toreplace the pioneer trees. In addition to trees ofpotential economic value (such as Iroko andother indigenous hardwood, which is valuablefor local crafts such as carving), endangeredspecies and those that provide habitat or foodfor indigenous wildlife have also been planted:to date, 422 indigenous plant species have beenintroduced into the newly created ecosys-tems of forests, wetlands, and grasslands inBamburi’s former quarries. Of these 364 havesurvived, including 30 that are on the IUCNRed List of Threatened Species for Kenya.

Lafarge also started working with WWF onpolicy issues, including supporting the organi-sation’s forest landscape restoration initiative.In April 2002, Bamburi signed a partnershipagreement with WWF East Africa, and identi-fied forest landscape restoration as one of thepriority partnership activities, including the

161 Joint Nature Conservation Committee, 2002. 162 Miranda et al, 2004.

124 N. Dudley

need to establish a biodiversity monitoringsystem in partnership with WWF, in order to define guidelines for ecological quarry rehabilitation.

In 2001 Lafarge adopted a formal quarryrehabilitation policy with the participation ofWWF to spread best practice in terms of quar-rying work and relations with local stakehold-ers. The most important elements of this policyare to plan restoration from the outset andcoordinate restoration with quarrying activities.In addition to biodiversity issues, land planningconsiderations are also taken into accountwhen defining a rehabilitation project in orderboth to preserve the environment and to gen-erate income for the local communities. In thisframework quarry rehabilitation often leads tothe creation of wetlands and natural reserves orleisure areas.

3. Outline of Tools

Stimulating policy changes requires hard andconvincing analysis, including economic analy-sis, a clear message, and sometimes some tar-geted and effective advocacy. In cases wherefinancial support is being changed around infavour of more balanced forms of restoration,it may also include economic incentives. Somekey tools are as follows:

Economic analysis is useful to make the casefor restoration or for different kinds of restora-tion. Examples might include demonstratingthat retention of deadwood within managedforests does not entail excessive cost, orshowing that natural regeneration is cheaperthan replanting. For example, a WWF/WorldBank economic analysis convinced the govern-ment of Bulgaria to change plans for establish-ing intensive poplar plantations on islands in theDanube with natural regeneration,163 and ananalysis for Forestry Commission economists inWales, U.K., persuaded the government agencyto use natural regeneration in an area of forestbecause it proved cheaper than replanting.

Economic incentives encourage individualsand groups to make space for restoration,

including both official incentive schemes andincentives through the market, such as certifi-cation.Targeted incentives have been used verysuccessfully to encourage restoration, forinstance through conservation easements totake land out of production, as has occurredwidely in the U.S., through direct support fortree planting as successfully implemented on a large scale in parts of Pakistan, or through tax incentives as in several Latin Americancountries.164

Case studies show that restoration can workand pay for itself. The case of the restoredquarry near Mombasa showed that restorationwas not an impossibly expensive task andhelped to encourage Lafarge, the company con-cerned, to introduce a wider policy. Case studiesonly work, however, if they are carefully pre-pared and include all the relevant informationneeded to make policy decisions, and if theyreach the attention of the right policy makers.

Advocacy entails campaigns or lobbying to encourage change.165 Targeted lobbying hasbeen successful, for example, in changing someconditions in the Kyoto Protocol to allowgreater latitude for natural regeneration.

Codes of practice are developed by workingwith other stakeholders (e.g., industry) to agreeand implement them voluntarily and to encour-age restoration.The International Tropical Tim-ber Organisation recently completed detailedguidelines for natural regeneration, in associa-tion with IUCN and WWF, which provide anexample of this approach.166 As with casestudies, however, such codes are only worth theinvestment in developing them if they areimplemented in practice.

4. Future Needs

Many of these ideas remain in their infancy. Westill require far better understanding of theeconomic and other benefits of environmentalgoods and services from restoration in order tomake the case, for example, for natural regen-

163 Ecott, 2002.

164 Piskulich, 2001.165 Byers, 2000.166 ITTO, 2002.

17. Policy Interventions for Forest Landscape Restoration 125

eration rather than other land uses or forchanges in major funding initiatives such asthose under the European Common Agricul-tural Policy. More generally, major changes arestill needed in global trade policy to remove theperverse incentives that currently act againstrestoration in many areas.

References

Byers, B. 2000. Understanding and InfluencingBehaviour. Biodiversity Support Programme,Washington DC

Ecott, T. 2002. Forest Landscape Restoration:Working Examples from Five Ecoregions. WWF,Gland, Switzerland.

International Tropical Timber Organisation. 2002.ITTO Guidelines for the Restoration, Man-agement and Rehabilitation of Degraded and Secondary Tropical Forests. ITTO, Yokohama,Japan

Joint Nature Conservation Committee. 2002. Envi-ronmental effects of the Common AgriculturalPolicy and possible mitigation measures. Report tothe Department of Environment, Food and RuralAffairs, Peterborough, UK.

Miranda, M., Moreno, M.L., and Porras, I.T. 2004.Thesocial impacts of carbon markets in Costa Rica:the case of the Huetar Norte region. Internatio-nal Institute of Environment and Development,London.

Piskulich, Z. 2001. Incentives for the Conservation ofPrivate Lands in Latin America. BiodiversitySupport Programme.The Nature Conservancy andUSAID, Arlington, Virginia.

Rotbergs, U. 1994. Forests and forestry in Latvia. In:Paulenka, J., and Paule, L., eds. Conservation ofForests in Central Europe. Arbora Publishers,Zvolen, Slovakia.

Sithole, B. 2000. Where the Power Lies: MultipleStakeholder Politics Over Natural Resources—AParticipatory Methods Guide. Center for Interna-tional Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia.

Tarasofsky, R. 1999. Assessing the InternationalForest Regime. IUCN Environmental Law Centre,Bonn, Germany.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Forest landscape restoration approaches usethe restoration of forest functions as an entrypoint to identify and build a diversity of social,ecological, and economic benefits at a land-scape scale. As such they rely on achievingbroad consensus on a range of restorationinterventions from a variety of stakeholders,who may have very different perceptions ofwhat forest landscapes should provide. Thisrequires effective negotiation among stake-holders whose negotiation skills, interests,needs, and power are often markedly different.However, the success of forest landscaperestoration approaches often hinges on howsuccessfully such negotiations are conducted.The principles of forest landscape restoration,therefore, aim at restoring forests to provide

multiple social and environmental benefitsthrough processes that involve stakeholder par-ticipation. The achievement of these ambitiousgoals relies on finding a successful passagethrough an array of practical challenges. Theseinclude the implications of current and futureland tenure, competing land uses, and reach-ing a balance between different managementregimes. Success depends on the ability of thoseinitiating or guiding a forest landscape restora-tion project to manage the tensions and conflicts that will arise on the way. This, in turn,implies a certain amount of knowledge abouthow to identify, analyse, and manage conflict,retaining the varied, useful perspectives thatare helpfully expressed through conflict, whileresolving or mitigating those aspects of conflictthat are dangerous or prevent project success.

1.1. Types of Conflict

There are two aspects that characterise con-flicts: their openness and the type of conflict.

Conflict can be concealed or open167; eithercan cause problems in developing successfullandscape-scale approaches to restoration:

• Open conflicts: everyone can see them andknows about them.

• Hidden conflicts: some people can see themand know about them, but hide them from others (particularly outsiders), perhapsbecause of cultural or social reasons (e.g.,

18Negotiations and ConflictManagementScott Jones and Nigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Forest landscape restoration relies onachieving broad consensus among a varietyof stakeholders.

However, stakeholders may have very dif-ferent perceptions of what forest landscapesshould provide.

This will require a certain amount of negoti-ation and possible conflict resolution.

126

167 DFID, 2002a; Fisher et al, 2000.

18. Negotiations and Conflict Management 127

many gender-related conflicts) or becausedisputes may be embarrassing to the com-munity (e.g., disagreements between youngpeople and elders).

• Latent conflicts: these come to the surfacewhen something changes the status quo. Forexample, if a restoration project brings ben-efits (money, power, influence, equipment),their distribution can create conflicts thatwere not there before the project arrived.

There are also different types of conflict. It isimportant to understand which type of conflictone is facing since each needs addressing in adifferent way.

• Interpersonal conflicts: between two or morepeople relating to personality differences

• Conflicts of interest: someone wants some-thing that another has (e.g., money, power,land, influence, inheritance)

• Conflicts about process: how differentpeople, groups, and organisations solve prob-lems (e.g., legal, customary, institutional)

• Structural conflicts: the most deep-seatedtype relating to major differences that arehard to address (e.g., unequal social struc-tures, unfair legal systems, economic powerbiased toward certain stakeholders, or differ-ences in deep-seated values, such as culturalor religious)

Sometimes one type of conflict, perhapsunthinkingly, is disguised as another, forinstance a personality clash may be presentedas an issue of process.

1.2. Elements in a ConflictSituation

Managing conflict is not a straightforwardprocess. Rather, there are a number of keybuilding blocks in a conflict managementprocess that interrelate and must often beundertaken in parallel (Figure 18.1168):

• Conflict analysis is about understanding whothe different stakeholders are, what are theirstrengths, fears, needs, and interests, and howthey perceive or understand the conflict(s).

• Capacity-building is about helping people tomanage conflict. It may be required at anytime. For example, it may take place prior to negotiations because some stakeholdersneed to develop negotiation skills. It maytake place before agreements are signedbecause different groups like to have agree-ments in different forms; it is important thatall groups have the capacity to understandeach other’s approaches to problem solvingand reaching agreements. Capacity-buildingoften takes the form of training (e.g., in nego-tiations or “people” skills), but sometimesother resources are needed.

• Designing a process is about planning who to bring together, where, when, and how.The most effective conflict managementprocesses are usually flexible, iterative, andcapable of keeping stakeholders on board asevents, issues, and even the attitudes of theconflicting parties change.

Conflict analysis Designing a process (plan)

Capacity building Process management

PrinciplesTools Experience

Rapport Communication

Perceptions

Conflictmanagement

Figure 18.1. Building blocks in the conflict management process: elements in a conflict situation.

168 Modified from Warner and Jones, 1998.

128 S. Jones and N. Dudley

• Process management is about how to buildand maintain effective ways of working withthe parties, to retain flexibility and patience,while still keeping focussed on outcomes andworking toward success on the criteria thatstakeholders have agreed to, for example,how to convene an effective meeting withclear goals, or how to monitor an agreement.

Achieving these things requires adhering tocertain principles (e.g., mutual respect, beingaccountable, recognising the potential and

limits of your influence, see Figure 18.2), usingcertain tools (e.g., stakeholder and genderanalysis), and applying key experience (e.g.,with similar projects or with these people inother projects). They also require key peopleskills, among the most important of which aremaintaining good rapport and effective com-munications, and effectively engaging with themultiple perspectives.169

Consensus-BuildingPrinciples

Acknowledge and embrace differentperceptions

Focus onunderlying needs, not initial demands

Testagreement(s) for achievability— [reality testing]

Try to achieve mutual gains—aimto achieve early agreement onsomething

Explore possibilities for reframing power, needs, options

Accommodate culturaldifferences

Seek andengage withdiversity

Build and maintaineffectivecommunications

Develop andmanagegood rapport

Understandand try toequalizepower

Allow sufficienttime for analysis given your resources

Widen options beforenarrowing tosolutions

Figure 18.2. Principles for successful negotiation.168a

168a Modified from Warner, 2001.169 Jones, 1998.

18. Negotiations and Conflict Management 129

1.3. BATNA (Best Alternative to aNegotiated Agreement)169a

Negotiations are a voluntary process. But whatif the other person is completely inflexible,breaks the ground rules you agreed to, and onlywants his or her own way. In short, what if theother person does not want to negotiate? Sim-ilarly, what if the other person is negotiating ingood faith, you have excellent communications,and trust each other, but it is simply not possi-ble (in his or her view) to meet even your“bottom line” needs? Under these circum-stances, you need an alternative to negotiation.There may be several alternatives. What youreally need is the best one.

So what would be your best alternative to a negotiated agreement? In the (unfortunate) language of conflict management, this has become known as a BATNA (best alternative toa negotiated agreement). Box 18.1 illustratessome examples of where a BATNA may beappropriate.

1.4. Project and ProcessManagement

Any approach to forest landscape restorationrequires time and resources to identify, to agreeto, and to manage the process. Different agen-cies have different approaches to project andprocess management, developed perhaps fromcommercial approaches or international devel-opment models. Clearly, in the world of logicalframeworks, multi-stakeholder partnerships,and collaborative management schemes, themanagement process itself is a subject for nego-tiation that requires the full range of skills andprinciples discussed above.

Conflicts over one form of management indicate an opportunity to search for otherapproaches that can helpfully deal with thelegal, financial, political, and operational issuesthat any complex project or programmeinvolves. It follows that successful forest land-scape design will be able to identify and engagewith different management approaches and use the negotiation process to build ownershipwhile deciding roles and responsibilities. Some-times one agency or another will desperatelyseek management control, and the task is tonegotiate shared understandings and responsi-

Box 18.1. Examples of Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) in theContext of Forest Landscape Restoration

The loggers simply don’t want to negotiate atall. They are going to go ahead and cutthose trees.

BATNA—What about going to the news-papers? Let the media know that this biodiversity hotspot is threatened andlocal people are suffering.

The donor is not able to give you another grantto add an extra component to this work.

BATNA—Perhaps write a report that helpsto bring the donor’s expectations in linewith your capacity to deliver.

The people in the community feel powerlessto enter face-to-face negotiations with the

government and the large Geneva-based andWashington, DC–based agencies.

BATNA—Possibly see if a mediator can befound who would be acceptable to bothsides.

The negotiations went well and trust is high,but the government was unable to agreeinvolvement of their officials due to gov-ernment rules.

BATNA—Perhaps work with another NGO with relevant expertise that cancomplement you but has no governmentrestrictions over committing official staff.

169a Fisher and Ertel, 1995.

130 S. Jones and N. Dudley

bilities. At other times, it is a hard task to iden-tify any agency that feels able to take manage-ment responsibility.Again, this is an opportunityto explore why, and to undertake a collectivesearch for a solution that supports stakeholderswho are willing to put their names forward.

1.5. Negotiation Health Warning

Finally, it is important to note that like otheraspects of conflict management, negotiation isa culturally bound process. Different societies,groups, agencies, and organisations all have different cultures and approaches to managingconflict. While much of the literature on nego-tiations is Western and business-oriented, thereneeds to be a high degree of cultural sensitivityand contextually located understanding toproceed with negotiations, especially wheremany different cultures are involved in multi-stakeholder negotiations.

2. Examples

There is very limited experience in applyingconflict resolution and negotiation skills tolandscape initiatives in forest restoration. Wehighlight here just a few examples from otherchapters in this book that have shown somesuccessful or interesting outcomes throughnegotiations.

• In Vietnam, a three-dimensional paper andcardboard model was used to bring stake-holders together around “their” landscape to identify specific elements within it. Theprocess was aimed at reconciling differentviews of the landscape and what it could looklike in the future. It provided those aroundthe model with the opportunity to expresstheir views on the importance of differentelements in the landscape (more informationon this example can be found in “Assessingand Addressing Threats in Restoration Pro-grammes”).

• In Malaysia, an ongoing negotiation processwith oil palm plantation companies is gradu-ally ensuring a change in the companies’ poli-cies related to restoration. Whereas initiallythe companies converted their entire estates

to oil palm, they are now gradually allocatingpart of their land for natural regenerationand plantation of local species (for more onthis example see “Restoring Quality in Exist-ing Native Forest Landscapes”).

• In Jordan, negotiation between goat herdersand park authorities ensured a reduction in grazing, thus allowing for more naturalregeneration (for more on this example see“Restoration of Protected Area Values”).

3. Outline of Tools

Learning and applying the tools and skills forsuccessful conflict management cannot comefrom reading books or attending courses alone,but also involves long periods of trial and error,and observation—“learning by doing.” Manyparticipatory techniques described elsewhere inthis book are relevant. Tools and skill sets forconflict management that are particularly rele-vant include those relating to analysis, capacitybuilding,communications,creative thinking,nego-tiation, and project and process management.

3.1. Negotiation Process

Negotiating involves meeting to discuss ways ofreaching a mutual agreement or arrangement.A negotiation is a voluntary process in whicheach person or group (often called a party) hasa position that is not fixed, but that does haveits limits. A successful negotiation can create asense of ownership and commitment to sharedsolutions and shared follow-up actions. Thissense of ownership and commitment makesnegotiated solutions often more desirable, forexample, than legal solutions, where one partymay feel it lost out. In a conflict, some thingscannot be negotiated, and some things can.Usually it turns out that many more things canbe negotiated than people first thought. This isanother reason why negotiated agreements area valuable way, though not the only way, oftrying to manage conflicts in forest landscaperestoration. It follows that a first step in nego-tiation is reaching agreement on what is nego-tiable. Successful negotiations follow certainimportant principles (see Box 18.2) and require

18. Negotiations and Conflict Management 131

Box 18.2. Some Principles and Skills Involved in Negotiating Forest LandscapeRestoration (See also Figure 18.2)

Be clear on what everyone means by theissue and the problems, opportunities, andpeople/agencies involved

Adopt a positive attitude, for example, beingclear that conflicts are not just problemsbut also opportunities

Have in mind some kind of a route map,some idea about ways in which key stake-holders wish to proceed

Address role, responsibility, and legitimacyissues, including the limitations (bound-aries) to your negotiating authority

Build and maintain effective rapport andrelationships

Active listeningIdentify high-quality, relevant questionsEmbrace multiple perspectives and

perceptionsBuild on what is already there (including cul-

tural aspects of conflict management andproblem solving)

Consider process (law, custom, institutional)as well as structural conflicts and conflictsof interest

Keep in mind options for withdrawing or notgetting involved further

Keep an eye on capacity building for self-development and organisationaldevelopment

Separate and focus on the problem and notthe personalities

Separate and focus on underlying needs andmotivations, not initial positions

Know what you would do if the negotiationsdid not work, perhaps because the otherparty broke the ground rules or tried touse unacceptable force (this is also calledknowing your BATNA: best alternative toa negotiated agreement; see Box 18.1)

Seek, explore, and emphasise commonground

Put your case in terms of their needs, not justwhy you want something

The more you know about the other’s position, the better able you are to findconsensus-based solutions; do somehomework to find out their situation

Maintain a creative, positive approachUse paraphrasing and other communication

skills to understand and describe theother’s points

Create a positive environment for the negotiation (think about the physical set-ting, the comfort and acceptability of theplace, the time, and the way you manageyourself)

Look for an early, small successes (reachagreement on something early, even if that is just the venue, then emphasise thatagreement; common ground—start small)

Make sure your preparations are as com-plete and accurate as possible.Write downwhat you have done to prepare. Checkwith a colleague. Check with another col-league. Seek constructive feedback.

Keep in mind:

1. The process and conflict managementstyle

2. Your goals and boundaries (your limit orbottom line)

3. Opportunities to address power inequalities4. Your colleagues’ needs, expectations, and

ability to act as resources5. Your personal values and principles6. Time and space for reframing issues7. Capacity building needs that may emerge8. The needs for more analysis that may

emerge

Multiple perspectives and perceptions canbe useful. A diversity of opinion helps usshed light on the issue from different direc-tions.Treat difference and diversity not as anemotional trigger to fight against, but as amoment of opportunity to engage with.

132 S. Jones and N. Dudley

knowledge, skills, and a positive attitude. It ishelpful to look at each of these things in rela-tion to three phases in negotiations:

• Preparation—what we need to do before thenegotiation

• Negotiation itself—could take place in onemeeting or over several meetings

• Follow-up—what we need to do after the nego-tiation is over and agreement has been reached

A negotiation can happen at any time.Entering a community or a government offi-cial’s office may require a negotiation.The gate-keeper may want to know some details beforepeople just walk in, including when a group oragency will arrive, how long it will stay, underwhose authority, with what level of formality,and to do what.

Having agreed to who are the stakeholderswho need to be involved, a process of negotia-tions in forest landscape restoration will prob-ably look something like this:

1. Each group works to understand the other group’s initial positions relating to thelandscape.

2. Each group then asks high-quality ques-tions and uses listening skills to try to under-stand underlying needs, fears, and motivationsin identifying restoration interventions.

3. The parties try to deploy creative thinkingand other skills to generate a wide range ofoptions that could address these needs, fears,and motivations.

4. This range of options is prioritised andbrought together in ways that allow everyoneto gain as much as possible.

5. An agreement is sought, to which every-one can commit.

6. That agreement is tested against the realworld to make sure it is achievable.

7. The parties agree on the next steps, onhow to manage the restoration interventionsand the resources that are needed, and on ways of monitoring the agreements and com-mitments they have made.

3.2. Analytical Tools

A large number of analytical tools and skillsthat are used in participatory forest manage-

ment, project management, and developmentcan be brought to bear in conflict management.Examples include participatory appraisal,170

a variety of approaches for measuring andanalysing sustainability,171 and more generaltools that help to frame and guide furtheranalysis, such as STEEP, SWOT, problem trees,and forcefield analyses.172 The key is to usethose that are relevant for different stakehold-ers and that help to bring understanding andwider perspectives on the issues. Key analyticaltools, though, include the following:

• Stakeholder analysis173

• Conflict mapping and situation analysis174

• Tools that address power relations, culture,and gender175

A variety of analytical tools can feed into asummary conflict analysis. Conflict analysis canbe done in the office (alone or in a group) or inthe field (for example, in participatory exer-cises) or in combination. Successful analysesare clear about who undertook the analysis,when, and why, and make it clear how differentgroups were involved in verifying and agreeingto analysis summaries from different stake-holder perspectives. Of course, as events changeand time moves on, analyses need to be revis-ited. This is especially important when newstakeholders enter the picture or establishedstakeholders leave, and when critical eventschange key stakeholders’ circumstances.

Analysis helps to identify the domain of con-flict (e.g., domestic, social, cultural, economic, orpolitical) and whether conflict is nested withinseveral domains. Conflict mapping with keyindividuals or stakeholder groups, can help tosummarise information and show up major differences and possible ways forward. Oneexample is given as a matrix (Fig. 18.3).However, flow charts,Venn diagrams, and othervisually powerful mapping tools can help

170 Jackson and Ingles, 1998; www.fao.org/participation.171 Bell and Morse, 2003; Dalal-Clayton and Bass, 2002.172 Pretty et al, 1995.173 DFID, 2002b, section 2; Ramirez, 1999; Richards et al,2003.174 DFID, 2002b, section 3; Fisher et al, 2000; Wehr, 1998.175 Fisher et al, 2000.

18. Negotiations and Conflict Management 133

communicate the outcomes from an analysis. Itis important to remember, though, that theprocess of analysis itself is a part of managingconflict. Done well, the process itself can helpfoster trust and mutual understanding.An earlyagreement on the individual and collective concerns and opportunities can help establishthe stage for positive negotiation of emergingissues.

3.3. Capacity Building

Undertaking a process of analysis often re-quires capacity building. Some stakeholderswill be familiar with negotiating from a businessperspective. Others will see negotiations asembedded within their own culture andsociety—the way they negotiate and problemsolve will be different. Others may use legalframeworks or a scientific approach to analysis.Again, addressing the process of analysis isitself a part of the overall approach to manag-ing conflict. Capacity building skills and toolsmay need to be deployed at an early stage.

Identifying and responding to gaps in conflictmanagement skills or to gaps in resourcesrequires a sophisticated approach to capacitybuilding backed up by appropriate levels ofresourcing (e.g., for training and stakeholdersupport). Building capacity is best seen as anongoing activity rather than a linear one. High-quality capacity building forms part of address-ing inequalities in power relations. Strengthsand needs analysis and some form of trainingneeds analysis are important first steps in

capacity building.176 Capacity building actionsalso need to be linked with reflection, so thatinterventions can be monitored and evaluatedon an ongoing basis. This process, too, helps tobuild confidence and trust, when people appre-ciate the fact that someone somewhere is takingresponsibility for empowering key stakeholdersto participate effectively.

3.4. Effective Communications

Building and maintaining effective communi-cations are key aspects of conflict managementand multi-stakeholder partnerships in forestlandscape restoration. Providing, managing,using, and facilitating access to information ispart of any communication strategy.177 What isadditionally important in conflict managementis ensuring that these things translate intomeaningful understanding. Indeed, effectivecommunications are vital to generating and dis-seminating the high levels of understanding ofdifferent stakeholders’ perspectives and needsthat good conflict management requires. Someaspects of effective communications relate togeneral communications strategies: the frame-works and mechanisms for enabling stakehold-ers to engage with one another on relevantmatters. This includes documents, meetings, theuse of different media, and an overall informa-tion, communication, and monitoring manage-ment system, such as a logical framework or

Name of person or party A B CPosition or stance in relation to the conflictNeedsConcerns, anxieties, or fears Attitudes toward the others Assumptions about the othersValues and beliefsHistorical issues (e.g., past misunderstandings) Types of power (e.g., moral, financial, political)

Figure 18.3. Matrix to help analyse conflict.

176 Bartram and Gibson, 1997.177 Dalal-Clayton and Bass, 2002, Ch. 8.

134 S. Jones and N. Dudley

action plan. Other aspects relate more to inter-personal communications, such as getting thebalance right between telling and asking, orbecome a good listener (Box 18.3).

In dealing with conflict, one important dis-tinction is between telling and asking. Givingfree information is an important part of building communications. However, if one isusually “telling” people, this can be perceivedas aggressive and dominating (e.g., “I’m goingto tell you what the law says—and that is theend of the story”). Asking relevant questions inan involving, open way can communicate asense of concern and interest, that someone hasbothered to identify questions that may helpmutual understanding. Of course, a balancebetween the two is needed.

3.5. Creative Thinking

People and agencies tend to think and react inthe ways that they always have done. The waywe think is constrained by many things, includ-ing our experience, worldview, education, anddegree of comfort with new ideas. Creative

thinking is about breaking these patterns tolook at situations in new ways—thinking“outside the box.” Creative thinking is animportant asset to conflict management at allstages, not just analysis. Often, a breakthroughcan come when creative thinking allows the sit-uation to be reframed—changing the way weconstruct and represent the conflict.178 Reach-ing agreement requires strong skills in synthe-sis—thinking creatively about how to developan agreement and monitoring process thateveryone can live with can be challenging. Anumber of tools exist that can help enhancepeople’s creative thinking skills. One-on-oneand in small groups, good facilitators and train-ers can help to build creative thinking skills.Where things get trickier is moving throughorganisations’ management and decision-making structures to translate the creative,useful thoughts into actions that are helpful.Creative thinking is culturally embedded.Indeed, culture plays a major part in resisting

Box 18.3. Barriers to Good Listening

“On-off listening”—drifting off into per-sonal affairs while someone is talking

“Switch off” listening—words that irritate usso that we stop listening

“Open ears–closed mind” listening—wedecide the speaker is boring and think thatwe can predict what he or she will say, sowe stop listening

“Glassy eyed” listening“Too deep for me” listening—when ideas are

complex or complicated there is a dangerwe will switch off

“Matter over mind” listening—when aspeaker says something that clashes withwhat we think and believe strongly, wemay stop listening

Being “subject-centred” instead of “speaker-centred”—details and facts about an inci-

dent become more important than whatpeople are saying themselves

“Fact” listening—we try to remember factsbut the speaker has gone on to new factsand we become lost

“Pencil” listening—trying to put down onpaper everything the speaker says usuallymeans we are bound to lose some of it andeye contact is also lost

“Hubbub” listening—there are many dis-tractions that we listen to instead

“I’ve got something to contribute” listen-ing—something the speaker says triggerssomething in our own mind and we are soeager to contribute that we stop listening

An awareness of the above barriers to lis-tening can be a first step in avoiding them.

178 Lewicki et al, 2003.

Adapted from training materials, Centre for International Development and Training, University of Wolverhampton, UK.

18. Negotiations and Conflict Management 135

and improving creative thinking skills, in organ-isations as well as other groups.179

4. Future Needs

Most conservation organisations, forestrydepartments, and companies have only verylimited knowledge about conflict resolution.Capacity building for conflict management andnegotiation within conservation and forestryorganisations is a critical need in terms of build-ing the ability to work across broad scales andmainstream conservation. Most of the tools andexpertise are known but have been applied in only a very limited way within the field ofnatural resource management.

References

Bartram, S., and Gibson, B. 1997. Training NeedsAnalysis. Gower Publishing, London.

Bell, S., and Morse, S. 2003. Measuring Sustainability.Earthscan, London.

Dalal-Clayton, B., and Bass, S. 2002. SustainableDevelopment Strategies. OECD, Earthscan andUNDP. Earthscan Publications, London.

Department for International Development(DFID). 2002a. Conducting conflict assessments:guidance notes, DFID. Government of the UnitedKingdom, http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/conflictassessmentguidance.pdf.

Department for International Development(DFID). 2002b. Tools for development. DFID,Government of the United Kingdom. http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/toolsfordevelopment.pdf.

FAO, 2002.Fisher, S., et al. 2000. Working with Conflict. Zed

Books, London.Fisher, R., and Ertel, D. 1995. Getting Reading to

Negotiate, Penguin Books, London.Hofstede, G. 1994. Cultures and Organisations:

Software of the Mind—The Successful StrategistSeries. Harper Collins, London.

Jackson, W.J., and Ingles, A.W. 1998. ParticipatoryTechniques for Community Forestry. World WideFund for Nature, IUCN-World ConservationUnion and Australian Agency for InternationalDevelopment, Gland, Switzerland.

Jones, P.S. 1998. Conflicts about Natural Resources.Footsteps No. 36 (September). Tearfund, Tedding-ton, London.

Lewicki, R.J., Gray, B., and Elliott, M. 2003. MakingSense of Intractable Environmental Conflicts:Concepts and Cases. Island Press, Covelo andWashington, DC.

Pretty, J.N., Gujit, I., Thompson, J., and Scoones,I. 1995. Participatory Learning and Action: ATrainer’s Guide. International Institute for Envi-ronment and Development, London.

Ramirez, R. 1999. Stakeholder analysis and conflictmanagement. In: Buckles, D. ed. CultivatingPeace—Conflict and Collaboration in NaturalResources Management. World Bank, Washing-ton, DC.

Richards, M., Davies, J., and Yaron, G. 2003. Stake-holder Incentives in Participatory Forest Manage-ment. ITDG Publishing, London.

Warner, M., and Jones, P.S. 1998. Conflict resolutionin community based natural resources manage-ment. Overseas Development Institute PolicyPaper (No. 35), August.

Warner, M. 2001. Complex Problems, NegotiatedSolutions. ITDG Publishing, London.

Wehr, P. 1998. International on-line training programmeon intractable conflict. http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/cemerge.htm.179 Hofstede, 1994.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

In the face of increased threat of massivespecies’ extinction, with estimates that morethan half of the world’s threatened species liveon less than 1.4 percent of the earth,180 it maybe important to consider a range of practicaland tactical interventions to begin to reversethis rapid degradation, particularly in highlythreatened areas that are extremely rich in bio-diversity.

There are still surprisingly few examples ofsuccessful forest restoration from a conserva-tion perspective, particularly at a large scale.181

Elsewhere, we have discussed the importanceof carrying out restoration as a component of

larger conservation and development pro-grammes, but in some cases there may also beopportunities to carry out useful restorationmore opportunistically.This chapter is intendedto highlight some tactical interventions thatcould be undertaken if framed within a forestlandscape restoration process or approach.

Planning at a landscape or ecoregional scaleis difficult enough, but actually intervening atthat scale is generally harder still. In a forestlandscape restoration context, activities such asplanning, engagement, priority setting, negotia-tion, trade-offs, modelling, etc. are usually allbest carried out at a landscape scale. However,with the exception of some policy interventions,most of the practical restoration actions willtake place at sites within the landscape orecoregion. Although planning processes areoften lengthy, some actions can often start inanticipation of the overall long-term strategy to restore forest landscapes; generally someresponses will be clear and uncontroversial andthese can often be initiated even whilst moredifficult issues remain unresolved.

This chapter discusses the types of specificand punctual interventions related to restora-tion that a field programme may considerundertaking. Some of these would be expectedto arise within a longer term strategy to restoreecological and social forest functions but mayalso come in advance of such a strategy due tolack of funds for the overall process, lack ofbuy-in from stakeholders, and other issuesrelating to expediency or urgency. When aspecies is facing immediate threats of extinc-

19Practical Interventions that WillSupport Restoration in Broad-ScaleConservation Based on WWFExperiencesStephanie Mansourian

Key Points to Retain

Urgent conservation or livelihood problemsmay necessitate short-term, strategic inter-ventions even in the absence of a longer-term programme.

A series of 10 different tactical interventionsare suggested, ranging from threat removalto positive economic incentives.

136

180 Brooks et al, 2002.181 TNC, 2002.

19. Practical Interventions that Will Support Restoration 137

tion, for instance, short-term measures may beneeded even while long-term planning is still inprocess. None of the proposed interventionsbelow replace larger scale efforts, nor are theymeant to be implemented in isolation from abroad-scale planning process. Rather, they areto be seen as elements of the larger process andas possible entry points; success at a small scaleis one of the most effective ways of gainingsupport for larger-scale programmes.

When selecting one of the proposed entrypoints listed below (see Outline of Tools), it isimportant to think of the desired impact of thistactical intervention:

• Is it to influence a specific group of stake-holders? Which one and what is the desiredeffect?

• Is it to understand better the dynamics (bio-logical or social) in the landscape?

• Is it to change sociopolitical conditions in the landscape before engaging in restorationwithin the landscape? Which conditions?And what is the most cost-effective way tochange them?

• What are the resources (human and finan-cial) and time involved? Can we affordthem?

• What are the priority issues that needaddressing soonest?

2. Examples

2.1. Research into DifferentRestoration Methods in Malaysia

Some palm oil companies along the Kin-abatangan River in Sabah, Borneo, have agreedto set aside land for restoration. Initial trialsshowed limited success. Starting in 2004, in aneffort to identify the most successful techniquesfor restoration, tests began using differentmethods on a small plot of land. These are themethods proposed (during a field visit by theauthor):

• Natural regeneration with no intervention(including a smaller study area fencedagainst browsing animals)

• Assisted natural regeneration (mainly someland preparation and weeding around regen-erating species)

• Planting with native species (using speciesadapted to local conditions and including ifpossible both commercially valuable diptero-carp trees and fruit trees)

• Planting an exotic species as a nurse crop tofoster natural regeneration

Each approach is to be monitored on aregular basis in order to determine which oneyields the highest survival rates. The long-termaim of this research is to disseminate the mostsuitable restoration methods in all the areas setaside for restoration along this important bio-diversity corridor.

2.2. Changing the Forest Policy inBulgaria Thanks to a Cost-Benefit Analysis182

Bulgaria’s 75 islands on the Danube river arerich in biodiversity, and are an importantstopover site for migratory birds. Yet, over thelast 40 years, the government has systematicallyconverted natural floodplain forest to hybridpoplar plantations to supply the local timberindustry. Until the year 2000, the governmenthad plans to continue conversion of thisecosystem, leaving only 7 percent of the origi-nal forest. Thanks to a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, sponsored by the World Bankand WWF, it was shown that financial lossesfrom suspending timber production on certainislands could be offset by intensifying produc-tion in areas already converted to poplar plantations. Additional benefits that were high-lighted by the analysis included the potentialuse of original forest for recreational purposes,improved fishing (by creating more spawninggrounds), the harvest of nontimber forest prod-ucts, and possible ecotourism development. In2001 the government, therefore, changed itspolicy, adopting one that called for the imme-diate halt of all logging and conversion offloodplain forests to poplar plantations on theDanube islands, restoration of native species

182 Ecott, 2002.

138 S. Mansourian

in selected sites, as well as strengthening of the protected areas network on the islands.Although a longer term forest landscaperestoration programme for the Danube isunderway, this tactical intervention helped tomaintain a unique habitat that might well havedisappeared before the more detailed pro-gramme was implemented.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Focussing on Removing orReducing the Identified Threats

Sometimes it will be sufficient to remove,reduce, or mitigate a particular threat or pres-sure on forests in a landscape to set them on a positive path toward regeneration. Becausethreats often originate from political or eco-nomic decisions, changing them may requiresignificant lobbying, backed up by negotiations,research, and building of strategic partnerships.If these threats can be reduced or removed,natural regeneration can often be significant (ifthere are no other biophysical constrainingfactors).

Examples of threats that are common as an impediment to natural forest regenerationinclude the following:

• Alien invasive species (e.g., electric ants,Wasmannia auropunctata, in New Caledonia)

• Government incentives that foster forestconversion (e.g., Chile’s subsidies for plantations)

• Infrastructure projects (e.g., the constructionof the Ho Chi Minh highway in Vietnam)

• Demand for cash crops (e.g., valuable soyaexpansion in Paraguay causing forest conversion)

• Unsustainable agricultural practices (e.g.,Slash and burn agriculture in Madagascar)

• Illegal logging (e.g., in Indonesia)• Uncontrolled and “unnatural” fires (e.g., in

India)

Concentrating first on removal of threats isappropriate when it is clear that addressing theidentified threat can lead to natural regenera-tion or restoration with only limited interven-

tions. This is also a necessary choice in caseswhen a field project cannot start until the threathas been addressed.

Depending on the social and economiccontext, some threats may be much easier toaddress than others. For instance, illegal loggingis in itself a very complex issue, which may wellbe beyond the remit of a restoration project.However, knowledge of key areas affected canhelp determine where (or even whether) andhow to establish a restoration programme. It isimportant to recognise threats that cannot beaddressed, or resources may be pumped into ahopeless situation.

3.2. Changing Government Policies

Often, a change in government policy mayprovide the right conditions to promoterestoration (also see “Policy Interventions forForest Landscape Restoration”). In some casesit may be necessary to lobby for more sup-portive policies, while in others, it may be necessary to remove destructive ones. TheEuropean Union’s (EU’s) Common Agricul-ture Policy (CAP) has for instance investedsignificantly in afforestation with limited socialand ecological results (see case study “TheEuropean Union’s afforestation Policies andtheir Real Impact on Forest Restoration”).WWF and other local partners are trying toaddress this in many EU countries (particularlyin southern Europe) by demonstrating alterna-tive, more socially and environmentally appro-priate forms of restoration that could befinanced by the same CAP subsidies. It will beimportant and relevant to focus efforts on gov-ernment policies when these have been identi-fied as a key factor in causing the loss anddegradation of forests (e.g., perverse incen-tives) or when there is a clear opportunity toengage the government in supportive policies(e.g., a new forest plan being developed). Insome countries, like Vietnam or China, thereare huge government programmes promotinginvestments in reforestation/afforestation.Because of the scale of these programmes, it isoften wiser (and economically more efficient)to engage in these processes than to investefforts in a separate project.

19. Practical Interventions that Will Support Restoration 139

3.3. Using Advocacy Levers

Some advocacy, lobbying, and economic toolscan be used to encourage change that supportsforest restoration or that removes or reducesthe pressure on forests.

• Market pressure: The market may be used to promote the use of products from well-managed forests or forests that are beingrestored. For example, WWF has worked onthe palm oil markets in Switzerland topromote better practices in Malaysia wherethe oil palm plantations have significantlydamaged natural forest cover and whererestoration of natural forest is now having totake place. This signifies engaging in researchon market routes and raising awareness atthe consumer end, as well as promoting solu-tions for better practices at the productionend.

• Pressure using multilateral donors: Multilat-eral donors may be used as a lever for changeeither through their own projects or throughimposing conditionality on loans. Forexample, agencies such as the Asian Devel-opment Bank (ADB) have active projectsrelated to forest policy, but they also financeplantation projects. In Vietnam, for instance,the ADB is one of the main donors to thegovernment’s Five Million Hectares Refor-estation Programme. Working together withsuch institutions may be a way of improvingpractices within their projects and alsoencouraging change in those projects thatthey finance.

• Communications/media tools such as Gifts tothe Earth: WWF developed the Gifts to theEarth tool, a public relations mechanism, topay tribute to major acts that favour the envi-ronment. This is one of many creative toolsthat may be used as an incentive for a gov-ernment or other decision maker to changecurrent policies or adopt new ones thatwould be more beneficial to or supportive ofrestoration.

• Campaigning: mobilising many stakeholdersto put pressure on the relevant decisionmakers (governments, multilateral agencies,the private sector) is an effective means of

ensuring change. It does need to be usedcarefully, however, and must be founded ongood data.

3.4. Changing Companies’ Practices

Traditionally, conservation organisations havenot worked much with the private sector. Yetgiven that the largest companies are largerfinancial players than most governments andthat they often determine future land-useoptions (e.g., mining companies, plantationcompanies, infrastructure companies), it isimportant to work with them in any large-scale restoration effort in order to ensure thatrestoration is well integrated in their plans.

This is, for instance, an effective way ofencouraging companies to adopt best (or atleast “better”) practices. Many companies arehappy to work with civil society organisationsespecially if improvement in their standardsmeans some form of certification, media oppor-tunities, and even in some cases the additionalbonus of more efficient (cheaper) production.The sorts of sectors that may be influentialinclude the infrastructure sector, the miningsector, and the forestry sector.WWF is currentlyengaging with large plantation companies suchas Stora Enso to not only promote better man-agement of their estates but also assist them torestore areas of the land that they manage.

3.5. Valuing Forests

Governments sometimes neglect or mismanageforests because the goods and services that theyproduce have not been properly valued. Byobtaining recognition of the value of forestsfrom either the government (if it is the majorcause of concern) or local communities, restora-tion of those values can be promoted.

This can be done a number of ways:

• Through a traditional cost-benefit analysis thatwould provide a good argument for restora-tion for governments (see the Bulgariaexample, above)

• Through research and surveys with localcommunities, particularly elders, to identifywhat values have been lost and what values

140 S. Mansourian

they would like to see restored. For example,in Vietnam WWF has engaged with commu-nities and the provincial government in thecentral Annamites to identify the forestvalues that have been lost as a starting pointfor setting future restoration objectives.

While recognising the value of forests is oneimportant step, it is but the first step. Govern-ments and other decision makers then need to take necessary measures to ensure that those values are protected and where relevantrestored.183

3.6. Specific Research

Often a large-scale programme to restore arange of forest functions cannot start until a number of specifications of the landscape are better understood. Initial research can becarried out with limited funds as a way to starta larger-scale programme.

This research may be related to any of thefollowing, for example:

• Restoration techniques: While a number ofrestoration techniques have been tried andtested, it is not always easy to know whichone will work best under local conditions. Asmall-scale trial plot can help identify those(see example on Borneo, above).

• Species’ mix: Often exotic species have beenused because they are better understoodthan local ones. Research money may be wellspent on identifying the growth rate of andnecessary conditions for specific local speciesas well as on the optimal mix of species.

• Removal of invasive species: Invasive speciescan often be the single most importantimpediment to natural regeneration or maintenance of forest quality within existingforests. Applied research can help test differ-ent techniques to remove the invasive specieswhile promoting indigenous ones.

• Communities and stakeholders: Socioeco-nomic research may be necessary to under-stand better the profiles of stakeholders inthe landscape and their motivations, pres-sures, livelihood conditions, and aspirations.

• Market research: Market research may behelpful when seeking to promote alternativeincome generating activities.

• Upstream versus downstream: In a landscapecontext, it may be important to identify the types of activities upstream and theirimpact downstream. For example, deforesta-tion upstream may be causing sedimentationproblems downstream.To encourage restora-tion within the landscape context, such causeand effect will need to be clearly demon-strated to stakeholders and substantiated bysuitable research.

The above represent but a few of the numer-ous research topics. There are many others thatare specific to different conditions.

3.7. Awareness Raising

If there is no identified need from the local population for restoration, then attempts atrestoration are likely to fail. It is important toensure that relevant stakeholders understandthe linkages between restoration and the thingsthat matter to them (availability of usefulplants, soil protection, provision of forest prod-ucts, etc.), and this may necessitate an awareness-raising campaign. For example, inNew Caledonia, WWF is one of nine partnersengaging in the protection and restoration ofthe dry forest.The project has a number of com-ponents, including active engagement of stake-holders (particularly land owners), and it hasspent considerable time and resources workingwith local landowners to mobilise their supportfor restoration and to help them understand theimplications of restoring the dry forest (bene-fits and costs).

There are a number of different forms ofpublicity (different media, workshops) and partof the skill in successful advocacy is in identify-ing the one that will reach the target audience(e.g., radio is often a good way of reaching ruralpopulations in poorer countries).

3.8. Training and Capacity Building

One tactical intervention may consist of offer-ing training in relevant restoration techniques.For instance in Morocco, WWF has been183 Sheng, 1993.

19. Practical Interventions that Will Support Restoration 141

invited to help redesign the university’s forestrycurriculum to include specific restoration elements.

The sorts of training that can be providedinclude the following:

• Nursery design and development: Trainingcan be provided to farmers and other com-munity members on managing tree nurseries.This may also include elements of seedrecognition and collection.

• Agroforestry techniques: When agriculturalpractices are an issue, training farmers intechniques such as agroforestry that aremore compatible with some form of naturalforest cover can be a useful approach withina forest landscape restoration initiative.

• Training can be provided in alternativeincome-generating activities (see below) toreduce the impact people are having onforests while offering them a realistic liveli-hood alternative.

• Improved grazing practices may sometimesbe a simple way of returning areas of land tonatural forest.

• In relevant cases, training may involve betterfire management practices (to remove firerisks, to control them, or to undertake pre-scribed burns).

3.9. Forest-Friendly EconomicActivities (Microenterprise Development)

In many countries the pressure on forests,the conversion of forests, or the hindering ofnatural regeneration is driven by the poorestpeople, who rely on forests for their immediateneeds but are under too much short-term pres-sure to invest in long-term restoration strate-gies. One way of addressing this may be byproviding training in improved practices thatwill help both sustain their own resource baseand reduce forest degradation, or, on the otherhand, by offering new economic activities thatreduce their detrimental impact on forests. Fora conservation organisation, this will generallyrequire partnering with development organisa-tions with expertise in, for example, microen-terprise development.

For example, in Madagascar, the main threatto forests is slash-and-burn agriculture withshort fallow periods. In a country with such highpoverty levels, the only way to reduce this pres-sure on forests is to provide alternative liveli-hood options for those local communities. Anumber of successful microenterprise develop-ment programmes have been attempted byentities such as USAID (US Agency for International Development),184 the U.N., andCARE. These programmes may not have beenexplicitly intended to reduce pressure onforests, but in partnering with conservationorganisations two objectives could be reached:improving livelihoods while ensuring thatforests are protected and, where appropriate,restored. When promoting such alternativelivelihood options, it is important to undertakesuitable feasibility and market studies, and notengage people, for instance, in honey produc-tion if there is no market for it.

3.10. Paying Communities forBetter Practices

It may sometimes be necessary or appropriateto use project money to compensate communi-ties for the loss they suffer by accepting restora-tion on land they own or use. This could be afirst activity before developing alternativelivelihood options. It can also be a way ofengaging communities that may not otherwisebe very receptive to the project. One risk withthis approach is that of getting communitiesaccustomed to compensation and expecting itover the long term. This clearly needs to be ashort-term activity with a clear plan to moveinto other activities.

4. Future Needs

In an ideal world, a comprehensive restorationprogramme would be well thought out, wouldaddress a range of stakeholders’ priorities,would be implemented at various scales(national, local, regional), and would be giventhe necessary resources and time to succeed.

184 ARD-RAISE Consortium, 2002.

142 S. Mansourian

Unfortunately, this is often not the case, andtherefore punctual interventions like thoselisted above may become necessary firstactions. All of the actions listed above wouldbenefit from being integrated into large pro-grammes that aim to restore forest functionswithin landscapes for the benefit of people andbiodiversity. One future need, therefore, is fordecision makers and donors to allocate suffi-cient resources to allow for the implementationof the large-scale programmes that are requiredto achieve the restoration of forest functions inmany regions of the world. Another need is for more creative partnerships between public,private, and civil society organisations, as well as between development and conservationorganisations to achieve the ambitious aims ofrestoring forest functions in landscapes.

References

ARD-RAISE Consortium. 2002. Agribusiness andforest industry assessment. Report submitted toUSAID–Madagascar, November 18.

Brooks, T.M., Mittermeier, R.A., Mittermeier, C.G.,et al. 2002. Habitat loss and extinction in thehotspots of biodiversity. Conservation Biology 16(4):909–923.

Ecott, T. 2002. Forest Landscape Restoration:Working Examples from Five Ecoregions. WWF,Gland, Switzerland.

Sheng, F. 1993. Integrating Economic Developmentwith Conservation. WWF International, Gland,Switzerland.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC). 2002. Geography ofHope Update: When and Where to ConsiderRestoration. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington,Virginia.

Additional Reading

Lamb, D., and Gilmour, D. 2003. Rehabilitation and Restoration of Degraded Forests. IUCN andWWF, Gland, Switzerland.

Mansourian, S., Davison, G., and Sayer, J. 2002.Bringing back the forests: by whom and forwhom? In: Sim, H.C., Appanah, S., and Durst, P.B.,eds. Bringing Back the Forests: Policies and Prac-tices for Degraded Lands and Forests. Proceedingsof an International Conference, 7–10 October2002. FAO, Thailand, 2003.

Ormerod, S.J. 2003. Restoration in applied ecology:editor’s introduction. Journal of Applied Ecology40:44–50.

Sayer, J., Elliott, C., and Maginnis, S. 2003. Protect,manage and restore: conserving forests in multi-functional landscapes. Paper prepared for theWorld Forestry Congress, Quebec, Canada.

Section VIIMonitoring and Evaluation

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

Monitoring is the process of periodically col-lecting and using data to inform managementdecisions. Monitoring is important for projectsof all sizes and for all areas of conservation,including forest restoration, to demonstrate

impact and to help improve project effective-ness. Monitoring becomes particularly vitalwhen projects become complex and includemany different types of goals and a variety ofstakeholders, as is often the case with forestrestoration projects.185

Although there are many differentapproaches for monitoring conservation proj-ects, over the last decade there has been anincreasing convergence on doing monitoring in the context of an adaptive managementapproach.186 The key to this approach is thatmonitoring cannot be tacked on at the end of aproject.187 Instead, it must be integrated into theoverall project cycle188 (Fig. 20.1).

The first step in any type of restorationproject is to carefully define the site and issues,and to identify what elements of biodiversityand other values that you want to focus on.Thisshould be followed by a thorough situationanalysis that establishes the causal chains thatlink your restoration targets (features) to thethreats (pressures) and root causes that affectthese targets. The third step is to identify wherealong these causal chains you think you canintervene with your actions (responses) and todevelop specific objectives for how you need tochange the system to improve the chances ofsuccess. Once you have done this basic work, itshould now be readily apparent as to what key

20Monitoring Forest RestorationProjects in the Context of an AdaptiveManagement CycleSheila O’Connor, Nick Salafsky, and Daniel W. Salzer

Key Points to Retain

Monitoring is a process of periodically col-lecting and using data to inform manage-ment decisions.

Monitoring is best done not as a separateactivity at the end of a project, but as an inte-gral part of an adaptive management cycle.

A complete monitoring plan outlines infor-mation needs, specifies the least number ofindicators to meet these needs, the methodsfor collecting the indicator data and who isresponsible, and when the data are collected.

The amount of resources spent on monitor-ing should vary inversely to the degree of cer-tainty that project activities will be effective.

There are tools and guidance available fordoing monitoring in the context of adaptivemanagement, but not enough has been donespecifically for long-term multiparty forestrestoration projects.

145

185 Ecological Restoration Institute and USDA-CFRP,2004.186 Stem et al, 2005.187 Ralph and Poole, 2002.188 CMP, 2004; Salafsky and Margoluis, 1998; TNC, 2000.

146 S. O’Connor et al

indicators you need to track in order to deter-mine how the targets are doing and whetheryour restoration actions are having theirintended results. A complete monitoring planclearly outlines your information needs, speci-fies the least number of indicators needed tomeet these needs, details methods for collectingthe indicator data, and describes who has thisresponsibility and when these data are col-lected. In addition, the monitoring plan identi-fies what analysis is undertaken by whom, andto whom information is circulated and when.189

The amount of project resources that youinvest in monitoring should generally varydepending on the situation you are facing.190

If you are in the rare situation where you are highly confident that forest conditions willrestore themselves passively, then you wouldlikely spend only a limited amount of resourceson monitoring the situation and making surethat no new threats emerge. If the restorationeffort warrants the use of straightforward

restoration techniques that have a provenrecord of success, then you would likely investmost of your resources in taking action andonly limited amounts on monitoring the results.And if there are restoration needs, but you areunsure how to effectively address them, youmay have to experiment with different actionsand spend relatively more resources to monitorand analyse the results. In general, the percent-age of project resources spent on monitoringshould vary inversely with your degree of cer-tainty that your activities will be effective.

2. Examples

We present a case study showing how monitor-ing and adaptive management were used toimprove forest restoration efforts and a ficti-tious case study illustrating some of the trapsthat monitoring efforts commonly fall into.

2.1. Case 1: Using Monitoring to Improve the Effectiveness of Restoration Actions in an Adaptive Management Cycle191

Problem: Deciding which strategies and activi-ties to undertake in a major restoration effortof Longleaf Pine Ecosystems in the southeast-ern U.S., and how to monitor the effectivenessof these actions so that effective adaptive man-agement can take place.

Solution: The goal of the project was to iden-tify which management techniques most effec-tively reduced hardwood density and movedthe ecosystem toward predetermined valuesfound in natural high-quality sand hills. Theproject established a reference condition (or a set of targets related to the biodiversityvalues—these included composition, structure,and function). They also determined a set ofmetrics that would possibly be useful as indica-tors of both management success (effectiveactions) and the state of the sand hill eco-system. To help determine the strategic man-agement actions, a conceptual model wasdeveloped that looked at both the degradation

Conceptualise

PlanActionsMonitoringSustainability

AnalyseUse/Adapt

Share

Iterate

ImplementActionsMonitoringSustainability

WWF Programme Management Cycle

- START -

Figure 20.1. A project/programme managementcycle adapted for WWF use. (Adapted from the Con-servation Measures Partnership (CMP), 2004.)

189 Earl et al, 2001; Hartanto et al, 2002; Margoluis andSalafsky, 1998.190 Earl et al, 2001; Hartanto et al, 2002; Margoluis andSalafsky, 1998. 191 Provencher et al, 2001.

20. Monitoring Forest Restoration Projects 147

of the sand hill ecosystem as well as its restora-tion. Through the experimental implementa-tion of actions, they monitored the impact ofthe actions themselves (did it meet the assump-tions made in the conceptual model?) as well aslooked at the overarching improvement to thevalues defined for the ecosystem. This allowedfor a complete and iterative process to achievethe objective of the project as well as makeprogress toward the long-term goal, which wasrestoring a functional diverse sand hill systemand restoring a habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and other long leafpine–associated species of special concern.

2.2. Case 2: Common Mistakes in Monitoring192

Problem: Deciding what to monitor as part ofthe implementation of a large forest restorationproject.

Solution: For the first 2 years of the project,the team does no monitoring whatsoever;it states that it is so busy taking importantrestoration actions that it has no money or staffresources to devote to monitoring.

The project team members first begin to con-sider monitoring at the start of the third yearbecause they realise that they need to report on their results to their financial donors. Theproject managers convene a meeting in whichthey consider the indicators that they willassess. One biologist on the team, who studieddeer for her graduate dissertation, recommendsdoing an intensive and expensive long-termstudy of the forest deer population. Anotherresearcher discusses the need to start setting upforest plots and belt transects in various typesof the forest to assess plant species’ abundance.A third team member goes on the Internet andpulls down a long list of indicators collected by other forest projects including identifyinganimal and plant species, surveying bird popu-lations, tagging trees, counting hunting parties,sampling water quality, and tracking resourceextraction permit applications, and recom-mends that the project team members consider

which of these they should use. Overwhelmedand frustrated, the project manager is about togive up on monitoring altogether.

Finally, the team decides to put its monitor-ing work in the context of an adaptive man-agement approach. The team takes the time todevelop a conceptual model of its situation andrealises that the major assumption behind itswork is that working with local communities toreduce hunting pressure on key seed disperserswill lead to enhanced forest regeneration. Tothis end, the team members develop a series ofsimple indicators to assess whether the com-munity members are responding to their effortsto reduce hunting and to measure whetherseedling regeneration is occurring. When theyimplement this work, they realise that althoughthey are being successful with stopping thehunting, the seedlings are not coming back asexpected, especially in large gaps. This forcesthe team members to focus in more detail onstudying why seedlings are not coming back inthe gaps and leads to changing their focus toactively planting seeds in large gap areas.

3. Outline of Tools

Different conservation groups have developedmore or less similar project managementsystems for helping practitioners to design,manage, and monitor their conservation work.An overview of some of these systems can befound in the “Rosetta Stone of ConservationPractice” that has been developed by the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP).193

Likewise, the Partnership’s “Open Standardsfor the Practice of Conservation” provides ageneric listing of the steps in this process.194

One specific system that can be useful topractitioners is the Nature Conservancy’s(TNC) “Enhanced 5-S Project ManagementProcess,”195 which can help identify the integrityof biodiversity targets (critical in forest restora-tion work), as well as help evaluate and priori-tise critical threats and other factors from the

192 Adapted from Salzer and Salafsky, in press.

193 Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP), 2004a.194 CMP, 2004b.195 The Nature Conservancy (TNC), 2004.

148 S. O’Connor et al

situation analysis, develop objectives, and iden-tify critical indicators. This system is based onan Excel workbook tool that walks practition-ers through the steps in the process. A simplerversion of this process can be found in Mea-sures of Success,196 which uses visual conceptualmodels to help show the causal chains linkingkey factors in your situation analysis as a basisfor setting objectives and selecting indicators.

In addition, many government agencies thatwork on forest management and restorationalso have guidance and tools available to helpin the design of monitoring plans and the selec-tion of specific indicators and methods (forexample, in the United States there is extensiveliterature on the subject from the EcologicalRestoration Institute or USDA’s CollaborativeForest Restoration Programme).One example ofthis type of effort is offered by the Forest Bio-diversity Indicators Project.197 They have devel-oped an online Forest Biodiversity IndicatorsSelection Web Tool (www.manometmaine.org/indicators/) that provides for rapid searchingand comparison of different forest biodiversitymonitoring indicators. Indicator search criteriainclude spatial scale, forest type, forest organisational level, indicator type, category ofinformation need, regional context, and ecolog-ical values measured by the indicator. Indica-tors are rated based on their practicality,relevance, utility, scientific merit, and ecologicalbreadth.

4. Future Needs

To date, most of the adaptive managementbased monitoring approaches being developedby conservation organisations have not beenrigorously tested with forest restoration proj-ects. In addition, almost all forest restorationwork involves multiparties, yet there is still novolume of best practices on how to design,implement, and learn from multiple stake-holder monitoring work. Some early examplesare cited elsewhere.198

Ideally, forest restoration practitioners couldcome together and begin to agree on a commonway of designing, managing, and monitoringsuch that it is inclusive yet functional. In par-ticular, it would be useful to develop commonassumptions, indicators, and methods as well asmetrics of long-term success.

References

Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP).2004a. Rosetta Stone of Conservation Practice.www.conservationmeasures.org.

Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP). 2004b.Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation.www.conservationmeasures.org.

Earl, S., Carden, F., and Smutylo, T. 2001. OutcomeMapping. IDRC, Ottawa, Canada.

Ecological Restoration Institute and the U.S.D.A.Collaborative Forest Restoration Programme.2004. Handbook FIVE. Monitoring Social andEconomic Effects of Forest Restoration. USDA,Washington, DC, and Ecological RestorationInstitute, Flagstaff, Arizona.

Hagan, J.M., and Whitman, A.A. 2004. A primer on selecting biodiversity indicators for forest sustainability: simplifying complexity. Forest Conservation Programme of Manomet Center for Conservation Science. FMSN-2004-1. www.manometmaine.org/indicators/.

Hartanto, H., Lorenzo, M.C.B., and Frio, A.L. 2002.Collective action and learning in developing alocal monitoring system. International ForestryReview 4(3): 184–195.

Margoluis, R., and Salafsky, N. 1998. Measures ofSuccess: Designing, Managing and MonitoringConservation and Development Projects. IslandPress, Washington, DC.

Provencher, L., Litt, A.R., Galley, K.E.M., et al. 2001.Restoration of fire-suppressed long leaf pine sandhills at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Finalreport to the Natural Resources ManagementDivision, Eglin Air Force Base, Niceville, Florida.The Science Division, The Nature Conservancy,Gainesville, Florida.

Ralph, S.C., and Poole, G.C. 2002. Putting monitor-ing first: designing accountable ecosystem restora-tion and management plans. In: Montgomery,D.R., Bolton, S., Booth, D.B., and Wall, L. eds.Restoration of Puget Sound Rivers. UW Press,Seattle, WA, pp. 222–242.

Salzer, D., and Salafsky, N. (In press). Allocatingresources between taking action, assessing status,

196 Margoluis and Salafsky, 1998.197 Hagan and Whitman, 2004.198 Ecological Restoration Institute/USDA CRFP, 2004.

20. Monitoring Forest Restoration Projects 149

and measuring effectiveness of conservationactions. Natural Areas Journal.

Stem, C., Margoluis, R., Salafsky, N., and Brown, M.2005. Monitoring and evaluation in conservation:A review of trends and approaches. ConservationBiology, 19(2): 1–15.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC). 2004. TheEnhanced 5-S Project Management Process.Links to guidance and the Excel Workbook areavailable at http://www.conserveonline.org/2004/03/a/Enhanced_5S_Resources.

Additional Reading

Brown, R.J., Agee, J.K., and Franklin, J. 2004. Forestrestoration and fire: principles in the context ofplace. Conservation Biology 18(4): 903–912.

Carey,A.B.,Thysell, D.R., and Brodie,A.W. 1999.Theforest ecosystem study: background, rationale,implementation, baseline conditions and silvicul-

tural assessment. USDA General TechnicalReport. PNW-6TR-451.

Groves, C. 2003. Drafting a Conservation Blueprint.Island Press, Washington, DC.

Johnson, K.N., Holthausen, R., Shannon, M.A., andSedell, J., 1999. Case study. In: Johnson, K.N.,Swanson, F., Herring, M., and Greene, S., eds.Bioregional Assessments. Island Press, Covelo,California. pp. 87–116.

Kaufmann, J.B., Beschta, R.L., Otting, N., and Lytjen,D. 1997. An ecological perspective of riparian andstream restoration in the western United States.Fisheries 22(5): 12–24.

Lamb. D., Parotta, J., Keenan, R., and Tucker, N. 1997.Rejoining habitat remnants: restoring degradedrainforest lands. In: Laurance, W.F., and Bierregaard, R.O., Jr., eds. Tropical Forest Remnants. pp. 366–385.

Simberloff, D.J., 1999. Regional and continentalrestoration. In: Soulé, M.E., and Terborgh, J.,eds. Continental Conservation. Island Press,Washington, DC, pp. 65–98.

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

1.1. Why Evaluate and Monitor?

Worldwide, monitoring and evaluation havebecome in the past decade a major issue199 with

strong repercussions in national forest policiesboth for conservation (e.g., efficiency of pro-tected areas, status of endangered species) andmanagement (e.g., sustainability standards,impact assessment, ecocertification, and marketdriven demand). At various scales (from local to international), issues like the design ofthe best framework for evaluation and moni-toring, the choice of an efficient—but not tooexpensive—set of criteria and indicators, hasled to intense debates between major stake-holders in forest management, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Forest restoration, as defined in this book,is a difficult, energy-consuming, and expensiveundertaking. It is almost always a long-term,complex, and multidisciplinary process. On the one hand, forest restoration requires re-creating within a few years (usually less than 10 to 15 years) an embryo ecosystem that will only be fully developed after severaldecades. On the other hand, forest restorationrequires inputs and expertise from fields likeecology, economics, public policy, and social sci-ences, further complicating monitoring andassessment.

For a long time, some forest restorationissues have been the subject of considerableraised tensions and interest, especially, forinstance, when comparing the economical benefits of some large afforestation pro-grammes, with their ecological and social dis-advantages. How can we be sure that thechoices made when starting restoration projectswill succeed in reaching the defined goals in the

21Monitoring and Evaluating ForestRestoration SuccessDaniel Vallauri, James Aronson, Nigel Dudley, and Ramon Vallejo

Key Points to Retain

An effective monitoring and evaluationsystem is recognised as an essential part of a successful restoration project, allowingmeasurement of progress and more impor-tantly helping to identify corrective actionsand modifications that will inevitably beneeded in such a long-term process.

We propose that in addition to measuringobvious indicators such as area of forest,such monitoring and evaluation systems willusually need to cover issues relating to nat-uralness of the forest being created at a land-scape scale (not necessarily at an individualsite), environmental benefits, and livelihoodissues.

Some useful indicators are starting toemerge, although much work is still neededon monitoring and evaluation in broad-scalerestoration.

150

199 Sheil et al, 2004.

21. Monitoring and Evaluating Forest Restoration Success 151

long run? Forest restoration successes areseldom complete or easy to evaluate, and thetype of global indicators used by foresters (suchas planted trees’ height or diameter growth, orplantation cover) give very little information tohelp assessment in the modern sense of restora-tion in large-scale conservation.

Thus, monitoring and periodic evaluation ofadvances in the restoration process is not anoptional extra, but a critical and essential partof restoration, that restorationists need to con-sider mainly in order to do the following:

• Confirm the hypotheses used to develop therestoration programme and ensure thatdefined goals are reached and the time framerespected. For example, from an ecolog-ical perspective, it is important to restoredamaged components of forest ecosystemsand reintegrate them within the landscape.

• Proceed to fine-tuning management actionsthat correct problems encountered duringrestoration (e.g., lower or higher survival ofseedlings than expected) or incorrect choices.

• Adapt restoration actions to changes along arestoration trajectory, which will inevitablylast several decades, especially with respectto aspects that go far beyond what those ini-tiating the project could forecast (e.g., socialissues such as demand for land, awareness ofenvironmental issues; economic issues suchas wood prices or demand for nontimberforest products (NTFPs); and ecologicalissues such as climate change).

• Prove to stakeholders that the investments(not only financial) in the restoration pro-gramme are worthwhile.

1.2. What to Monitor and Evaluate?

First of all, the scope of restoration evaluationshould fit the goals of the programme or helpto redirect them. Nowadays, for forest land-scape restoration as defined in this book, theframework for monitoring restoration successshould analyse the following issues200:

• Naturalness/ecological integrity: Under forestlandscape restoration, some sites may—ifappropriate and in a first stage—be dedi-cated to highly unnatural tree cover if thesefulfil legitimate social and economic needs.However, restoration should have a netincrease in naturalness and integrity (biodi-versity and ecosystem functioning) within thelandscape.

• Environmental benefits: Forest managementthat results in environmental damage—suchas soil erosion, fertiliser run-off, pesticidespray drift, or downstream hydrological effects—is incompatible with the wider aimsof forest landscape restoration.

• Livelihoods and well-being: Forest landscaperestoration may not improve social well-being at every site, but should improve it ona landscape scale. The involvement of keystakeholders in decision-making processesshould help to ensure that issues relating tohuman well-being are fully addressed.

Not all projects will have such a broad rangeof objectives: the framework outlined above isone for restoration projects that seek to balancesocial and environmental benefits. We believethat this should become the norm.

1.3. How to Evaluate? The Difficult Selection of Criteria and Indicators

A set of pertinent indicators should be agreedupon and tested to reflect the restorationadvances for each issue. They should revealcurrent conditions, and reflect on what has beendone in the past by foresters and other forestmanagers. They should capture information onecosystem health (i.e., relative absence ofdisease or pests of epidemic proportions) aswell as diversity and productivity at plot andlandscape scales. They should also reveal towhat extent the explicitly restoration-orientedproject has improved the delivery of ecosystemservices.

To be effective, each indicator should beSM(a)RRT. That is:

• Simple (e.g., vegetation cover [percent],number of tree species present)200 WWF, 2003.

152 D. Vallauri et al

• Measurable (e.g., percent of “badlands” in agiven landscape or watershed, biodiversityindices, and indices of productivity for timberand nontimber products, and money flow forrestoration and monitoring)

• Reliable (e.g., ecological function demon-strated, indicators of structure and composi-tion)

• Relevant: It should be linked, if possible, tocritical stage(s) of ecosystem change inresponse to restoration or other manage-ment (the notion of ecological thresholds;e.g., criteria expressing or reflecting biodi-versity, flows and functions, structure, andcontingency)

• Timely: Indicators should be chosen to takeinto account the contingency factors imposedby past uses and degradation, and therestoration process. The framework for mon-itoring should be ideally developed startingwith an initial evaluation before the begin-ning of the project and thereafter be reap-praised regularly. The periodicity of theevaluation needs to be in accordance withthe planned process of restoration, takinginto account goals, phases, and stages.

Ideally, indicators should also be sensitive to small changes in a system’s trajectory, asexpressed in structure, composition, and func-tioning, and broadly able to be generalised toother systems and situations across a range ofecological and socioeconomic conditions.201

1.4. Setting a Framework for Monitoring and Evaluation

A large number of descriptors and indicatorsare possible, and many have been described inthe technical literature. How to choose amongthem? In line with the above-mentioned cri-teria, and in light of the specific objectives andbudgetary constraints (data collecting is costly), it should be possible to collectively setpriorities.

It should be noted that in attempting thediagnosis, evaluation, and monitoring of some-thing as complex as a forest ecosystem, land-

scape, or, to use a newly emerging term, socio-ecosystem, a degree of subjectivity can never beexcluded. To increase objectivity and fairness,two strategies pertain:

• A complementary portfolio of several attrib-utes should be selected, covering at least twodifferent hierarchical levels (Table 21.1). In aforest landscape restoration initiative, theevaluation at landscape level is compulsory.It is both the most critical and the most difficult to evaluate of the four included inTable 21.1.

• All such evaluations ideally should be con-sidered as relative. Thus, the exercise canbenefit greatly if comparisons are carried outbetween comparable sites within a landscape,or among landscapes.

2. Examples

2.1. Evaluating Ecological Components of Badlands Restoration in Southwestern Alps (Saignon, France), 130 Years After Planting

In the Saignon case study,202 a pioneer stagedominated by exotics (Austrian black pine)planted in 1870 was evaluated only from theperspective of erosion and forest production.Fine-tuning and corrective actions were limiteduntil the site faced problems 110 years afterplanting: mainly lack of regeneration and spe-cific infestation of the stands by mistletoe(Viscum album L.). Regeneration potential andsanitary conditions and opportunities for thedissemination of native broad-leaved speciesshould have been monitored earlier to avoidproblems and to speed up the ecological re-storation process—an error not to be repeated!In the 1990s a full set of indicators was identi-fied and evaluated, aiming to highlight the func-tions that have recovered and to identify themain constraints and trade-offs currentlyaffecting ongoing restoration of native broad-leaved forest. Indicators captured information

201 Aronson and Le Floc’h, 1996; Aronson et al, 1993a,b. 202 Vallauri et al, 2002.

21. Monitoring and Evaluating Forest Restoration Success 153

on a wide range of issues like diversity (of treesand birds at community level), structure (of the soil, of the Austrian pine population), func-tions (dissemination of tree seeds at the land-scape level, soil biological activity) andcontingency factors (land use at site and land-scape levels).

2.2. Vietnam: A Participatory Monitoring System Covering Biological and Socioeconomic Elements of Restoration

A monitoring and evaluation system for theCentral Truong Son in Vietnam has been devel-

Table 21.1. Partial list of vital attributes, classified by hierarchical organisation level and according torelation to the diversity, flows and functioning, structure, and contingencies of the ecological system.

Hierarchical System components

level Diversity Flows and functions Structural factors Contingency factors

Population Genotypic Gene flow: Age structure, sexual Human impact:and pollination, seed ratio present and past usesphenotypic production Height, productivity Environment: chorology,diversity Matter and energy: autecology, distance to

food and energy seed sourcesavailable

Functions:intraspecific interaction

Community Diversity of Gene flow: Tree species richness, Human impact:species and hybridation life form spectrum present and past usesfunctional Matter and energy: Total vegetation cover, Environment:groups water efficiency, cations vertical heterogeneity ecological nicheamong exchange capacity, Age, above-ground andplants, cycling indices below biomass,animals, and Functions: productivitymicroorganisms productivity,

Keystone interactions amongspecies populations

Ecosystem Diversity of Gene flow: vector of Total land cover, soil Human impact:species, seed dissemination and surface conditions present and past useshabitat, and pollination, seed Microbial biomass Environment: type offunctional stocking, predation Number of dead trees sitesgroups Matter and energy:

Keystone soil cycles indicescommunities Functions:

regeneration,productivity, soilbiological activity, seeddistribution, hostpopulation control

Landscape Ecodiversity, Gene flow: patterns Land forms and units, Human impact:diversity of of dissemination ecotones, corridors present and past functional Matter and energy: Organisms regularly land-usegroups cycling indices, fluxes crossing ecotones Environment:

Keystone among ecosystems ecosystem zonationecosystems Functions:

disturbance regime,connectivity

For further discussion see Aronson and Le Floc’h (1996).Note: This list of attributes, which could be analysed to evaluate the restoration success, must be complemented bysocioeconomic attributes indicating the socioeconomic success of the restoration programmes.

154 D. Vallauri et al

oped by the Forest Protection Department andWWF. It aims to measure environmental andsocial trends, communicate achievements,and identify threats and opportunities. Over 60 meetings took place with stakeholders at thenational, provincial, district, and commune levelto identify 20 core indicators to measureprogress on four fronts: forest condition and bio-diversity, forest ecosystem services, livelihoods,and capacity for good natural resource manage-ment. Many of the indicators come from exist-ing government statistics, sometimes with extraanalysis, and some additional indicators will bemonitored by other stakeholders. Indicatorsinclude natural forest; private and public plan-tations; legal and illegal timber production; non-timber forest products; measures of sustainableforest management; proportion of reforestationbudget for natural regeneration; number ofrestoration projects; areas needing restoration;forest fires; statistics relating to the wildlifetrade and protected areas; catchment protectionand irrigation; social indicators including,amongst others, life expectancy, health centres,and education; government training; ratio ofarrests for illegal hunting and wildlife trade tosuccessful prosecutions; and specific targets ofthe initiative. It is notable that only a proportionof indicators relate directly to biodiversityrestoration; many are there to give context andto measure other aspects of the broader project,which aims to restore a range of forest functionsfor people as well as biodiversity (see case study“Monitoring Forest Landscape Restoration inVietnam’).

2.3. A Framework and Database to Evaluate Restoration Programmes in the Mediterranean Region

Forest restoration experience in the Mediter-ranean region is long-standing, both in thenorth and in the south. During the last two cen-turies, a large number of restoration initiativeshave been implemented at the site or landscapelevel, although several distinct phases can beidentified with very different approaches, aims,and techniques. A first phase started in the mid-19th century, considering restoration of

specific forest functions (like erosion controlfor example) by slope engineering and plantingand seeding of trees, grasses, and shrubs. Asecond phase, since the 1950s, has been con-sidering afforestation for wood production inthe context of reducing fire damage. The latestphase is currently considering ecologicalrestoration in the modern sense, both at the site level and at wider scales. To take advantageand learn from this long experience, a knowl-edge project (funded by the EU-DirectorateGeneral V) was set up and conducted by theCEAM (Centro de Estudios AmbientalesMediterráneos) Foundation (Valencia, Spain)and partners from five Mediterranean countries(Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and France).Named REACTION, (Restoration Actions to Combat Desertification in the NorthernMediterranean), this programme aims at estab-lishing a database of land restoration in thenorthern Mediterranean by collecting well-documented restoration projects; selecting andapplying the most appropriate methodology to evaluate the results of restoration projects;facilitating access to high-quality informationfor forest managers, policy makers, and otherstakeholders; and providing restoration guide-lines in light of a critical analysis of contrastedpast and innovative techniques. Although it isstill underway at the time of writing, this programme already provides online access to a wide range of evaluated restoration pro-grammes in various ecological, historical, andsocioeconomical contexts (http://www.ceam.es/reaction).

3. Outline of Tools

Monitoring and evaluation of broad-scalerestoration is still in the early stages of devel-opment, but some tools are already availablefor use:

• Ecological attributes: A list of vital attributesat various hierarchical levels (population,ecosystem, and landscape attributes for bio-diversity, naturalness, functions, etc.) hasbeen provided and tested by several authors.Table 21.1 presents an attempt at a formula-tion for monitoring.

21. Monitoring and Evaluating Forest Restoration Success 155

• Restoration plan, including monitoring andevaluation definition: Unlike forest manage-ment plans, relatively few restoration planshave been fully conceptualised and written ina form that allows comparison. Furthermore,monitoring and evaluation is very oftenabsent at the beginning of the programme. Alist of indicators and monitoring protocolssuch as the periodicity of monitoring (whichmay be variable along the restoration trajec-tory) should be defined before inclusion inthe restoration plan.

• Restoration databases (learning from pastprojects): A lot could be learned from pastrestoration successes and failures. The analy-sis of databases of long-term restoration proj-ects is very useful, like the world databaselaunched by UNEP-WCMC (http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/restoration/database.htm) or the database of evaluated restorationprogrammes in the Mediterranean region(http://www.ceam.es/reaction).

• Photographs, mapping, experimental designand statistics,203 and field notes are importanttools for understanding the restorationprocess.

• Criteria and indicators: Although poorlydeveloped for restoration, there is alreadyconsiderable experience in the developmentand use of criteria and indicators for sustain-able forest management, and some of thesecould easily be adapted for restoration projects, particularly when they are capableof measuring trends in forest quality overtime.

4. Future Needs

The needs for further development are impor-tant here. They include the following:

• Improvement in methodologies for monitor-ing and evaluating human well-being in thecontext of restoration: Although lists of attri-butes, indicators, and methodologies exist inthe literature, very few have been adapted to

forest restoration. Adapting and field testingthem will be necessary in the coming years.

• A unified procedure for monitoring restora-tion programmes: Attempts to develop acommon form and approach to monitoringand evaluating large-scale restoration efforts,such as the REACTION programmedescribed above, are essential, although theypose considerable challenges. Developmentof these programmes are needed in othergeographical regions, coupled with field testsand modifications.

• Economic tools to secure funds for assistancein long-term monitoring and fine-tuning: Sus-tainable financing remains a key problem torestore forest ecosystems in the longer term.Designating a specific part of a state’s forestservice to be responsible for forest restora-tion, and subsequently integrating restora-tion into normal management procedures(through the management plan) could bepart of the solution.

• Finally, field testing and learning from yearsof experience are still essential to build up adatabase of knowledge.

References

Aronson, J., Floret, C., Le Floc’h, E., Ovalle, C., andPontanier, R. 1993a. Restoration and rehabilita-tion of degraded ecosystems in arid and semi-aridlands. I. A view from the south. RestorationEcology 1:8–17.

Aronson, J., Floret, C., Le Floc’h, E., Ovalle, C., andPontanier, R. 1993b. Restoration and rehabilita-tion of degraded ecosystems in arid and semi-aridlands. II. Case studies in southern Tunisia, centralChile and northern Cameroon. RestorationEcology 3:168–187.

Aronson, J., and Le Floc’h, E. 1996. Vital landscapeattributes: missing tools for restoration ecology.Restoration Ecology 4:377–387.

Michener, W.K. 1997. Quantitatively evaluatingrestoration experiments: research design, statisti-cal analysis and data management considerations.Restoration Ecology 5:324–337.

Sheil, D., Nasi, R., and Johnson, B. 2004. Ecologicalcriteria and indicators for tropical forest land-scapes: challenges in search of progress. Ecologyand Society 9(1):7 (online). URL:http//www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/Iss1/art7.203 Michener, 1997.

156 D. Vallauri et al

Vallauri, D., Aronson, J., and Barbéro, M. 2002. Ananalysis of forest restoration 120 years after refor-estation of badlands in the southwestern Alps.Restoration Ecology 10:16–26.

WWF. 2003. Indicators for measuring progresstowards forest landscape restoration: a draftframework for WWF’s Forests for Life Pro-gramme. Unpublished report, Gland, Switzerland.

Case Study: Monitoring ForestLandscape Restoration in VietnamNigel Dudley and Nguyen Thi Dao

The challenge: the government of Vietnam iscommitted to forest restoration and protectionand has major reforestation grants available.But although these can in theory support bothnatural regeneration and plantations, virtuallyall funds have been used for exotic plantations,particularly of Acacia mangium. The structureof the Five Million Hectare Reforestation Pro-gramme hampers flexibility,and although largeplantations have been established, it seemslikely that in several provinces a lot of moneyhas been wasted. In some areas planting isrumoured to cover the same land repeatedly,with seedlings quickly being cut and sold asfirewood and the land used for swidden agri-culture before being planted again. Becausethe job security of many Forest ProtectionDepartment officials is tied to the programme,they are under pressure to maintain the statusquo even when this makes little environmen-tal or economic sense. Restoration is neededboth in terms of tree cover and in particularforest quality, especially in protected areabuffer zones and along the route of the Ho ChiMinh highway. Successful restoration willdepend on the support of local communitiesand the political will to take into account theimportance of indigenous plant species, yetthere is little experience of stakeholderinvolvement or participatory approaches inVietnam.

The Opportunity

The multidonor Forest Sector Support Pro-gramme is funding forest management devel-opments in Vietnam and provides an

opportunity to look at the programme afresh,to find ways of realigning it to maximise envi-ronmental and social gains. The governmenthas been working with various stakeholders,with facilitation from WWF, in developing aconservation strategy for the Central TruongSon (Annamites) Landscape across sevenprovinces in the middle of the country, whichaims to use a mixture of protection, goodforest management, and restoration to createa landscape that will support both biodiversityand local livelihoods.204 There have alreadybeen some good, local-level forest restorationprojects (including some run by the Germantechnical development organisation GTZ andWWF’s MOSAIC (Management of StrategicAreas for Integrated Conservation) project),which provide lessons that can be appliedmore widely.205

Interventions

A monitoring and evaluation system wasdeveloped to measure progress on forest land-scape restoration in the Central Truong SonLandscape Biodiversity Conservation Initia-tive’s Action Plan by WWF working in coop-eration with the Government of Vietnam’sForest Protection Department.206 Over 60stakeholder meetings took place at thenational, provincial, district, and communelevel to identify around 30 core indicators.

204 Baltzer et al, 2001.205 Hardcastle et al, 2004.206 Dudley et al, 2003.

157

158 N. Dudley and N.T. Dao

Indicators measure progress on four fronts:forest condition and biodiversity, forestecosystem services, livelihoods, and capacityfor good natural resource management. Manyindicators come from existing governmentstatistics, sometimes with extra analysis, andsome additional indicators will be monitoredby WWF and other stakeholders, augmentedby information from research reports andsurveys so that as complete a picture as possi-ble is developed. Simple benchmarks havealso been agreed upon for the different indi-cators, for instance “an increasing area ofnatural forests” and “life expectancy reachinga regional average,” which help to set meas-urable targets for the programme. The indica-tors include measuring the impact and successof restoration, including the proportion of theFive Million Hectare Programme budget usedfor natural regeneration. By talking to differ-ent interest groups, and getting agreementfrom the government, the monitoring systemalso serves as a way of negotiating policy; forinstance, by agreeing to measure trends in useof funds for natural regeneration as opposedto just large-scale plantation, stakeholdersincluding the government are recognising thisas a target, making it easier to plan restorationinterventions. Since the initial work, theimportance of monitoring and evaluation isincreasingly being recognised. The ForestSector Support Programme is developing amonitoring and evaluation system based onthe one in the Central Truong Son, and otherlong-term restoration projects are also recognising the need for good monitoring andevaluation.

Lessons Learned

A well-designed monitoring and evaluationsystem has been identified as a critical step ina successful integrated conservation anddevelopment project.207 The experience inVietnam bears this out but also shows that ashared monitoring system applied at a land-scape scale, which integrates different proj-ects, actors, and stakeholders towards a largergoal, can play a key role in scaling restorationand conservation efforts up to a landscape.

References

Baltzer, M., Dao, N.T., and Shore, R. 2001. Towardsa Vision for Biodiversity Conservation in theForests of the Lower Mekong EcoregionComplex. WWF Indochina Programme, Hanoi.

Dudley, N., Cu, N., and Manh, V.T. 2003. A Moni-toring and Evaluation System for Forest Land-scape Restoration in the Central Truong SonLandscape. WWF Indochina Programme andGovernment of Vietnam, Hanoi.

Hardcastle, J., Rambaldi, G., Long, B., Lanh, L.V.,and Son, D.Q. 2004. The use of participatorythree-dimensional modelling in community-based planning in Quang Nam province,Vietnam. PLA Notes 49:70–76.

McShane, T.O., and Wells, M.P. 2004. Getting Bio-diversity Projects to Work: Towards More Effec-tive Conservation and Development. ColumbiaUniversity Press, New York.

207 McShane and Well, 2004.

Section VIIIFinancing and Promoting Forest

Landscape Restoration

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

The economic, social, and biodiversity values offorests are increasingly being recognised, andmany countries have understood the need tobetter manage their forest resources. At thesame time, in 1997 the Intergovernmental Panelon Forests (IPF) found that domestic financial

resources were insufficient to achieve sustain-able management, development, or conserva-tion of forests. With the threat of worseningforest depletion in many parts of the worldleading to further degradation of forest goodsand services, it is recognised that there is a crit-ical need to explore new and innovative waysof financing improved forest management andconservation, including the restoration of forestresources.

Forest landscape restoration is a long-termprocess and will generally require sustainedsources of funding. All too often, overrelianceon grants means that funds can only be obtainedfor short-term projects, and a long term-effortsuch as the restoration of forests suffers. Grants,however, are not the only source of funding, anda number of options for long-term financing of forest landscape restoration are highlightedbelow (see Outline of Tools).

Traditional financing sources for forestry indeveloping countries have been domestic publicand private, foreign public and private, andinternational organisations, including NGOs.Depending on the objective of the forestry activ-ities (environmental conservation, subsistenceneeds for local people, commercial purposes),different financing sources have been sought.However, global financing trends in general arechanging, and a wave of economic liberalisationis providing impetus for increased private sectorparticipation.208 These trends allow for newfinancing opportunities from the private sector

22Opportunities for Long-TermFinancing of Forest Restoration in LandscapesKirsten Schuyt

Key Points to Retain

The key to tapping into private and publicsector funding opportunities for forest land-scape restoration lies in making it financiallyand economically attractive. This requiresestimating and recognising the economicvalues of forests and the role restoration canplay in increasing this economic value. It alsorequires proper pricing of forest goods andservices and setting up mechanisms wheremoney is transferred to pay these prices,such as payments for environmental services(PES).

In light of economic liberalisation, privatesector funding, including PES, provides alucrative opportunity for financing restora-tion activities.

In terms of public funding, it will be increas-ingly important to mainstream forest land-scape restoration in other programmes,including poverty reduction programmes.

161

208 Joshi, 1998, p. 6.

162 K. Schuyt

for restoration activities. In light of decliningexternal public funding and weak prospects fornew and additional public funding of overseasdevelopment assistance (ODA) in forestry,private capital flows represent potential oppor-tunities for restoration initiatives.

The key to financing opportunities from bothprivate and public funding sources for land-scape-scale forest restoration lies in recognisingits full economic and financial value. Thisrequires estimating and recognising the eco-nomic values of forests and therefore recognis-ing the benefits provided by restoring theseforest values. The restoration or loss of thesevalues can then be more realistically weightedagainst other possible uses of the land. In alandscape context, it then becomes possible tobetter select areas within the landscape for dif-ferent uses, allowing a potentially more com-plete range of values and benefits to be offered.This also requires proper pricing of forestgoods and services and setting up mechanismswhere money is transferred to pay these prices.One way to do this is by selling environmentalservices of forests, such as carbon sequestra-tion, watershed protection, and biodiversity, tofinance restoration—a mechanism called pay-ments for environmental services (PES) (see“Payment for Environmental Services andRestoration”). The PES mechanisms ensurethat those who supply environmental servicesare paid by those who use these services. Theserange from public payments to self-organisedprivate deals. For example, private companiessuch as downstream bottling companies payupstream communities for sustainably manag-ing the forests in the watershed that provideservices such as watershed protection on whichthe bottling companies depend. At the basis of sustainable watershed management shouldbe restoration, where the key is convincinginvestors that such activities will ensure sus-tainable environmental services as sustainable“production inputs,” thereby making landscapescale restoration financially and economicallyattractive. Another example of PES is payingfor carbon sequestration; energy companiescould invest money in restoration projects toincrease the carbon sequestration service offorests for the purpose of meeting their carbonoffsets, as is allowed under the Kyoto protocol.

2. Examples

Notwithstanding the need for continued publicinvestment in restoration, the two examplesbelow illustrate private sector involvement inforest restoration activities. Both examplesillustrate how restoration can be made eco-nomically interesting to attract new investors—the private sector—to mobilise innovativesources of financing.

2.1. Private For-Profit Sources:Outgrower Schemes, South Africa209

In an outgrower scheme, a company providesmarketing and production services to farmersto grow trees on their land under specific agree-ments. In 2002, 12,000 smallholder tree growerswere involved in these schemes in South Africaon about 27,000 hectares of land. Although theoutgrower timber provides only a small per-centage of a larger company’s pulp mill outputand is more expensive per tonne than woodfrom other sources, it provides important fibrethat would otherwise be unavailable due toland tenure constraints. It also provides com-panies with a better image at a time when thedistribution of land rights in South Africa isbeing discussed. Community motivations aremostly for cash income at harvest, while treesare also seen as a form of savings. The twoschemes with the largest membership are Sappiand Mondi, where smallholders grow eucalyp-tus trees with seedlings, credit, fertiliser, andextension advice from the companies. The com-panies in return expect to buy all the harvest atthe end of the growing cycle.

2.2. Payments for Forest Services:Pimampiro Payment for Watershed Services Scheme,Ecuador210

The Paluarco river is used for irrigation anddrinking but is of poor quality due to agri-

209 Taken from Gutman, 2003.210 Taken from Gutman, 2003.

22. Opportunities for Long-Term Financing of Restoration 163

cultural discharge upstream. Under a pioneer-ing project for Ecuador, landowners in thePaluarco river sub-watershed are being paid tomanage the forest in the watershed in order toprotect water sources. In 2001 the municipalityapproved an ordinance that established theWater Regulation for the Payment of Envi-ronmental Services from Forest and ParamoConservation. A fund was created to channelpayments from beneficiaries (mostly domesticwater users) to those providing good quality ofwater through maintenance of forest coverupstream.

3. Outline of Tools211

As outlined in section 1, new opportunities forfinancing large-scale restoration are arisingfrom the private sector. Opportunities, how-ever, still exist in public funding sources. Thissection discusses how specific financing sources,including private and public sources as well asinternational organisations, can be mobilised for forest landscape restoration activities.

3.1. Financing from Domestic Public Sources

General strategies to increase public sourcesfor large-scale restoration involve activities likeimproving expenditure policies on forestry,reforming macroeconomic policies (includingtaxes and subsidies), and putting in place newincentives, subsidies, and technical and institu-tional changes to support restoration that pro-vides wider benefits (also see “Perverse PolicyIncentives”). It is, however, also important toimprove the administrative capacity of forestryagencies themselves to increase their efficiencyto collect revenue and to use the resources effi-ciently for restoration. Other ways to increaseforest revenues from public funding are toensure the proper pricing of forest goods andservices (through charges, policies that demandfull-cost pricing, permits, licensing, etc.) orsetting up special forest trust funds with ear-

marked taxes to finance specific restorationactivities. It is also possible to use tax measuresthat tax downstream beneficiaries to fundrestoration upstream.

3.2. Multilateral and Bilateral Donors

Given the declining trend in ODA, efforts mustbe directed at maintaining current funds frommulti- and bilateral aid. In general, however,environment is no longer a top priority ofdevelopment and cooperation agencies, and ithas now been mainstreamed in all developmentactivities under the new sector approachembraced by many donor agencies. Therefore,successful proposals for forest landscaperestoration from multilateral and bilateraldonors increasingly need to explain how forestlandscape restoration activities will addresspoverty alleviation. Furthermore, it is alsouseful to use ODA to leverage private fundingfor restoration. The World Bank’s SustainableForest Market Transformation Initiative(SFMTI) is a good example, which promotesprivate sector participation in forest manage-ment. Another example is USAID’s (USAgency for International Development) Biodiversity Conservation Network, which provides seed money to promote the participa-tion of the private sector in biodiversity-basedbusiness.

3.3. Private Not-for-Profit Sources

Private not-for-profit sources include financ-ing channelled from local communities, inter-national foundations, and NGOs for forestlandscape restoration activities. InternationalNGOs have become important for providingnew financing mechanisms, of which environ-ment trust funds or foundations are particularlyinteresting for providing financing to naturalresource management in general. Trust fundsare not philanthropic foundations. Rather, theyraise money to carry out their own programmesand have specific missions and interests andsometimes geographical focusses. The mainpurpose of setting up a trust fund has tradi-tionally been to provide long-term stablefunding for national parks and other protected

211 Based on Joshi, 1998; Gutman, 2003; and the Conserva-tion Finance Alliance online guide, 2002.

164 K. Schuyt

areas or small grants to local NGOs and com-munity groups for projects aimed at conservingbiodiversity and using natural resources moresustainably. Such trust funds could be set up tosupport the restoration of forest values over thelong term.

3.4. Private for-Profit Sources

Private for-profit sources range from mobilisinghouseholds to invest in restoration to invest-ments from large international corporations.Household investments will have an effect onlyif the projects offer short-term benefits with anacceptable level of risk. These benefits can bean increased income for households or indirectpayments in, for example, alternative liveli-hoods, roads, schools, and so on. On the otherhand, a more grant-type of financing from largeprivate companies like dam, oil, plantation, andmining companies can be mobilised to pay forforest restoration as compensation for environ-mental disruption they may cause. This motiva-tion may also come from business ethics andthus be part of a company’s public relationscampaign. An example is where environmentalNGOs are invited by a plantation company torestore part of their land according to standardscompatible with forest landscape restoration.Lastly, engaging conventional capital marketsby channelling capital toward forest manage-ment and restoration has potential. Forexample, Xylem Investment Inc. is an interna-tional timber investment company based onequity investments in plantation forests indeveloping countries that attracts U.S. pensionfunds, insurance companies, and others thatprefer safer and steadier-growth investments.This company manages forest assets worth $235million.Another example is Precious Woods, aninternational timber company that focusses onsustainably produced timber in Latin America.Funding from these sources could also bemobilised for forest landscape restoration.

3.5. Payments for Forest Goodsand Services

Market-based financing has both potentials andlimitations but it does provide real opportuni-

ties for mobilising funds for forest landscaperestoration. A good example of payments forenvironmental goods is the certification body,the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), whichdeveloped a market for sustainably producedwood and wood products that come with a sealof approval or certificate. In terms of paymentsfor environmental services, a good example isthe increase in projects that create paymentmechanisms where downstream beneficiariespay for the sustainable management of forestsupstream. Such systems provide significantopportunities for innovative funding for forestlandscape restoration.

3.6. International Systems of Payments for theEnvironmental Commons

There has been some progress at internationallevel to pay for the global commons. The bestknown is the Global Environmental Facility(GEF), which provides partial grant funding toeligible countries for projects that addressthreats to the environment in four areas: biodi-versity loss, climate change, ozone depletion,and degradation of international waters. Underits biodiversity programme, the GEF cansupport conservation and sustainable use of sig-nificant biodiversity, including forest ecosys-tems. Funding from GEF for forest landscaperestoration could be mobilised under this area.

In a landscape context, it will be possible to initiate a restoration activity with publicfunding in order to address immediate liveli-hood needs (e.g., provision of traditional med-icines, reduction in people’s vulnerability). Inthe longer term, and still within the context oflandscapes and the restoration of many forestbenefits, it may become possible to ensure sus-tained funding by the private sector in order tomeet additional benefits (such as certified non-timber forest products, for instance).

4. Future Needs

The key need for further development acrossall funding opportunities is to become moreinnovative in finding funding in an increasingly

22. Opportunities for Long-Term Financing of Restoration 165

competitive market. Whether this means creat-ing partnerships with organisations that werepreviously unheard of, making forest landscaperestoration financially lucrative for actors withfunding to become involved in such projects,mainstreaming restoration into other types ofprojects such as development projects, or mo-bilising funding from other nonenvironmentalsources toward forest landscape restoration,there is a real need to think “outside the box” and search for innovative funding oppor-tunities. In light of economic liberalisation,private sector funding, including PES, mightprovide a lucrative opportunity for financingbroad-scale restoration. Establishing clearerlinks with livelihood concerns is also a clearneed, whether it be poverty reduction, diseasecontrol and prevention, postconflict resolution,etc.

References

Gutman, P., ed. 2003. From Good-Will to Paymentsfor Environmental Services—A Survey of Financ-ing Natural Resource Management in DevelopingCountries. WWF-MPO, Economic Change,Poverty and Environment Project, DANIDA,

Copenhagen, Denmark and WWF, Washington,DC.

Joshi, M. 1998. Innovative Financing for SustainableForest Management. UNDP, PROFOR, NewYork.

Additional Reading

Chandrasekharan, C. 1996. Status of financing for sustainable forestry. Proceedings of theUNDP/Denmark/South Africa Workshop onFinancial Mechanisms and Sources of Finance forSustainable Forestry, Pretoria, South Africa, 4–7June.

Conservation Finance Alliance. 2002. Mobilizingfunding for biodiversity conservation—a user-friendly training guide for understanding, selectingand implementing conservation finance mecha-nisms. http://guide.conservationfinance.org.

EFTRN News. 2001/2002. Innovative finance mech-anisms for conservation and sustainable forestmanagement. European Tropical Forest ResearchNetwork, No. 35.

Lapham, N.P., and Livermore, R.J. 2003. EnsuringConservation’s Place on the International Biodi-versity Assistance Agenda. Conservation Interna-tional, Washington, DC.

WWF-MPO. 2000. Wants, Needs and Rights—Economic Instruments and Biodiversity Conser-vation: A Dialogue. WWF, Washington, DC.

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

Forests provide a wide variety of benefits.They provide goods such as fuel wood, con-struction materials, and nontimber products, aswell as services including watershed protection,carbon sequestration, reduction of sedimen-tation, water purification, and biodiversity.Despite these benefits, forests are severelythreatened in many parts of the world. Defor-estation is taking place at alarming rates,accompanied by a loss in forest goods and services.

The causes of deforestation are complex,and include market and institutional failures.Many forest benefits lack well-defined property

rights. This is especially the case with forestservices. For example, cutting down treesupstream can increase the amount of sedimen-tation and flooding downstream. Since the costsassociated with sedimentation and flooding arenot borne by the upstream communities thatcut down the trees, these costs will not be incor-porated in their decisions. The value of theforest to these upstream communities is per-ceived to be much less than their full value, andthe result is the cutting of more trees than isoptimal.212

Payments for environmental services (PES)(also known as payments for ecosystem serv-ices) are instruments that arose as a responseto remedy market failure; PES implies thatthose who use the ecosystem service pay thosewho provide the service, and can include a widerange of mechanisms for financing conserva-tion, such as the following213:

Self-organised private deals: direct, closedtransactions with little government involve-ment, involving private entities who areusually offsite beneficiaries of forest services

Public payments: government payments for theprotection of specific ecosystem servicesthrough better land and forest management

Open trading: a government regulation createsdemand for a particular environmentalservice by setting a cap on the damage to anecosystem service or establishing a floor

23Payment for Environmental Servicesand RestorationKirsten Schuyt

Key Points to Retain

Payments for environmental services pro-vide real opportunities for innovative con-servation financing.

Payments for environmental services canwork effectively in landscape-level restora-tion projects where large scales are involvedas well as many different stakeholders.

Payments for environmental services are stillrelatively new, and opportunities forregrouping services (“bundling” them) seemto offer an interesting way forward.

166

212 Pagiola et al. 2002.213 Inbar and Scherr, 2004.

23. Payment for Environmental Services and Restoration 167

Ecolabelling: certifying forest and farm prod-ucts that were produced in ways consistentwith biodiversity conservation

Many examples of PES systems exist, wherethe most common forest services that havebeen addressed by PES are carbon sequestra-tion, watershed protection, landscape beauty,and biodiversity conservation. Since paymentmechanisms are very different across these fourservices but also across countries, it is difficultto generalise about how PES works. However,there are certain elements of success.214 First, aswith any market, there needs to be supply anddemand.

There needs to be a product: supply. Thereneeds to be a product (the forest service) to sell,such as watershed protection, carbon seques-tration, biodiversity conservation, and land-scape beauty. Also, many services do not comealone. Is it possible to regroup or “bundle” theservices? It is very important to clearly docu-ment the relationship between the provision ofthe service and the economic benefits: forexample, what is the relationship betweenupstream watershed protection and down-stream land use?

There need to be buyers: demand. Thereneeds to be a demand for the forest services.Just because a forest provides a service does notmean that there is a market for it. This demandmay be local, national, or global. For example,the demand for watershed protection arisesmostly from local or national buyers, while thedemand for carbon sequestration may comefrom anywhere in the world. The type ofdemand determines the type of system to estab-lish—water markets are very site-specific,depending on the institutional context, whilecarbon markets can actually learn from eachother and even compete.

In addition to supply and demand, other ele-ments must be in place to ensure success:

Mechanisms to capture willingness to pay:Thesemechanisms must capture part or even all ofthe benefits provided by the forest servicesand transform them into actual payments to

encourage forest conservation or restoration.The key is to establish a mechanism with lowtransaction costs, where the costs of captur-ing the benefits (including the opportunitycosts—the lost benefits associated with otherland uses) are lower than the benefits. Forwatershed protection, for example, benefitsare easiest to capture and at a lower costwhen users are already organised (municipalwater supply, irrigation systems, etc.) andwhen some form of payment mechanism isalready in place, such as a domestic water fee.Payments for watershed protection can thenbe added to this fee.

Identification of key actors: A key step is toidentify who the key actors are that supplythe forest services. Different actors can beinvolved—NGOs, commercial companies,private landowners, farmers, governments,donors, community groups, and so on. Eachof these stakeholders may be able to play acrucial role in the PES system, which must beidentified. It is also important to understandtheir motivations, for example for logging,and what is required for them to conserve orrestore.

Developing the institutional structure: It is nec-essary to develop the market infrastructure:access to information on values and quantity,negotiation, monitoring and enforcementmechanisms, and so forth.A key institution isproperty rights, which define who owns thecarbon sequestered in the forest or the treesthat protect the watershed. Without clearownership or usufruct of the services, theycannot be bought or sold.

A more detailed discussion on these ele-ments can be found elsewhere.215

The opportunities from PES for forest land-scape restoration are potentially enormous.Because of the dramatic loss in forest coverworldwide, and the consequent loss in forestgoods and services, there is great potential toincorporate payments for environmental serv-ices into a broad-scale approach to restoration.The sorts of goods and services that restoredforests can provide and that can be quantified

214 Pagiola et al, 2002. 215 Pagiola et al, 2002.

168 K. Schuyt

include payments for the carbon sequesteredby forests, watershed protection of forests, andbiodiversity conservation of forests.

Concerns have been raised as to how PESwill affect the environment and the poor. Doesit help conservation and do the poor benefit oris it a mere “silver bullet”?

The next section gives three examples ofPESs in relation to forest conservation thatprovide opportunities for forest landscaperestoration.

2. Examples

2.1. Payments for Watershed Protection: The Case of Costa Rica216

The hydrological impact of widespread defor-estation has been a major concern throughoutCentral America, followed by a strong interestto tackle deforestation. Within this context,Costa Rica pioneered a PES approach in whichland users were directly compensated for theenvironmental services they generated. CostaRica has had one of the highest rates of defor-estation in the world, mostly driven by conver-sion to agriculture and pasture. As a result ofdeforestation, water services deteriorated, butresponses, mostly regulation, to deal with defor-estation had largely failed.

In the beginning of 1997, Costa Rica devel-oped an elaborate system of PES to deal withdeforestation called Pago por Servicios Ambi-entales (PSA). In this system, land users arecompensated directly for the environmentalservices they provide, which enables them toinclude the services in their decisions.When thePSA was created, however, Costa Rica alreadyhad a payments system (essentially through taxincentives) for reforestation and forest man-agement in place. Most importantly, the institu-tional structure to contract landowners and paythem for specific activities already existed. Aspart of the PES process, a forestry law wasenacted that built on these institutions. The law specifically recognised four environmental

services supplied by forests and provided theregulatory basis for the government to contractlandowners for the services provided by theirlands. It established a financing mechanism forthis called FONAFIFO (Fonda Nacional deFinanciamiento Forestal). The two key differ-ences between the PSA and past incentives are(1) that financing through the PSA focusses onthe services provided by forests rather than onthe timber, and (2) that the financing comesfrom users of those services rather than publicfunds.

Under the PSA, all participants must have asustainable forest management plan that is cer-tified by a licensed forester. Once the planshave been approved, land users begin imple-menting the different activities and receive pay-ments over 5 years. FONAFIFO in cooperationwith other institutions contracts the serviceproviders and collects and manages the pay-ments from service beneficiaries. The PSA pro-gramme is overseen by a governing board thatconsists of representatives of the public sectorand the private sector. Most of the financingcomes from a system that allocates one third ofthe revenues from a fossil-fuel sales tax toFONAFIFO. Other financial supporters of thePSA programme have been the World Bankand the Global Environment Facility (GEF).The idea is that eventually all beneficiaries ofwater services (irrigators, domestic users, powerplants, and so on) would pay for the servicesthey receive.

2.2. Payments for Carbon Sequestration: The Case of British Columbia

A valuable service provided by forests is thatforests sequester carbon. The Kyoto protocolhas expanded opportunities for markets forcarbon, in which income from traditional forestproducts can be supplemented with the sale ofcarbon sequestration services provided byforests. British Columbia in Canada has starteddeveloping a market for carbon and this sectiondiscusses these developments.217

216 Pagiola et al, 2002. 217 Bull et al, 2002, cited in Pagiola et al, 2002, pp. 201–221.

23. Payment for Environmental Services and Restoration 169

Creating markets for carbon is a complexprocess that requires efforts from scientists,forest companies, energy companies, and gov-ernment. A necessary first step is to understandand quantify forest carbon dynamics andcarbon budgets. At the national level inCanada, forest carbon budgets have been meas-ured using remote sensing and a carbon budgetmodel developed by the Canadian forest sector.At the provincial level, carbon budget calcula-tions are also underway to forecast carbonbudgets into the future. Other models havebeen developed to calculate the contribution ofBritish Columbia’s forest carbon to the globalcarbon cycle as well as models to estimate theamount of carbon in carbon pools aboveground and in roots, soils, litter, and deadwood.

Another important step is creating the nec-essary institutional arrangements in govern-ment policies and markets. In this respect,several initiatives have been carried out inBritish Columbia, including the establishmentof an emissions’ trading platform at thenational level called the Greenhouse EmissionsReduction Trading (GERT) pilot. This waslaunched in 1998 and has allowed Canadianbusiness to gain experience in emissions’trading. Private initiatives to establish an emis-sions’ trading platform have also emerged. Ithas also been necessary to create a national reg-istry to document sequestration, emission, andbuying and selling of carbon, which was estab-lished in 1994 (called Voluntary Challenge andRegistry, VCR). Other necessary institutionsare incentive-based policies in which the Cana-dian government recognises the role of forestsin global warming and recognises the need tobetter understand the role carbon sinks canplay to mitigate global warming. These policiesare currently still under review.

The key to a carbon market is buyers and sup-pliers. In British Columbia, there is considerablecaution on behalf of potential buyers, resultingin insufficient incentive on behalf of forestgrowers to supply forest carbon. Uncertaintyover the role of forest carbon in the Kyoto pro-tocol also adds to this. The result is that themarket for forest carbon in British Columbia isstill in its infancy, despite strong expressions ofinterest from both buyers and sellers.

2.3. Payments for Biodiversity Conservation: RISEMP in Colombia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua218

The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosys-tem Management Project (RISEMP) is a GEF-funded project implemented by the WorldBank in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.The project pays farmers directly for the provi-sion of biodiversity services. Silvopastoralsystems combine trees with pasture. Theyprovide a range of benefits to farmers: (1) addi-tional production from trees; (2) maintainingand/or improving pasture productivity; and (3)contributing to the overall farming system. Fur-thermore, the trees provide shade that mayenhance livestock productivity, especially milkproduction. In terms of biodiversity, silvopas-toral systems support much higher species’diversity than traditional pastures. They alsohelp to connect protected areas. Other benefitsinclude carbon sequestration (additionalcarbon is sequestered by the trees found in sil-vopastoral systems) and watershed services.

So why, despite such benefits, do farmers notadopt silvopastoral systems more often? Themain reason is the limited profitability for theindividual farmer. First, it requires high initialcosts and there is a long time lag before thesystem actually becomes productive. Second,biodiversity carbon and watershed services areexternalities from the farmer’s perspective;other parties benefit from these services.There-fore, farmers will not take these benefits intoaccount when making decisions. To deal withthis issue of externalities, RISEMP was initi-ated, its goal being to encourage silvopastoralsystems in degraded areas (micro-watersheds)in Central and South America. Farmers enterinto contracts under which they receive annualpayments for the environmental services theygenerate. Annual payment levels are based onthe opportunity cost to farmers of the mainalternative land use, and the payment forcarbon is set at around the current world priceof U.S. $2 per tonne of CO2 equivalent. It will

218 Pagiola et al, 2004.

170 K. Schuyt

be some time before the effectiveness of thisproject can be determined, but the intensivemonitoring of this project will allow a detailedanalysis of its effectiveness.

3. Outline of Tools

As has been illustrated by the three casestudies, the creation and development of PES iscomplex and requires a wide variety of skillsand tools. It is impossible to list all these tools,but one that is common to many PESs in oneform or another is the economic valuation ofthe goods and services forests provide. The keyis recognising and understanding economicvalues of forest services in decision-makingprocesses related to forests in addition to theirbiological and sociocultural values. Economicvaluation tools exist that quantify these eco-nomic values in monetary units, which allowsthem to then be recognised and weighedagainst other values. Examples are the con-tingent valuation method, which estimatespeople’s willingness to pay for an environmen-tal service or people’s willingness to acceptcompensation if that service is lost. Anothertool is the replacement cost method, which usesthe costs of replacing an environmental serviceas an indication of its value. Yet anotherexample is the travel cost method, where thecosts people are investing to travel to a forestarea can be used as an indication of the valuethose people attach to the area.219

4. Future Needs

Although PES systems are rapidly becomingmore common, many are still in their infancyand much remains to be learned. For example,there is a need for a better understanding ofwhat mechanisms need to be in place for PESto work. It is also necessary to better under-

stand the impacts of PES schemes on poorpeople and how the poor can really benefitfrom PES. Lastly, it is increasingly being sug-gested that there is a need to sell “bundles” ofenvironmental services as an incentive for sus-tainable forest management—jointly selling theforest services of carbon sequestration, water-shed protection, biodiversity, and landscapebeauty as a package. There is, however, a needto further develop possibilities of linking forestservices successfully.

References

Bull, G., Harkin, Z., and Wong, A. 2002. Developinga market for forest carbon in British Columbia. In:Pagiola, S., Bishop, J., Landell-Mills, N., eds. 2002.Selling Forest Environmental Services: Market-Based Mechanisms for Conservation and Devel-opment, Sterling: Earthscan Publications, London.

Campbell, B.M., and Luckert, M.K., eds. 2002.Uncovering the Hidden Harvest: ValuationMethods for Woodland and Forest Resources.Sterling: Earthscan, London.

Inbar, M., and Scherr, S. 2004. Getting Started: AGuide to Designing Payments for Ecosystem Services (draft). Forest Trends, Washington, DC.

Pagiola, S., Agostini, P., Gobbi, J., et al. 2004. Payingfor Biodiversity Services in Agricultural Land-scapes. World Bank, Washington, DC.

Pagiola, S., Bishop, J., and Landell-Mills, N., eds.2002. Selling Forest Environmental Services:Market-Based Mechanisms for Conservation and Development. Sterling: Earthscan Publications,London.

Additional Reading

Forest Trends. 2004. Learning More About Paymentsfor Environmental Services—Case Studies andSuggested Resources (draft). Forest Trends,Washington, DC.

Landell-Mills, N., and Porras, I. 2002. Silver Bullet orFools’ Gold? A Global Review of Markets forForest Environmental Services and Their Impacton the Poor. International Institute for Environ-ment and Development, London.

219 See Campbell and Luckert, 2002, for an overview of eco-nomic valuation tools for forest resources.

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

There is still limited knowledge concerning thelong-term impact of climate change, and thereal role that trees can play in absorbing carbonand in the costs and benefits involved in usingrestoration as a mechanism to offset carbonemissions. For these reasons, carbon knowledgeprojects are proposed as a way of testing theseparameters in the context of landscape-basedforest restoration activities.

The atmospheric concentration of carbondioxide (CO2) has increased by over one thirdsince the Industrial Revolution. This increase isprimarily attributed to fossil fuel combustionand also significantly to land use cover changes(e.g., conversion of forests to agriculture).There is broad consensus among scientists thatCO2 is linked to climate change and globalwarming. Of course, reducing human depend-ence on fossil fuels and imposing legallybinding targets for reduced CO2 emissions isessential to curb atmospheric CO2 concentra-tions and must be the central focus of any policyprogramme. However, to stabilise atmosphericCO2 concentrations, the international commu-nity must also slow the destruction of naturalecosystems that are important stocks and sinksof carbon. In addition to slowing the rate ofland conversion, increasing land coverage ofcarbon-absorbing vegetation (or carbon sinks)has been considered a mitigation tool to sta-bilise the burgeoning concentration of CO2 inthe atmosphere. The concept of carbon sinks isbased on the natural ability of trees and otherplants to take up CO2 from the atmosphere andstore the carbon in wood, roots, leaves, and thesoil. The theory behind land-based carbontrading is that governments or institutions thatwish to, or that are required to, reduce theirfossil fuel emissions can offset some of theseemissions by investing in afforestation andreforestation activities, where trees sequestercarbon. Indeed, in some cases private compa-nies are voluntarily electing to offset some oftheir fossil fuel CO2 emissions through the pur-

24Carbon Knowledge Projects andForest Landscape RestorationJessica Orrego

Key Points to Retain

The biggest carbon reductions should beachieved through a reduction in emissionsrather than an expansion of “sinks.”

The carbon market is still in its infancy.

The potential value of forests as carbon sinksis important. With agreements such as theKyoto protocol as well as voluntary carbonmarkets, it is possible to finance “carbonknowledge” projects that test out, monitor,and improve knowledge on forest restora-tion and carbon.

An approach that integrates, among others, a carbon sink target can improve thecurrent afforestation approach and help toaddress the traditional social and ecologicalweaknesses.

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172 J. Orrego

chase of carbon credits from land-based carbonsequestration projects.

The concept of carbon trading, and the subse-quent carbon market that has emerged out of it,is rooted in the U.N. Framework Convention onClimate Change, which resulted from the RioEarth Summit in 1992, and the subsequent 1997Kyoto protocol. The Kyoto protocol sets forthlegally binding reductions in greenhouse gasemissions for governments in developed coun-tries (so-called “Annex I countries”) to beaccomplished during 5-year commitment per-iods, with the first commitment period set for2008–2012. On average, Annex I countrieswould be subject to a 5 percent reduction belowtheir 1990 emissions’ levels.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM),article 12 of the Kyoto protocol, provides a flex-ible mechanism through which Annex I partiescan meet their emissions’ reduction targets bypurchasing carbon that is sequestered throughafforestation and reforestation (and energy)activities being implemented in Annex II coun-tries (developing countries). Since its creation,CDM procedures and modalities have evolvedsignificantly in response to strong criticism anddebate.

A concern of environmentalists is whethercarbon stored in sinks projects will besequestered permanently. Clearly forests aresubject to natural death and also to a variety ofdisturbances that result in the release of CO2

back into the atmosphere. This was addressedat the 9th Conference of the Parties (COP 9) ofthe Kyoto protocol signatories in Milan inDecember 2003. It was decided that temporarycredits must be reissued or recertified every 5years and then replaced by another credit.

There are also ways to make forestry activi-ties last for the long term by, for example, intro-ducing land-use systems that are beneficial tolocal communities, incorporating fire manage-ment activities into the project, and retaining arisk buffer from all carbon finance to cover thecosts of reestablishment in case of losses.

Other issues surrounding the sinks’ debateinclude the risk of leakage, whereby afforesta-tion or reforestation project activities in onearea displace forest felling or destruction toanother area. Leakage can be avoided if the

needs of local communities and local markettrends are analysed and incorporated intoproject design. It is also necessary that carbonsequestered in sinks projects would not havebeen stored even in the absence of the project,thereby proving their additionality.

Critics also fear that the CDM reduces pres-sure from governments to take real actiontoward reducing fossil fuel emissions at theirsources. Parties will be able to use the CDM tomeet 1 percent of their below-1990 emissionstarget, which equates to approximately 20percent of a country’s target.

Furthermore, opponents of the CDM areconcerned that efforts to sequester carbon willresult in large-scale monoculture plantationsthat have no socioeconomic or ecological benefits.

Some of the key policy issues being discussedtoday relate to which types of forest and land-use projects should be undertaken under theumbrella of climate change mitigation and towhat extent these types of projects should beintegrated with mainstream carbon markets.The following examples illustrate two contrast-ing types of projects that are part of this debate.

2. Examples

2.1. Plantar in Brazil

One example of this type of project that isbeing promoted as potentially CDM eligible isthe Plantar project in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Theproject consists of 23,100 hectares of eucalyp-tus plantations that are used to make charcoalfor pig iron production. Plantar plans to claimCDM emissions’ reductions from both thesequestration by the eucalyptus trees and fromthe avoided use of coal. This project hasattracted numerous criticisms because of itsscale and manner of implementation. Therehave been allegations that the local Geraiszeiroinhabitants were forcibly evicted when theplantations were first established and that run-off from the plantations has polluted localwater supplies affecting the livelihoods of localfarmers and fisher folk. However, viewedwithin the context of recent industrial history

24. Carbon Knowledge Projects 173

of Brazil, which has seen many factories movefrom Minas Gerais to the Amazon region,sourcing energy from trees cut from virgin rain-forest, such efforts may not be wholly negative.In a landscape context, the choice of trees andtheir location would play a significant role aswell to not only minimise social and ecologicalimpacts, but also seek to enhance the widerbenefits.

2.2. Scolel Té in Mexico

In contrast with the industrial plantationapproach of Plantar, the Scolel Té project forrural livelihoods and carbon management aimsto demonstrate how carbon finance can allowlow-income rural farmers to invest in forestconservation, sustainable land-use systems, andlivelihood improvements that would otherwisebe inaccessible to them.

Operating since 1996, the project works inover 25 communities, among seven differentindigenous Mayan and mestizo groups ofChiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico (Fig. 24.1). Theproject engages rural farmers in a fully partici-patory manner. All potential participantsattend a training workshop prior to making adecision to enter into the project. Participants

then work with technical experts from theproject to design land use activities that will suit their own needs and that are ecologicallyviable.Technical specifications are produced foreach land-use system, and these provide infor-mation about the area of land, tree species andplanting density, the intended managementregime, and local ecological conditions. Fromthis information a credible carbon sequestra-tion estimate can be made. Subsequently, anevidence-based monitoring protocol is used toverify carbon stocks using easy-to-measureindicators. Farmers engage in forestry activities,including integrated community restoration offorests, afforestation of degraded and fallowland, and shade coffee. Carbon payments allowparticipating farmers to invest in these land usesystems and also in other livelihood improve-ments such as livestock, cooking stoves, and fireand erosion prevention.

Since 1997 the project has attracted a varietyof carbon buyers, including the FédérationInternationale de l’Automobile (FIA), whichcommitted to an ongoing purchase of approxi-mately 20,000 tonnes of CO2 offsets per year tocompensate for greenhouse gas emissions associated with the Formula 1 and World RallyChampionships and others.

Figure 24.1. Farmers in Chiapas,Mexico, learning how to monitorcarbon stocks in above-groundbiomass (Photo © Jessica Orrego).

174 J. Orrego

These purchases have been made through thevoluntary carbon market. Companies that wishto offset their carbon emissions for corporatesocial responsibility or “good practice” reasonsare more compelled by projects that have addedsocial and environmental co-benefits associ-ated. Indeed, there is a growing trend in theprivate sector to take voluntary actions to offsetCO2 emissions, and projects that contribute toboth sustainable development and conservationare the most appealing for this.

The Clean Development Market will alsoprovide an additional market for land-basedcarbon credits, although the size of this marketduring the first commitment period (2008–2012) is uncertain, as “sinks” credits are notpermissible under the European Union Emis-sions Trading Scheme for this period. This doesnot mean that individual countries will not beenticed by sinks projects, especially those thatprovide strong social and environmental bene-fits. Furthermore, the World Bank’s BioCarbonFund will provide carbon finance for CDM-eli-gible projects that sequester carbon in forestsand other landscapes in developing countries.However, it is likely that the bulk of the Kyotocarbon market will focus on emissions’ tradingand energy projects, and less on sinks projects.

3. Outline of Tools

Carbon management can provide an excellentvehicle for channelling funds into sustainabledevelopment and forest conservation andrestoration activities while playing a key role inmitigating climate change. Stringent standardsmust be set for both compliant (e.g., Kyoto protocol) and voluntary markets to weed outprojects with negative impacts, such as thePlantar project described above. In addition toproviding socioeconomic and environmentalbenefits, projects must be promoted that candemonstrate transparent and credible baselineassessments and carbon verification systems.Organisations such as Winrock International,El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), andthe Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management(ECCM) have made strides in developingmethods for determining regional baselines for

forest conservation carbon management. Thesemethods are promising; however, currentlythere is no standard methodology that is usedacross projects. Furthermore, carbon monitor-ing protocols and frequency can vary betweenprojects; therefore, standardisation of theseprocedures across projects is necessary.

Several models exist for estimating carbonsequestration potential. CO2Fix, for example,offers a relatively easy-to-use method for esti-mating carbon sequestration (the model can bedownloaded for free on the Internet). Subse-quent and ongoing monitoring and forest meas-urement to verify carbon estimates is necessary.Remote sensing methods for estimating carbonstocks are in place and are undergoing furtherenhancements and validation via land-basedstudies.

A consistent set of standards and proceduresis necessary to ensure the overall credibility ofcarbon sequestration projects and the carboncredits sold through them, whether in the voluntary or compliant market. The Plan Vivosystem (www.planvivo.org) used in the ScolelTé project (mentioned above) and in similarprojects in Africa (Fig. 24.2) and India providesa rigorous set of standards and procedures toensure a high level of community participation,sustainable land use practices, and verifiablecarbon credits. Plan Vivo projects are nowamong the most credible and widely recognisedform of carbon offsets available in the volun-tary sector.

The Climate, Community, and Biodiversity(CCB) standards,220 resulting from a partner-ship among research institutions, corporations,and environmental groups, are a rigorous set ofcriteria that aim to combine climate, biodiver-sity, and sustainable-development benefits.

The IPCC Good Practice Guidelines forLand Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry(LULUCF)221 provides useful guidance aboutmethods for estimating, measuring, and moni-toring carbon stocks as well as a wealth ofdefault figures. If designed properly, such land-based carbon sequestration projects can benefit

220 Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance(CCBA), 2004.221 IPCC, 2003.

24. Carbon Knowledge Projects 175

Figure 24.2. Nursery workers inSofala, Mozambique, preparingseedlings for carbon agroforestryactivities (Photo © Jessica Orrego).

rural communities, slow destruction, andincrease the restoration of vital forest ecosys-tems, while contributing to a combination ofactivities that will help slow increases in atmos-pheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

4. Future Needs

The greatest limiting factor in carbon projectsis the carbon market. As the carbon market isdeveloped and expanded, so too will small-scalecarbon management projects. As more carbonfinance is channelled into these projects, thecarbon models and baselines will be refined andmore sophisticated methods will be developed.It is also important for accurate information toreplace speculation when it comes to the impor-tance of the carbon market, as well as its realvalue in mitigating climate change.

References

Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance(CCBA). 2004. Climate, Community and Biodiver-

sity Project design standards (Draft 1.0). CCBA,Washington, DC: www.climate-standards.org.

IPCC. 2003. Good practice guidance for Land Use,Land-Use Change and Forestry National Green-house Gas Inventories Programme TechnicalSupport Unit. Kanagawa, Japan. http://www.ipcc-ggip.iges.or.jp/public/gpglulucf/gpglulucf.htm.

Additional Reading

Bass, S., Dubois, O., Moura-Costa, P., Pinard, M.,Tipper, R., and Wilson, C. 2000. Rural livelihoodsand carbon management. IIED Natural ResourceIssue Paper No. 1. International Institute for Environment and Development, London.

Landell-Mills, N., and Porras, I.T. 2002. Silver bulletor fools’ gold? A global review of markets forforest environmental services and their impact on the poor. Instruments of Sustainable PrivateSector Forestry Series. IIED, London.

Smith, J., and Scherr, S.J. 2002. Forest Carbon andLocal Livelihoods: Assessment of Opportunitiesand Policy Recommendations. Center for Interna-tional Forestry Research, Jakarta, Indonesia.

WB Carbon prototype Fund. http://carbonfinance.org/pcf/Home_Main.cfm.

1. Background and Explanation of the Issue

Communications is about moving people fromawareness to action. If done well, it can helpachieve conservation goals. Communicatingabout forest landscape restoration (FLR) canbe done either proactively/strategically oropportunistically.

1.1. Communicating Forest Landscape Restoration

Because of its complexity, communicatingforest landscape restoration is challenging.Messages should ideally cover the following:

• What are we restoring?• Why restore?• Who is going to benefit from the restoration?• How can the target audience help?

Messages have to be relevant to each targetaudience. For example, for landowners in NewCaledonia who are not at all enthusiastic aboutnature conservation, telling them that the islandhas only 1 percent of dry forests left may not bemotivating or inspiring enough to make themtake any action to prevent its further decline.What could grab their attention may be theeconomic value of these forests—their land—and therefore the need to return good qualityforest. Table 25.1. lists some examples of keymessages for various target audiences to whomwe may want to reach out to help us restoreforest landscapes. The messages are examples,and a more targeted approach will be neededfor specific audiences.

1.2. Marketing

Marketing or the “selling” of projects to poten-tial funders or donors requires good communi-cations and research. Just as you need tounderstand your target audience when commu-nicating, so it is with marketing. You need to

25Marketing and CommunicationsOpportunities: How to Promote andMarket Forest Landscape RestorationSoh Koon Chng

Key Points to Retain

Forest landscape restoration needs to beclearly communicated and different targetaudiences will require different channels andmedia.

Communicating the issue can be planned torespond quickly and strategically to newsitems that emerge and where restoration cancreate a positive message.

Marketing complex restoration programmesis equally important and it is essential toclearly understand what are the key triggersthat might make the chosen audience engagein a forest landscape restoration programme.

176

Good communication cuts through the clutter, itdoesn’t add to it. It does this by getting the rightmessage, in the right medium, delivered by the rightmessengers, to the right audience.

—Now Hear This, Fenton Communications

25. Marketing and Communications Opportunities 177

know what makes the funders “tick,” what aretheir pet interests, goals, history of giving, etc.Such information is useful in helping us drawup approaches that are appropriate to thedonor, and also in developing good fundingproposals. Remember, marketing is about cre-ating a win-win situation—matching yourobjectives and those of the donor. Proper back-ground research is essential.

To nonpractitioners, landscape-scale forestrestoration may be a complex concept. Don’tpass on the complexity to potential donors.Even if they are versed in the technicalities ofthe concept, their supervisors may not be. Sim-plicity and speaking in the donors’ language areimportant. It is also important to do in-depthresearch to better know and understand thedonors and their priorities, in order to addressthem.Above all, remember that you are talkingto people; even if they are working in govern-ment aid agencies or multinationals, they arejust like us—they have feelings and emotionstoo.

So you got the funds.Well done! But the mar-keting job’s not over. Most businesses know it isimportant to keep their customer base. Like-wise, we need to keep our pool of donors. Never,as we say, take the money and run! Donorengagement throughout the project is all impor-

tant. Most donors appreciate being involved,and it could be as simple as receiving regularupdates on how the project is progressing.In many ways, donor engagement is like making and keeping friends. So invite themhome: invite donors to see how the project isprogressing and to understand your challenges.It’s also more fun than just reading progressreports, and they would certainly love seeinghow their funds are being spent. Like investors,donors like seeing how their investments aredoing. Finally, don’t forget to acknowledge andthank the donor.

2. Examples

2.1. Responding to a Crisis—The Big Storm of 1999

A third of France’s forests were damaged when the country was hit by one of the biggeststorms ever in December 1999. Damage was extensive, shocking foresters and thepublic. The news made headlines and for thefirst time in France’s forest history, forest prob-lems and the links between forest and societywere hotly debated by the media for at least 6 months.

Table 25.1. Different messages for different audiences.

Target audience Possible key message

Governments Current reforestation practices are costing a lot of money and not providing muchenvironmental or social benefit. FLR achieves a balance between socioeconomicand environmental benefits. Let us show you how.

Technical experts FLR is an approach that requires an integrated effort. Join us and be a part of aninitiative, working with others to share expertise and know-how.

Development organisations FLR aims to restore forest goods and services for both people and nature. It takes anworking locally integrated approach. Work with us in this initiative so that together we can meet

our collective goals.Conservation organisations Let’s share lessons so we can help one another in implementing and advancing FLR

and programmes already initiatives in our respective countries/areas.implementing FLR

Conservation organisations Protection and management of forests are no longer enough in achieving forestand programmes not yet conservation in the face of increasing forest loss and degradation. We need also to involved in FLR work on forest restoration. More and more forest conservation projects are

integrating a landscape-level forest restoration approach. Don’t get left behind.Jump on board.

FLR, forest landscape restoration.

178 S.K. Chng

During the weeks immediately following thebig catastrophe, WWF, the global conservationorganisation, “surfed” the wave, taking advan-tage of the media and public interest to reachout to a broad audience, developing its argu-ments on the need for improving forest man-agement and the problems and threats tobiodiversity. In the months that followed,WWFcommunicated the need for renewing forestrypractices that take nature into account as well as promoting ecological restoration. Televisionpublicity and print advertisement cajoledpeople into “making a wish for forest restora-tion.” In late 2000 a press conference was calledto present WWF and other NGOs’ proposals forimproving forest management and restoration.

The first anniversary of the storm was wellcovered by the mainstream media. It was anopportunity to repeat the messages while inter-est was still high. Subsequent anniversaries,however, did not generate as much media inter-est—the topic became “cold”, covered only bythose journalists on the forest/environmentbeats. In 2003, for example, there was littlemedia interest in a WWF-released study on theimplementation of forest restoration, includ-ing criticisms of the use of subsidies and badpractices in the management of habitat of keyendangered species.

As a result of its communications’ efforts onthis issue, WWF was identified as a major actorin forest management in France—somethingthat was not obvious before. It was successful in setting up partnerships with companies toimplement restoration programmes.

WWF France’s Daniel Vallauri noted, “Animportant lesson learnt for us in communicat-ing during the storm crisis was the need forrapid response, coupled with a specific strategyto communicate at least for the first six monthsafter a big storm.”

2.2. Prestige Oil Spill—Responding Rapidly

While this example is not about forest restora-tion, it shows how quick mobilisation of a multidisciplinary team helped to deal efficientlyand effectively with communications in theaftermath of an environmental disaster.

In November 2002 one of the worst oil spillsin history occurred in Spain’s Galicia province.It was the eighth marine environmental disas-ter in Galicia in the last three decades, andinvolved a tanker called Prestige.

Immediately after receiving news of thecrisis, WWF Spain formed a multidisciplinarycrisis group, led by its CEO, to deal with theissue. Within an hour it had alerted both thenational and international media. The groupdesigned and planned an integrated rapid-response strategy covering conservation, policy,and communication. It also developed actionplans for fund raising and a membership drive.

At the same time, there was strong coordi-nation with WWF International’s Communica-tions Department and the Endangered SeasProgramme, and national offices, on policy andcommunication. A Web site was created toprovide daily updates from the field, strengthenWWF’s demands on marine security, and attendto international media queries.

A very rapid response, clear key messages,rigorous and factual information, presence on the ground, and coordination with the WWF Network ensured that WWF was themedia’s main reference point. This in turnensured that WWF was mentioned in almost all media coverage with its calls for urgent actionby those concerned. Most importantly, the fastand integrated response enabled WWF Spain toobtain strong conservation results, including sig-nificant policies on improving marine securityadopted by the European Union (EU).

As WWF Spain summed it up, it is unfortu-nate but true that “An environmental crisis is agreat opportunity for an NGO in terms of com-munications and achieving policy goals.” It also has the following tips to share with officesthat may have to embark on rapid responsecommunications:

• Respond very rapidly.• Send clear, sound, and single messages.• Use strong visuals.• Use integrated strategy (conservation, com-

munications, and fund raising).• Have a presence on the ground.• Provide scientific and factual information.• Use the WWF Network for expertise.

25. Marketing and Communications Opportunities 179

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Communicating Proactively

Proactive communications means having a concerted and long-term plan that supports therestoration strategy. The plan involves knowingthe following:

• Why we are communicating (the communi-cations objective)—In some cases communi-cations may be for fund-raising purposes, inothers to mobilise public opinion, and yet inothers, to share knowledge.

• Who we need to communicate with (thetarget audience)—These could be NGOs,decision makers, students, farmers, etc.Unfortunately, they are rarely a homoge-neous group. The key to the communicationsplan is in knowing your audience. Find out asmuch as you can about them, particularlywhat inspires and motivates them. Suchinformation is vital as it helps answer the“when” and “how” questions and also incrafting the appropriate messages.

• What should we be saying to the target audience (the message)—It is important tobe clear when communicating. In some casesthere may be a clear message and call toaction (e.g., lobby for a change in policy) andwe can even measure success of that message.In others, when disseminating knowledge orexperiences for instance, there is no explicit“call for action.”

• How to reach the target audience (the toolsor approach)—Once the audience is identi-fied (given that it is not always a single groupbut often a mixture), it is necessary to iden-tify the best tool to reach them (see the notebelow about the Web, for example).

3.2. Opportunistic Communications

Opportunistic or rapid-response communica-tion entails communicating in response to anevent, for example, a sudden policy change, or asudden natural event such as fires or stormsdamaging large forest areas. Because restora-tion is often considered as necessary once a disaster strikes, and because all too often short-

term “quick-fix” solutions are offered to satisfypolitical and media needs, it is extremely impor-tant to be prepared with a suitable response thatpresents a broader-based forest landscaperestoration approach as the solution (if indeedit is the right one under the circumstances). Inmost places,one can anticipate likely events,andtherefore it is possible to prepare a “rapidresponse” package with the necessary recom-mendations for appropriate restoration and formitigating future damage. Rapid response com-munications can help in reinforcing messages onforest landscape restoration and getting thoseresults that are hard or take twice as long toachieve. Although opportunistic, this kind ofcommunications still requires some degree ofpreparedness. In this regard, communicationsmaterials such as background information,including facts and figures and actions to betaken when disaster strikes, are useful to haveready.

For example, WWF has developed an infor-mation sheet with responses and recommenda-tions on how to deal with storm damage inEurope. This proved useful after the significantstorms that swept across much of France in1999, destroying large areas of forests. What isimportant is that while this communications isresponsive in many cases, we can anticipate arecurring natural disaster and therefore be suitably prepared for it. While a standardmessage or response may need some slight tai-loring to the situation, the overarching messagecan be more carefully crafted in advance. Thisis particularly true of restoration, which is initself about responding to a crisis. Remember,in an ideal world, restoration would not beneeded.

The case study above on the Prestige oil spillprovides an example that, while not related torestoration, demonstrates how an effectiverapid response was organised.

New positive policy announcements alsopresent good opportunities for communicatingforest landscape restoration goals and objec-tives. For example, when former IndonesianPresident Megawati announced in early 2004her government’s support to implementrestoration initiatives, this presented an oppor-tunity to not only applaud the initiative but also

180 S.K. Chng

offer support and help in ensuring that pasterrors are not repeated.

3.3. A Word About the Web

The explosion of Web sites makes it temptingto jump onto the bandwagon. But be aware thatwhile nice to have, a Web site requires long-term investment in resources in maintenance aswell as marketing to draw in visitors. Also, aWeb site is not always the panacea for all com-munications. For example, in many countries,target audiences will not have access to a com-puter. Another common error is the failure toregularly update a Web site, which can quicklybecome obsolete.

4. Future Needs

A number of rapid-response messages andpackages still need to be developed for antici-pated crises. These are important because they

allow for quick dissemination of the impor-tance of restoration, when the audience isreceptive. In some cases, such as for the linkagebetween floods and tree cover, more research isneeded on the real linkages and cause-and-effect relationship in order to substantiate com-munications’ claims.

References

Now hear this—the nine laws of successful advocacycommunications. http://www.fenton.com/. Concisereport by Fenton Communications detailing their approach to advocacy communication campaigns.

Part CImplementing Forest Restoration

Section IXRestoring Ecological Functions

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Forest management has changed the composi-tion and ecology of the remaining forests inmany parts of the world. Intensive managementof native temperate forests in Europe, NorthAmerica, and parts of Asia has resulted inforests that are species-poor, artificially young,lacking many of the expected microhabitatsand with radical changes to ecology and dis-turbance patterns. Logging in many tropicalforests has removed the largest trees, frag-mented habitats through the construction oflogging roads and skid trails, and often opened

forests up to exploitation by settlers and poach-ers. Although these forests still exist, theirability to support biodiversity or to supplygoods and services for local human communi-ties may have been radically reduced. Or moreprecisely, their structure has been altered tosupply one particular good—timber products—at the expense of other goods and services.Changing priorities mean that there is nowincreasing interest in managing forests for bio-diversity, environmental services, recreation,and cultural and social benefits, as well as fortimber production. In places where there arelarge areas of intensively managed or logged-over forest, the primary focus of restorationactivities may well be on restoring forest qualityin existing stands of trees rather than extendingthe area under trees; in effect, this usuallymeans returning the forest to a more naturalcomposition and ecology. Six major compo-nents are important in defining the naturalnessof a forest ecosystem:

1. The composition of tree species and otherforest-living plant and animal species, wherechanges can include both loss of native speciesand problems from the occurrence of nonnativeinvasive species

2. The pattern of intraspecific variation, asshown in trees by canopy and stand structure,age-class, under-storey, with changes in man-aged forests commonly being toward younger,more uniform forest stands

3. The ecological functioning of plant andanimal species in the forest as manifest in food

26Restoring Quality in Existing NativeForest LandscapesNigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

In many countries the most pressing restora-tion need from a conservation perspective isnot for new forests but for higher quality inexisting forests.

Restoring ecological quality requires aproper understanding of the components ofa natural forest: composition, pattern, func-tioning, process of renewal, resilience, andcontinuity in time and space.

Approaches to restoring quality includeactive management to restore missing micro-habitats and steps to influence both processand the way in which the forest renews itself.

185

186 N. Dudley

webs, competition, symbiosis, parasitism, andthe presence of important microhabitats suchas dead wood and leaf litter

4. The process by which the forest changesand regenerates itself over time, as demon-strated by disturbance patterns, forest succes-sion, and the occurrence of periodic majordisturbances from storms, fire, or heavy snowfall

5. The resilience of the forest in terms of tree health, ecosystem health, and the ability to withstand environmental stress, which is ofincreasing importance during a period of rapidclimate change

6. The continuity of the forest particularlywith respect to total size, but also the existenceof natural forest edges (often lost in managedhabitats), connectivity of forest patches and theimpact of fragmentation222

Restoration of quality can sometimes beachieved just by withdrawing management or other pressures, allowing natural ecolog-ical functioning to reassert itself gradually.However, in other cases, where, for instance,species have been lost from a locality, or whereremaining pressures are undermining naturaldisturbance patterns, more active restorationefforts may be needed. Over the past twodecades, limited experience has built up inrestoration of forest quality, although there isstill a great deal to be learned.

2. Examples

Most of the experience in restoration of forestquality currently exists in temperate and borealforests, as shown by the examples below,although the importance of restoring forestquality is also increasingly being recognised inthe tropics.

2.1. Wales—Restoring a NativeForest Composition by Removing Invasive Species

The Ynyshir bird reserve on the Dyfi estuarycontains some of the oldest native oak wood-

land in Wales, within the core of a projectedUNESCO biosphere reserve. The wood is variable-aged with a natural ecology but hasbeen substantially altered by invasive species,mainly sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) andrhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum). Torestore a natural composition, sycamore hasbeen progressively removed by ring-barkingmature trees and cutting out saplings. Rhodo-dendron has been cut and burned during thewinter and stumps spot-painted with a short-life herbicide to prevent regeneration (infor-mation from reserve staff).

2.2. Sweden—Re-Creating DeadWood Microhabitats in Managed Forest

Artificial high stumps were created as potentialhosts for saproxylic (deadwood-living) beetlesin managed forests in Fagerön, Uppland, andstumps and logs were also left as substrates forsaprophytic fungi. The results showed that hun-dreds of beetle species, including many red-listed species, utilise high stumps, and two thirdsof them favour stumps in semi- or fully sun-exposed conditions, showing that high stumpsin logging areas and other open sites are poten-tially very valuable tools for conservation ofsaproxylic beetles. Cut wood, especially large-diameter logs, also hosted numerous species of saprophytic fungi. Thus, cut logs may sup-port fungal diversity, both in managed forestlandscapes and in forest protected areas (see“Restoration of Deadwood as a Critical Micro-habitat in Forest Landscapes”).223

2.3. Finland—Restoring NaturalFire Disturbance Patterns by Prescribed Burning

Controlled burning is used to restore forestswhere fire suppression has resulted in thedecline of species that need fire for germinationor to remove competitors. Finland’s NaturalHeritage Services’ department uses prescribedburning in protected areas, particularly in thesouth of the country, and to date almost 4000

222 Dudley, 1996. 223 Lindhe, 2004.

26. Restoring Quality in Existing Native Forest Landscapes 187

hectares have been restored in this way.Burning has to be carried out with extreme carewhen weather conditions are suitable, that is,when the forest is not too wet to burn but notso dry as to create uncontrollable fire.

2.4. Sabah—Reconnecting Forest Fragments

Forest along the banks of the KinabatanganRiver in the Malaysian state of Sabah, inBorneo, creates an important corridor betweencoastal mangrove and secondary forests in the highlands. Much of the remaining lowlandforest has been converted into oil palm planta-tions. Substantial parts of the riparian corridorare now protected but these areas have becomefragmented and oil palm reaches right to theriver bank in places, cutting migration corridorsfor elephants and other species.The WWF Part-ners for Wetlands project has been liaising withvillagers to promote targeted tree planting toreconnect the patches of remaining forest toform a larger and ecologically coherent whole.More importantly,WWF has been working withoil palm companies to find ways in whichselected areas can be returned to forest (per-sonal observation and discussions with fieldstaff).

2.5. Lebanon—Building Capacityfor Better Forest Management and Restoration

The Al Shouf Cedar Reserve in Lebanoncovers 550km2, around 5 percent of the country,and contains around a quarter of Lebanon’sremaining cedar (Cedrus libani) forest. Thecore of the reserve is strictly protected and is inmountainous territory of little economic value.The Shouf Forest Resource Centre was openedin 1998 to help improve forest quality parti-cularly in the buffer zone of the park, throughmanagement of forest biodiversity and silvo-pastoral systems, forest fire prevention, pro-duction and commercialisation of nontimberforest products, tree nurseries and eco-forestrytechniques, and environmental education(information from WWF Mediterranean Programme).

3. Outline of Tools

In many cases restoration of quality is bestserved by simply giving a forest time to recoverits natural dynamic, although some additionalhelp may be required to achieve this as the pre-vious examples show.

• Assessment:The first step in restoring qualityof forests is to determine what is missing.Many different definitions of naturalnessexist at a site level, although most of these do not identify the different componentsinvolved (see “Identifying and Using Refer-ence Landscapes for Restoration”). A simplesite-level scorecard (Table 26.1) for assessinglevels of authenticity in forest ecosystems224

can be used to provide a quick reference to elements of authenticity that are eitherpresent or absent as an aid to planningrestoration programmes.

• Influencing rate of change: Most aspects of quality restoration can be achieved byremoving the pressures that are currentlyreducing quality, such as overgrazing,changes in fire regime (either unnaturallyhigh or low incidence of fire), poaching, andovercollection. The simplest and cheapesttools available are agreements with stake-holders, for example, ensuring that shepherdskeep sheep or goat flocks away from certainforests or reducing nontimber forest productcollection. More expensive options includefencing against grazing animals, antipoachingpatrols, and fire watching.

• Active management to restore naturaldynamics: Where particular natural elementsare missing from the forest ecosystem, orunnatural elements (e.g., invasive species)are present, more active intervention may berequired. Many invasive species only becomeestablished when there are gaps in the can-opy so that removal for a period can lead totheir virtual elimination, in other cases morelong-term control strategies may be needed(particularly in the cases of invasive animals).Re-creation of missing microhabitats, such asdead wood (see “Restoration of Deadwood

224 Dudley et al, in press.

188 N. Dudley

as a Critical Microhabitat”), riparian foreststrips, or particular species, may also be nec-essary in cases where there is either someurgency or where these are unlikely to reap-pear naturally.

• Influencing disturbance patterns: Varioustechniques for reintroducing or mimickingnatural disturbance patterns exist or arebeing developed. Most aim to “manage”disturbance mainly by controlling it so that it influences smaller areas (for example,because the forest is already fragmented orbecause land tenure agreements mean thatonly limited areas can be disturbed). Tech-

niques such as prescribed burning, artificialcreation of standing deadwood, and mimick-ing storm damage are all now available.

4. Future Needs

Much more information is needed about theability of different forest ecosystems to recoverquality over time and particularly about thelikely speed of recovery; this information isimportant in making decisions about whetheror not to undertake more active (and expen-sive) forms of restoration. Methods for control

Table 26.1. Data card for stand-level assessment of forest authenticity (Dudley et al, in press).

Indicator Elements

Assessors should fill in as much of the table as possible. Space is left for further observationsComposition How natural is composition of tree species? Fully Partly Exotic

How natural is composition of other species? Fully Partly ExoticAre significant alien species present? Yes NoIs the ecosystem functioning naturally? Yes No

Notes on composition:

Pattern What is the tree age distribution? Mixed—old Mixed—young MonoIs the canopy natural or artificial? Natural ArtificialIs the forest mosaic natural or artificial? Natural Artificial

Notes on pattern:

Functioning Are viable populations of most species present? Yes NoDoes a natural food web exist? Yes NoWhat are the soil characteristics? Stable Seriously

erodingWhat are hydrological characteristics? Healthy ProblemsWhat is the age of the forest? Old growth Mature YoungWhat is the period of continual forest cover?

Notes on functioning:

Process Does a natural disturbance regime exist? Yes NoDoes an unnatural disturbance regime exist? Yes NoIs a significant amount of deadwood present? Snags Down logs

Notes on process:

Continuity Size (in hectares):Age (approximate length of continuous forest cover)Are the forest edges natural or artificial? Natural ArtificialIs the forest connected to other similar habitat? Yes NoIs the forest fragmented? Yes No

Notes on continuity:

Resilience What is the tree health? Good Average PoorAre there important introduced pests, diseases, and Yes No

invasive species?What are the pollution levels? High Medium Low

Notes on resilience:

26. Restoring Quality in Existing Native Forest Landscapes 189

of invasive species are in some cases still alsopoorly developed as is management of artificialdisturbance. Codes of practice and perhapsprinciples for artificial disturbance remain to bedeveloped.

References

Dudley, N. 1996. Authenticity as a means of measur-ing forest quality. Biodiversity Letters 3:6–9.

Dudley, N., Schlaepfer, R., Jeanrenaud, J.-P., andJackson, W.J. In press. Manual on Forest Quality.

Lindhe, A. 2004. Conservation Through Manage-ment. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Entomology, Swedish University of AgriculturalSciences (SLU). Acta Universitatis AgriculturaeSuecia, Silvestria, vol. 300.

The Challenge

Sixteen hectares of salt marsh on the DyfiEstuary in Wales had been planted with adense stand of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis),a North American conifer. The estuary is aRamsar Site (i.e., listed as an area of out-standing wetland) and UNESCO Man and theBiosphere reserve, and the plantation adjoinsa strictly protected area. Most natural vegeta-tion had been shaded out and the peat under-neath the canopy supported few plant speciesexcept for flushes of fungi in the autumn.Several plants (e.g., the heathers Erica spp.)appeared after the spruce was removed,having presumably been dormant in the peat.The natural water table had also been alteredas a result of constructing an embankment forthe railway and through subsequent drainage,and the soil layer disturbed by deep plough-ing when the plantation was established.

The Opportunity

Sell-off of a proportion of state forest landmeant that the area was available for pur-chase. As the plantation never produced acommercially viable crop, the sale price wasfixed only slightly higher than the value ofstanding timber, creating the chance of acheap net land purchase. The plantation wasbought by a private individual, who has leased

this to the local wildlife trust as a naturereserve. Agreeing the purchase involvedlengthy negotiation because under UnitedKingdom law any trees that are felled must bereplaced, whereas the conservation opportu-nity here was not to replace but instead to see what emerged through natural regenera-tion (with an assumption that a proportion ofthe area would be naturally treeless). Therewas considerable uncertainty about how thesite would regenerate, although support from the Countryside Council for Wales eventuallyhelped to encourage a change of policy to allow natural regeneration rather thanreplanting.

Interventions

The spruce trees were felled and cleared,along with most remaining brash (branches,etc). Early ideas of replacing ploughed soilwere abandoned because of the scale andcosts of the operation. Some drainage ditcheswere blocked on an experimental basis, raisingthe water table and in addition, with NationalHeritage Lottery funding, several new pondswere dug. Subsequently, a boardwalk circuithas been established for visitors, which isbeing upgraded to allow wheelchair access topart of the protected area, and a simple birdhide is being constructed from living willow atthe edge of one of the new ponds.

Case Study: Restoring a NaturalWetland and Woodland Landscapefrom a Spruce Plantation in Wales, UKNigel Dudley and Martin Ashby

190

Case Study: Restoring a Natural Wetland and Woodland Landscape 191

Results

The area has changed, over 6 years, from aplace almost devoid of natural life to a richwoodland and fen habitat, with emergingbirch (Betula pendula) and willow (Salixspecies) in places, along with large areas ofwetland plants including stands of reedmace(Typha latifolia). Up to three nesting pairs of the nationally endangered nightjar(Caprimulgus europaeus) have successfullyraised young and other wetland birds such as the common snipe (Gallinago gallinago),sedge warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus),and grasshopper warbler (Locustella naevia)have bred, and the area has become a huntingground for the rare barn owl (Tyto alba) andfor otters (Lutra lutra). It is hoped that alocally rare moth, the rosy marsh moth, mightreestablish, and a survey is planned.

Future Issues

Under natural circumstances, the area wouldbe mainly salt marsh with some freshwaterinflow and emergent trees. Much of the chal-lenge, therefore, has been to replace a habitatof nonnative trees with a smaller mosaic ofnative species. This habitat has almost disap-

peared in parts of the U.K. and is therefore a particular focus for restoration. As yet itremains uncertain as to whether the increas-ing water level will serve to restrict colonisa-tion by birch and willow or whether thereserve manager will have to arrange periodicclearance to maintain the forest mosaic thatwould exist under completely natural circum-stances. The extent to which Sitka spruce willregenerate is not clear, although some clear-ance may be needed, ideally before youngtrees become mature enough to reproducethemselves. Grazing would help keep scrubregeneration under control and leave openareas for nightjars, although it may prove dif-ficult to find native species able to live suc-cessfully in the wet conditions of the site.

Lessons Learned

Despite the warnings about the irreversibilityof changes associated with plantation estab-lishment, reversal has been rapid and so farhighly successful. The fact that the soil humuslayer was badly damaged by ploughing hasapparently made little difference to recovery:it makes access more difficult for people, butparadoxically this may be an advantage in anature reserve.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

It is necessary to link human restoration effortswith the reestablishment of ecosystem pro-cesses in order to maximise biodiversity andecosystem services (e.g., clean water, stablesoils) while minimising additional humaninputs. Simply planting local vegetation andadding agricultural levels of fertiliser is not necessarily sufficient. Restoration activitiesfocussed solely on maximising substrate stabil-ity or primary productivity frequently result inarrested succession and require further effortto encourage successional change. Critical eco-system processes are the working parts of a successfully restored habitat.225 Without them,restoration is incomplete.

An ecosystem is defined as a series of inter-actions among a particular set of organisms andbetween those organisms and their physicalenvironment. Restoration addresses inputs,outputs, and internal dynamics of the flow ofenergy and matter. Typical measures of inputsinclude sunlight, water, nutrients, and organ-isms. Typical outputs include water, eroded soil,and organisms. Internal fluxes include nutrientcycling, primary productivity, and decomposi-tion. Additional ecosystem processes concernthe interaction of the biota to disturbance(resistance, resilience, succession, invasion) andthe development of structure and biodiversity.Successful restoration complements the naturalrecovery process of succession, followingremoval of constraints such as unstable, toxic,or infertile substrates or the lack of adequatesoils. Successful restoration also allows succes-sion to proceed and leaves an ecosystem bothresistant and resilient to disturbance. Becausewe are able to predict successional trajectoriesonly in the broadest sense (of functionalgroups, biomass, and nutrient accumulation),restoration that incorporates successionaldynamics is often experimental. At best, unsuc-cessful restoration efforts help elucidate suc-cessional principles, as successional theories, inturn, guide restoration.226

27Restoring Soil and EcosystemProcessesLawrence R. Walker

Key Points to Retain

Ecosystem processes, especially those direct-ing successions, are the working parts of asuccessfully restored habitat.

Below-ground processes are the first key tomany harshly degraded situations restora-tionists have to face, and thus require specificattention.

Reestablishment of biodiversity implies afully functioning ecosystem.

192

226 Walker and del Moral, 2003.225 Ehrenfeld and Toth, 1997.

27. Restoring Soil and Ecosystem Processes 193

2. Examples

2.1. Substrate Stability in Iceland

Erosion is a major disturbance on over 40percent of the terrestrial surface of the earth.Site stabilisation is essential for restoration, butcare must be taken in how it is done. Icelandhas the temperate world’s worst soil erosiondue to 1000 years of overgrazing of sensitivesoils (Fig. 27.1). It used to have 2- to 3-m-tallbirch forests (Betula pubescens), and Icelanderswant them back (Fig. 27.2). The use of nativeground cover to stabilise the erosive forces ofwind, water, and ice heaving, combined withfences to keep out sheep and horses, leads(after about 50 years) to the return of nativeforests.227 No success has been achieved byplanting native trees without first stabilising thesurface or without fencing (Fig. 27.3).

2.2. Substrate Stability in Puerto Rico

Reforestation of landslides in Puerto Ricorequires slope stabilisation, best provided bynative climbing fern (Gleichenia bifida, Dicra-nopteris pectinata) thickets that then delayforest growth for several decades.228 Direct treeplanting is rarely successful on erosive surfaces,even with fertiliser or organic soil amendments, due to continued erosion in this high rainfall

habitat. Gabions, mats, and other human effortsto stabilise the slopes rarely function as well asthe ferns that have extensive below-ground

Figure 27.1. Extreme soil erosion(left) in Iceland can be slowed byfencing to exclude sheep and horses(right) (Photo © Lawrence R.Walker.)

227 Aradottir and Eysteinsson, 2004.228 Walker et al, 1996.

Figure 27.2. A 45-year-old Betula pubescens forestin Iceland, restored by protecting it from grazing bysheep and horses. (Photo © Lawrence R. Walker.)

194 L.R. Walker

rhizomes and add copious above-ground litter.Even though they take longer, natural succes-sional processes thus appear to be most robustin achieving restoration goals.

2.3. Substrate Fertility: Iceland andAlaska

Adding fertiliser does not immediately establishcritical nutrient cycles, and too much fertilisermay result in dominance by densely growinggrasses or herbs that inhibit tree establishmentthrough competition for nitrogen, phosphorus,water, or light. Appropriate levels of fertiliser,combined with species that are short-lived orgrow less densely, can act as nurse plants forseedlings of later successional plants and facili-tate succession. Legumes introduced to increasesoil nitrogen may benefit tree growth if theirdensities are kept low. Attempts to acceleratereforestation in Iceland with commercial fer-tilisers or by planting tree seedlings into standsof the nonnative,nitrogen-fixing lupine (Lupinusnootkatensis) have shown some promise fornonnative trees such as Sitka spruce (Piceasitchensis). However, overfertilisation or over-reliance on lupine may lead to dominance bynonnative herbs or conifers in some parts ofIceland.Fertilisation of nonnative grasses on theAlaska pipeline corridor delayed recolonisationof native tundra species by several decades.Low-fertility sites where competition is reducedand where all key species are introduced initiallyhave the greatest chance of restoration success.229

2.4. Amelioration of ToxicConditions in Mines in South Africa

Reforestation often involves addressing toxicsite conditions. Landfills can have toxic liquidsand gases; mine tailings can have extreme pHvalues or toxic levels of metals in addition to surface compaction or erosion problems.Reforestation of dunes mined for various oresin South Africa involved topsoil replacement,windbreaks, and sowing of various grasses thatprovided a nurse crop for slower-germinatingnative Acacia karoo trees from the seedbank.The acacia trees, in turn, promoted soil devel-opment through nitrogen fixation and weregradually replaced by larger native trees. In thiscase, normal successional processes replacedearly intensive manipulations.230 However, it isoften difficult to restore some semblance ofpredisturbance vegetation due to alterations indrainage, fertility, and even topography. Forestsmay remain stunted if they do colonise toxicsites, and reclamation goals are often moremodest than in less toxic situations.

3. Outline of Tools

Stabilising soil substrate: Substrate stability isessential before restoration can proceed. Forexample, the following actions treat succes-sively more serious erosion conditions on

Figure 27.3. A rofabard, or erosionremnant in Iceland where severe soillosses have removed several metresof soil, leaving only gravel barrens.(Photo © Lawrence R. Walker.)

230 Cooke, 1999.229 Walker and del Moral, 2003.

27. Restoring Soil and Ecosystem Processes 195

Puerto Rican landslides: mulch, fertiliser,transplants, silt fences, contouring, jute cloth covers, rock-filled gabions, redirectingwater flow, and lining alternative drainagechannels.

Adding organic matter: Soil processes are keyto successful restoration. Beginning withseverely disturbed substrates, organic matteradditions are the fastest way to incorporatecritical soil microbes. Earthworm additions,inoculations of mycorrhizae, and additions oflimiting nutrients (with the caveats notedabove) all potentially accelerate soil devel-opment and facilitate woody plant invasionsor plantings, especially in severely disturbedhabitats. However, mycorrhizae can act asparasites when nutrient limitations aresevere. Minimal additions of topsoil or othersources of nutrients and soil biota can reducethe risk of overfertilisation and dominanceby early successional species that precludetree establishment. Additions of nitrogen-fixing plants can often benefit (but see Sub-strate Fertility, above).

Reducing soil nutrients: Restoration can alsoinvolve reducing soil nutrients (via carbon-rich straw, sawdust, or sugar, or additions oflignin-rich plant litter that immobilise nutri-ents) if the goal is a naturally infertile site.For example, native ohia (Metrosideros poly-morpha) forests in Hawaii are out-competedby the introduced nitrogen fixing tree Myricafaya. In fact, the whole successional pathwayon volcanic surfaces is altered to favourplants adapted to higher nutrients, particu-larly nitrogen.231 Restoration of nativeHawaiian communities and successionalprocesses will most likely require nutrient-reduction treatments.

Reducing toxic conditions: Toxic conditions canbe ameliorated by bioremediation, or the useof plants, mycorrhizae, and microbes. Oncetoxins are reduced, restoration of native com-munities can begin.Additions of topsoil fromlate successional communities, sometimescombined with sludge, composted yardwastes, or other concentrated organic mattersource, often accelerate succession. Arrestedsuccession can be avoided by dense plantings

of native species, particularly ones thatattract vertebrate dispersers.

Biodiversity is a key goal to restoration, andits reestablishment implies a fully functioningecosystem. If a diverse biological communityresembling the reference ecosystem is self-sustaining, then landscape and successionaldynamics have likely been incorporated. Inaddition, adequate substrate stability, drainage,depth, and fertility have been achieved. How-ever, restoration generally requires ongoingmonitoring and strategic alterations.

4. Future Needs

We need to better understand the role that indi-vidual species have in the restoration of ecosys-tem processes. We have tended to focus onnitrogen fixers used in agricultural settings andneglected vascular species that concentratenitrogen and phosphorus from infertile soils.We have also neglected the nature and speci-ficity of plant mycorrhizal associations andtheir role in restoration. Species that havesimilar functional attributes (fix nitrogen, growearly and fast in succession, host key pollinatorsor dispersers, have deep roots that breakthrough compacted soils, etc.) may offerinsights into better approaches to restoration.Similarly, keystone species (ones with ecosys-tem and community impacts disproportional totheir biomass) could be important to restora-tion efforts.

Invasive species are becoming ubiquitousand restorationists need to address the impactof such species on ecosystem processes. Do theyalter nutrient dynamics, soil stability, soil salin-ity, fire frequency, or primary productivity? Ifso, restoration efforts must not ignore thesenew influences.

Restoration is essentially the manipulation ofsuccession, yet we understand little about howecosystem processes vary through succession.Temporal replacement of vascular plant speciesreflects and influences a complex of ecosystemprocesses, including, generally, a reduction inlight availability and an increase in nutrientavailability. How can restorationists maximisetheir manipulations of these trends to favour231 Vitousek and Walker, 1989.

196 L.R. Walker

desirable outcomes? Finally, much emphasis isplaced on above-ground and visually obviouscriteria for measuring restoration success.When below-ground processes are ignored oronly treated in a crude way (through fertilisa-tion or stabilisation, for example), restorationsuffers. The interplay of soil organisms with soilstability, fertility, and/or toxicity and withanimals and vascular plants is perhaps the ulti-mate key to successful restoration.232

References

Aradottir, A.L., and Eysteinsson, T. 2004. Restora-tion of birch woodlands in Iceland. In: Stanturf, J.,and Madsen, P., eds. Restoration of Boreal andTemperate Forests, pp. 195–209. CRC/Lewis Press,Boca Raton, Florida.

Cooke, J.A. 1999. Mining. In: Walker, L.R., ed.Ecosystems of Disturbed Ground, vol. 16, Eco-systems of the World, pp. 365–384 Elsevier,Amsterdam.

Ehrenfeld, J.G., and Toth, L.A. 1997. Restorationecology and the ecosystem perspective. Restora-tion Ecology 5:307–317.

Vitousek, P.M., and Walker, L.R. 1989. Biologicalinvasion by Myrica faya in Hawaii: plant demog-raphy, nitrogen fixation and ecosystem effects.Ecological Monographs 59:247–265.

Walker, L.R., and del Moral, R. 2003. Primary Suc-cession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, UK.

Walker, L.R., Zarin, D.J., Fetcher, N., Myster, R.W.,and Johnson, A.H. 1996. Ecosystem developmentand plant succession on landslides in theCaribbean. Biotropica 28:566–576.

Wardle, D.A. 2002. Communities and Ecosystems:Linking the Aboveground and Belowground Com-ponents. Princeton University Press, Princeton,New Jersey.

Additional References

Palmer, M.A., Ambrose, R.F., and Poff, N.L. 1997.Ecological theory and community restorationecology. Restoration Ecology 5:291–300.

Temperton, V.M., Hobbs, R.J., Nuttle, T., and Halle,S., eds. 2004. Assembly Rules and RestorationEcology: Bridging the Gap Between Theory andPractice. Island Press, Washington, DC.

Walker, L.R., and Smith, S.D. 1997. Impacts of inva-sive plants on community and ecosystem proper-ties. In: Luken, J.O., and Thieret, J.W., eds.Assessment and Management of Plant Invasions,pp. 69–86. Springer, New York.232 Wardle, 2002.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Loss of original forest cover to other land uses,increased degradation of remaining forests, anddecreasing areas of authentic forest habitatshave had a deep impact on biodiversity in manyforest vegetation zones. Authentic forest habi-tats have become fragmented, and distancesbetween suitable habitats hindered the spread-ing of specialised species. Indeed, small frag-ments of authentic forest habitats cannot

maintain viable populations of many forestspecialists.

Loss of authentic forest habitats below criti-cal thresholds has resulted in a decline of manyoriginal forest species. In Europe the number ofthreatened taxa is alarmingly high: amongmammals, typically 20 to 50 percent, and amongbirds 15 to 40 percent, of the forest dwellingspecies are categorised as threatened accordingto IUCN’s red-data book classification. The sit-uation is almost as bad even for lichens, mosses,and vascular plants.233

The last natural habitats still hosting originalspecies’ composition are often small fragmentssituated inside protected areas, or locatedwithin larger, degraded forests. Successful con-servation of habitats of endangered species inthese forest landscapes requires the re-creationof new, larger, and better connected forest habi-tats by the means of ecological forest restora-tion. Active ecological forest restoration isurgently required when natural forest recoveryis too slow, or it is uncertain whether naturalforest recovery could maintain or improve crit-ical habitat qualities for the target species.234

At site levels, one short-term objective ofecological forest restoration is to enhance thepopulations of certain target species.

Target species fall into a number of categories:

• Species that are chosen as a focus of atten-tion because they are representative of many

28Active Restoration of Boreal ForestHabitats for Target SpeciesHarri Karjalainen

Key Points to Retain

The last natural habitats still hosting originalspecies’ composition are often small frag-ments, and successful conservation of theseoften requires the re-creation of new, larger,and better connected forest habitats.

Target species are the objective of restora-tion efforts for two reasons: either becausethe particular species has declined for a specific reason and therefore needs specialattention, or because the target is used as anindicator of a wider biodiversity groupingthat has also declined.

Target species (in particular endangeredspecies) are often useful in assessing theresults of certain restoration activities in theecosystem.

197

233 Karjalainen et al, 2001.234 Rassi et al, 2003.

198 H. Karjalainen

other species within the ecosystem, andtherefore their recovery signals that otherspecies are likely to be recovering. Suchspecies may also be called “umbrella spe-cies,” which means these species’ habitatrequirements are relatively wide (compre-hensive) and hence conservation of umbrellaspecies may protect many other importantspecies with similar or less demandinghabitat requirements.

• Species that influence significantly the viabil-ity of other species’ populations, or play a keyrole for ecosystem functionality or structure.These are known as “keystone species.”

• Species that are of particular importancewithin a conservation plan because they are,for example, endangered, endemic, culturallyimportant, economically valuable, etc.

• Species that act as surrogates for certainhabitat and/or landscape qualities that areconsidered important for maintaining biodiversity.

In the long term, ecological forest restorationobjectives are to create self-sustaining forestlandscapes, where natural succession dynamicsprevail and forests form natural mosaics thatare able to maintain viable populations of allnaturally occurring species.

1.1. Importance of Restoration forTarget Species

Target species are the objective of restorationefforts for two reasons: either because the particular species has declined for a specificreason and therefore needs special attention,or because the target is used as an indicator ofa wider biodiversity grouping that has alsodeclined.

In the second case, recovery of the targetimplies also recovery of other species. This ismore often claimed than substantiated: targetspecies are often relatively large, charismaticspecies and therefore also relatively adaptable.For instance, the recovery of a woodpeckerspecies implies that the volume of its preyspecies have also recovered (probably due todeadwood retention) but not necessarily the

diversity of its prey: it may be feeding on largenumbers of a small group of saproxylic beetles.

So while target species are politically and pra-ctically useful in helping to stimulate restorationactivity, they need to be treated with caution ifthey are also to be used as a surrogate for awhole cross section of biodiversity. This mayimply, for instance, broader monitoring to checkthe wider implications of target recovery (referto the Section “Monitoring and Evaluation”).

Ideally, all restoration activities shall bebased on in-depth knowledge of the structureand function of the forest ecosystem and targetspecies in question.

1.2. Where to Start Restoration forTarget Species

Target species’ populations may havedecreased, but may still be surviving in adegraded forest area. Priority should be set forthe restoration of the habitats of the targetspecies, as well as for the enhancement of theviability of the target population. Even thosespecies surviving for now in forest fragmentsmay not be viable in the longer term, and hencethere is urgency for restoration. This argumentprovides another reason for intervention ratherthan relying on natural processes.

In the case where target species have becomeextinct to the region, it is necessary to knowhabitat requirements of the target species andpossibilities for colonisation: species’ capacityto disperse, location of the source population,distance to the restored habitats, and in the caseof plants, the existence of the seed bank.

1.3. Target Species as Indicators ofSuccessful Restoration

Target species (in particular endangeredspecies) often play an important role in assess-ing the results of certain restoration activities inthe ecosystem. The achievements may be meas-ured structurally (e.g., by the abundance ornumber of target species or species’ composi-tion) or functionally (e.g., interaction of species,trophic structure, side effects).235 However, the

235 Palmer et al, 1997.

28. Active Restoration of Boreal Forest Habitats for Target Species 199

presence of certain target species does not nec-essarily mean that restoration activities havebeen successful. From the population biologyviewpoint, only populations that are capable to reproduce, grow, disperse, and develop canbe viable in the long term. This implies that successful restoration of target populationsrequires they become functionally connectedwith regional metapopulations in the longterm.236

If restored target species’ populations are toosmall, there is a risk for too narrow genetic vari-ation that may become a limiting factor for suc-cessful restoration.237 Narrow genetic variationmay cause, for example, lower evolutionaryadaptability and lower genetic population size.Small populations are also more vulnerable tosporadic factors.

2. Examples

2.1. Restoring Habitats for SpeciesRequiring Deadwood

Old, dying, and decaying trees are importantelement in natural forests, providing habitatsfor numerous specialised species. For example,scientists estimate 20 to 25 percent (or some4000 to 5000 species) of all forest-dwellingspecies are dependent on deadwood in Finnishboreal forests.238 Forestry practises have madeforests tidier and the amount of deadwood hasfallen to critically low levels, resulting in a highnumbers of those species relying on deadwoodbecoming endangered.

Therefore, one of the most common goals of ecological forest restoration is to re-create a proper environment for the species usingdecaying wood. Typical species are differentbeetle species and saprophytic biota, both ofwhich are good indicators of the general dead-wood conditions in the forests for other species’groups. Dead and dying wood can be created bydamaging and felling trees and by triggeringand starting the succession dynamics with

self-thinning and natural disturbance. The keyfactor in restoration is to evaluate the restora-tion validity of the site compared to the naturalness of the forest structure, species’immigration, probability, and possibility ofspecies’ recovery.

New research in boreal forests in Finlandsuggests that at least 20m3 of deadwood perhectare on stand-level would probably meet,and at least 50m3/hectare would give a highprobability to meet the ecological minimumrequirements of many endangered forestspecies specialised in deadwood.239 However,the quality of the deadwood is essential and itis important to offer deadwood that varies inquality to suit different specialised species.There should be a whole variety of natural treespecies, as well as a variety of different decom-position classes (see also “Restoration of Dead-wood as a Critical Microhabitat in ForestLandscapes”).

2.2. Forest Fires Specialist Species

Many endangered specialist species are highlydependent on forest fires and burned wood.These species typically populate the burnedarea immediately after the fire, and revert some5 years after the fire. Some endangered fire-dependent beetle species utilise certain fungispecies, which only occur in recently burnedwood. Most of the fire-dependent specialistspecies are capable of spreading long distances,which is necessary because forest fires haveoccurred randomly in the forest landscape.These species often have certain physiologicaland morphological adaptations, such asinfrared sensors, which helps species to findsuitable habitats from a distance.

Other groups of species are not as closelylinked to fires, but clearly favour them. Thesespecies are typically the same that occur inother large-scale natural disturbances such aslarge-scale wind falls, flooded forests or evenclear-felled forests. These species populateforest fire areas typically 5 to 25 years after theactual fire.

236 Montalvo et al, 1997.237 Montalvo et al, 1997.238 Siitonen et al, 2001. 239 Penttilä et al, 2004; Siitonen et al, 2001.

200 H. Karjalainen

2.3. Restoring Habitats for ForestBird Species

Many declining bird species are dependent ondeadwood, and forest restoration activities mayrapidly create new suitable habitats that thesespecies can populate. For example in Finland ithas been observed that the critically endan-gered white-backed woodpecker (Dendroco-pos leucotos) utilises artificially created snagsand deadwood as a source of insect nutriment.Dendrocopos minor and Picoides tridactylushave also benefited from an increase in dead-wood availability in restored forest areas. It alsoappears that the higher numbers of nest holescreated by woodpeckers also benefit otherhole-nesting species that have declined due tocritically low amounts of natural nest holesavailable in intensively managed commercialforests.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Planning of the Target Species’ Restoration

Ecological forest restoration should be plannedcarefully at different levels.The first level shouldbe ecoregional or country-based strategieswhere objectives for target species or species’groups are defined by major forest types. Such aplan should take into account the current occur-rence of target species’ populations, and presenta strategy on how target species may coloniseexisting habitats, and how they may migrate intonew, restored forest habitats.

All restoration activities should be based onthe precautionary principle. Activities shouldinclude careful planning by ecological expertsin the species’ groups in question. If there isinsufficient knowledge of the target species’ecology, it is advisable to leave the habitat torestore through natural succession, althougheven natural succession may in some cases re-quire active management (e.g., fencing againstlivestock, changes in management interven-tions, etc.).

Restoration activities targeted at endangeredspecies should be directed so that populations

and local occurrences shall be maintained long-term in the ecoregion or country. Actualrestoration activities shall be located in thevicinity of known and demarcated habitats ofendangered species, not in the actual habitat ofthe target species.240 The aim of these activitiesis to restore neighbouring low-quality forestsand in that way re-create new potential habitatfor the species. Results of scientific studies, sim-ulations, and mathematical models241 supportthe theory that restoration activities are mosteffective when located in the vicinity of exist-ing source populations of target species.

In terms of landscape-level planning, restora-tion should aim first to maintain target speciespopulations (endangered species) and abun-dance of crucial forest habitats. Restorationactivities should be concentrated to re-createlarger, unified ecological core units. Landscape-level restoration plans should aim to re-createforests that provide sufficient variety of allnatural habitats in terms of quality and quantity.

Forest stand-level restoration activitiesshould aim at strengthening the existing corearea by re-creation of buffer zones, ecologicalconnections, and minimising fragmentation.Restoration should be planned so that forestareas will become naturally connected to otherecosystems such as watercourses, open mires,or mountain areas. At its best, restored forestecosystems form large, united ecologically self-sustaining units and cover natural drainagebasins.

In certain extreme cases, target species(endangered species) could be transferred intorestored forests that meet species’ criticalhabitat requirements. There is, however, quitelimited experience and scientific research onspecies’ transfers. In Finland species’ transfershave yielded both negative and positive results.For example, the endangered butterflyPseudophilotes baton was transferred into itsformer restored forest habitat in southernFinland, but the butterfly population witheredaway. On the other hand, some endangered vas-

240 Rassi et al, 2003.241 Hanski, 2000; Huxel and Hastings, 1999; Tilman et al,1997.

28. Active Restoration of Boreal Forest Habitats for Target Species 201

cular plants (Primula stricta, Pilosella peleteri-ana, Moehringia lateriflora, Elymus mutabilis)have been successfully transferred into a testarea, and there are plans to transfer species intonature, on restored river banks.

3.2. Stand-Level RestorationMethods

The type of ecological restoration aimed at spe-cific plant and animal species tends to be aimedat changing certain elements of the forest (rein-troducing microhabitats, changing successionalstages, etc.) rather than at the whole forestecosystem, at least in the first instance. Moreinformation on stand-level restoration methodscan be found in Section XI. The ultimate aim ofrestoration for a target species is the immigra-tion of lost species and populations back topreviously suitable, though today only poten-tial, sites. The objectives set for the restorationof target species determine the methods to beused. Usually there are several alternativemethods that can be used, and some examplesthat have been used in the restoration of borealforests are described below.

3.2.1. Restoring HomogeneousMonocultures

Typical planted forest may consist of treespecies native to the site, but the spacing is not natural (trees are planted in rows), agestructure is unnatural (even-aged, one canopylayer), and the forest is lacking the mixture of other natural tree species (planted for onespecies, and thinnings eliminated other treespecies).

By felling tree groups, small openings can becreated inside the homogeneous stands. Open-ings mimic natural small gap dynamics, forexample created naturally by wind falls. Treesfelled form deadwood, whilst open areas regen-erate naturally (or by planting) to native pio-neering tree species.242

3.2.2. Mimicking Natural Forest Fires

Forest fires have been an important ecologicaldisturbance factor in many forest types, andmany species have become endangered due tothe elimination of natural forest fires. Mimick-ing forest fires is therefore often a key restora-tion activity. Since many fire-specialised speciescan only live some years in the burned forest, itis recommended that burning will be repeatedin the region two to three times per decade.

Forest fires should be planned and controlledso that fire does not spread to other areas im-portant for conservation, such as fire refugias orold-growth forests. Recommended size for theburning is 3 to 10 hectares, designed by usingnatural barriers such as wet open mires, lakes,and rivers. In the absence of natural barriers,unwanted spreading of fire must be eliminatedby open channels where all forest and top soilshall be cleared.

Before burning, the target area shall be pre-pared for the operation: some trees should befelled and piled to feed the fire, and this shouldbe done some months earlier so trees dry andburn well. The burning should ideally affect theforest in a versatile fashion: some trees shouldbe entirely burned, some damaged but still languish alive, and some of the trees should beslightly affected and stay alive. Fire intensityshould also be variable for the other ecosystemlayers: bushes, surface vegetation, and groundlayer.243

3.2.3. Creating Deadwood byDamaging Trees

If the forest that is subject to restoration con-sists of tree species native to the site, but islacking deadwood, the easiest method toincrease deadwood is to fell living trees or todamage the living trees mechanically. This canbe done by peeling the bark from around thetree base by chain saw, axe, or billhook. Dead-wood can also be created artificially by damag-ing living trees with small explosive charges orby artificially introducing fungal mycelia intootherwise healthy trees.

242 Tukia et al, 2001. 243 Tukia et al, 2001.

202 H. Karjalainen

When creating deadwood, it is important toselect large trees, and produce different quali-ties of decaying wood, for example, by directingthe falling of trees so that they lie in variedmicrohabitats: some in moist soil, in the shadow,and some in dry, open, scorching hot sunnyplaces. If a forest harvester or forest tractor canbe used, some trees could be pushed down withtheir roots, thus creating disturbances to the soilconditions, mimicking natural damages such asstorms.244

4. Future Needs

Our knowledge of the ecology and likely population trajectories of even quite commonspecies is still very inadequate for many foresttypes. Particular needs include the following:

• Better methods for assessing the restorationof ecological integrity over time for a varietyof forest ecosystems

• Understanding of population levels at whichlong-term decline and extirpation or extinc-tion become likely, which should serve as atrigger for active restoration efforts (espe-cially the impact of forest continuity in timeand space on metapopulations of forest-dwelling species)

• Better knowledge on the precise relationshipbetween habitat requirements of species orfunctional groups and the dynamics of keyhabitats that can be managed and monitoredwith greater facility than the 5000 speciesliving in a small temperate forest.This shouldbe particularly done through the develop-ment of long-term research investment insome of the best existing forest laboratories(i.e., remaining old-growth forests).

• Basic taxonomic knowledge, rapid samplingand monitoring techniques for groups thatrepresent the highest species’ richness of thetemperate or boreal forest, such as fungi,lichens, and invertebrates (or their habitat)

References

Hanski, I. 2000. Extinction debt and species credit inboreal forests: modelling the consequences of dif-ferent approaches to biodiversity conservation.Annales Zoologi Fennici 37:271–280.

Huxel, G., and Hastings, A. 1999. Habitat loss, frag-mentation and restoration. Restoration Ecology7:309–315.

Karjalainen, H., Halkka,A., and Lappalainen, I. (ed.)2001. Insight into Europe´s Forest Protection.WWF International Report.

Montalvo, A., Williams, S., Rice, K., et al. 1997.Restoration biology: a population biology per-spective. Restoration Ecology 5:277–290.

Palmer, M., Ambrose, R., and Poff, N. 1997. Ecologi-cal theory and community restoration ecology.Restoration Ecology 5:292–300.

Penttilä, R., Siitonen, J., and Kuusinen, M. 2004.Polypore diversity in mature managed and old-growth boreal Picea abies forests in SouthernFinland. Biological Conservation, 117(3):271–283.

Rassi, P. et al. 2003. Committee Report on ForestRestoration in Finland. Ministry of the Environ-ment, Finland.

Siitonen, J., Kaila, L., Kuusinen, M., 2001. Vanhojentalousmetsien ja luonnonmetsien rakenteen jalajiston erot Etelä-Suomessa. Metsäntutkimus-laitoksen Tiedonantoja 812:25–53.

Tilman, D., Lehman, C., and Kareiva, P. 1997. Popu-lation Dynamics in Spatial Habitats. SpatialEcology, pp. 3–20. Princeton University Press,Princeton, New Jersey.

Tukia, H., Hokkanen, M., Jaakkola, S., 2001. TheHandbook of Ecological Forest Restoration (inFinnish). Metsähallitus and Finnish Environmen-tal Institute, 87 pages.244 Tukia et al, 2001.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Managed forests often lack critical microhabi-tats, because these have been deliberately orinadvertently removed. Without them much ofthe naturally occurring biodiversity disappearsand restoration of forest quality often involvesre-creation of microhabitats. Perhaps the mostimportant of all forest microhabitats areancient trees and deadwood. These help to:

• maintain forest productivity by providingorganic matter, moisture, nutrients, andregeneration sites for conifer trees—sometree species germinate preferentially on logs;

• provide habitat for creatures that live, feed,or nest in cavities in dead and dying timber,

and for aquatic species that live in poolscreated by fallen logs and branches;

• supply a food source for specialised feederssuch as beetles and for fungi and bacteria,which in turn help maintain the food web bytheir own role as food for predators;

• stabilise the forest by helping to preserveslope and surface stability and preventingsoil erosion; and

• store carbon in the long term, which couldhelp mitigate some of the impacts of climatechange.245

A newly dead tree attracts specialised organ-isms, principally fungi, able to break down thetough lignin layer. In Sweden 2500 fungi speciesrely on deadwood.246 Next come cellulosefeeders including many beetles. Research inCzech floodplain forest found 14 saproxylic(deadwood loving) ant species and 389 saprox-ylic beetle species.247 Specialised birds feed onthese; the great spotted woodpecker (Dendro-copus major) relies on insects in deadwood for97 percent of its winter food.248 At least 10European owls use tree holes for nesting alongwith many other birds and bats, while mammalslike bears shelter in hollows in dead trees.249

Over a quarter of mammals in Europeanforests are associated with deadwood and cav-

29Restoration of Deadwood as a CriticalMicrohabitat in Forest LandscapesNigel Dudley and Daniel Vallauri

Key Points to Retain

Deadwood is one of the most criticallythreatened microhabitats in many temperateforests and supports up to 25 percent offorest biodiversity.

Deadwood can best be re-created throughpolicy changes that allow retention ofveteran, dying, and dead timber, but in a fewspecific cases where biodiversity loss is likelybecause of the short-term nature of the lackof deadwood, management to create dead-wood is sometimes justifiable.

203

245 Humphrey et al, 2002; Maser et al, 1988.246 Sandström, 2003.247 Schlaghamersky, 2000.248 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, undated.249 Mullarney et al, 1999.

204 N. Dudley and D. Vallauri

ities.250 Accumulation of coarse woody debris in streams slows downstream flow, creating fish habitat and providing substrate for algae.Research in the western United States foundthat pools created by logs and branches provideover half the salmonoid spawning and rearinghabitats in small streams. Deadwood creates a variety of habitats, as shown in Table 29.1,depending on the tree species, age at death, andstage of decay; its role as food and habitatvaries depending on whether deadwood is partof an otherwise living tree, a standing tree or trunk or a down log in various stages ofdecay.251

In unmanaged European broad-leavedforest, deadwood comprises 5 to 30 percent oftimber, normally 40 to 200m3 per hectare withaverage volumes for beech forest of 136m3/hectare.252 Yet current national averages areoften only a few cubic metres per hectare, andspecies associated with deadwood are often atrisk. In Sweden, for instance, one of the most

densely forested countries in Europe, 805species dependent on deadwood are on thenational Red List because forest managementdoes not support suitable habitat.253

2. Examples

The following examples illustrate the impor-tance of deadwood in both temperate and trop-ical forests.

2.1. Poland: Bialowieza Forest

The Bialowieza forest is one of the most naturalforests in Europe, between Poland and Belarus,protected as a hunting reserve since the 1300s.On the Polish side 17 percent of the forest(10,500 hectares) is a national park, of whichhalf has been strictly protected for over 80years. Deadwood (mainly logs and other lyingmaterial) contribute about a quarter of the totalabove-ground wood biomass in the reserve,ranging from 87 to 160m3/hectare.254

2.2. France: Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau is a 136-hectare forest reservelast cut over in 1372, protected since 1853 andconsisting mainly of beech with oak, hornbeam,and lime. Volumes of deadwood are 142 to 256m3/hectare, with higher volume following asevere storm. Volume is linked to decay time,with higher volumes but shorter retention timein the case of stands being suddenly knockeddown by storms and lower, more constantvolumes when trees fall naturally with age. Thiscontrasts markedly with the current nationalaverage of deadwood for France of 2.2m3/hectare; most forests have as little as 1 to 2percent of the naturally occurring deadwooddensities.255

2.3. Finland: Southern Region

An active restoration policy has been devel-oped under METSO (forest biodiversity pro-

250 Travé et al, 1999.251 Dudley and Vallauri, 2004.252 Christensen and Katrine, 2003.

253 Sandström, 2003.254 Bobiec et al, 2000.255 Mountford, 2002.

Table 29.1. Habitats provided by deadwood.

Living old Very old trees with large canopy and trees cavities

Dead wood on live treesStanding Newly dead standing trees with

dead trees branches and twigsStanding trunks (snags) of different

agesSnags with major cavitiesYoung dead trees

Lying timber Recently fallen logsDown logs largely intact, wood

starting to soften internallyDown logs without bark, wood

softeningDown logs well decayed, wood

largely soft and discolouredDown logs almost completely

decayed, wood powderyUprooted trees

Litter to soil Large woody debrisFragments of woody debrisCoarse woody debris in rivers

and streams

29. Restoration of Deadwood as a Critical Microhabitat 205

gramme for southern Finland) with goals ofrestoring 33,000 hectares, including prescribedburning on 960 hectares, an increase in deadand decaying trees on 10,500 hectares, and cre-ating small gaps in stands on 5200 hectares andpeatland restoration on 16,000 hectares. So far, 56 operational restoration plans have been prepared and some have already been implemented.256

2.4. Canada: Pacific Northwest

Research in Canada shows that 69 vertebratespecies commonly use cavities, and 47 speciesrespond positively to the presence of downwood. Cavity users typically represent 25 to 30percent of the terrestrial vertebrate fauna inthese forests. Around two to three large snags[over 40cm in diameter at breast height (dbh)]per hectare and 10 to 20 smaller (20cmdbh)snags per hectare are required for cavitynesting birds.257

2.5. Australia: Southern Forests of Tasmania

In Tasmania around 350 beetle species havebeen collected from Eucalyptus obliqua logs inwet eucalypt forests along with many flies,earthworms, velvet worms, and molluscs. Fungiand lichens are also heavily dependent ondeadwood, and 165 bryophyte species havebeen recorded from logs at the same habitat.258

2.6. U.S.: Hawaii

Many of the woody species in Hawaii’s tropicalmontane cloud forest germinate on down logs,particularly those with a substantial moss covering. Research found that natural coarsewoody debris volume varied between 136 and428m3/hectare. The presence of logs is thoughtto be a critical factor in ensuring regenerationin these closed canopy tropical forests.259

3. Outline of Tools

Today, the most threatened species in manyforests are often those associated with dead-wood and very old forest stands, and as a resultthe retention and restoration of deadwoodcomponents is seen as one of the most impor-tant challenges facing forest managers inter-ested in creating forests that are good for bothpeople and wildlife.260 Forest managers have anumber of tools available to help in the assess-ment, planning, and restoration of naturaldeadwood components in forests:

• Assessment: Assessment systems are nowavailable to give guidance in recording andclassifying deadwood components in a rangeof forest types, and a few governments arestarting to include such assessments as a stan-dard part of their forest inventory. The Ministerial Conference for the Protection ofForests in Europe has identified deadwood asa necessary indicator for member states, andsuch survey techniques are likely to increasein the future. Most surveys rely on transectsor random sampling plots and use standard-ised recording systems to classify deadwoodcomponents with respect to size, location,and stage of decay.Assessment and an under-standing of the ecology of target species’ecology are the first stages in determiningrestoration needs.

• Identifying and protecting key sites: The rich-ness of remaining natural forest fragments isincreasingly being recognised, yet many arecurrently being threatened or degraded. Useof initiatives such as the Natura 2000 networkin Europe and additions to national protectedarea networks can help to maintain essentialreference forests and “arks” for deadwoodspecies. Some reserves still practice forestmanagement, particularly in Europe, forinstance, through maintaining ancient cop-picing systems, and these may need to beadjusted to increase deadwood and veterantrees; a greater number of strict naturereserves are also required in many regions.256 Väisänen, personal communication.

257 Boyland and Bunnell, 2002.258 Grove et al, 2002.259 Santiago, 2000. 260 Vallauri et al, 2003.

206 N. Dudley and D. Vallauri

• Zoning: In forest landscapes the proportionof deadwood desired in any one place islikely to vary according to managementneeds, from a fully natural deadwood com-ponent in protected areas to inclusion ofdeadwood components in managed second-ary forest, and perhaps very little deadwoodretained in intensively managed artificialplantations. Landscape-scale zoning can be auseful tool to agree necessary and desiredlevels of deadwood in order to support biodiversity.

• Forest management policies: Forest manage-ment policies should include the retention oftrees and wood components likely to supportsaproxylic species within managed forests.Guidelines are available for what size andshape of deadwood to leave; in general, it isthe larger components of deadwood (logsand standing trunks) that are likely to bemissing, although in intensively managedareas even branches and twigs may havebeen routinely cleared. Likely componentsinclude:• existing large, old, dying or dead trees,

pollarding senescent trees if necessary toprolong the existence of this particularhabitat if it is in short supply;

• a proportion of middle-aged trees toensure a balanced supply of deadwood inthe future;

• key habitat areas within managed forestswhere stands are allowed to mature in anatural manner; and

• fallen deadwood, including brash fromthinnings (possibly a mixture of clearedand uncleared areas) and, even moreimportantly, large logs.

• Using other management interventions: Othermanagement interventions can be consid-ered if these are likely to help supportsaproxylic species, either in designated areasor more generally, including:• prescribed burning in boreal and some

other forest habitats (there is also a needto balance deadwood retention with man-agement of fire risk);

• after a storm, before grant-supportingexpensive salvage logging, balance the eco-logical and economical benefit of leaving a

large amount of deadwood on the ground(without perverse subsidies, economicfactors will often create a near-to-natureform of management); and

• creation of artificial snags by leaving a proportion of some trunks standing afterfelling.

• Artificial restoration of deadwood and bridg-ing substitutes: In a crisis, where deadwood isin such short supply that dependent speciesface extirpation or even extinction, short-term restoration methods may be justifiable,whereby deadwood is created through artifi-cial disturbance. However, these are costlyand only partially successful in helping toprotect a proportion of the expected speciesand are at best an interim measure. Severalstrategies have been tested, including:• deliberate creation of standing or fallen

snags, uprooted trees, leaning dead trees,and standing dead trees;

• hastening senescence and creating habitattrees;

• drilling, for example, nest holes of differentsizes so that species using secondary nestholes have instantly created habitat; and

• creation of habitat surrogates such as nestboxes and bat boxes: the recovery of thepied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) in theU.K. has been ascribed to use of nestboxes.

4. Future Needs

Perhaps the most urgent need is for a betterunderstanding of the dynamics and importanceof deadwood to the biodiversity and ecology offorests, particularly in the tropics and inMediterranean habitats, where research hasgenerally been more limited to date. Moreinformation is also needed about the possiblecosts of deadwood retention policies, includingthe economic costs for commercial manage-ment and more about links between deadwoodand the spread of pests and diseases. (Currentresearch suggests that this should not be amajor problem, but more detailed studies are required.) Simple-to-use assessment tech-niques are still needed for many forest types,

29. Restoration of Deadwood as a Critical Microhabitat 207

and a better understanding of national orregional deadwood averages. In addition,national Red Lists generally contain scantinformation about deadwood species such asfungi and beetles, and this gap needs to beaddressed. In addition, knowledge about therole of deadwood in tropical forests is far lesscomplete, and much research is needed on itsrole and conservation.

References

Bobiec, A., van der Burgt, H., Zuyderduyn, C., Haga,J., and Vlaanderen, B. 2000. Rich deciduous forestsin Bialowieza as a dynamic mosaic of develop-mental phases: premises for nature conservationand restoration management. Forest Ecology andManagement 130(1–3):159–175.

Boyland, M., and Bunnell, F.L. 2002. Vertebrate useof dead wood in the Pacific Northwest, Universityof British Columbia, British Columbia.

Christensen, M., and Katrine, H., compilers. 2003. AStudy of Dead Wood in European Beech ForestReserves. Nature-Based Management of Beech inEurope Project.

Dudley, N., and Vallauri, D. 2004. Deadwood, livingforests. The importance of veteran trees and deadwood to biodiversity. WWF brochure, Gland,Switzerland, 16 pages.

Grove, S., Meggs, J., and Goodwin,A. 2002.A Reviewof Biodiversity Conservation Issues Relating toCoarse Woody Debris Management in the WetEucalypt Production Forests of Tasmania. ForestryTasmania, Hobart.

Humphrey, J., Stevenson, A., Whitfield, P., andSwailes, J. 2002. Life in the deadwood: a guide tomanaging deadwood in Forestry Commissionforests. Forest Enterprise, Edinburgh.

Maser, C., Tarrant, R.F., Trappe, J.M., Franklin, J.F.,eds. 1988. From the forest to the sea: a story of fallen trees. General Technical Report PNW-

GTR-229. US Forest Service, Pacific NorthwestResearch Station, Oregon, 153 pages.

Mountford, E.P. 2002. Fallen dead wood levels in the near-natural beech forest at La Tillaie reserve,Fontainebleau, France. Forestry: Research Note75(2):203–208.

Mullarney, K., Svensson, L., Zetterström, D., andGrant, P.J. 1999. Bird Guide. Harper Collins,London.

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Undated.Leaflet. Sandy, Bedfordshire.

Sandström, E. 2003. Dead wood: objectives, resultsand life-projects in Swedish forestry. In: Mason, F.,Nardi, G., and Tisato, M., eds. Dead Wood: A Keyto Biodiversity. Proceedings of the internationalsymposium, May 29–31, Mantova, Italy. Sherwood95 (suppl 2), Mantova.

Santiago, L.B. 2000. Use of coarse woody debris by aplant community of a Hawaiian montane cloudforest. Biotropica 32(4a):633–641.

Schlaghamersky, J. 2000. The saproxylic beetles(Coleoptera) and ants (Formicidae) of CentralEuropean Floodplain Forests. Published by theauthor.

Travé, J., Duran, F., and Garrigue, J. 1999. Biodiver-sité, richesse spécifique, naturalité. L’exemple de laRéserve Naturelle de la Massane. Travaux scien-tifiques de la Réserve Naturelle de la Massane50:1–30.

Väisänen, R. Personal communication from thedirector of Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Ser-vices, Vantaa, Finland.

Vallauri, D., André, J., and Blondel, J. 2003. Le boismort: une lacune des forêts gérées. RevueForestière Française 2:3–16.

Additional Reading

Mason, F., Nardi, G., and Tisato, M., eds. 2003. LegnoMorto: Una Chiave per la Biodiversita / DeadWood: A Key to Biodiversity. Proceedings of theInternational Symposium May 29–31, Sherwood95 (suppl 2), Mantova, Italy.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Protected area networks are based on theassumption that designated areas will be pro-tected in perpetuity and that their values (biodiversity, environmental services, culturalimportance, etc.) will survive. Unfortunately,many protected areas are under threat or areactually losing habitat and biodiversity. Currentthreats to forest protected areas include illegallogging, overcollection of nontimber forestproducts (especially poaching and bush meathunting), and encroachment. Other protected

areas have been set up in areas where forestshave previously been managed and otherwisealtered, degraded, or destroyed. Many forestprotected areas have become isolated fromother forest habitat, creating long-term prob-lems of viability.261 Restoration, therefore, maybe required to reestablish natural habitat or tore-create or improve corridors between forestprotected areas and thus build a strong pro-tected area network.

In all these cases some form of managementmay be needed to restore forests or morespecifically to restore and maintain specific pro-tected-area values. Sometimes restoration willsimply require protecting forests to encouragenatural regeneration, but in other cases moreactive intervention may be needed. Wherespecies are under immediate threat, the timeand expense involved in active restoration maybe justified in order to speed up the process ofreestablishing suitable habitat. In large pro-tected areas, restoration itself needs to befocussed on the most important places andapproaches, such as the identification of highconservation value forest.

Restoration in protected areas can take twoforms. It is often a time-limited process torestore specific areas of forest or forest typesthat have been degraded or destroyed (i.e.,planned interventions to increase forest qualityfrom the perspective of natural plant andanimal species). However, where loss of qualitycomes from more intractable problems such as

30Restoration of Protected Area ValuesNigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Restoration is required even within manyprotected areas, either because they havepreviously been degraded or because ofoverexploitation since protection, oftenthrough illegal use.

A key element in promoting restoration isthe careful zoning of protected areas, par-ticularly if these permit some level of use,to include strictly off-limit areas to allownatural dynamics; sometimes these can betemporary exclusion zones.

Careful use of the IUCN protected area cat-egories can help determine and describemanagement options in protected areas.

208

261 Carey et al, 2000.

30. Restoration of Protected Area Values 209

persistent invasive species, or where forestshave been managed for so long that they have become cultural landscapes with theirown associated biodiversity, restoration may be a longer-term process that requires constantintervention both to re-create and then tomaintain desired habitat.

Decisions about the extent and type ofrestoration should be addressed within pro-tected area management plans, based on overallmanagement objectives, which themselvesrelate to the IUCN category assigned to thearea (see below).

In some parts of the world, for instanceWestern Europe, the eastern United States, andSoutheast Asia, virtually all protected areashave been altered and could thus be candidatesfor restoration. However, there is also a grow-ing movement for re-creation of “wilderness,”and this creates tension with restoration activi-ties and sometimes a backlash against manage-ment interventions within protected areas.262

There is an inherent contradiction betweenintervening to increase forest quality andreducing interventions to increase naturalnessand wilderness. Promoting “passive restora-tion” (for example, by removing the threats andpressures that are altering forests) can some-times achieve both ends. Sometimes forests areactively suppressed to enhance biodiversityvalues, such as in the various savannah habitatsof national parks in East Africa where regularburning is used to prevent trees from encroach-ing. The extent to which it is possible to re-create wilderness values is still not welltested.

Restoration can be and is practised in alltypes of protected areas, from the most strictlyprotected to cultural landscape areas with relatively large resident human communities.In addition, IUCN has defined one type of pro-tected area—category IV: habitat/species man-agement area—as protected areas managedmainly for conservation through managementinterventions, which often include a largeelement of restoration.

1.1. Recognition of the Need forRestoration in Protected Areas

The international community has long recog-nised the importance of restoration within pro-tected areas. For example in 1972 the originalwording of the World Heritage Convention(Article 5-d) included this requirement: “Totake appropriate legal, scientific, technical,administrative and financial measures neces-sary for the identification, protection, conserva-tion, presentation and rehabilitation of thisheritage” (our emphasis).

In February 2004, the Seventh Conference ofthe Parties of the Convention on BiologicalDiversity met in Kuala Lumpur to look specifi-cally at protected areas. Its draft Programme ofWork on Protected Areas includes the follow-ing in suggested activities for parties (1.2.5):“Rehabilitate and restore habitats and degradedecosystems, as appropriate, as a contribution tobuilding ecological networks and/or buffer zones.”

2. Examples

Many restoration activities simply involvereducing pressures by force or by agreement;in other cases more active measures are alsoneeded on the ground. The following examplesshow some of the ways in which restoration isbeing attempted within protected areas:

2.1. Jordan: Restoration CanSometimes Simply Involve Removing Immediate Pressures

In Dana Nature Reserve in central Jordan,agreements between local Bedouin and parkauthorities have halved the number of goatsgrazing within the reserve to 9000, leading tolarge-scale forest regeneration in what had previously been almost a desert landscape.Here the efforts at restoration were more innegotiating agreements than in managementinterventions and have been accompanied byefforts to provide alternative livelihoods forlocal people through ecotourism, agriculture,and selling herbs (information from discussionwith park guards, September 2000).262 Landres et al, 2000.

210 N. Dudley

2.2. Finland: Active Restoration Is Used to Accelerate the Achievement of a Natural State in Areas Previously Utilised Commercially

In this example in Finland, the longer term aimis the creation of ecologically coherent, self-sustaining areas of woodland where naturaldynamics are the driving forces behind change.Such interventions are used particularly in pro-tected areas in the south, where long-term man-agement has altered forest composition andstructure. The main measures used are helpingdeciduous saplings to establish by making smallclearings, deliberate creation of deadwood bydamaging trees to hasten the restoration of naturaldecay patterns, and use of artificial forest fires.263

2.3. Costa Rica: WhereDeforestation Has Been Severe, Active Planting May Be Needed to RestoreForest Cover

In the Guanacaste National Park in Costa Rica,severe forest loss necessitated artificial refor-estation, including the use of Gmelina planta-tions to provide a nurse crop for natural forestregeneration.264

2.4. France: Even in RelativelyPristine Forests, Invasive Species Can Create Argumentsfor Restoration

In Fontainebleau Forest strict reserve, nearParis, native woodland has been left to regainnatural structure and functioning, but the areahas been invaded by Japanese knotweed (Fal-lopia japonica) where tree fall creates gaps inthe canopy. There is a debate about whethernonintervention can work in situations wherethe natural ecology has already been radicallyaltered.265

2.5. U.S.: Restoration of WildernessValues Requires Particular Management Steps

Many officially designated wilderness areashave been settled in the past and are now being managed to restore values of naturalnessand wilderness. For example, the CoronadoNational Forest in Arizona contains manywilderness areas that have previously beensubject to gold mining, settlement, logging, andranching. All logging has now been bannedfrom these areas, and relics of human activityare left to decay over time. Current visitation ismanaged, with, for instance, camping permittedin only a few designated areas. These manage-ment actions reflect a desire to increase wilder-ness values in what is already a fairly naturalforest from the perspective of biodiversity,although gold mining would still be legal in thearea (information collected on site visit).

3. Outline of Tools

Protected area managers can choose from arange of assessment, planning, and manage-ment tools to re-create or restore naturalforests in their reserves. Once needs have been identified, many restoration approachesdescribed elsewhere in this book may be appropriate.

Assessment frameworks for wilderness and naturalness: A key element in developingrestoration strategies is determining an endpoint for restoration. Fortunately, many def-initions of natural forest exist and some haveassociated assessment methodologies. Whilethese provide some useful assessment tools,most have been developed for temperateforests and do not translate well to tropicalconditions, or necessarily between foresttypes even in temperate countries. More generalised tools for assessing naturalnessand wilderness still need to be developed.In general, we would propose that protectedarea managers concentrate on re-creating thevalues and conditions that they are trying to

263 Metsähallitus Forest and Park Service, 2000.264 Janzen, 2000.265 Dudley, 1996.

30. Restoration of Protected Area Values 211

manage for, rather than aiming to reproducean (often largely hypothetical) “original”forest.

Management: Plans and zoning of use: mostprotected areas do not exist as single man-agement entities, but instead are zoned intoareas with different management appro-aches, and different regulations regarding useand level of protection. IUCN divides pro-tected areas into six categories266:• Category Ia: Strict nature reserve/wilder-

ness protection area managed mainly forscience or wilderness protection

• Category Ib: Wilderness area: protectedarea managed mainly for wilderness protection

• Category II: National park: protected areamanaged mainly for ecosystem protectionand recreation

• Category III: Natural monument: pro-tected area managed mainly for conserva-tion of specific natural features

• Category IV: Habitat/species managementarea: protected area managed mainly for conservation through managementintervention

• Category V: Protected landscape/seascape: protected area managed mainlyfor landscape/seascape conservation orrecreation

• Category VI: Managed resource protectedarea: protected area managed mainly forthe sustainable use of natural resources.

Although these categories describe the mainpurpose of the reserve (and should apply toat least two thirds of its area) other forms ofmanagement are possible in the remainder tomeet the needs of local communities, visitors,or, for instance, because active restoration isneeded in an otherwise strictly protectedarea.267 Identification of the need, extent of,and timing for restoration should be a keypart of management plans in those forestprotected areas where restoration is needed,including the identification of specific targets,approaches, and timetables.

Access controls to allow regeneration: Protectedareas in which one management authoritycontrols the whole site can use zoning,including temporary zoning such as exclu-sion zones for visitors or for herbivores, to facilitate natural regeneration or to increasethe speed and success of regeneration plant-ing. A variety of different approaches exist:• More or less permanent exclusion zones to

allow long-term recovery of forest typesthat have lost old-growth characteristics.For example, it will take hundreds of yearsto recover fully old-growth characteristicsin the recovering kauri (Agathis) forests ofNew Zealand, which were almost totallydestroyed by miners but are now graduallyregrowing in a series of national parks andreserves where grazing and felling are bothcontrolled (information from reserve staffin 1991).

• Temporary exclusion zones to allow recov-ering forest to get a head start withouttrampling from visitors, once seedlingshave established the exclusion zone can beremoved. For example, such exclusionzones are established on Stradbroke Islandoff the coast of Queensland, Australia, inreserves established on former sand quarrysites where poor soils make tree establish-ment relatively difficult (information froma site visit, 2000)

• Agreements with landowners: protectedareas under the control of multiplelandowners, for instance many category Vreserves, or with multiple stakeholders,need to rely instead on voluntary agree-ments with landowners, with or withoutcompensation payments, to facilitaterestoration.268 Such agreements might beto exclude grazing stock from particularareas or for more active regenerationactivities. If possible, agreements should bedeveloped in such a way as to create ben-efits for all parties, for instance, a commu-nity agreement to restore a forest that

266 IUCN, 1994; Phillips, 2003.267 IUCN, 1994. 268 Phillips, 2003.

212 N. Dudley

would be both a form of erosion controland a wildlife habitat.

• Active restoration activities: lastly, pro-tected area managers will also have toresort to the kinds of active interventionsthat are described elsewhere in this book.Particular needs in the case of protectedareas might relate to:• tourist impact (e.g., trampling, damage

at camping grounds, trails, etc.)269;• areas being reclaimed following past

activity such as mining, quarrying, etc.(see “Opencast Mining Reclamation”);and

• areas being restored through eradica-tion of exotic invasive species (see“Managing the Risk of Invasive AlienSpecies in Restoration”).

4. Future Needs

Key needs for the future include more system-atic integration of restoration into protectedarea networks (for example, through bufferzones, corridors, etc.) and greater investmentfor restoration in protected areas, which is stillgenerally approached as a minor part of pro-tected area management.

References

Carey, C., Dudley, N., and Stolton, S. 2000. Squan-dering Paradise: The Importance and Vulnerabil-ity of the World’s Protected Areas. WWFInternational, Gland, Switzerland.

Dudley, N. 1996. Why research in natural forestreserves? A discussion paper for COST Action E4,Fontainebleau, September 12–14, 7 pp.

Eagles, P.F.J., McCool, S.F., and Haynes, C.D. 2002.Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas: Guide-lines for Planning and Management. Cardiff University and IUCN, Cardiff and Gland,Switzerland.

IUCN. 1994. Guidelines for Protected Area Man-agement Categories. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.

Janzen, D.H. 2000. Costa Rica’s Area de Conser-vación Guanacaste: a long march to survivalthrough nondamaging biodevelopment. Biodiver-sity 1(2):7–20.

Landres, P.B., Brunson, M.W., Merigliano, L.,Sydoriak, C., and Morton, S. 2000. Naturalness and Wildness: The Dilemma and Irony of Manag-ing Wilderness. Proceedings RMRS, WildernessScience in a Time of Change Conference, Mis-soula, Montana, May 23–27, 1999, USDA ForestService, pp. 377–381.

Metsähallitus Forest and Park Service. 2000. ThePrinciples of Protected Area Management inFinland: Guidelines on the Aims, Function andManagement of State-Owned Protected Areas.Natural Heritage Services, Vantaa, Finland.

Phillips, A. 2003. Management Guidelines for IUCNCategory V Protected Areas: Protected Land-scapes and Seascapes. Cardiff University andIUCN, Cambridge, UK.269 Eagles et al, 2002.

Section XRestoring Socioeconomic Values

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Nontimber forest products (NTFPs) aredefined as biological resources of plant andanimal origin, derived from natural forests,managed forests, plantations, wooded land, andtrees outside forests.What distinguishes NTFPsfrom agricultural products is their origin: they

come from species of flora and fauna native tothe forest systems, and the wild or semidomes-ticated mode of production.270

An indication of the socioeconomic impor-tance of NTFPs is the fact that 80 percent of thepopulation from the developing world meets aproportion of its health and nutritional needsthrough NTFPs.271 Several million householdsworldwide depend on NTFPs for subsistenceconsumption or income. Global attention toNTFPs has recently increased, mainly due totwo factors:

• Their compatibility with environmentalobjectives, including the conservation of bio-logical diversity

• Their contribution, not only to householdeconomies and food security, but also tonational economies

There are at least 150 NTFPs that contributesubstantially to international trade, includinghoney, gum arabic, rattan and bamboo shoots,cork, forest nuts and mushrooms, oleoresins,essential oils, and plant or animal parts forpharmaceutical products.

The NTFPs’ availability in forest landscapesis related to the maintenance of high plantdiversity rates, and the existence of a richmosaic of habitat types and well-structuredforests.

31Using Nontimber Forest Products forRestoring Environmental, Social, andEconomic FunctionsPedro Regato and Nora Berrahmouni

Key Points to Retain

The economic and social significance of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) to sus-tain people’s livelihoods and local, national,and international markets justify the need to invest resources in harvesting, growing,and planting a wide range of native plantspecies.

Applying and adapting the existing ecologi-cal restoration techniques to NTFPs can helpsecure focal species’ habitat requirementsand diversify natural resource production on which sustainable forest management isbased.

Well-defined tenure and access rights andfunding mechanisms can provide adequateincentives for creating community-basedNTFP income-generating restoration initiatives.

215

270 Moussouris and Regato, 1999.271 FAO, 1997.

216 P. Regato and N. Berrahmouni

1.1. The Multifunctional Forest Concept

Historically, in many forest areas, rural com-munities have developed forest managementsystems that meet multiple functions or pur-poses, in which their economies are based onthe harvesting and production of a wide rangeof NTFPs channelled through local, national,or international markets. Under these circum-stances, forest landscapes have been to a certainextent human-shaped, characterised by a richmosaic-like structure integrating naturalforests, several wooded, shrub and grasslandformations, and seminatural agroforestry landareas, including extensive agricultural land.

Unfortunately, many traditional multipur-pose forestry systems have been lost or col-lapsed in numerous forest areas due tosociopolitical instability or macroeconomicdrivers. The result has been the intensificationof one single forest use—the conversion offorest land into agriculture or nonnative treeplantations—and significant biodiversity lossand land degradation.

1.2. Forest Landscapes and HabitatDiversity: The Environmental Values of NTFPs

The production of NTFPs can be expected toproduce less severe environmental impacts toforest ecosystems than timber extraction.Valuing and supporting new economic opportu-nities based on NTFPs as part of multipurposeforest systems can contribute to both improvingthe environmental benefits of forest landscapesand to sustaining and improving livelihoods,especially in less favoured rural areas.

1.3. Traditional SustainableManagement Systems:The Economic and SocialSignificance of NTFPs

Considering people’s high dependence onNTFPs for their livelihoods, there is a signifi-

cant economic incentive for many countries todevelop the NTFP production potential of theirforests and to generate positive socioeconomicbenefits for rural populations while ensuringthat these are compatible with conservationvalues. However, to deliver this potential thereis a need to modify current economic notionsthat govern forest management, notably byenlarging and improving market opportunities,and securing payment mechanisms and incen-tives for land owners/users to restore forestresources and the goods and services that theyprovide.

The NTFP markets are also important at the regional and international levels as theyprovide revenues for the actors directlyinvolved and for the government. At the inter-national level, it is estimated that the trade inNTFPs amounts to $11 billion. The EuropeanCommunity (EC), the United States, and Japanaccount for 60 percent of world imports ofNTFPs, and the general direction of trade isfrom developing to developed countries.272

1.4. NTFPs As a Response toPoverty and As a Safety Net for the Poorest Members of Society

Forest biodiversity, via NTFPs (harvested orhunted biological products from wild or culti-vated sources), plays an important role inaddressing poverty for marginalised, forest-dependent communities.The NTFPs contributeto livelihood needs, including food security,health and well-being, and income.273 In manyparts of the world these resources are criticalfor the poorest members of society who areoften the main actors in NTFP extraction andmay provide them with their only source ofincome. Ninety percent of people who earn lessthan one dollar a day depend on forests fortheir livelihoods, according to the World Bank(see Box 31.1).

272 Ndoye and Ruiz-Perez, 1997.273 Pagiola et al, 2002.

31. Using Nontimber Forest Products 217

2. Examples

2.1. NTFPs in the MediterraneanRegion: Restoring the Ecological, Social, andEconomic Functions of Cork Oak Forest Landscapes274

Cork oak (Quercus suber) characterisesmosaic-like forest landscapes in the siliceouslowland and mid-mountain areas of the westernMediterranean region. Even though cork rep-resents the main economic interest (270,000tonnes/year, which represents $100 million) theenvironmental, social, and economic sustain-ability of cork oak forest systems depends on adiversified production of several NTFPs (i.e.,edible nuts, fruits and acorns, honey, medicinaland aromatic plants, mushrooms, game, resins,spirits, basketry, pastures) from which farmersget their annual revenue (for example, a diverseNTFPs production of more than 10 products incork oak and holm oak sylvopastoral systemsrepresented a total amount of 433 million eurosin 1986 in Spain).

Bad management practices, overexploitationof a few resources (i.e., firewood and grazing),land conversion, and climate change have allcontrived to greatly threaten remaining corkoak forest areas.

More than 240,000 hectares of cork oak treeshave been planted in Portugal and Spain since1993, funded by the European Commission’sagriculture subsidies. Nevertheless, the simpleaction of planting cork oaks may be neitherenvironmentally sufficient nor seen as econo-mically interesting for land owners who will not be prepared to wait 20 to 30 years to makea profit. On the other hand, by applying ecological restoration principles and empha-sising multifunctionality in the landscape,land owners/users may benefit economicallyafter 5 to 10 years. By restoring the forestecosystem as a whole through planting a widenumber of native trees, shrubs, and herbalplants—for example, strawberry tree (Arbutusunedo), harvesting for the production of spirits,aromatic shrubs’ harvesting for distillation,game, honey, etc.—they can benefit from theharvesting of these various NTFPs well beforethe planted cork oak trees become productive.Appropriate incentives focussing on such mul-tipurpose restoration practices may changepeople’s attitudes from short-term choices tolonglasting sustainable management systems.

Box 31.1. NTFPs in figures

It is estimated that 1.5 million people in theBrazilian Amazon derive their income fromextractive products.

In the forest zone of Southern Ghana, it isestimated that 258,000 people or 20 percentof the economically active population deriveincome from NTFPs.1

In Nigeria, it is estimated that 78,880 tonsof Irvingia gabonensis are marketed peryear.2

In the Mediterranean region, the produc-tion of NTFPs is well below its potential.

For instance, the current cork production(3.7 million tonnes/year), game production(1.2 million tonnes/year), and medicinal/aromatic plants (4.5 million tonnes/year)represent in all around one third of theirpotential.3

Source: Shanley et al, 2002.1 Townson, 1995.2 Shanley et al, 2002.3 Moussouris and Regato, 2002.

274 This example has been extracted from Moussouris andRegato, 1999; Moussouris and Regato, 2002; and Oliveiraand Palma, 2003.

218 P. Regato and N. Berrahmouni

The restoration of cork oak forests implies aset of management options, among which wemay highlight the following:

• Production of native trees and shrubs in treenurseries for (1) developing mixed planta-tions—alternating oaks with faster growingsmall fruit trees and aromatic shrubs indegraded land; (2) diversifying the species’composition of high shrubs and forest stands;(3) increasing tree density and understoreyspecies’ composition in open woodlands;(4) creating vegetation lines along river net-works and ravines

• Improving natural regeneration of oakspecies through pruning and rotating live-stock systems

• Diversifying native species’ composition ingrasslands through seedlings

• Simulating natural fire breaks by creating amosaic of forest gaps in sensitive areas withgrasslands, small shrubs plantation lines, andscattered oak trees

• Specific management plans for controllingthe dispersion of pioneer monospecific Cistus spp. formations through harvesting forCistus distillation, and diversifying themthrough plantation of fruit and honey shrubspecies

2.2. NTFP Restoration in SoutheastAsia: The Case of Rattan Species’ Production275

Rattans are light-demanding climbing palmsexploited for supplying cane for furniture,matting, and basketry markets. Moreover,rattans play an important role in the subsis-tence strategies of many rural populations inSoutheast Asia (e.g., edible fruits and palmheart, medicines, and dyes). During the last 20years, the rapid expansion of the internationaland domestic trade in rattan ($6.5 billion/year)has led to substantial overexploitation of thewild resources. In addition, the lack of adequateresource tenure contributes to their irrationalexploitation in many forest areas.

Current attempts at long-term in situ management of rattan in the wild have demon-strated the value of developing a range of resto-ration options, which include the following:

• Specific management plans for creating“extractive reserves” in community forestsand low-level protected areas, where localpeople harvest rattan population within car-rying capacity margins, which secures itsnatural regeneration

• Enrichment planting and canopy manipula-tion (opening “artificial” gaps) in selectivelylogged natural forests, as a way to enhancerattan natural regeneration. This is perhapsthe most beneficial form of cultivation, bothin terms of productivity and maintenance ofecological integrity.

• Rattan cultivation as part of agroforestrysystems, by rotating 7- to 15-year cycles ofrattan with plant food crops

• Planting rattan within tree-based fastgrowing plantations, such as rubber (Heveabrasiliensis)

To improve harvesting techniques and avoidany impacts on potential sustainability, theyounger stems of clustering species should be left to regenerate future sources of cane,and harvesting intensity should be based on long-term assessments of growth rate andrecruitment.

2.3. NTFP Restoration in LatinAmerica: The Dragon’s Blood Case in Western Amazonia276

Dragon’s blood is the generic name of neotrop-ical trees of the genus Croton, used to treat awide range of health problems. Croton speciesare all pioneer, light-demanding species, com-monly associated with nonflooded riparianhabitats, as well as low- and mid-elevation sec-ondary forests in human-disturbed areas andforest gaps in mature forests. For many years,Dragon’s blood has been used by rural inhabi-

275 The case study text has been extracted from Shanley etal, 2002; Sunderland and Dransfield, 2002.

276 The case study text has been extracted from Alexiades,2002.

31. Using Nontimber Forest Products 219

tants and urban dwellers within and beyond the tropical forests, and commercialised by anextensive and largely informal network. Duringthe last decades, Croton latex has become aninternational commodity, reaching over 26tonnes in 1998. Commercial harvesting ishaving a clear ecological impact on Croton,especially in the most accessible areas, affectingits distribution and demographics, which hasbeen a source of concern for nongovernmentalorganisations (NGOs) and government agencies.

Management regimes for Croton propaga-tion and reforestation have been adopted inAmazonian agroforestry systems, accompaniedby a concomitant “professionalisation” of allconcerned actors. Croton’s role as a pioneerspecies and its association with secondaryforests make it an ideal candidate for increas-ing economic returns from fallow management.Abandoned crops and pastures are ideal envi-ronments for the establishment of mixed foreststands, including Croton seedlings togetherwith other timber species. Restoration pro-grammes with Croton in Peru have combinedDragon’s blood trees with medicinal plants,several timber trees, including Cedrela and Swi-etenia, and crop species such as coffee, cacao,naranjilla, and manioc. The central governmentof Peru has established an official goal of plant-ing two million Croton trees.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Valuing NTFPs in RuralDevelopment

Quantifying in economic terms the value ofNTFPs and the income they can provide ruralfamilies is an important step forward for under-standing the prevalent role of forest resourcesin rural subsistence. If NTFPs were appropri-ately valued, this could provide a powerfulargument to governments and the privatesector to alter or reverse wrong spatial planningdecisions in forest landscapes of outstandingbiodiversity. When planning the conversion offorests into agricultural land for subsistencereasons, it is necessary to estimate the real eco-

nomic value of these forest resources in orderto make an informed decision. Economicallyoriented projects involving the use of nativeplant species should be subjected to a thoroughcost-benefit analysis before being imple-mented. Generally speaking, there is a growingneed to argue and reaffirm the fact that NTFPssignificantly contribute to many local andnational economies, and have an unknownpotential that needs to be further researched.

There are a number of processes for evaluat-ing what has been called the “hidden forestharvest”277: (1) understand and assess the roleof forests in rural livelihoods, (2) assess the eco-nomic value of resources for rural households,(3) value the local and regional markets forforest products, (4) measure nonmarket values,and (5) develop economic decision-makingframeworks. These methods are based on a setof general principles: (1) data collection mustbe done at the most appropriate social organi-sational unit—family, gender, or other majorrelationship; (2) collection of data on income,consumption, and expenditures should includeas much as possible on uses of NTFPs; and (3)data must be quantitative for statistical analy-sis and must be harmonised to make sure thereis coherence between different surveys. Partic-ipatory rural appraisal methods help under-stand the social context and help design themost appropriate survey form. Data are gathered through periodical interviews (i.e.,semester interviews) in order to obtain freshinformation about the yearly cycle of NTFPuse.

3.2. Harvesting, Growing, andPlanting NTFPs

There are a number of ecological guidelinesand techniques applicable for restoring NTFPsource species in degraded forest land,described in several chapters of this book. In allcases, specific research and field testing isneeded to get the necessary know-how on har-vesting, growing, and planting the wide range oftrees, shrubs, and herbs native to each forestecosystem, as well as to facilitate natural regen-

277 Campbell and Luckert, 2002.

220 P. Regato and N. Berrahmouni

eration and habitat improvement techniques.Standardised protocols for seed collection,mycorrhization of nursery plants, nursery and field techniques for reduction of transplantshock, need to be developed through pilotexperiences.

3.3. Establishing Community-BasedIncome-Generating Associative Systems Based on NTFPs

Well-defined tenure and access rights canprovide an incentive for local communities tomanage their natural resources sustainably.278

Replacement of communal tenure systems withgovernment management regimes and privateproperty has reduced people’s access to NTFPs,which have traditionally been an importantpart of their livelihoods. This fact has had detrimental consequences, by increasing both uncontrolled overexploitation of forestresources and biodiversity loss.

A number of treaties covering indigenouspeople’s rights to tenure, resource access,benefit sharing, and intellectual property rightshave been recently drafted and legally adoptedin several countries.

For instance, in the last decade, the Tunisiangovernment has established a legal frameworkto provide local communities with access toNTFPs in the state-owned forests and organi-sational means for people living in forest landto manage them. WWF, the global conservationorganisation has assisted local communities tobuild pilot local associations of common inter-est in the cork forest land through education,institutional development, and training pro-grammes for implementing forest managementplans and NTFPs’ harvesting.279

A pilot forest plan (Plan Piloto Forestal) wasconducted in Quintana Roo State, on theYucatan Peninsula of Mexico, with the aim toincrease empowerment and control of forestextraction activities to communities. This pro-gramme was built with political and technicalsupport, following a “bottom-up” approach,

which emphasised local decision making andnegotiation.280

The success of the Tunisian and QuintanaRoo pilot experiences have gained domesticand international recognition, and these proj-ects are now seen by governments, intergov-ernmental organisations, and NGOs as modelsfor similar initiatives in both countries.281

4. Future Needs

4.1. NTFPs and Forest Certification

Certification is a policy tool that attempts to foster responsible resource stewardshipthrough the labelling of consumer products.Even if forest certification has tended to focuson timber products, opportunities exist topromote sound ecological and social practicesin NTFPs’ management to support restorationin degraded forest landscapes of outstandingbiodiversity and increase local communities’revenues and trade opportunities through thismarket tool.

The certification systems that are relevant for NTFPs include sustainable forestry, organicagriculture, and fair trade. The Forest Steward-ship Council (FSC) promotes well-managedforests through the application of criteria thataddress ecological, social, and economicissues.282 The International Federation ofOrganic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) has criteria for wild-harvested products as wellas specific criteria for some NTFPs like maplesyrup and honey. The Fair-Trade LabellingOrganisation (FLO), developed out of thealternative trade movement, currently certifiesa limited number of agroforestry products,although its product range is increasing. Theintegration of the three certification schemeswill appeal to a broader consumer market as it may address in a more cost-effective and harmonised manner environmental, harvesting,processing, sanitation, benefit sharing, socialand worker welfare, and chain-of-custody criteria.

278 Shanley et al, 2002.279 WWF, 2003.

280 Shanley et al, 2002.281 WWF, 2003.282 Mallet, 2001.

31. Using Nontimber Forest Products 221

Certification specific to NTFPs is very recent,and principles and processes are still beingworked out. Two certification bodies haveplayed a major role in NTFP certification: theRainforest Alliance’s Smartwood Programmeis certifying and labelling NTFPs through FSC,and the Soil Association’s Woodmark Pro-gramme offers a joint FSC/IFOAM certifica-tion. In 2002 seven FSC certificates were issuedthat permitted commercial NTFP harvesting(Chicle latex in Mexico; maple syrup in the U.S.;Acai juice and palm hearts in Brazil; 30 cosmetic plants in Brazil; Brazil nut in Peru;Oak tree bark in Denmark; Venison in Scotland).283 Certification standards for corkoak forests and pine resins have been devel-oped in Spain, and several pilot cork certifica-tion initiatives are ongoing in Portugal, Spain,and Italy.

4.2. NTFPs in National Forestry Curricula

The use of NTFPs in forest landscape restora-tion programmes poses new challenges to theforestry sector traditionally orientated towardafforestation with a few fast-growing timbertree species in degraded areas. New expertiseand know-how on managing, harvesting, grow-ing, and planting a wide range of trees, shrubs,and herbal NTFP species is required to under-take a thorough assessment of the potential andopportunities for candidate NTFP restorationoperations.

During the last two decades NGOs, privatecooperatives, and research institutions haveplayed an important role in raising awareness,developing NTFP production cooperatives, andassisting local communities and governments indeveloping pilot field experiences and restora-tion protocols for growth in tree nurseries andplanting of a wide range of NTFPs. Currently,the forestry sector curricula and universitystudy programmes are under revision for inte-grating ecological restoration and NTFPs’ con-servation and management in countries such asSpain and Morocco.

4.3. Legal Frameworks andEconomic Incentives for NTFPs to Support LocalDevelopment

Government regulations about NTFPs’ conser-vation, access rights, management, and com-mercialisation are not always well defined.Moreover, existing laws are occasionally con-tradictory and require resolution. In LatinAmerica, for instance, most forestry conces-sions are granted for timber, while NTFPs are harvested without management plansthrough short-term permits and government-established quotas. In other cases, NTFP man-agement falls under different ministries andlegislations, making it a difficult issue to dealwith for managers and certifiers. In theMediterranean region, there is a cork oak forestconservation law in Portugal, while in NorthAfrican countries local communities’ rights ofaccess for NTFPs in cork oak forest land arenot always defined and the governments havethe control of cork as a product.

International organisations and NGOs mayplay a greater role in advocating and assistingforest managers and governments to improveNTFP legislation and guidance, given thatinsufficient resources or incentives have beenallocated to products that traditionally havegenerated small amounts of taxable income for states. Certification may serve to catalysegovernments and multilateral organisations’nascent efforts to reinforce markets and legis-lation related to NTFPs.

References

Alexiades, M.N. 2002. Sangre de drago (Croton lech-leri). In Shanley, P., Pierce, A., Laird, S.A., andGuillén, A. eds. Tapping the Green Market: Certi-fication and management of non-timber forestproducts, Earthscan, London.

Brown, L., Robinson, D., and Karmann, M. 2002. TheForest Stewardship Council and non-timber forestproduct certification: a discussion paper. FSC,Mexico.

Campbell, B.M., and Luckert, M.K. 2002. Evaluandola Cosecha Oculta de los Bosques. Nordan-Comunidad Ed., Montevideo, 270 pages.283 Brown et al, 2002.

222 P. Regato and N. Berrahmouni

FAO. 1997. Non-Wood Forest Products ForestryInformation Notes Handout, Rome.

Mallet P. 2001. Certification Challenges and Oppor-tunities. Falls Brook Centre, Canada.

Moussouris, Y., and Regato, P. 1999. Forest harvest:Mediterranean woodlands and the importance of non-timber products to forest conservation,Arborvitae supplement. WWF/IUCN. Longer ref-erenced version can be found at http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/forestry/nwfp/public.htm.

Moussouris, Y., and Regato, P. 2002. Mastic gum,cork oak, pine nut, pine resin and chestnut. In:Shanley, P., Pierce, A., Laird, S.A., and Guillén, A.eds. Tapping the Green Market: Certification and management of non-timber forest products,Earthscan, London.

Ndoye, O., and Ruiz-Perez, M. 1997. The markets ofnon-timber forest products in the humid forestzone of Cameroon. In Doolan, S. ed.African Rain-forest and the Conservation of Biodiversity. Pro-ceedings of the Limbe Conference, pp. 128–133,Earthwatch Europe, London.

Oliveira, R., and Palma, L. 2003. Un Cordão Verdepara o Sul de Portugal. Restauraçao de PaisagensFlorestais. ADPM ed., Portugal.

Pagiola, S., Bishop, J., and Landell-Mills, N. 2002.Selling Forest Environmental Services. Earthscan,London.

Shanley, P., Pierce, A., Laird, S.A., and Guillén, A.,eds. 2002. Tapping the Green Market: certification

and management of non-timber forest products,Earthscan, London.

Sunderland, T.C.H., and Dransfield, J. 2002. Rattan.In Shanley, P. Pierce, A., Laird, S.A., and Guillén,A., eds. 2002. Tapping the Green Market: certifica-tion and management of non-timber forest prod-ucts, Earthscan, London.

Townson, I.M. 1995. Income from Non-Timber ForestProducts: Pattern of Enterprise Sciences. OxfordUniversity.

Vallejo, V.R., Serrasolses, I., Cortina, J., Seva, J.P.,Valdecantos, A., and Vilagrosa, A. 2000. Restora-tion strategies and actions in Mediterraneandegraded lands. In: Enne, G., Zanolla, Ch., andPeter, D., eds. Desertification in Europe: MitigationStrategies, Land-Use Planning. European Com-mission, Luxembourg.

WWF. 2003. Conservation and Management of Biodiversity Hotspots in the Mediterranean. 10Lessons Learned. WWF Mediterranean Pro-gramme, Rome.

Additional Reading

UNEP/WCMC. Nontimber forest products, Web site: http://valhalla.unep-wcmc.org/ntfp/biodiversity.cfm?displang=eng.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. The Role of Fuelwood inForest Loss and Degradation in Developing Countries

Forests in many developing countries are underheavy pressure to provide subsistence goods.The product that has received most attention is fuelwood, as it is often the major source ofenergy for cooking and heating. However, inmany situations, particularly in parts of SouthAsia, forest products also provide the mineralnutrients that are essential for the maintenanceof farming systems. In some cases the harvestof fodder (both grass and tree leaf material) can greatly exceed the biomass harvest of fuel-wood. A common estimate of the average fuel-wood requirement per family is about 200kgper person per year, while the average off-takeof fodder can be about 5000kg per family per year.284 Unrestricted biomass harvest hasbeen blamed for much of the deforestation andforest degradation that has occurred in devel-oping countries during recent decades. Whilstthe role of fuelwood collection has sometimesbeen exaggerated, it has certainly contributedto forest degradation in some places and,particularly where collected commercially, hascaused significant deforestation. As a conse-quence of fears about the impact of fuelwood

32An Historical Account of FuelwoodRestoration EffortsDon Gilmour

Key Points to Retain

Fuelwood is an essential component ofpeople’s livelihoods in developing countries,with average fuelwood requirement perfamily being estimated at 200 kilogrammesper person per year. Yet, fuelwood produc-tion and collection has been blamed formuch forest loss and degradation.

Over the last few decades, different ap-proaches have been taken to fuelwood production, from large-scale industrial plan-tations (1960s–1970s) to village woodlots(1970s–1980s) and a “people first” era (mid-1980s–1990s). The emphasis over thesedecades has shifted toward better under-standing local people’s needs and involvingthem in producing fuelwood.

The key constraints in addressing fuelwoodshortages are social and political rather thantechnical, and relate to full engagement andempowerment of communities.

Future needs to improve fuelwood produc-tion include creating the right political andsocial conditions for people to make in-formed decisions about the sort of restora-tion objectives they have for their landscape.

223

284 Gilmour and Fisher, 1991.

224 D. Gilmour

and fodder collection, many development projects have focussed on forest restoration asa solution to both environmental and economicproblems associated with forest loss and degradation.

In theory, forest restoration for fuelwoodshould be amongst the easiest forms of restora-tion, with its uncomplicated emphasis on rapidgrowth of a few species that burn effectively.Experience in places where forest restorationfor fuelwood has worked show that there arefew insurmountable technical difficulties. How-ever, despite years of hard work and financialinvestment, efforts to restore forests for localhuman needs remain at best only partially successful in the main centres of activity inAfrica and Asia. An understanding of why thisoccurred is essential if restoration efforts are tohelp provide energy and agricultural resourcesto many of the world’s poorest communities.

It is possible to recognise three distinct eras that represent different approaches to the restoration of forest resources in theseregions:

• Industrial plantation era: 1960s–1970s• Woodlot era: 1970s–mid-1980s• People first era: mid-1980s–1990s

The summary in Table 32.1 is drawn from thewell-documented changes that have takenplace in parts of South Asia and Africa. Fuel-wood projects have been implemented success-

fully, but there has also been a depressinglylong list of failures. Critical questions of equityand access remain even in some countrieswhere there have been long-term and relativelysuccessful programmes. Similar examples canbe found in other parts of the world, althoughdifferent countries have not followed the sametime line. For example, most of Southeast Asia,Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific and largeparts of central Africa, Latin America, and the ex–Soviet Union countries are only nowcoming toward the end of an era of majorindustrial focus for their forests. However, most(but not all) countries in these regions are converging rapidly toward embracing partici-patory approaches for many aspects of forestmanagement.

In practice, many of the world’s poorestpeople still rely primarily on wood products fortheir energy—about half of the global popula-tion. Forest landscape restoration projects areunlikely to be successful in areas where peopleneed fuelwood unless they take this intoaccount, and many communities will supportrestoration only if they can see clear benefits interms of fuelwood resources. Natural forestsmanaged primarily for fuelwood and fuelwoodplantations can both be integrated successfullywith wider efforts to restore forest area orquality, but require a detailed understanding ofcommunity needs, social structure, land tenure,and access and use rights.

Table 32.1. Three eras in fuelwood plantations.

Period Characteristics

Industrial plantation era Strong belief in importance of industrialisation of forestry for production of raw(1960s to 1970s) materials to meet needs of expanding populations and economies; belief that increased

employment opportunities in rural areas would lead to decreased povertyWoodlot era (1970s to Emphasis on afforestation and village woodlots based on scaling down of conventional

1980s) forestry practices as a means to address fuelwood and desertification problemsPeople First era Increased understanding about the role of trees in livelihood strategies of rural people;

(1980s–1990s) less emphasis on firewood, more on management of existing forests, multiproductspecies, integration of tree-growing with agriculture in agroforestry and farm forestrysystems and on participation by target populations; an increased focus on nontimberforest products as sources of household income and welfare and a growing emphasison devolution and increased participation, and on encouraging local management offorests as common property; stronger support for legislation to empower local users,and to protect the rights and lifestyles of forest dwellers

Adapted from Arnold, 1999, and Wiersum, 1999.

32. An Historical Account of Fuelwood Restoration Efforts 225

2. Examples

This section reviews fuelwood plantationsthrough time.

2.1. Industrial Plantation Era: 1960sand 1970s

The key elements of this era are characterisedby technical approaches to forest restorationand the creation of timber plantations for pro-jected fuelwood and timber shortages; theassumption that industrialisation of all sectorsincluding forestry would bring social and eco-nomic benefits to all sectors of society, with thebenefits trickling down; and the application oftechnical and somewhat standardised approa-ches to management with little consideration ofexisting (local or indigenous) forest use systemsand the local social and economic context.Despite heavy investment, most of these proj-ects failed to deliver expected benefits. Fur-thermore, local people often suffered as a resultof removal of natural forests, loss of rights andbiodiversity, and because they missed out onany benefits that did occur. Examples of suchplantations can be found in many parts of EastAfrica.

2.2. Woodlot Era: Late 1970s toMid-1980s—From Industrial Forestry to Local NeedsForestry

As a result of the clear failures of the large-scaleprojects of the 1960s,a more localised and small-scale approach to forest development was intro-duced through major funding to woodlotprogrammes.These efforts were also boosted byfears of energy shortages, a perceived crisis infuelwood, and fears that forest loss was causingmajor floods and droughts. The lessons of theprevious era led to a major change in support toforestry as international donors sponsored asecond generation of forestry activities based onmore local participation and village woodlotsestablished using local labour. Again, there wasan assumption that local people would resolvelong-term issues such as access and use rights.

But again, villagers had little involvement indesign of projects or how they were to be imple-mented, and as a result little attention was paidto which trees local people consider most useful,the long-term use of plantations, how benefitswould be distributed, or the multiple roles thattrees play in production systems. Furthermore,fast growing exotic species were generally usedto meet perceived fuelwood needs. With in-creasing experience, it became apparent thatwoodlots across the world had also had onlyvery limited success.There are several importantreasons why they failed to meet their objectives.Projects often ignored the use and managementof existing resources and multiple forestry prod-ucts. Issues of tree and land tenure were notaddressed and the presence of existing institu-tional arrangements for managing local forestssuch as forest user groups (particularly thoseinvolving women and poor people) were oftennot known or ignored. Local people would notinvest labour to protect resources from whichthey had no certainty of benefiting, and the costsof participation in the programme and main-tenance of the assets were generally too high.Control-orientated regulations often meantpeople had to travel great distances to getpermits to cut, process, or sell wood products.The projects were also generally still outsider-driven, using a standardised technical approachimposed with poor consultation, dependent onexternal funding, and target driven, aiming atproducing the maximum number of trees ratherthan at the quality of forest products. Woodlotswere for instance established on a very largescale in parts of Pakistan.

2.3. People First Era: Late 1980s to 1990s

Following 15 years of uneven success, it becameclear that much of the failure was due to a lackof involvement of local people in all phases ofproject development and implementation. Thishelped to stimulate a major shift in devel-opment philosophy and practice, with increas-ing pressure on governments to decentralise functions, growing support for participatorymethodologies, and an emphasis on the impor-tance of local determination of developmental

226 D. Gilmour

priorities. However, problems remained,including those created by inequalities withinand between communities, inadequate consid-eration of livelihood constraints, and the factthat participatory approaches are still usedmore in name than in practice. Governmentshave been reluctant to devolve power, and ifcommunity organisation is weak, devolutioncan lead to even greater inequities. Agroundswell of interest created internationalsupport but sometimes pushed the rate ofchange beyond the capacity to implement.Some of the experiments in community drivenforestry in parts of Nepal and northern Indiacharacterise this approach.

3. Outline of Tools

It is clear that the key constraints in addressingfuelwood and fodder shortages are social andpolitical rather than technical; once a commu-nity is fully supportive of and empowered toimplement local forest restoration, then thetechnical means are either already in place orcan be easily learned. A wide suite of tools forcommunity-based forest management alreadyexists:

• Participatory approaches to resource andneeds assessments

• Community mapping of land tenure and access• Conflict resolution• Small-scale forestry techniques

In the context of a broader forest landscaperestoration programme, establishment of eitherplantations or seminatural forests for fuelwoodwill frequently be one part of a wider restora-tion effort. An important component of anyapproach, therefore, is the negotiating skillsnecessary to agree on where fuelwood will beprioritised within the landscape (see “Negotia-tions and Conflict Management”).

4. Future Needs

Each of the three eras discussed in this chapterhad problems associated with it. Some of theproblems highlighted must be resolved in order

to ensure that the processes being establishedcan be sustained into the future and that theoutcomes deliver the desired social and envi-ronmental benefits. Many of the challenges thatare raised relate to broader issues of restora-tion within a landscape, for example, how tooptimise land use within the landscape toinclude fuelwood plantations but also otherland uses. Among the challenges that need tobe addressed to ensure long-term sustainableoutcomes are the following:

• Improved knowledge to manage forests formultiple products

• Mechanisms to manage trade-offs betweenmultiple interests

• Full representation of all interest groups(particularly women and poorer people)

• Development of representative, accountable,and competent local organisations

• Development of representative, account-able, and competent government forestorganisations

• Embedding forest restoration within anunderstanding of livelihood strategies

• Emphasis on quality of processes rather thanrapid delivery of products irrespective ofquality

• Top-to-bottom change in attitudes, beha-viour, and commitment to participatory ap-proaches within forestry and other landmanagement organisations

• Devolution of power within forestry organi-sations to staff in the field

• Policy and legislation in support of new ap-proaches to forest restoration

References

Arnold, J.E.M. 1999.Trends in community forestry inreview. Community Forestry Unit, FAO, Rome.

Gilmour, D.A., and Fisher, R.J. 1991. Villagers,Forests and Foresters—The Philosophy, Processand Practice of Community Forestry in Nepal.Sahayogi Press, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Wiersum, K.F. 1999. Social forestry: changing per-spectives in forestry science or practice? Thesis,Wageningen Agricultural University, The Nether-lands (ISBN 90-5808-055-2).

32. An Historical Account of Fuelwood Restoration Efforts 227

Additional Reading

Hobley, M. 1996. Participatory forestry: the processof change in India and Nepal. Rural DevelopmentForestry Study Guide No. 3. Overseas Develop-ment Institute, London.

Thomson, J., and Freudenberger Schoonmaker, K.1997. Crafting institutional arrangements for community forestry. Community Forestry FieldManual No. 7, FAO, Rome.

Westoby, J. 1987. The Purpose of Forests: the Folliesof Development. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Water is, in theory, a renewable resource. Yet,the profligacy with which it has been used,coupled with population growth and increasingper capita demands, means that provision of adequate, safe water supplies is a major

concern.285 World water withdrawals rosesixfold over the last century, and it is estimatedthat we already use well over half of accessiblerunoff. For several countries, reliance on non-renewable (or only slowly renewable) ground-water sources masks a problem that willbecome more acute as these are exhausted. In1998, twenty-eight countries experienced waterstress or scarcity (defined as being when avail-able water is lower than 1000 cubic metres perperson per year); by 2025, this is predicted torise to 56 countries. Overall, our main waterrequirements are for crop irrigation, but theneed for clean drinking water is also criticallyimportant. Today, around half of the world’spopulation lives in urban areas, and of these anestimated one billion people live without cleanwater or adequate sanitation, principally inAsia, Africa, and Latin America. Annually, 2.2million deaths, 4 percent of all fatalities, can beattributed to inadequate supplies of clean waterand sanitation.286 These problems will increasein the future as the rapid processes of popu-lation growth and urbanisation continue and as climate change makes rainfall more erraticand increases the regularity and severity ofdroughts.

1.1. The Role of Forests

Loss of forests has been blamed for everythingfrom flooding to aridity. Although forests cer-

33Restoring Water Quality and QuantityNigel Dudley and Sue Stolton

Key Points to Retain

Water quality and quantity are decreasing,with direct impact on people’s lives.

There appears to be a clear link betweenforests and the quality of water from a catch-ment, a more sporadic link between forestsand the quantity of water, and a variable linkbetween forests and the constancy of flow.

The potential role of restoration with respectto water supply needs to be considered on acase-by-case basis and on a long time-scale.

Far better tools and methodologies areneeded for calculating net gains of differentrestoration and management actions fromthe perspective of water supply.

There is also a need to better understand thelinkages between water supplies and forestcover to help use these links as argumentsfor restoration.

228

285 De Villiers, 1999.286 United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2003.

33. Restoring Water Quality and Quantity 229

tainly play a critical role in regulating hydrol-ogy, this role is complex and variable. Thereappears to be a clear link between forests andthe quality of water from a catchment, a moresporadic link between forests and the quantityof water, and a variable link between forestsand the constancy of flow. What forests providedepends on individual conditions, species, age,soil types, climate, management regimes, andneeds from the catchment.287

Forests in watersheds generally result inhigher quality water than alternative land uses,because other uses—agriculture, industry, andsettlement—are likely to increase pollutantsentering headwaters, and forests also help toregulate soil erosion and sediment load. Whilethere are some contaminants that forests areunable to control—the parasite Giardia, forexample—in most cases forests will substan-tially reduce the need for treatment of drinkingwater. However, in contrast to popular under-standing, many studies suggest that in both verywet and very dry forests, evaporation is likelyto be greater from forests than other vege-tation, leading to a decrease in water fromforested catchments as compared with grass-land or crops.288 One important exception iscloud forest, where cloud water interceptionmay exceed losses.289 In addition, some very oldforests apparently increase water, for instancemountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) of 200 yearsor more in Australia.290 The precise interactionsbetween different tree species and ages, and dif-ferent soil types and management regimes, arestill often poorly understood, making predic-tions difficult. Opinion also remains dividedabout the role of forests in maintaining regularwater flow. There is little evidence that forestsregulate major floods, although flooding wasthe reason for introducing logging bans in, forexample, Thailand and parts of China. Oneimportant exception is flooded forests, which do appear to help regulate water supply, thisincludes both lowland forests such as theVarzea forests of the Amazon and swamps in

the uplands. Forested catchments have impor-tant local impacts in regulating water flow.Undisturbed forest is also the best watershedland cover for minimising erosion by water andhence also sedimentation. Any activity thatremoves this protection, such as litter collec-tion, fire, grazing, or construction of loggingroads, increases erosion. Suspended soil inwater supplies can render irrigation water unfitfor use, or greatly increase the costs to make ituseful.291

The potential role of restoration needs to beconsidered on a case-by-case basis and proba-bly also on a long time-scale. Establishing fast-growing plantations is unlikely to do much tohelp either the quantity or the quality of water,while carefully located and managed secondaryforests can do much to regulate sediment load,other pollution, and erosion, and may in somesituations also eventually affect flow. Restora-tion for water supplies should also look atoptions for reducing impacts from managedforests through, for instance, removing unnec-essary roads or changing their location, camber,and drainage facilities.

2. Examples

The following examples show how restorationhas been used to help water supply sources andalso look at some situations where restorationis now needed to repair damage to forestedcatchments.292

2.1. Ecuador: Protection Remains a Primary Focus of Water Management, Although ManyProtected Areas Also Need Restoration

About 80 percent of the capital city Quito’s 1.5 million population receive drinking waterfrom two protected areas: Antisana (120,000hectares) and Cayambe-Coca Ecological Re-serve (403,103 hectares). To control threats tothese reserves, the government is working with

287 Dudley and Stolton, 2003.288 Calder, 2000.289 Bruijnzeel, 1990.290 Langford, 1976.

291 Dudley and Stolton, 2003.292 All examples from Dudley and Stolton, 2003.

230 N. Dudley and S. Stolton

a local nongovernmental organisation (NGO)to design management plans that highlightactions to protect the watersheds, includingstricter enforcement of protection to the upperwatersheds and measures to improve or protecthydrological functions, protect waterholes,prevent erosion, and stabilise banks and slopes,including restoration where necessary.

2.2. U.S.: Comprehensive Land UsePlanning, Including Protection and Restoration, Helps toProtect Urban Water Supplies

The Catskill, Delaware, and Croton watershedsdeliver 1.3 billion gallons of water per day to New York City and the metropolitan area,and the Catskill/Delaware watershed provides90 percent of the city’s drinking water. TheCatskill State Park (IUCN Category V, 99,788hectares) protects the watersheds. New YorkCity has used a mixture of land acquisition andconservation easement payments to increasethe level of protection and therefore avoid theneed for building an expensive new treatmentplant; this choice was backed by New Yorkersin a vote. Once land has been acquired, man-agement will focus on maintaining waterquality, although recreational uses like fishing,hiking, and hunting may be allowed in caseswhere it will not conflict with water quality andpublic safety. Here restoration focusses onrestoring values for water across a whole catchment.

2.3. Sweden: Even in CommerciallyManaged Forests, Management and Restoration Can BeTailored to Maintain High- Quality Drinking Water

Lake Mälaren and Lake Bornsjön supplyStockholm’s water. The company StockholmVatten controls most of the 5543 hectareswatershed of Lake Bornsjön, of which 2323hectares, 42 percent, is productive forestlandcertified by the Forest Stewardship Council.Management is focussed on protecting waterquality, and areas are left for conservation andrestoration.

2.4. Panama: Reforestation inCatchments Is Starting to Be Seen as a Potential Way ofImproving Water Quality

Panama City’s and Colon’s drinking watercomes from the watershed of the PanamaCanal. It has been estimated that if 1000hectares/year of deforested land in the water-shed were reforested, it would not be necessaryto construct a proposed dam, and on this basisnew laws were passed to promote forestation ofthe Panama catchments. However, World Bankconsultants concluded that forests would notnecessarily improve dry season stream flow andquestioned whether the evidence justified usingpublic funds to reforest pasture. Meanwhile thedirector of watersheds and the environment ofPanama’s canal ministry said that his depart-ment would support massive reforestation ef-forts to protect the canal’s water supply.

2.5. Kenya: Degradation CanUndermine Forest Watershed Values, Thus Increasing theNeed for Restoration

Nairobi has a population of three million resi-dents and draws its water from several differ-ent sources, including the Ruiru, Sasumua,Chania II, and Ndakaini systems. Unfortu-nately, illegal logging is impacting on much ofthe region including the Aberdares NationalPark (IUCN Category II, 76,619 hectares), andMt. Kenya National Park (IUCN Category II,71,759 hectares), which are both important insupplying Nairobi with drinking water. Accord-ing to the water resources minister, MarthaKarua, the future for ensuring sustainablewater supplies lies in harvesting rainwater,building reserves from dams, and replantingtrees. This is a long-term vision, which “will notproduce results in an instant, but we want tolook back five years, ten years, fifteen yearslater and say our forest cover now is 40percent—and this can be achieved.”

The above examples show a growing under-standing of the potential role of forests but also

33. Restoring Water Quality and Quantity 231

some continuing confusion, and it is clear thatmany governments—local and national—arefaced with making decisions about the role offorests with respect to water supplies that drawmore upon hearsay than strict science.

3. Outline of Tools

In general, watershed values are an additionalargument for restoration rather than beingassociated with specific restoration techniques.Information for policy makers about the valueof different forested watersheds remains scarce,and models for predicting responses in indi-vidual catchments are at best approximate.Restoration for water purposes within individ-ual catchments will vary according to circum-stances and will be able to draw on many of thetools outlined elsewhere. Two approaches maybe particularly useful here:

• Protect, manage, restore: Using forest coverto maintain water supplies at a watershedscale often requires a mosaic approach,where protected areas, other protective for-ests, and various forms of management arecombined depending on existing needs andland ownership patterns. Restoration thenbecomes a management option that can beused in any of the above. Agreeing on themosaic and balancing different social, eco-nomic, and environmental needs on a land-scape scale requires careful planning andnegotiation. WWF and IUCN have devel-oped a number of landscape approaches tohelp address this kind of broad-scale decisionmaking,293 and these or similar exercisescould provide help in determining whererestoration could be used most effectively(see more detail in “Why Do We Need to Consider Restoration in a LandscapeContext”).

• Payment for environmental services (PES):The central principles of the PES approachare that those who provide environmentalservices should be compensated for doing so,

and that those who receive the servicesshould pay for their provision. If particularmanagement systems are needed in water-sheds to maintain the quantity or quality ofwater supply downstream, the users—such asbottling plants or hydropower companies—should pay for these, which could in theoryhelp to fund restoration in sensitive water-sheds.294 A team of researchers from theUnited States, Argentina, and the Nether-lands has put an average price tag of $33 trillion a year on fundamental ecosystemservices, almost twice the value of the globalgross national product, and of this, water reg-ulation and supply were estimated to beworth $2.3 trillion.295 In Costa Rica userssuch as hydropower companies are some-times paying farmers to maintain forestedwatersheds. Payment schemes work bestwhen a relatively small amount of money canbe used to support a particular managementregime and result in major economic bene-fits to a small group of users—like a watercompany. In these cases it is relatively easy toidentify reasonable payments and to negoti-ate amongst the buyers and sellers of theenvironmental service.

4. Future Needs

Many governments are making decisions aboutforests and water based on flimsy data and poormethodologies, leading to the type of disputesoutlined in the case of Panama, above. Farbetter tools and methodologies are needed forcalculating net gains of different restorationand management actions from the perspectiveof water supply, and WWF is currently planningto collaborate with the World Bank to helpdevelop them. More basically, there is need forgreater understanding of the links betweenforests and water, perhaps initially throughbetter diffusion of existing research and casestudies.

293 Aldrich et al, 2004.

294 Pagiola et al, 2002.295 Constanza et al, 1997.

232 N. Dudley and S. Stolton

References

Aldrich, M., et al. 2004. Integrating Forest Protec-tion, Management and Restoration at a LandscapeScale. WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

Bruijnzeel, L. 1990. Hydrology of Moist TropicalForests and Effects of Conversion: A State ofKnowledge Review. UNESCO, Paris.

Calder, I.R. 2000. Forests and hydrological services:reconciling public and science perceptions. LandUse and Water Resources Research 2(2):1–12.

Constanza, R., et al. 1997. The value of the world’secosystem services and natural capital. Nature387:253–260.

De Villiers, M. 1999. Water Wars: Is the World’sWater Running Out? Phoenix Press, London.

Dudley, N., and Stolton, S. 2003. Running Pure: TheImportance of Forest Protected Areas to DrinkingWater. WWF and the World Bank, Gland,Switzerland, and Washington, DC.

Langford, K.J. 1976. Change in yield of water fol-lowing a bushfire in a forest of Eucalyptus regnans.Journal of Hydrology 89:87–114.

Pagiola, S., Bishop, J., and Landell-Mills, N., eds. 2002.Selling Forest Environmental Services: Market-Based Mechanisms for Conservation and Devel-opment. Earthscan, London.

United Nations Human Settlements Programme.2003. Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities:Local Action for Global Goals. UN-Habitat andEarthscan, London.

continued erosion of traditional knowledgesystems.

Cultural traditions and values are as hetero-geneous as ecosystems and their life forms.However, these values and traditions are underthreat by external factors associated with globalchange such as globalisation, populationgrowth, inequity in distribution of wealth andlivelihood options, and climate change. Thesemacro-drivers have cascading and compleximpacts at the local levels on biodiversity andthe traditional knowledge associated with it.

1.1. Cultural Values Are Lost withthe Loss of Natural Forests

Cultural values provided by forests are bothimpacted by and impact on restoration. Asforests are lost, so are the numerous values theyprovide. For instance, different wood essencesthat may be necessary for a community’s reli-gious rites may become more difficult or impos-sible to obtain. Thus the loss in forests couldlead to the decline in local cultural values thathave for centuries protected the land and itsresources.

1.2. Cultural Values Can HelpPromote Restoration

Specific cultural values can be used as a triggerfor restoration. In degraded landscapes, anumber of the identified forest functions andvalues to restore may be cultural. For instance,the forestry sector in Scotland has significantly

34Restoring Landscape for TraditionalCultural ValuesGladwin Joseph and Stephanie Mansourian

Key Points to Retain

Some values provided by forests can beessential to a culture. The restoration ofthese cultural values can be a major objec-tive of restoration in a landscape.

Cultural values need to be considered alongwith economic and ecological values to makeforest landscape restoration effective.

Often the restoration of traditional knowl-edge must go hand in hand with the restora-tion of certain species in order to sustain itscontinued protection and use.

Restoring for diverse cultural values encom-passes a wide range of land holdings andtenure systems, and therefore needs to beculturally and geographically specific.

233

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

People rely on forest products for basic subsis-tence but also for a range of other values.296 Tra-ditional cultural values that have coevolvedwith local ecosystem goods and services areintegral to a community’s health, food, liveli-hood, art, and spiritual needs. Degradation ofecosystems impacts the entire cultural lifestylesof these communities, generally leading to 296 Byron and Arnold, 1997.

234 G. Joseph and S. Mansourian

evolved from a timber-based industry to a morecommunity and culturally centred one, inresponse to demands from local people forrecreational and aesthetically pleasing nativewoodlands representative of their own culturalidentity (rather than nonnative plantations,with all that those implied).297

1.3. Cultural Keystone Species

In the same way that an ecosystem is depend-ent on ecological keystone species, an entireculture or society may be dependent on culturalkeystone species (CKS).298 These species are bydefinition central to the survival and essence ofa culture for a number of reasons, includingtheir link to the culture’s myths, rituals, religion,etc. Identifying these CKS and using them topromote forest protection and restoration in alandscape can be a valuable contribution to therestoration of forest functions in a landscape.

Restoring ecosystems to strengthen tradi-tional cultural lifestyles will follow the priori-ties and needs of the local communities. Forexample, medicinal plants can be incorporatedinto a kitchen herbal garden, a community-managed medicinal plant garden, or used torestore degraded lands. This would also implythe need to work with appropriate institutions.Food and nutritional needs could also be incor-porated into these land-use systems dependingon local preferences and needs.

2. Examples

2.1. Coca in the Amazon299

In various indigenous communities (Barasana,Desana, Uitoto, etc.) in the Amazon, coca isconsidered to facilitate cultural transmission ofknowledge from elderly individuals to youngadults. By chewing the powdered coca leaves,sages and apprentices attempt to please theMasters of Nature (semideities in their cosmol-ogy) with a valued gift. The importance of thecoca plant for these communities lies in itsessential role to allow communications with the

supernatural beings governing nature, and thusit plays a central role in their very cultural identity.

Coca is also indispensable in major ritualssuch as the ritual of world healing and illnessprevention (Yuruparí), the seasonal feastsoffered by the community to the Masters ofNature to thank them for particular harvests,and the healing ceremonies led by the sage.

In this example, coca holds a unique value forlocal people provided by the Amazon forest,and it can be used as an objective to restoreforest functions in the landscape. In otherwords, in an effort to meet different functionsthat forests provide in a landscape, the provi-sion of coca can be one of these identified func-tions in order to satisfy a culturally drivendemand.

2.2. Sacred Groves, Forests,and Gardens

Sacred groves, forests, and gardens are associ-ated with places of worship in several traditionsaround the world. These patches of forests anddiverse gardens are rich in biodiversity and areprotected for their sacred value. All productsavailable from these sacred groves are used fortemple-related activities or structures. Culturalvalues have preserved and can also drive therestoration of these historic sacred groves. TheDevara kadus in India300 are an example of these sacred forests. Devara kadus are diversity-rich forest fragments ranging from 0.1 to 1000 hectares in size that are associatedwith places of worship across India. The sacredtraditions and texts could provide the crea-tive basis for promoting the conservation andrestoration of these sacred land-use systems.

2.3. Socially and EconomicallyValuable Trees

Several species of trees have locally significantvalues that could be used to drive restoration inthe landscape. Multiple economic and culturalvalues are historically linked to a specific ethni-cally defined region. For example, in certainregions in India, the common tropical dry-297 Garforth and Dudley, 2003.

298 Cristancho and Vining, 2004.299 Drawn from Cristancho and Vining, 2004. 300 Kushalappa and Bhagwat, 2001.

34. Restoring Landscape for Traditional Cultural Values 235

deciduous Neem tree (Azadirachta indica) sym-bolises a body of traditional values, knowledge,and uses.Almost all parts of the tree are used inmedicine and agriculture.The leaves are used intraditional health systems, in religious rituals,and as green manure in agriculture. Oil is ex-tracted from the seeds and has both medicinaland pesticidal properties. Neem cake which is aby-product of oil extraction is used as an organicfertiliser. The wood has a high calorific value asfuelwood. Neem wood is termite resistant andused to make door and window frames. Specieswith multiple values may be candidates to driveregion-specific restoration of these species (andothers) within the broader landscape.

2.4. Home Gardens

Home gardens have been described as “livinggene banks” of indigenous varieties, rare culti-vars, landraces, and species, as well as intro-duced species.301 These multiple species havebeen conserved through generations. The selec-tion of plants in these gardens is influenced by climate, soils, household preferences, anddietary habits. Home gardens in the tropics area valuable land-use system to restore tradi-tional fruits, nuts, medicinal plants, and otherindigenous species of cultural value to localcommunities.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Toolkit for High ConservationValue Forests

WWF and ProForest302 have developed a“toolkit” to identify high conservation valueforests (HCVFs). This is an all-encompassingapproach that recognises six different valuesthe forests provide, one of which is cultural:“HCV6—Forest areas critical to local commu-nities’ traditional cultural identity (areas of cultural, ecological, economic, or religious sig-nificance identified in cooperation with suchlocal communities).”

This methodology provides guidance onexisting information at a global level, and direc-

tion for identifying forest values. For each ofthe six types of high conservation value (HCV),the toolkit identifies a series of elements thatneed to be considered. It then provides guid-ance for each element on how to decidewhether there are HCVs within a country orregion. When national HCVs have beendefined, it is then possible to use this informa-tion so that specific forest areas can be evalu-ated for the presence or absence of the HCVs,in order to identify and delineate HCVFs.

3.2. A Participatory Process

If cultural values are to be used as an objectiveof forest restoration in a landscape, a participa-tory process will be necessary, and it mayinclude the following steps:

• Document the traditional knowledge withlocal people to identify cultural drivers forthe restoration of forest functions in a landscape.

• Together with local people, identify the cur-rent status of those cultural values.

• Through focus groups, discussions, and otherlocally applicable participatory tools, identifythe links between those cultural values andother forest functions that may need to beprotected and restored.

• In conjunction with stakeholders, set objec-tives for the protection and restoration of theidentified cultural values.

• Develop locally adapted approaches, such asbiodiversity-rich agroforestry, to restore cul-tural and other forest values in the landscape.

• Promote traditional knowledge pertinent tothe local area through local schools and otherlocal civic and user forums.

3.3. Clarifying Land Tenure andAccess (Use) Rights

Processes that help clarify land tenure andaccess/use rights to valuable forest products areessential to protect and restore valuable forestareas.Appropriate protocols may be developedfor restoring under different land-tenureregimes (also see “Land Ownership and ForestRestoration”).

301 Agelet et al, 2000.302 Jennings et al, 2003; also see www.proforest.com.

236 G. Joseph and S. Mansourian

3.4. Ethnobotanical Surveys

Potential cultural keystone species may beuncovered through surveys.The results can thenbe used to promote adequate protection, man-agement, and restoration of these resources.

4. Future Needs

Some identified needs for the future include thefollowing:

• To document and exchange informationabout successful models of restoration forcultural values, and also where culturalvalues have driven restoration

• To increase understanding of potential cul-tural indicators and drivers of restoration,which requires more collaborative workamong anthropologists, sociologists, andecologists

• To integrate socioecological landscape-levelapproaches to culturally driven land-usesystems such as home gardens and sacredgroves to understand the process at a largerspatial scale

• To develop appropriate extension methodsto enhance the diffusion of culturally drivenrestorative land-use systems

• To build capacity in adaptive and participa-tory research methods in restoration

• To develop/refine and use a holistic-systemsapproach to natural resource management;in most contexts, planning and managementfor conservation, sustainable-use, and res-toration have to be developed togetherrather than as separate components.

References

Agelet, A., Bonet M.A., and Valles, J. 2000. Homegardens and their role as a main source of medic-inal plants in mountain regions of Catalonia(Iberian Peninsula). Economic Botany 54(3):295–309.

Byron,A., and Arnold, M. 1997.What Futures for thePeople of the Tropical Forests? CIFOR occasionalpaper 19.

Cristancho, S., and Vining, J. 2004. Culturally DefinedKeystone Species. Human Ecology Review 11(2):153–164.

Garforth, M., and Dudley, N. 2003. Forest Renais-sance. Published in association with the ForestryCommission and WWF–UK, Edinburgh andGodalming.

Jennings, S., Nussbaum, R., Judd, N., et al. 2003. TheHigh Conservation Value Toolkit. Proforest,Oxford (three-part document).

Kushalappa, C.G., and Bhagwat, S.A. 2001. Sacredgroves: biodiversity, threats and conservation. In:Uma Shaanker, R., Ganeshaiah, K.N., and Bawa,K.S., eds. Forest Genetic Resources: Status,Threatsand Conservation Strategies. New Delhi, India,Oxford and IBH.

Additional Reading

Baidyanath, S. 1998. Lifestyle and ecology.http://www.ignca.nic.in/cd_08.htm#BAIDH

Borthakur, S.K., Sarma, T.R., Nath, K.K., and Deka,P. 1998. The house gardens of Assam: a traditionalIndian experience of management and conserva-tion of biodiversity—I. Ethnobotany 10:32–37.

Fernandez, E.C.M., and Nair, P.K.R. 1986. An evalu-ation of the structure and functions of tropicalhomegardens. Agroforest Syst 21:279–310.

Malhotra, K.C. 1998. Anthropological dimen-sions of sacred groves in India: an overview. In:Ramakrishnan, P.S., Saxena, K.G., and Chandrasekara, U.M., eds. Conserving the Sacredfor Biodiversity Management, pp. 423–438. NewDelhi, India, Oxford and IBH.

Palni, L.M.S., Joshi, M.,Agnihotri, R.K., and Sharma,S. 2004. Crop diversity in the home gardens of theKumaun region of central Himalaya, India. PGRNewsletter, No. 138:23–28. FAO-IPGRI.

Ramakrishnan, P.S.R. 1998. Conserving the sacredfor biodiversity: the conceptual framework.In: Ramakrishnan, P.S., Saxena, K.G., and Chandrasekara, U.M., eds. Conserving the Sacredfor Biodiversity Management, pp. 3–15. NewDelhi, India, Oxford and IBH.

Soemarwoto, O., Soemarwoto, I., Karyono Soekartadireja, E.M., and Ramlan, A. 1985. TheJavanese home garden as an integrated agroe-cosystem. Food and Nutrition Bulletin 7:44–47.

Torquebiau, E. 1992. Are tropical agroforestry homegardens sustainable? Agriculture, Ecosystems andEnvironment 41:189–297.

Wiersum, K.F. 1982. Tree gardening and the exam-ples of agroforestry techniques in the tropics.Agroforestry Systems 1:53–70.

The Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Argentina, andParaguay is one of the most threatenedecosystems on the planet, with only 7.4 per-cent of it remaining intact and large areasseverely degraded and highly fragmented.Despite its current state, the Atlantic forestremains a rich repository of biodiversity. Forexample, inside the Atlantic forest, in the stateof Bahia, 450 species of trees per hectare havebeen catalogued, a world record!303

It is in northern Argentina, that one of thelargest remnants of the Atlantic forest can stillbe found. In this area, Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina (FVSA) is working withWWF to restore the landscape. One particulararea, namely the municipality of Andresito,has been identified as a priority. It is a strip ofland surrounded by four important strictlyprotected areas: the famous transboundaryIguazú National Parks of Brazil andArgentina, the Urugua-í Provincial Park, andthe Foerster Provincial Park. The land inAndresito is divided into many small privatelyowned areas.The challenge is to work with thelandowners and land managers to stop defor-estation and forest degradation, to increaseconnectivity with the surrounding protectedareas, and to establish buffer zones aroundthem, while increasing local living standards.

The approach taken here by FVSA andWWF was first to map out clearly the differ-ent plots of land and identify the landowners

and land uses. Second, a series of test siteswere set up to identify the sorts of restorationtechniques and mixes of species that wouldwork best under local conditions. Then, a sustainable development and participatoryplanning learning process was mobilised gath-ering provincial and municipal officers,farmers, indigenous people, and members ofNGOs and other private and public insti-tutions. As a result of this, the participants committed themselves to working toward the accomplishment of a land-use plan, and a local commission was created with this goal.

Also, to ensure an income-generating activ-ity alongside forest restoration for local pop-ulations, FVSA and WWF have been workingon developing sustainable production of dif-ferent crops. One such crop is the palm heart(Euterpe edulis), a native understorey palmtree that grows wild in the region and cangenerate significant income for local inhabi-tants while preserving the forest. Anotheralternative for small-scale farmers is plantingyerba mate, a native plant that used to growin patches throughout the forests.

So far, guidelines for the production ofpalm hearts have been developed and a coop-erative of small-scale producers has been setup. Results are encouraging. If more smalllandowners can make a living through suchsustainable restoration involving economi-cally attractive measures, then the risk of themmoving south and selling their land to big

Case Study: Finding EconomicallySustainable Means of Preserving and Restoring the Atlantic Forest in ArgentinaStephanie Mansourian and Guillermo Placci

303 Di Bitetti et al, 2003.

237

238 S. Mansourian and G. Placci

logging companies can be removed once andfor all.304

References

Di Bitetti, M.S., Placci, G., and Dietz, L.A. 2003.A Biodiversity Vision for the Upper ParanáAtlantic Forest Ecoregion: Designing a Biodi-

versity Conservation Landscape and Setting Priorities for Conservation Action. WWF,Washington, DC.

FVSA. 2004. Newsletter: News from the FLRProject in the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest ofArgentina. FVSA. Buenos Aires, Argentina.

304 FVSA Nawsletter, 2004.

Section XIA Selection of Tools that Return

Trees to the Landscape

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

A variety of approaches are available to carryout restoration at the site level, and this chapterprovides an overview of them.

Interventions can be viewed along a contin-uum from passive to more active ones. Themore passive the intervention, the more reliantone is on having sufficient germ plasm (seedsources or coppice material) available at ornear the site. Passive interventions are thecheapest approaches, although the costs of pre-venting continued disturbances or degradationcan sometimes be high. However, there areoften circumstances requiring some form ofdirect intervention (i.e., active restoration).Examples of these situations are where topsoilhas been eroded or soil has been heavily com-pacted by cattle, where invasive species havecome to dominate the site or if some other

disturbance (e.g., fire) has altered the naturalbalance and natural regeneration will either beextremely slow or will no longer occur.

More active forms of intervention are alsoneeded when the passive approaches are likelyto be slow or too risky. These interventions cantake a variety of forms including enrichingnatural regeneration with species that may notbe present (e.g., plants with large fruit that areoften poorly dispersed) or planting a largenumber of different species, fertilising them,and carrying out weed control until the plantedseedlings are established. The most appropriateapproach depends on both the ecological andthe socioeconomic circumstances prevailing.

Two prime considerations in determiningwhat approaches to take to restore an area are

• the objectives set for the intervention, and• the budget available.

Different objectives require different ap-proaches. One could think of several quite different situations that would require very distinct approaches to site-level restoration.Several examples follow:

• Restoration of woodland to provide habitatfor endangered fauna (see Example 1 in thenext section)

• Restoration of an abandoned quarry for aesthetic purposes (see “Open-cast MiningReclamation”)

35Overview of Technical Approaches toRestoring Tree Cover at the Site LevelStephanie Mansourian, David Lamb, and Don Gilmour305

Key Points to Retain

There is no unique goal and trajectory forrestoration.

Tools for restoration should be selected toachieve one or more targets depending onthe specific context.

Various restoration tools could be used, someof which are presented in this chapter.

305 This paper is based to a large extent on Lamb andGilmour, 2003.

241

242 S. Mansourian et al

• Restoration of an endangered ecosystem (asis currently occurring with the dry forests inNew Caledonia)

• Restoration of millions of hectares ofdegraded uplands primarily for economicdevelopment (as is currently occurring inVietnam)

Similarly, the available budget will also be akey determinant when deciding what approachto take. For example, it might be economicallynecessary to use a variety of different appro-aches across a landscape, rather than using justthe most effective biological approach, particu-larly if this is also very expensive. The mostexpensive approaches would normally be usedto restore the most critical sites.

Before determining which action to take atthe site level, a careful assessment needs to bemade, based on ecological circumstances suchas the fertility of soils, the extent of degrada-tion, the proximity of remaining forest frag-ments, the types of species involved, thetopography, rainfall, seasonality, etc. Socialaspects need just as much attention as biophys-ical ones when determining what approach totake to restoration. For example, many localcommunities exercise usufruct rights over landadjacent to their settlements. Irrespective of the legal status of the land, unless the de factosituation is addressed effectively, it is unlikelythat restoration efforts will be successful. Wewould generally recommend always opting forthe least intervention possible. This is to (a)attempt to stay closest to natural processes butalso (b) because the more active the interven-tion, the costlier it is likely to be.

2. Examples

2.1. Natural RegenerationCombined with Grazing in Corrimony (Scotland)306

In 1997 the Royal Society for the Protection ofBirds (an NGO) acquired land in Corrimony,Scotland. The main objective was to increase

habitat for capercaillie and black grouse. Thelong-term vision was to have at least two thirdsof woodland cover restored with an emphasison natural regeneration. However, because 99percent of natural regeneration is broadleaf,it was decided to plant copses of Scots pine(Pinus sylvestris) in areas that were remotefrom seed sources. When the pines mature theywill be able to regenerate naturally from theirown seed. In addition, to achieve a habitatmosaic that also supports black grouse andother species of conservation interest, somegrazing areas have also been retained. Prelimi-nary observations suggest that this approach iseffective.

2.2. Restoration of TemperateForest Through Mixed Plantations in Canada307

Larson308 presents one of the earliest modernexamples of forest restoration in the deciduoushardwood forest region of eastern Canada,which started in 1886.The site was an old gravelpit in which 2300 saplings of 14 different specieswere planted in a mixture. These included localdeciduous hardwoods and conifers as well asseveral exotics (Acer platanoides, Fraxinusexcelsior, Larix decidua, Picea abies, Pinusnigra, and Tilia cordata). Some of these 14species were planted in rows spaced 2.5mapart. No subsequent site management wascarried out apart from some early pruning. Thenearest natural forest was 500m away. By 1930around 85 percent of the site had a sparsecanopy, 31 percent of which was coniferous. By1993 the canopy cover had increased to 95percent, of which only 5 percent was conifer.The site, then 107 years old, contained 220 treeswith a diameter at breast height exceeding 30cm. Of the original 14 canopy-forming treespecies, 10 were still present. Two new specieshad colonised. A diverse understorey of woodyand herbaceous plants contained 36 species,most of which were reproducing. Some of thecanopy trees were regenerating and were rep-

306 Cowie and Amphlett, 2000.

307 Lamb and Gilmour, 2003.308 Larson, 1996, in Lamb and Gilmour, 2003.

35. Overview of Technical Approaches to Restoring Tree Cover 243

resented in the understorey but Picea, Larix,and Pinus were absent. Measurements suggestJuglans nigra (native) and Acer platanoides(exotic) will dominate the site in future.All newtree regeneration was found in areas with noconifers. The patterns of community structurethat have evolved over time at the site are dif-ferent from those in the native forests of south-ern Ontario but changes are leading to thedevelopment of a forest with a similar structureand appearance. One recent measure of thesuccess of the planting is the fact that localauthorities mistakenly listed the site as animportant natural forest remnant within thelocal city boundary.

2.3. Restoring Tree Cover ThroughAgroforestry in Tanzania309

Studies in Tanzania have found that theShambaa people use their traditional agro-forestry and intercropping systems to improveboth soil productivity and crop yields. The traditional agroforestry system consists of amultistorey tree garden, which involves themixing of trees and farm crops in a spatialarrangement. The system includes a mixture ofan understorey of coffee (and fruits), foodcrops such as maize/beans and a variety ofpulses, a middle storey of Grevillea robusta, amultipurpose exotic species commonly used fortimber, fuelwood, and building poles’ produc-tion. The sites are not “restored” in the sense ofreestablishing the original biodiversity. On theother hand, these sites have had key ecologicalfunctions such as nutrient cycling and net pro-duction restored. They are now floristically andstructurally quite complex.

3. Outline of Tools:Approaches to Site-Level Restoration

Restoration at a site level often needs to inte-grate social approaches, such as agreementsabout land use to facilitate natural regenera-

tion, with technical approaches to increasenatural regeneration or enhance regenerationthrough planting where natural regenerationwill no longer occur.

3.1. Reducing Degrading Influences

3.1.1. Removing the Cause of Degradation or Obstacles to Regeneration

In some situations restoration can be achievedthrough the use of natural regeneration simplyby the removal of degrading influences such as cattle grazing or invasive exotic species.Technical interventions may also be needed,but often the emphasis needs to be on socialprocesses, such as negotiating grazing rightswith local cattle herders.

By protecting the area from any further disturbances (e.g., grazing, farming) naturalcolonisation may take over. However, this isonly feasible in areas where

• general degradation is not extensive,• soils are still of good quality, or• seed sources or coppice materials are still

available either from forests close by or inthe soil (as evidenced by regrowth alreadypresent in the area).310

3.1.1.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

This approach is often cheaper since it requireslittle input, particularly if communities are ableto eliminate grazing animals from the area.Costs can rise steeply if areas have to be fenced,but this is still generally cheaper than planting.It is also one of the few approaches that can beachieved over large areas. On the other hand,its disadvantages include that it may end upbeing unexpectedly expensive if fire, weeds, orpests need to be controlled. Likewise, the previous land users will have had to forgo their previous use of the site and may needcompensation.

309 Chamshama and Nduwayezu, 2002. 310 Parrotta et al, 1997.

244 S. Mansourian et al

3.2. Initiating or Improving Tree Cover

3.2.1. Directing Ecological Successions

Directing ecological successions can be done ina number of ways, using different species andapproaches. The aim and desire is to initiate aprocess whereby nature takes over. The follow-ing points need to be considered when attempt-ing to stimulate natural succession:

• The “founder effect”: The initial specieschosen will have a determining effect on thefuture succession in the landscape, whichcannot always be anticipated.

• Using nearby intact forests: The nearer to anintact forest, the more chance of obtainingseeds via seed dispersers, and wind, andtherefore the higher success rate. It should benoted, though, that different species from theintact forest will colonise at different rates.

• Using wildlife to accelerate ecologicalprocesses: It can be useful to use animals forprocesses such as pollination and seed dis-persal, but in many instances this can be constrained by incomplete knowledge of theexact relationships. Alternatively, some keyspecies may have disappeared from theregion or be unable to move across thedegraded landscape.

• Using disturbances: At some point in therestoration process the natural disturbanceregime must be allowed to develop toprevent successions from being diverted orstagnating. For example, while restorationprojects in fire-prone landscapes oftenrequire fire protection in the first few yearsto ensure seedlings become established, atsome stage fires must be allowed or be rein-troduced to ensure that normal successionalprocesses can begin to develop.

• Ecological “surprises”: (1) Predators mayharvest all the seed. (2) Successions maybecome dominated by a small number ofaggressive species causing competitive exclu-sion and a decline in biodiversity. (3) Treesestablished to attract seed-dispersing wildlifemay become focal points for weed colonisa-tion. (4) The removal of exotic herbivores

may allow grass fuel loads to increase and fireregimes to change. In all cases constant mon-itoring is needed to ensure that restorationcontinues as planned.

3.2.2. Stimulating Natural Successions

If natural regeneration does not occur or pro-ceeds only slowly, it may be possible to accel-erate the process. This might be done byremoving weeds or reducing competitionbetween existing species. Thinning to reducetree density can open the canopy and canprovide more opportunities for new species tocolonise the site. Where soils are infertile,added fertilisers can enhance growth rates.

3.2.2.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

This requires relatively few inputs. However, itis less likely to work in areas where soils havebeen badly degraded and seed sources orcoppice material are no longer available.

3.2.3. Direct Seeding

If sites are bare of trees it may be useful toovercome any dispersal problems by deliber-ately introducing certain species. Most refor-estation is usually carried out by plantingseedlings that have been raised in a nursery.Theseedlings are commonly planted into a site thathas been cleared of weeds and ploughed toensure the seedlings develop quickly. The costsof raising seedlings, site preparation, and plant-ing are high. Direct seeding bypasses thesesteps by sowing seeds directly on bare land.Thiscan be done either manually or aerially.

3.2.3.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

Direct seeding is relatively cheap as it does notrequire nurseries to raise seedlings. Its dis-advantages are that seeds are often subject topredators, and the young seedlings are very vul-nerable to weed competition. The number ofseedlings actually produced from seed can bevery low. Therefore, a very large number willneed to be sown, recognising that a large pro-portion will not survive. For this reason, this

35. Overview of Technical Approaches to Restoring Tree Cover 245

approach is not suitable for species for whichseeds are not available in large quantities orwhere seed is expensive.

3.2.4. Scattered Tree Plantings

Trees may only gradually colonise some sitesbecause they are poorly dispersed or becausethe competition (e.g., from grass) is too severe.Another way of accelerating successions is byplanting single trees or clumps of trees acrossthe landscape. The aim is for them to serve asperches for seed dispersers such as birds. Overtime, they can become focal points for regener-ation. Where species have wind-dispersed seedrather than animal-dispersed seed, such plant-ings can be arranged perpendicular to the pre-vailing wind and so assist seed dispersal acrossthe landscape.

3.2.4.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

This approach is relatively inexpensive since itonly requires a few plantings. However, it isdependent on wildlife being able to disperseseeds from intact forest remnants that remainnearby. The numbers of such wildlife thatremain in degraded landscapes and their capac-ity to disperse seeds will vary with circumstance.

3.2.5. Enrichment Planting

In some situations the forest community devel-oping from natural regeneration is missingcertain key species. This may be because theyhave particular regeneration requirements orbecause they are poorly dispersed. The absenceof these species may have economic conse-quences for the people dependent on theseforests for their livelihoods. Alternatively themissing species may be important to the eco-logical functioning of the forest. In such cases itcan be useful to try enriching the regeneratingforest by planting seedlings of these species inappropriate microsites.

3.2.5.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

This approach enhances the capacity of theforest to provide commercial or social benefits

by promoting the growth of certain key species.The disadvantage of the approach is the riskthat any newly planted trees may be suppressedfor some time by the overstorey. That is, theintroduced species can be out-competed bytaller trees, weeds, or vines. Some form of silvi-cultural treatment is often required for severalyears to remove this cover and ensure success.

3.2.6. Closely Spaced Plantings Using Limited Numbers of Species (the “Framework Species” Method)

This approach uses a small number of fast-growing species planted at close spacings (e.g., 1000 trees per hectare) to quickly form aclosed canopy and so eradicate weeds.This newforest then forms a “framework” within whichsuccessional processes can operate. Over timeseed-dispersing wildlife bring new species tothe site and diversity is enhanced.

3.2.6.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

The advantage of this approach is that once thetrees are established, they soon out-competegrass and weeds, making it easier for the speciesbrought in by seed-dispersing animals tobecome established. The approach is especiallysuited to areas close to intact forest that can actas a source of seeds (and wildlife). The dis-advantage is that successional development isdependent on the particular species that aredispersed into the site. Some species may beweeds so that monitoring is needed to maintainan appropriate successional trajectory. Theinitial cost can also be high.

3.2.7. Intensive Ecological Reconstruction Using Dense Plantings of Many Species (or Restoring a Biodiversity Island in a Degraded Landscape)

This involves intensive planting of a largenumber of tree and understorey species. Thespecies used depend on the sites and soil types.Those that might be used include fast-growing

246 S. Mansourian et al

species able to exclude weeds, poorly dispersedspecies, species forming mutually dependentrelations with wildlife, and, possibly, rare orendangered species that might be present onlyin small numbers or in small geographic areas.Since the method bypasses the normal succes-sional sequence the species used should comemostly from late successional stages, ratherthan early pioneer stages.

3.2.7.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

Because this is a good way to quickly establisha species-rich community, it is especially suit-able for areas needing rapid restoration. On theother hand, it is comparatively expensive toraise and plant such large numbers of speciesand many may not survive if their site andhabitat requirements are not fully understood.

3.2.8. Managing Secondary Forests

Careful management could allow the gradualimprovement of economic resources as well asbiodiversity and other ecological services atminimal cost. Another approach might be tofoster the growth of certain tree or other plantspecies that are commercially attractive byremoving or thinning competing trees. Thechoice of options depends on the origins of the forest and the range and abundance of thespecies it contains.

3.3. Reforestation for Productivityand Biodiversity

3.3.1. Monoculture Plantations Using Indigenous Species

Monoculture plantations are comparativelyeasy to establish and manage since all treesmature at the same time. Traditionally manysuch plantations have used exotic species. Thetimbers of these species are often of relativelylow value. Some indigenous species can havemuch higher commercial values than fast-growing exotic species. Plantations of highervalue timbers may be increasingly valuable infuture once natural forests have been loggedover.

3.3.1.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

Intensively managed plantations can yield ahigh commercial value. Plantations of indige-nous species also provide some modest biodi-versity benefits. The key disadvantage of usingindigenous species is that little is usually knownabout their silvicultural requirements and mostare comparatively slow growing.

3.3.2. Monoculture Plantations and Buffer Strips

Industrial plantations are often large and areestablished as continuous blocks. This leads tothe simplification of landscapes. Breaking theseextensive plantations up by using buffer stripsof native vegetation or ecologically restoredforests along streamsides and roads can addcomplexity and habitat diversity.

3.3.2.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

Buffer strips can help enhance conservationbenefits by introducing more spatial complex-ity to a landscape and increasing connectivityallowing easier movement of plants and wildlifeacross landscapes. These strips or corridors canhave a number of other benefits, includingacting as fire breaks and streamside filters toenhance watershed protection.

3.3.3. Mosaics of Species Monocultures

Instead of using only one species in a planta-tion, an alternative could be to use more thanone and create a mosaic of different types ofplantations across the landscape.The landscapediversity could be further enhanced by sur-rounding each monoculture by buffer strips asdescribed above.

3.3.3.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

The advantage of this alternative is that silvi-cultural management of each plantation re-mains simple; the disadvantage is that precisespecies-site relationships must be known if pro-ductivity in each of the different plantations isto be maximised.

35. Overview of Technical Approaches to Restoring Tree Cover 247

3.3.4. Mixed Species Plantations

Site biodiversity may be enhanced if mixedspecies plantations are used instead of mono-cultures. These might be temporary mixtureswhere one species is used for a short period assome form of nurse or cover crop, or they maybe permanent mixtures for the life of the plan-tation. Most mixed-species plantations usuallyhave only a small number of species (underfour), so biodiversity gains may be modest.

3.3.4.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

Mixtures can often generate benefits in addi-tion to any biodiversity gain. These potentialbenefits include improved production, im-proved tree nutrition, and reduced insect orpest damage. There may also be financial gainsfrom combining fast-growing species (har-vested early in a rotation) with more valuablespecies that need longer rotations. Disadvan-tages include the fact that not all species’ combinations are necessarily compatible andan inappropriate mix of species may lead to commercial failure. Also, having two or more species in a plantation necessarily leadsto more complex forms of silviculture and man-agement. This means that mixtures are likely tobe more attractive to smallholders and farmforestry woodlots than large industrial-scaleplantations.

3.3.5. Encouragement of Understorey Development

In many plantation forests, especially thosenear areas of intact forest, an understorey ofnative tree and shrub species will develop overtime with many of the species being dispersedby animals. What began as a simple monocul-ture forest can acquire structural complexityand considerable biodiversity.

3.3.5.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

Such understories transform the range of serv-ices provided by the plantation. There can bebenefits in terms of watershed protection andfire exclusion as well as biodiversity gains.

However, they pose a number of dilemmas formanagers who may find their original objec-tives being compromised or, at the very least,made more difficult to achieve. Difficult trade-offs may need to be made.

3.3.6. Agroforestry

Agroforestry is a form of agriculture that mixestrees and other crops in the same area of land(see “Agroforestry as a Tool for Forest Land-scape Restoration”). Some forms involve mix-tures of multipurpose trees and food crops;others combine scattered trees and pastures.In most cases a variety of species are used in the farm or “home garden” that differ incanopy and root architecture, phenology, andlongevity.

3.3.6.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

Agroforestry has some particular advantages inlandscapes where land for food production islimited and where human populations are largeor increasing. Agroforestry creates spatial andstructural complexity across landscapes andoffers the prospect of agricultural sustainabilityand some biological diversity. On the negativeside, biodiversity gains may be modest sincemany of the species used are relatively commonagricultural crop species.

4. ManagementConsiderations

4.1. How Many Species?

Restoration is often carried out to reestablishbiological diversity and to also restore key eco-logical processes and functions. One unresolvedquestion is the number of species needed toachieve this latter objective. Must all species bereestablished, or is there a point beyond whichincreases in species’ richness may not provideany further benefits? The answer to the ques-tion is still unresolved, although it seems thatspecies richness per se may not be as importantas the structural or functional types of speciesthat are used in reforestation. It is also clear

248 S. Mansourian et al

that relationships present at small, local scalesmay not hold at larger landscape scales.

4.2. Trade-Offs

Inevitably some trade-offs may be required bymanagers needing to balance, say, promotingcommercial timber production or fosteringwildlife diversity. Production, at least in theshort term, is usually favoured by developingplantations that use only small numbers of treespecies. Most wildlife species, on the otherhand, usually prefer species-rich and struc-turally complex forests. The final decisiondepends on such things as the preferences ofthe stakeholders involved, whether commercialtimber production is the primary objective ofreforestation, markets for the various goodsthat might be produced, and the degree ofdegradation across the landscape.

4.3. Intensity and Timing ofManagement Interventions

Managers concerned with maximising timberproduction will make decisions on a variety ofinterventions including whether or not to prunetrees, when to carry out thinnings, and when toundertake a final clear-felling. All of these deci-sions have consequences for biodiversity andvarious ecological processes such as nutrientcycling. Biodiversity is usually favoured byenhanced spatial complexity. This means inter-ventions that promote a mosaic of disturbancesand recovery stages are preferable to large, spa-tially contiguous interventions.

5. Future Needs

While many approaches are available forrestoring forest cover on degraded sites, it isoften a challenge to gather adequate knowl-edge on the use of indigenous species. For thisreason, a handful of exotic species (particularlypines, eucalypts, and acacias) are still favouredin many locations. These species often displaysuperior growth characteristics compared withindigenous tree species. In addition, the seed ofthese species are often easily acquired and they

come as a silvicultural “package” with estab-lished procedures and methodologies.

In most countries there is still insufficientknowledge on genetics, propagation tech-niques, competitive relationships between dif-ferent species, and methods of raising mostnative species in nurseries.

A comprehensive framework that wouldhelp managers make choices based on thecurrent situation but also based on funding,available human resources, size of the area, aimof the restoration, etc., is needed. This frame-work would also have to include socioeconomicelements, as these are often forgotten or leftbehind in technical issues dealing with restora-tion. Yet, without appropriate consultation,buy-in, and suitable social and economicreasons for engaging in restoration, successrates are unlikely to be high. Land tenure issuesare particularly important to clarify beforeengaging in restoration.

Very importantly, there is a need forincreased understanding and research onoptions to make restoration financially attrac-tive. In many countries, long-term interests(restoration impact will only be felt in the longterm) are not important as people face dailystruggles. There is therefore a need to addressthis through short-term financial benefits fromrestoration (directly or indirectly). Institutionalarrangements for restoration also need to beclarified. Restoration across a landscape re-quires a multidisciplinary and multisectoralapproach, and relevant institutions and expert-ise need to be brought in with all stakeholdersactively participating in the process.

References

Chamshama, S.A.O., and Nduwayezu, J.B. 2002.Rehabilitation of Degraded Sub-Humid Lands inSub-Saharan Africa: A Synthesis. Sokoine Univer-sity of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.

Cowie, N.R., and Amphlett, A. 2003. Corrimony: anexample of the RSPB approach to woodlandrestoration in Scotland. In: Humphrey, J., Newton,A., Latham, J., et al. eds. 2003. The Restoration ofWooded Landscapes. UK Forestry Commission,Edinburgh, Scotland.

35. Overview of Technical Approaches to Restoring Tree Cover 249

Lamb, D., and Gilmour, D. 2003. Rehabilitation andRestoration of Degraded Forests. IUCN, Gland,Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK, and WWF,Gland, Switzerland.

Parrotta, J.A., Turnbull, J., and Jones, N. 1997. Cat-alyzing native forest regeneration on degradedtropical lands. Forest Ecology and Management99(1–2):1–8.

Additional Reading

Carnus, J.-M., Parrotta, J., Brockerhoff, E.G., et al.2003. Planted forests and biodiversity. A IUFROcontribution to the UNFF Intersessional ExpertMeeting on the Role of Planted Forests in Sustainable Forest Management, “Maximisingplanted forests’ contribution to SFM,” Wellington,New Zealand, March 24–30. In: Buck,A., Parrotta,J., and Wolfrum, G., eds. 2003. Science and Technology—Building the Future for the World’s Forests and Planted Forests and Bio-diversity. IUFRO Occasional Paper No. 15. Inter-national Union of Forest Research Organisations,Vienna.

Engel, V.L., and Parrotta, J.A. 2001. An evaluation ofdirect seeding for reforestation of degraded lands

in central São Paulo State, Brazil. Forest Ecologyand Management 152(1–3):169–181.

Lamb, D., Parrotta, J.A., Keenan, R., and Tucker,N.I.J. 1997. Rejoining habitat remnants: restora-tion of degraded tropical landscapes. In: Laurence,W.F., and Bierregaard, R.O., Jr., eds. TropicalForest Remnants: Ecology, Management and Con-servation of Fragmented Communities. Universityof Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 366–385.

Parrotta, J.A. 1993. Secondary forest regeneration ondegraded tropical lands: the role of plantations as“foster ecosystems.” In: Lieth, H., and Lohmann,M., eds. Restoration of Tropical Forest Ecosys-tems, pp. 63–73. Kluwer Academic Publishers,Dordrecht, Netherlands.

Parrotta, J.A. 2002. Restoration and management ofdegraded tropical forest landscapes. In: Ambasht,R.S., and Ambasht, N.K., eds. Modern Trends inApplied Terrestrial Ecology, pp. 135–148. KluwerAcademic/Plenum Press, New York.

Parrotta, J.A., and Knowles, O.H. 2001. Restoringtropical forests on bauxite mined lands: lessonsfrom the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Engineer-ing 17(2–3):219–239.

Sim, H.C., Appanah, S., and Durst, P.B., eds. 2003.Bringing back the forests: policies and practicesfor degraded lands and forests. Proceedings of anInternational Conference, October 7–10, 2002,FAO, Thailand.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Forests can regenerate in previously forestedareas once the land ceases to be used for alter-native purposes (e.g., grazing, agriculture, wood

extraction). However, the recovery process canbe extremely slow or inhibited in highlydegraded ecosystems. The principal challengesfor those working in forest restoration are toevaluate a forest’s potential for recovery and, ifnecessary, to “accelerate” this process. Stimu-lating natural regeneration generally entails alower financial cost than other restorationstrategies, making it an attractive option forrestoring large sections of land.

Natural regeneration can follow differenttrajectories and velocities according to how thedifferent variables act in the system that isundergoing recovery. Variables such as light,humidity, temperature, availability of seeds andyoung trees, predation, and the structure ofinitial vegetation determine the successionaltrajectory of each site. This implies that, ingeneral, succession in a region does not followa linear and unique trajectory, but manifestsitself in a whole range of stable and transitionalstates with different likely outcomes.311 Thus, agreat variety of restoration alternatives—mod-elled from the specific characteristics of thesystem and the specific objectives of therestoration project—can be proposed for agiven system that are compatible with the likelyoutcomes of the natural succession that wouldotherwise occur.

The first step in the process of stimulatingforest recovery involves identifying the princi-pal factors that are acting as “barriers” or as“facilitators” to regeneration. Once these

36Stimulating Natural RegenerationSilvia Holz and Guillermo Placci

Key Points to Retain

Stimulating natural regeneration can beachieved in a number of ways, such asremoving disturbances, enclosures, eliminat-ing barriers, disperser management andspatial distribution of species within therestoration landscape.

The art of restoring a forest landscape con-sists, to a large extent, of the strategic selec-tion, combination, and adequate use ofdifferent methods for each stage and foreach case.

The principal needs for developing restora-tion projects based on stimulating naturalregeneration are (1) to continually study theecological processes, (2) to develop monitor-ing systems and statistical methods tocompare different types of data at differentscales, (3) to implement environmental edu-cation programmes, and (4) to developstrategies to decrease operative costs and toincrease incentives for stimulating naturalregeneration.

311 Vallejo et al, 2003.

250

36. Stimulating Natural Regeneration 251

factors have been identified, they can be manip-ulated to accelerate forest regeneration. Moststudies have identified dispersion, competitionwith herbaceous plants, and poor soil condi-tions as being the most important barriers fortree settlement in abandoned farmlands312 (alsosee section “Restoring After Disturbance” inthis book). These studies highlight the impor-tance of physical as well as biological barriers.On the other hand, trees, bushes, ferns, andfallen trees can also facilitate the natural recov-ery of an area.313 The remaining vegetationattracts dispersers; microclimatic conditionsthat favour the regeneration of young treesdevelop underneath this vegetation, which canthus serve as “regeneration nuclei.”314 The rela-tive influence of each factor on regenerationdepends on each system and on the temporaland spatial scale in which the analysis is carriedout. Restoration methods that use naturalregeneration are based on barrier elimination,stimulation of facilitating factors, or the com-bined manipulation of both types of factors. Inselecting the best methods for restoring theforests of a particular area, it is extremelyimportant to study the forests intensively, inorder to understand their behaviour at differ-ent scales.

Several factors limit the successful applica-tion of restoration methodologies based onstimulating natural regeneration:

• Lack of seed sources and dispersers: In manycases, there are no forest remnants that canbehave as seed sources at restoration sites;therefore, natural regeneration possibilitiesremain restricted to the existing soil seedbank. In other cases, there are nearby forestsbut no seed dispersers due to the low numberof animals (e.g., birds, mammals) in the area;thus, natural regeneration may be largelyconfined to species whose seeds are dis-persed by wind.

• Uncertain directionality: Allowing naturalregeneration to occur—without controllingthe species’ pool that is allowed to occupy arestored area—does not guarantee a high

diversity of species in a forest. This may limitthe success of restoration efforts in improv-ing economic value for future wood exploita-tion or other specific activity.

• Difficulty in obtaining a high forest species’diversity: In addition to insufficient seeds, inareas with scarce or degraded forest rem-nants, there may be the added complicationthat some species will simply not be able tosettle, thereby creating a forest with morelimited diversity of species.

• Length of time required: A naturally regen-erating forest goes through more succes-sional states, and thus requires more time toreach a state similar to a mature forest thandoes a plantation composed of diversespecies.

2. Examples

Natural regeneration can be used in very dif-ferent ways when defining a landscape restora-tion strategy. Some examples of differentmethods are illustrated below:

2.1. Use of Diversity Nuclei

The littoral area of southern Brazil, formerlycovered by Serra do Mar (Atlantic forest), isnow severely deforested (Fig. 36.1). Currently,numerous actions are being carried out to preserve the remaining forests, and to restorethe deforested areas.315 Tree cover restorationin the Environmental Protection Area ofGuaraqueçaba, is being aided by a strategy inwhich small stands of pioneer species (i.e.,generally 1000 to 5000 young trees) are plantedin the surrounding, more diverse stands (i.e.,composed of pioneer species, initial secondaryspecies, late secondary species, and climaxspecies). The latter are either planted or arefragments of already existing forests in thearea.316 Plantations are carried out either in thewhole area being restored or in half of this area,depending on the size of the area, its proximity

312 Holl, 1999.313 Peterson and Haines, 2000.314 Guevara et al, 1986.

315 See Sociedade de Pesquisa em Vida Selvagem e Educação Ambiental (SPVS). www.spvs.org.br.316 Ferretti, 2002.

252 S. Holz and G. Placci

to forest patches, and the degradation of thesystem. Planted trees function as seed sourcesfacilitating natural regeneration in the wholearea.The treatment given to the soil (e.g., clean-ing of grasses), the distance at which youngtrees are planted, and their size are selectedaccording to site characteristics (e.g., type ofsoil, topography, and use history).

2.2. Framework Species Trees

Ecologically and socially appropriate methodsfor accelerating the forest recovery processwithin protected areas are being investigated inthe seasonally dry tropical forest of the moun-tains of northern Thailand.317 The “frameworkspecies” concept (i.e., the use of pioneer andclimax species that strongly facilitate, morethan other species, the natural regeneration ofthe area) has been adapted in this case. Themain characteristics of framework species treesare: (1) high survival when planted at degradedsites; (2) rapid growth; (3) dense and spreadingcrown cover that shades out herbaceous weeds;(4) flowering and fruiting, or provision of otherresources, attractive to wildlife at a young age;(5) resilience to burning (in systems with a dryseason); and (6) reliable seed availability, rapidand synchronous seed germination and pro-

duction of healthy seedlings in containers.Combinations of 20 to 30 species are used forplantations. These plantations significantly aidin the recovery of the basic structure of foreststhat grow naturally, resist disturbances, andattract seed-dispersing animals, thereby facili-tating the natural regeneration of forests withinthe restoration area.

2.3. Remaining Vegetation asFacilitators of Regeneration

A great part of the Mediterranean Forests ofGuadalajara in Spain has been transformed bywood extraction and grazing into scrublandswith few tree species. In the Tonda de Tamajónwoodland, native species are being introducedto increase biodiversity and accelerate thenatural regeneration of the forest.318 Tree andshrub species are selected using as criteria fruittype as well as the ecological niche that eachone occupies. Efforts are made to increase theproportion of species that are used as food bywild boar populations (an important economicresource of the area).The remaining vegetationin the area is used as “nurse trees,” wherebyplanting the young trees below the preexistingindividuals protects them from sun exposureand against predation.

Figure 36.1. Abandoned pastures inAntonina Reserve (Atlantic forest,Brazil), where the natural regenera-tion is limited by grass competition.(Photo © Silvia Holz.)

317 See Forest Restoration Information Service. www.unep-wcmc.org/restoration/. 318 See World Wide Fund for Nature, España. www.wwf.es.

36. Stimulating Natural Regeneration 253

2.4. Elimination of Invasive Speciesby Planting Economically Important Native Species

The area of Andresito, in northeast Argentina,has been identified as a key area for the con-servation of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest(Fig. 36.2); remaining forests there can guaran-tee the connectivity of the great forest massesof Brazil and Argentina.319 In the framework ofa project on Forest Landscape Restoration thatinvolves a large number of people and institu-tions, different restoration methodologies arebeing investigated.320 A particular problematicissue is the invasion of forests degraded by anative plant species behaving as an invasive, thetala (Celtis sp.), thus inhibiting natural regener-ation. The strategy used in this case consists ofthe mechanical elimination of tala, followed bythe plantation of yerba mate (Ilex paraguarien-sis)—a native tree species used in infusions, anda key product of the regional economy.321 Thefruit of yerba mate attracts birds, facilitating thenatural regeneration of the area. Growth ofcanopy species is stimulated through selectivecutting, in order to obtain a yerba mate pro-duction system under forest cover.Therefore, in

addition to restoring a degraded area, an effortis also made to improve the financial opportu-nities of local farmers. This increases the likeli-hood that they will implement the restorationstrategy, and that these restored areas will bepreserved in the long term.

3. Outline of Tools

There is a wide variety of tools that can be usedto stimulate natural regeneration. The art ofrestoring a forest landscape depends heavily onthe selection, combination, and appropriate useof different tools for each stage and for eachparticular case.

• Management of early stages of natural regen-eration in secondary forests: Natural regen-eration is the most effective and economicalway of restoring slightly degraded areas, witha good seed bank in the soil and forest rem-nants nearby. However, even these relativelyintact systems should be monitored periodi-cally to evaluate the need to carry out enrich-ment plantations.

• Closures: At sites with high numbers of her-bivores, natural regeneration can be stimu-lated by limiting animal grazing, therebyallowing the growth of woody plants.

• Elimination of barriers using cattle and otheranimals: Cattle grazing can be an effective,easy, and inexpensive way to decrease the

Figure 36.2. Cattle pasture (left)and regenerating forest (right) 2years after cattle was excluded inexperimental plots in Andresito(Atlantic forest, Argentina). In thisplace, tree planting and grass clean-ing was necessary during the firstyear of exclusion. (Photo © SilviaHolz.)

319 Di Bitetti et al, 2003.320 See Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR). http://www.panda.org/forests/restoration.321 Holz, 2003.

254 S. Holz and G. Placci

biomass of grasses that compete with youngtrees—in cases where the tree species arethemselves not palatable to cattle.322

• Elimination of barriers through mechanicaland/or chemical methods: The soil com-paction that retards the settlement of young trees can be eliminated through, forexample, ploughing. Grasses can be elimi-nated through herbicide application, manualweeding (e.g., using a cane knife), or mechanical weeding (e.g., with weedingmachines).

• Installation of racks to facilitate regenera-tion: Where existing vegetation does notpresent a significant barrier to natural regen-eration, artificial racks (e.g., crosses, sticks, orwires) on which birds can perch can be usedto increase the seed rain in an area and,therefore, help accelerate site regeneration.In systems with grasses that retard regenera-tion, natural racks (e.g., trees, bushes) areoften more effective, since they increase theseed rain as well as acting as shaders, decreas-ing grass coverage.323

• Planting a few species to stimulate regenera-tion: The selective planting of a few treespecies can help stimulate natural regenera-tion by (1) offering additional perches forseed dispersers such as birds, and (2) shadingout competing plants.

• Spatial distribution of species within therestoration landscape: The presence ofspecies of different ecological groups—strategically located within the landscape—can help accelerate natural regeneration atthis scale, as well as lowering significantly thecosts that would be incurred by plantingyoung trees throughout an entire restorationarea. Planted stands with high species’ diver-sity, as well as remnant forests in the land-scape, can function as “diversity islands,”providing seeds to the area throughout therestoration process.324

• Disperser management: Another possibletool for stimulating natural regeneration is to try to increase the number of dispersers

(e.g., birds, mammals) in an area. This can beachieved by decreasing hunting activities andpesticide use, reintroducing species, and cre-ating wildlife corridors.

4. Future Needs

4.1. Increase Current Knowledge

It is crucial to continue studying the followingissues in order to be able to develop restorationactions based on natural forest regeneration:

• Species’ ecology: Little is known about thephenology, reproductive biology, interactionswith other species (e.g., pollination, seed dis-persion, herbivory/predation) of many plantspecies.

• Dynamics of ecological succession: Restora-tion involves the manipulation of the naturalsuccession process; therefore, it is necessaryto know the factors involved in the naturalregeneration of the system and the mecha-nisms through which they function.

• Behaviour of the system at different scales:For many systems, there is little informationon patterns and processes operating at dif-ferent scales.

4.2. Development of MonitoringSystems and Statistical Toolsto Compare Different Types of Restoration

Monitoring systems, as well as statisticalmethods for comparing different types of dataat different scales, are tools that need to bedeveloped for adjusting current restorationmethodologies. Detailed records of the historyof site use and implemented restoration practices, as well as the use of standardisedmonitoring protocols, would facilitate suchcomparisons.325 The use of nontraditional sta-tistical methods (e.g., Bayesian methods) canallow for more efficient evaluation of restora-tion methods, because they are more robustwhen working with small samples, with no

322 Posada et al, 2000.323 Holl et al, 2000.324 Kageyama and Gandara, 2000. 325 Holl et al, 2003.

36. Stimulating Natural Regeneration 255

replicates, or with much noise in the system, andthey also allow for the combination of differenttypes of data.326

4.3. Implementation ofEnvironmental Education Programmes

In general, recovery areas are perceived as non-productive areas. If people can identify andappreciate the multiple functions of these areas,the potential for preserving the forest willincrease, as will possibilities of implementingrestoration projects in which natural regenera-tion will play a key role. This issue is particu-larly important in the development ofeducational programmes.

4.4. Financing of RestorationProcesses

The development of strategies for decreasingoperating costs and increasing incentives forstimulating natural regeneration is essential inapplying the restoration methods developed atthe experimental scale to the restoration oflarge areas. For example, it is important to con-sider the increase in the production capacity ofthe restored area, compensation for the oppor-tunity cost for landowners, payment for envi-ronmental services, and the implementation oftax incentives.

References

Di Bitetti, M.S., Placci, G., and Dietz, L.A. 2003. Abiodiversity vision for the Upper Paraná AtlanticForest ecoregion: designing a biodiversity conser-vation landscape and setting priorities for conser-vation action. WWF, Washington, DC.

Ferretti, A.R. 2002. Modelos de plantio para a re-stauração. In: A Restauração da Mata Atlanticaem Áreas de sua Primitiva Ocorrência Natural.Embrapa Florestas, Colombo, pp. 35–43.

Guevara, S., Purata, S., and Van der Maaler, E. 1986.The role of remnant forest trees in tropical sec-ondary succession. Vegetatio 66:77–84.

Holl, K. 1999. Factors limiting tropical rain forestregeneration in abandoned pasture: seed rain, seedgermination, microclimate and soil. Biotropica 31:229–242.

Holl, K.D., Crone, E.E., and Schultz, C.H.B. 2003.Landscape restoration: moving from generalitiesto methodologies. BioScience 53(5):491–502.

Holl, K.D., Loik, M.E., Lin, E.H., and Samuels, I.A.2000. Tropical montane forest restoration in CostaRica: overcoming barriers to dispersal and estab-lishment. Restoration Ecology 8(4):339–349.

Holz, S. 2003. Atlantic Forest restoration in thebuffer zone of Iguazú National Park (Argentina).Technical Report (not published).

Kageyama, P., and Gandara F. 2000. Recuperação deareas ciliares. Capítulo: 15. In: Rodriguez, R., andFilho, L., eds. Matas Ciliares: Conservação e Recu-peração. Edusp, São Paulo, Brazil.

Marcot, B.G., Holthausen, R.S., Raphael, M.G.,Rowland, M.M., and Wisdom, M.J. 2001. UsingBayesian belief networks to evaluate fish andwildlife population viability under land manage-ment alternatives from an environmental impactstatement. Forest Ecology and Management 153:29–42.

Peterson, C.J., and Haines, B.L. 2000. Early succes-sional patterns and potential facilitation of woodyplant colonization by rotting logs in premontaneCosta Rica pastures. Restoration Ecology 8(4):361–370.

Posada, J.M., Aide, T.M., and Cavelier, J. 2000. Cattleand weedy shrubs as restoration tools of tropicalmontane rainforest. Restoration Ecology 8(4):370–379.

Vallejo, R., Cortina, J., Vilagrosa, A., Seva, J.P., andAlloza, J.A. 2003. Problemas y perspectivas de lautilización de leñosas autóctonas en la restau-ración forestal. In: Rey, J.M., Espigares, T., andNicolau, J.M., eds. Restauración de EcosistemasMediterráneos. Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá deHenares, pp. 11–42.

Additional Reading

Guariguata, M.R., and Ostertag R. 2001. Neotropicalsecondary forest succesion: changes in structuraland functional characteristics. Forest Ecology andManagement 148:185–206.

Guimarães Vieira, I.C., Uhl, C., and Nepstand, D.1994. The role of shrub Cordia multispicata Cham.as a “succession facilitator” in an abandonedpasture, Paragominas, Amazonia. Vegetatio 115:91–99.326 Marcot et al, 2001.

256 S. Holz and G. Placci

Holl, K. 2002. Effect of shrubs on tree seedling estab-lishment in an abandoned tropical pasture. Journalof Ecology 90:179–187.

Janzen, D.H. 1988. Guanacaste National Park:tropical ecological and biocultural restoration.In: Cairns, J.J., ed. Rehabilitating Damage Ecosys-tems, vol. 2., CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp.143–192.

Nepstad, D.C.C., Uhl, C., Pereira C.A., and Cardosoda Silva, J.M. 1996. A comparative study of tree oftree establishment in abandoned pasture andmature forest of eastern Amazonia. Oikos 76:25–39.

Purata, S.E. 1986. Floristic and structural changesduring old-field succession in Mexican tropics inrelation to site history and species availability.Journal of Tropical Ecology 2:257–276.

Ramirez-Marcial, N., Gonzalez-Espinoza, M., andGarcía-Moya, E. 1996. Establecimiento de Pinus spp en matorrales y pastizales de Los Altos de Chiapas, México. Agrociencia 30(2):249–257.

Rey-Benayas, J.M., Espigares, T., and Castro-Diez, P.2003. Simulated effect of herb competition onplanted Quercus faginea seedlings in Mediter-ranean abandoned cropland. Applied VegetationScience 6:213–222.

Slocum, M.G. 2000. Logs and fern patches as recruit-ment sites in a tropical pasture. RestorationEcology 8(4):408–414.

Wunderle, J.M. 1998. The role of animal seed disper-sal in accelerating native forest regeneration ondegraded tropical lands. Forest Ecology and Man-agement 99(1–2):223–235.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

After regeneration begins on previously for-ested sites, carefully designed silviculturalstrategies can accelerate growth, influence thedirection of succession, increase the goods andservices provided, or enhance diversity.327 Se-lecting proper treatment options requires anunderstanding of the factors limiting succes-sional change and increases in desired species.These treatments should be designed to assistnatural processes rather than fight them. This ismost likely to occur when forest restorationplans (1) consider and remove the underlying

causes rather than the symptoms of degrada-tion; (2) are based on an understanding of suc-cession and threshold barriers that must beovercome through designed interventions; and(3) stimulate the desired successional behav-iour with minimal interventions.

1.1. Consider Underlying CausesHalting Natural Succession

Many forest restoration programmes failbecause they do not address the underlyingcauses of degradation.A number of social, polit-ical, and economic factors are often the under-lying cause of forest loss or degradation. It isequally important to identify the biophysicalbarriers to recovery through natural successionalprocesses. For example, livestock may con-tribute to degradation in some situations but bean important part of the recovery plan in othercircumstances. Forests limited by excessive fireand invasive grasses may benefit from cattle thatreduce fuel loads until the tree canopy begins toclose. In contrast, forests limited by livestockthat consume high percentages of developingseedlings benefit more from livestock exclusionthan from control of unsustainable harvest ofwood and nonwood forest products.

1.2. Understand Natural Successionand Potential Threshold Barriers

Having stimulated natural regeneration pro-cesses that establish forest species (see previous

37Managing and Directing Natural SuccessionSteve Whisenant

Key Points to Retain

Carefully designed silvicultural strategiescan accelerate growth, influence the direc-tion of succession, increase the goods andservices provided, or enhance diversity.

Directing natural processes toward land usegoals requires an understanding of theprocesses driving succession.

Tools for managing and directing naturalsuccession should be used as an imitation ofnatural processes rather than as a substitutefor them.

327 Lamb and Gilmour, 2003.

257

258 S. Whisenant

chapter), it is necessary to manage and directsuccession processes toward the desired objec-tives. It is important to promote continueddevelopment of the vegetation to conserve soil,nutrient, and organic resources; restore fullyfunctional hydrologic, nutrient cycling and en-ergy flow processes; and create self-repairinglandscapes that provide the goods and servicesnecessary for biophysical and socioeconomicsustainability. Different stages of degradationrequire management actions that focus on dif-ferent processes. Severely degraded sitesrequire early repair of hydrologic, nutrientcycling, and energy capture and transferprocesses. As the vegetation increases inbiomass and stature, it reduces abiotic limita-tions of the site by improving soil and micro-environmental conditions. Directing naturalprocesses toward land use goals requires anunderstanding of the processes driving succes-sion. The rate and direction of succession isinfluenced by the availability of species, theavailability of suitable sites, and by differentialspecies’ performance.

Previous land use has important and poten-tially long-lasting impacts on the rate and direc-tion of natural succession.328 Natural successionon abandoned farms and pastures is limited anddirected by the available seed bank, sproutingability of remaining stump and root systems,seed immigration, soil type and condition, andclimatic conditions.329 Natural recovery occursmost rapidly and completely following aban-donment of pastures that were cleared by handand received little weeding and light grazing.These areas benefit from diverse seed banks,nearness to seed sources, and sprouting fromstumps and roots. Moderately grazed pasturesare much less productive and diverse due to theloss of grazing intolerant species, diminishedseed banks, and less organic matter in the uppersoil horizons. Heavily grazed, mechanicallycleared pastures are far more likely to remaindominated by grasses and forbs following aban-donment, since they are completely dependenton seed immigration for successional develop-ment. Frequent burning prior to abandonment

reduces the density of tree seed and sprouts.Large treeless areas are unattractive to mostbirds and bats that disperse small seeds.Monkeys and ground-dwelling mammals thatdisperse large-seed, late successional speciesare even more prone to avoid open areas. Thus,perching sites provided by isolated trees canaccelerate succession.

1.3. Design Minimal Interventionsto Achieve Goals

Will the site recover within an acceptable timeframe in the absence of active restorationefforts? If so, will it provide the desired combi-nation of goods and services? Answers to thesekey questions may be found by examining twotypes of reference sites. Selecting referencesites that have not been damaged provides anapproximation of the potential goods and serv-ices. Reference sites that have been similarlydamaged and allowed to recover naturally fordifferent periods of time provide importantinformation on the presence or absence of bar-riers to recovery. This provides critically impor-tant information about the passive interventionoption. Active management interventions maybe required where invasive species, damagedecosystem processes, or other limitations haltnatural recovery.

If the site is not seriously degraded and seedsources are adequate, the first few years of suc-cession will be dominated by herbaceous vege-tation and shrubs.This will typically be followedby early succession tree species and midsucces-sional tree species will gradually become moredominant. In lowland humid forests, biomasspeaks of early successional species occur ataround 10 years. Mid-successional species mayreach their peak biomass at 15 to 30 years, butremain dominant for many decades. These suc-cessional changes occur more slowly in lesshumid or very degraded environments.

Improving the management of ecosystemconsumption (timber or wood harvest) isusually effective on relatively intact sites. Sitesdominated by grasses may require vegetationcontrol of the existing vegetation. This may bedone with fire, herbicides, or mechanical or bio-logical control methods. It may be necessary to

328 Uhl et al, 1988.329 Kammesheidt, 2002.

37. Managing and Directing Natural Succession 259

add some species through seeding or trans-planting. Denuded or depauperate sites thatcan neither stabilise nor achieve managementobjectives require enrichment plantings.

2. Examples

2.1. Restoring Dry Tropical Foreststo Anthropogenic Grasslands in Guanacaste National Park,Costa Rica

Anthropogenic fire converted the dry tropicalforest of Costa Rica to grasslands that contin-ued to burn frequently. A programme begun inthe 1980s effectively stopped fire and allowedthe natural reforestation by trees. The initialforests, of species with wind-blown seed, rapidlycovered the landscape. As these trees grewlarger, seed-dispersing birds and mammalsincreasingly moved through the site and addednew species to the developing forest.330 This isan excellent example of removing barriers tonatural succession and then allowing naturalprocesses to operate over many decades toreturn an increasingly diverse forest to thelandscape.

2.2. Plantation Trees as NursePlants to Increase Regeneration of Native Species

Tree plantations can sometimes facilitate thereturn of native vegetation. In Puerto Rico, treeplantations improved soil and microenviron-mental conditions enough to facilitate thenatural immigration of native species.331 Theplantation also accelerated the return of nativespecies by attracting animals that brought addi-tional seed. Tree plantations in the moist andwet tropics do not remain monoculturesbecause native trees invade the understoreyand penetrate the canopy of the exotic species.Unless site damage is extreme, native forestseventually dominate. Where damage is moresevere, the resulting forests are likely to

become a combination of native and exoticspecies.

2.3. Spontaneous Regeneration of a Mine Site in Hungary

Mining is a drastic alteration of site conditionsand processes. Planting trees on these sites isexpensive and risky, thus they are often aban-doned to natural processes. A mine site inHungary received no active replanting, but 30years following the cessation of mining, it showsnumerous signs of spontaneous regeneration ofherbaceous and woody vegetation (Fig. 37.1).The abundance of natural vegetation in the sur-rounding landscape provides seed sources. Thissite will take many more decades for recovery,but natural processes are operating in theabsence of new disturbances.

3. Outline of Tools

Tools for managing and directing natural suc-cession should be used as an imitation ofnatural processes rather than as a substitute forthem. The tools described in the previouschapter focus on influencing natural regen-eration. They remain appropriate throughoutsuccession, but here is a list of tools for manip-ulating existing vegetation:

330 Janzen, 1988.331 Aide et al, 2000.

Figure 37.1. Previously mined site in Hungary thathas undergone natural regeneration for about 30years. (Photo © Steve Whisenant.)

260 S. Whisenant

Patience: Time can be used as a tool. Wait forsigns and expression of successional trajec-tory. Understanding what drives and limitssuccession will make it easier to recognise theprobable direction of successional changeand the potential vegetation for that area.

Knowledge of potential successional pathways:Understanding how forest vegetation recov-ers following disturbances is a critical aspectof directing natural successional processes.Know what prevents improvement and re-move that limiting factor.

Fencing: Where livestock delay, limit, or pre-vent successional development, fences thatrestrict livestock entry are one method forincreasing seedling development. This mayonly be necessary until the seedlings grow outof reach of the livestock (or fences may alsobe more permanent for continued benefits).

Direct removal of invasive species: Invasivespecies may be killed or removed with her-bicides, mechanical treatments, or hand re-moval to release native species. These toolsmay be expensive or very labour intensive, sotheir practicality is often limited to small orhigh priority sites.

Reducing invasive species with shade: Shade-intolerant invasive species are most effec-tively managed with tree species andmanagement strategies that accelerate theoccurrence of closed canopies. For example,establishing forests on fire-prone grasslandsrequires the prevention of fires until theforest canopy effectively excludes thegrasses.

Thinning to reduce density or alter species’composition: Selective thinning may be usedto provide products and income whileincreasing growth rates of the remainingtrees. It may also be used to encourageregeneration and growth of certain desiredspecies while reducing the abundance ofmore common species.

Enrichment plantings: Sites with no regenera-tion of shade-requiring late successionalspecies may necessitate enrichment plantingsunder the canopy of earlier successionalspecies. Enrichment plantings add species tosites where they are unlikely to enter throughnatural processes. They are most useful

where the desired species, or suite of species,are neither present nor found in adjacentforests.

4. Future Needs

Priority areas for further development are:

Policies that encourage the development ofnatural, diverse forests: Government policiescan accelerate destruction of natural forestsor they can be crafted to encourage thedevelopment of natural and managed foreststhat combine production and conservationfunctions and reduce pressures on naturalforests of high conservation value.

Improved understanding of successional pro-cesses and barriers to natural recovery:Thereare numerous gaps in our knowledge of suc-cession and ways in which we might encour-age and direct those processes. Many factorsdrive succession and similar impacts mayhave dramatically different results in differ-ent ecosystems. A more mechanistic under-standing of the factors limiting or acceleratingsuccession would greatly improve our predic-tive ability in new situations.

Novel strategies for payment of landscapeforest restoration: New ways to fund forestrestoration are essential. Programmes toplant trees are more easily funded than thosedesigned to encourage and manage naturalregeneration. This is unfortunate becausenatural succession often occurs more rapidlyand at less risk than artificially plantedforests.

References

Aide,T.M., Zimmerman, J.K., Pascarella, J.B., Rivera,L., and Marcano-Vega, H. 2000. Forest regenera-tion in a chronosequence of tropical abandonedpastures: implications for restoration ecology.Restoration Ecology 8(4):328–338.

Janzen, D.H. 1988. Tropical ecological and biocul-tural restoration. Science 239:243–244.

Kammesheidt, L. 2002. Perspectives on secondaryforest management in tropical humid lowlandAmerica. Ambio 31:243–250.

37. Managing and Directing Natural Succession 261

Lamb, D., and Gilmour, D. 2003. Rehabilitation andRestoration of Degraded Forests. IUCN, Gland,Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK, and WWF,Gland, Switzerland.

Uhl, C., Buschbacher, R., and Serrao, E.A.S. 1988.Abandoned pastures in Eastern Amazonia. I. Pat-terns of plant succession. Journal of Ecology76:663–681.

Additional reading

Ashton, M.S. 2003. Regeneration methods for dipte-rocarp forests of wet tropical Asia. ForestryChronicle 79:263–267.

Feyera, S., Beck, E., and Lüttge, U. 2002. Exotic treesas nurse-trees for the regeneration of natural trop-ical forests. Trees 16:245–249.

Parrotta, J.A. 1995. Influence of overstory composi-tion on understory colonization by native speciesin plantations on a degraded tropical site. Journalof Vegetation Science 6:627–636.

Whisenant, S. 1999. Repairing Damaged Wildlands:A Process-Oriented, Landscape-Scale Approach.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Tree plantations are sometimes the only alter-native in restoring forest landscapes, at least inthe short term, especially on very badlydegraded soils. Low soil fertility, soil com-paction after abandonment from cattle grazing,

and invasion by grasses and other aggressivevegetation can be serious obstacles to naturalforest regeneration. As the area of degradedlands expands, there is a greater need for tree species that can grow in such conditionsand yield useful products (timber, fuelwood,and others) as well as environmental bene-fits (recovery of ecosystem biodiversity, soilconservation, watershed protection, carbonsequestration).

Tree species chosen for a plantation in thecontext of forest restoration can provide bene-fits from the tree products (timber, fuelwood,leaf mulches, etc.), and from their ecologicaleffects, for example, nutrient recycling, orattracting birds and other wildlife to the land-scape. The choice of a tree species depends onwhether both productive and ecological advan-tages can be achieved in the same system, andin some cases one function, either productive orenvironmental, may be desired. Within a forestlandscape, the preferred choice for restorationwould be natural regeneration. Planting wouldonly be a secondary option, to be used in caseswhere natural regeneration cannot proceed dueto the obstacles mentioned above (poor soilconditions, long distances to seed sources, iso-lation, invasion by aggressive grasses). Within alandscape context, there should be a balance ofsocioeconomic goals (e.g., productivity) andbiodiversity objectives for restoration.

The following factors influence species’choice for plantations:

38Selecting Tree Species for PlantationFlorencia Montagnini

Key Points to Retain

Plantations are a useful tool for restorationespecially in areas where degradation isadvanced, for instance in conditions ofsevere soil compaction, invasion by grasses,and advanced fragmentation.

In many cases information is lacking on localtree species that can be used for plantations:site adaptability, seed sources, germinationand nursery requirements, and need for fertilisation.

Techniques for planting and tending ofspecies are important to consider: need forfertilisers, mycorrhizae, irrigation, etc.

It is always preferable to use native speciesinstead of exotic species, if a native species isavailable and grows well in the region.

262

38. Selecting Tree Species for Plantation 263

1.1. Goals

1.1.1. Target Ecosystem Productivity and Biodiversity

Fast-growing, native pioneer species with highproductivity are recommended for the initialstages of restoration of degraded lands. Thesespecies can help in facilitating the environmentfor later successional, longer-lived specieswhose end products are more valuable (bettertimber quality).

1.1.2. Saving Endangered Local Species

Preference should always be given to localspecies, especially those that are endangered.Fast-growing exotic species such as eucalypts,acacias, or pines should be used only whenthere are no available seeds of native species,or when environmental conditions are tooharsh for any native species to survive. Exotictree species predominate both in industrial andrural development plantations worldwide;however, native trees are more appropriatethan exotics, because (1) they are often betteradapted to local environmental conditions, (2)seeds may be more generally available, and (3)farmers are usually familiar with them and theiruses. Besides, the use of indigenous trees helpspreserve genetic diversity and serves as habitatfor the local fauna.

Disadvantages of the use of native speciesare (1) uncertainty regarding growth rates andadaptability to soil conditions; (2) general lackof guidelines for management; (3) large vari-ability in performance and lack of geneticimprovement; (4) seeds of native tree speciesare often not commercially available and haveto be collected; (5) high incidence of pests anddiseases (e.g., the attack of the shoot borerHypsipyla grandella to species of mahoganiesand cedars); and (6) lack of established marketsfor many species. One of the strongest argu-ments for the use of native tree species in plan-tations is the high value of the wood and itsincreasing scarcity in commercial forests. Manynative tree species of valuable timber grow wellin open plantations, with rates of growth com-

parable or superior to those of exotic species inthe same sites.332,333

1.1.3. End Use of Products

Most plantations whose purpose is to restoreforest landscapes also have a productivepurpose. Globally, half of forest plantations arefor industrial use (timber and fibre), onequarter are for nonindustrial use (home or farmconstruction, local consumption of fuelwoodand charcoal, poles), and one quarter are fornonspecified uses.334 Among the nonspecifieduses there are small-scale fuelwood plantations,plantations for wood to dry tobacco, etc. There-fore, species’ choices reflect the end use of eachplantation, while considering the purpose offorest restoration. For example, the nativeAraucaria angustifolia is used to replant deforested regions in Misiones, in North EastArgentina, with the purpose of selling high-quality timber in a 40 to 45-year rotation. Arau-caria thinnings are also a good fibre source. Asthey are native trees these plantations also holdlocal flora and fauna.

1.2. Issues Related to Use of Native Species

1.2.1. Genetic Selection

For several native species in developing coun-tries there may not be enough genetic selectionfor the desired traits (fast growth, soil recovery,or other). Much research has been conductedby local institutions, universities, and ministriesof agriculture and forestry. For example inCentral America, Centro Agronómico Tropicalde Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) hasdone genetic selection of local species such asCordia alliodora, Vochysia guatemalensis, andother native species.335

332 Piotto et al., 2003a,b.333 Montagnini et al., 2002.334 FAO, 2000.335 CATIE: www.catie.ac.cr.

264 F. Montagnini

1.2.2. Seed Availability

For many native species, studies on the phenol-ogy of trees may be needed (i.e., timing of flowering, fruiting, seed production, and seedcollection). In addition, there must be enoughseed storage capacity, which in some cases mayrequire refrigeration, desiccation, and otherprocedures to accommodate seeds of treespecies from mature forest. In the case of seedsfrom pioneer species, these are generallysmaller, drier, and easier to store. At CATIE inTurrialba, Costa Rica, the seed bank has facili-ties suited to several native and exotic speciesthat can be used in forest restoration, and thisseed bank serves countries throughout LatinAmerica. When the information is not known,specific tests have to be developed to under-stand the germination requirements and characteristics of each seed. Finally, growingrequirements in the nursery must also beknown, including need for fertiliser, inoculationwith mycorrhizae, and time when they can betransplanted to the field conditions.

1.2.3. Preference by Local Farmers

Farmers most often prefer species whose silvi-cultural characteristics are well known, andspecies that have well-defined end uses andgood markets. In many cases they also prefernative over exotic species. Seed or seedlingavailability in local nurseries is also an impor-tant factor defining farmers’ preferences.

2. Examples

2.1. Plantations of Native Speciesfor Restoration of Mine Spoils in Southeastern United States

In the Appalachian region of the southeasternUnited States, surface mining for coal has beenextensive, coal being the main source of energyfor power plants that generate electricity.Concern about the use of exotic species formine soil reclamation has directed effortstoward native species, but the choices are narrowed considerably by the need for plant

materials that can be established readily onadverse sites. For example, the Tennessee ValleyAuthority has planted sycamore (Platanus occi-dentalis) and sweet gum (Liquidambar styraci-flua), which had performed the best ingreenhouse studies in terms of growth, droughttolerance, and commercial value of products.336

Surface coal mine lands are covered withgrasses and other herbaceous species.The landsare reclaimed by returning mine spoil to themined-out areas, grading when necessary, andplanting with aggressive cover plants that willaid in preventing soil erosion as the treesmature. Drip irrigation is used in the initialestablishment phases of the tree plantations.Replanting is done as needed one year afterinitial planting. These systems are successful inrecovering mine spoil lands; however, substan-tial investments are needed to ensure treeestablishment and growth. For example, sweetbirch (Betula lenta) has also been used in minereclamation because of its ability to grow onsubstrates that vary widely in tilth, concentra-tions of toxic metals, and fertility.337 Inoculationwith ectomycorrizhae (Pisolithus tinctorius)resulted in higher seedling biomass and betternutrient and water uptake. Inoculation withmycorrhizae is thus recommended to allow thisspecies to flourish on surface mine spoils with-out heavy application of chemical fertilisers.

2.2. Mixed Plantations with NativeSpecies for Restoration of Degraded Pastures at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica

Twelve native tree species were planted inmixed and pure plantations on degraded pas-turelands at La Selva Biological Station in theCaribbean lowlands of Costa Rica, with theobjectives of recovering soils and ecosystembiodiversity. There were three plantations, eachwith four species: Plantation 1: Jacarandacopaia, Vochysia guatemalensis, Calophyllumbrasiliense, and Stryphnodendrom microsta-chyum; Plantation 2: Terminalia amazonia,Dipteryx panamensis, Virola koschnyi, and

336 Brodie et al., 2004.337 Walker et al., 2004.

38. Selecting Tree Species for Plantation 265

Paraserianthes sp., Plantation 3: Hieronymaalchorneoides, Vochysia ferruginea, Baliziaelegans, and Genipa americana. In each plan-tation there was one nitrogen-fixing species, arelatively fast-growing species, and a slower-growing species. The criteria for species’ selec-tion were growth rate and economic value,potential impacts on soils and nutrient cycling,and seedling availability.338 At 2 to 4 years ofage, mixed plantations had greater growth andlower pest damage than pure stands for threeof the 12 species tested, and there was nodamage or no differences between pure andmixed conditions for the other species. Thecosts of plantation establishment were lowerfor the slower-growing species in mixed than inpure stands. When plantations were 9 to 10years old, most species had better growth inmixed than in pure plantations. However, theslower-growing species grew better in pure thanin mixed stands. Mixed plantations (combina-tions of three to four species) ranked amongthe most productive in terms of volume.339

Mixed plantations had a more balanced nutri-ent stock in the soil: 4 years after planting,decreases in soil nutrients were apparent inpure plots of some of the fastest growingspecies, while beneficial effects such asincreases in soil organic matter and cationswere noted under other species. The mixedplots showed intermediate values for the nutri-ents examined, and sometimes improved soilconditions such as higher organic matter.The mixtures ranked high in terms of carbonsequestration in comparison with the pure plotsof faster-growing species.340,341 The mixtures offour species gave higher biomass per hectarethan that obtained by the sum of a quarterhectare of each species in pure plots.342

2.3. Examples from TemperateEurope

During the last decade there have been increas-ing afforestation activities in several European

countries. In Denmark, afforestation of formerarable land with oak (Quercus robur) andNorway spruce (Picea abies) has been doneextensively. An evaluation of soils under theseplantations with ages ranging from 1 to 29years, and a mixed plantation with both species(200 years of age) showed considerable accu-mulation of organic matter in the tree biomassand in the soil, especially in the older stands.343

In the southwestern Alps in France, the forestservice has attempted forest restoration of bad-lands for erosion control since 1860, with theexotic Pinus nigra (Austrian black pine).The pines were expected to serve as nurse forthe native broadleaved vegetation. A studydone 120 years following reforestation showedthat pines were too dense to allow for enoughnatural regeneration under their canopy: thin-ning and enrichment planting would be neededto accelerate regeneration of native species.The reestablishment of indigenous tree specieswas not inhibited by lack of nearby seedsources or by soil fertility. Thinning would facil-itate the dissemination of seeds of the nativespecies. Patches of native trees planted inenrichment could serve as additional seedsources of native species.344

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Genetic Selection

Both tree breeding and silviculture haveimproved growth rates of several industrialspecies of eucalypts and pines. Good examplesare Eucalyptus grandis and E. urophylla inBrazil. Much genetic improvement has beendone by private companies, especially for themost frequently used species of pines and euca-lypts. Research on other species, includingindigenous trees, is underway at universitiesand other research institutions. For some nativespecies, genetic improvement has advancedwith trials of seed origin and progenies, the firststep in the domestication of a species. Forexample, for Cordia alliodora, Vochysia338 Montagnini et al., 1995.

339 Piotto et al., 2003b.340 Montagnini and Porras, 1998.341 Shepherd and Montagnini 2001.342 Montagnini, 2000.

343 Vesterdal et al., 2002.344 Vallauri et al., 2002.

266 F. Montagnini

guatemalensis, and other native species inCentral America, CATIE in Costa Rica hasdetermined what are the best provenances(specific origin of the seed in a region or local-ity in a given country) that suit most plantingconditions. In addition, progeny studies havehelped to find what are the best sources of seedfor Acacia mangium, Eucalyptus grandis, andother species.

3.2. Plant Ecology

Information on the following ecological characteristics of tree species will be useful inhelping to select them for plantation purposes:light requirements, growth under different soilfertility conditions, resistance to drought, toler-ance to low or high pH, tolerance to high con-centrations of toxic metals, resistance againstpest and disease, ability to sprout and torespond to pruning and coppicing, seed pro-duction, germination characteristics, need forinoculation with mycorrhizae, need for fertilis-ers, wood characteristics, and uses. In most casesbasic ecological information on tree species canbe found at universities, ministries of agricul-ture, or departments of forestry. Local informa-tion can also be obtained from nurseries,agricultural or forestry cooperatives, and fromconversations with local producers. However,sometimes native species are poorly known, yetanother reason for people’s tendency to useexotics, which have been better studied.

3.3. Choosing Species, Designs, andManagement to Stabilise Degraded Soils

Recent research in Costa Rica, Brazil, andArgentina investigated plantation tree speciesthat could serve to ameliorate soil properties indegraded lands.345 In Costa Rica, in just 3 yearssoil conditions improved in the tree plantationscompared to abandoned pasture. In the top 15cm, soil nitrogen and organic matter werehigher under the trees than in pasture, withvalues close to those found in 20-year-oldforests. The highest values for soil organic

matter, total nitrogen, calcium, and phosphoruswere found under Vochysia ferruginea, aspecies common in forests in the region. InBahia, Brazil, values of at least five soil param-eters under 15 out of the 20 species of the plan-tations were similar to or higher than thosefound under forest. Several species contributedto increased carbon and nitrogen, includingInga affinis, Parapiptadenia pterosperma,Plathymenia foliolosa (leguminous, N-fixingspecies), Caesalpinia echinata, Copaifera lucens (leguminous, non–N-fixing), Eschweileraovata, Pradosia lactescens (of other families).Others increased soil pH and/or some cations,such as Copaifera lucens, Eschweilera ovata,Lecythis pisonis, and Licania hypoleuca. InMisiones, in North Eastern Argentina, thegreatest differences in soil carbon and nitrogenlevels under tree species and grass were foundunder Bastardiopsis densiflora, where theywere twice those in areas beyond the canopyinfluence. The pH was higher under Bastar-diopsis densiflora and Cordia trichotoma,while the sum of bases (calcium + magnesium+ potassium) was highest under Cordia trichotoma, Bastardiopsis densiflora, andEnterolobium contortisiliquum. Most of thespecies identified in this research for their pos-itive influence on soil properties are used inrestoration projects, commercial plantationsand agroforestry in each region.

3.4. Plantation Design—Pure orMixed-Species Plantations

Mixed species’ plantations have been estab-lished at several locations with varying results.However, results from a number of field exper-iments suggest that mixed designs can be moreproductive than monospecific systems.346 Inaddition, mixed plantations yield more diverseforest products than pure stands, therebyhelping to diminish farmers’ risks in unstablemarkets. Farmers may prefer mixed plantationsto diversify their investment and as a potentialprotection against pest and diseases, in spite ofthe technical difficulties of establishing andmanaging mixed plantations. Mixed stands may

345 Montagnini, 2002. 346 Wormald, 1992.

38. Selecting Tree Species for Plantation 267

also favour wildlife and contribute to higherlandscape diversity. As seen from the examplepresented above, mixed plantations can havemany productive and environmental advan-tages over conventional monocultures. How-ever, their main disadvantage lies in their morecomplicated design and management. Mixedplantations thus are often restricted to rela-tively small areas, or to situations when diver-sifying production is a great advantage, such asfor small farmers of limited resources.

4. Future Needs

For forest landscape restoration, only nativespecies should be used in plantations, except if,as in some of the cases mentioned earlier, thereare good specific arguments for the use ofexotics. Therefore, increased knowledge ofcharacteristics and silviculture of native treespecies is needed to assist in this objective. Inparticular, more information is needed on theperformance of indigenous species in planta-tion conditions. In addition, silvicultural guide-lines for plantations with indigenous species areneeded to increase their adoption by localfarmers. Market values are also an importantfactor influencing the adoption of nativespecies by local farmers. A key question inspecies’ choices with the dual purpose ofrestoration and production is how to balanceeconomic objectives with biodiversity ones.Finally, there are some trade-off issues: Is it best to have smaller areas of exotic plantationsor larger areas of native plantations? Again a balance between the two objectives—restoration and production—should giveinsights into the answer.

References

Brodie, G.A., Bock, B.R., Fisher, L.S., et al. 2004.Carbon Capture and Water Emissions TreatmentSystem (CCWESTRS) at fossil-fueled electricgenerating plants. Third annual technical report40930R03 (October 1, 2002–September 30,2003) for U.S. Department of Energy/NationalEnergy Technology Laboratory Award Number

DE-FC26–00NT40930. Tennessee Valley Author-ity/Public Power Institute, Muscle Shoals, AL, inpartnership with the Electric Power ResearchInstitute, Palo Alto, CA.

FAO. 2000. Global Forest Resources Assessment2000. Main report.http:/www/fao.org/forestry/fo/fra/main.

Montagnini, F. 2000. Accumulation in abovegroundbiomass and soil storage of mineral nutrients inpure and mixed plantations in a humid tropicallowland. Forest Ecology and Management134:257–270.

Montagnini, F. 2002. Tropical plantations with nativetrees: their function in ecosystem restoration. In:Reddy, M.V., ed. Management of Tropical Planta-tion-Forests and Their Soil Litter System. Litter,Biota and Soil-Nutrient Dynamics. Science Pub-lishers, Enfield (NH) USA, Plymouth, UK, pp.73–94.

Montagnini, F, Campos, J.J., Cornelius, J., et al. 2002.Environmentally-friendly forestry systems inCentral America. Bois et Forêts des Tropiques272(2):33–44.

Montagnini, F., González, E., Rheingans, R., andPorras, C. 1995. Mixed and pure forest plantationsin the humid neotropics: a comparison of earlygrowth, pest damage and establishment costs.Commonwealth Forestry Review 74(4):306–314.

Montagnini, F., and Porras, C. 1998. Evaluating therole of plantations as carbon sinks: an example ofan integrative approach from the humid tropics.Environmental Management 22(3):459–470.

Piotto, D., Montagnini, F., Ugalde, L., and Kanninen,M. 2003a. Performance of forest plantations insmall and medium sized farms in the Atlantic low-lands of Costa Rica. Forest Ecology and Manage-ment 175:195–204.

Piotto, D., Montagnini, F., Ugalde, L., and Kanninen,M. 2003b. Growth and effects of thinning of mixedand pure plantations with native trees in humidtropical Costa Rica. Forest Ecology and Manage-ment 177:427–439.

Shepherd, D., and Montagnini, F. 2001. Carbonsequestration potential in mixed and pure treeplantations in the humid tropics. Journal of Tropi-cal Forest Science 13(3):450–459.

Vallauri, D., Aronson, J., and Barbero, M. 2002. Ananalysis of forest restoration 120 years after refor-estation of badlands in the south-western Alps.Restoration Ecology 10(1):16–26.

Vesterdal, L., Ritter, E., and Gundersen, P. 2002.Changes in soil organic carbon following affor-estation of former arable land. Forest Ecology andManagement 169:137–147.

268 F. Montagnini

Walker R.F., Mc Laughlin, S.B., and West, D.C. 2004.Establishment of sweet birch on surface mine spoilas influenced by mycorrhizal inoculation and fer-tility. Restoration Ecology 12(1):8–19.

Wormald, T.J. 1992. Mixed and pure forest planta-tions in the tropics and subtropics. FAO ForestryPaper 103, Rome.

Additional Reading

Carnus, J.-M., Parrotta, J., Brockerhoff, E.G., et al.2003. Planted forests and biodiversity. An IUFROcontribution to the UNFF Intersessional ExpertMeeting on the Role of Planted Forests in Sustainable Forest Management: “Maximisingplanted forests’ contribution to SFM,” Wellington,New Zealand, 24–30 March 2003. In: Buck, A.,Parrotta, J., and Wolfrum, G., eds. Science andTechnology—Building the Future for the World’sForests and Planted Forests and Biodiversity.IUFRO Occasional Paper No. 15. InternationalUnion of Forest Research Organisations, Vienna.

Evans, J. 1999. Planted forests of the wet and drytropics: their variety, nature, and significance. NewForestry 17:25–36.

Montagnini, F., and Jordan, C.F. 2005. Plantationsand Agroforestry Systems. In: Montagnini, F., andJordan, C.F. 2005. Tropical Forest Ecology. TheBasis for Conservation and Management. Springer-Verlag, Berlin–New York.

Parrotta, J.A. 2002. Restoration and management ofdegraded tropical forest landscapes. In: Ambasht,R.S., and Ambasht, N.K., eds. Modern Trends inApplied Terrestrial Ecology. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press, New York, pp. 135–148.

Parrotta, J.A., and Turnbull, J.T., eds. 1997. Catalyz-ing native forest regeneration on degraded tropi-cal lands. Forest Ecology and Management(Special Issue) 99(1–2):1–290.

Wadsworth, F.H. 1997. Forest production for tropicalAmerica. USDA Forest Service.

General Guidelines on Plantations

Cossalter, C., Pye-Smith, C. 2003. Fast-WoodForestry. Myths and realities. Forest Perspectives.

Center for International Forestry Research(CIFOR), Jakarta, Indonesia. www.cifor.cgiar.org/.Contains information on controversial issuesregarding plantations such as social relevance, eco-nomic aspects, environmental effects.

Evans J. 1992. Plantation Forestry in the Tropics.Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. One ofthe most complete textbooks on plantationforestry for tropical countries.

FAO. 2000. Global Forest Resources Assessment2000. Main report. http:/www/fao.org/forestry/fo/fra/main. The Food and Agriculture Organisa-tion of the United Nations (FAO) publishes peri-odically statistics and information on plantationsworldwide, area covered, uses, land-use changes,species, and other relevant information.

Forest Stewardship Council guidelines. www.fscus.org/. Contains materials related to certification offorest plantations; a full section on plantationforestry, principles, and criteria for sustainablemanagement of plantation forestry.

International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO).2002. Guidelines for the restoration, managementand rehabilitation of degraded and secondarytropical forest. ITTO Policy development seriesno. 13. www.itto.or.jp. Gives detailed guidelines for how to assess a situation of forest degradationand to decide what is the best alternative forrestoration.

Siyag, P.R. 1998. The Afforestation Manual. Technol-ogy and Management.TreeCraft Communications,Jaipur, India. Focusses on semi-arid regions. Thebook has a technical manual, explaining nurserytechniques, site selection and preparation, fencing,soil and water conservation strategies, planting,care and maintenance of the plantations; a man-agement manual, dealing with organisationalaspects of afforestation, activity planning, moni-toring, quality control and productivity, and recordkeeping; a section containing technical charts andtables to be used as models and reference; asection on management of charts and tables, anda tree planting guide.

WWF Web site on forest landscape restoration.www.panda.org/forests/restoration. Provides con-cepts, information on forest restoration projects inAfrica, Asia/Pacific, Europe, and Latin America.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Restoration in fire-prone areas requires effec-tive fire management policies if it is to be suc-cessful. In the major regions of the world fireservices are usually able to stop medium- andlow-intensity fires.Technological improvementsalong with increased fire prevention infrastruc-ture (firebreaks, water points, etc.) have con-siderably increased the success in fightingwildfires. However, the ability to control fires ishampered in extreme climatic conditions, whichare cyclical and are expected to become moreextreme because of climate change. In these

conditions, high load (biomass) leads to high-intensity, destructive fires, which cannot easily be controlled by infrastructure such asfirebreaks.

Large wildfire events have occurred regularlyin the last few years (e.g., Australia in2002–2003, 1.3 million hectares (Mha); UnitedStates in 2000, 3Mha; southwestern Europe in 2003, 0.5Mha). This new phenomenon hasencouraged major revisions to current fire riskmanagement strategies, which have reached thefollowing main conclusions:

• Fire is a natural element present in mostforest ecosystems of the world, although inmany regions, like the Mediterranean, forexample, fire regime and frequencies havebeen greatly increased by human activity.Deeply disturbed secondary ecosystems areless resistant and resilient to fire than old-growth forest landscapes. Preventioninfrastructures have to be based on an under-standing of the current socio-ecosystem,ecological history, natural role of fire in theecosystem, and on how forests (species,stand structures, etc.) are adapted to fire(improving tree community resilience andresistance).

• High fuel accumulations allow the develop-ment of high-intensity fires, which over-whelm prevention measures. Land-usechanges (e.g., abandonment of agroforestrymanagement) and, paradoxically, the successin controlling low-intensity fires, leads to fuelaccumulation in the landscape.

39Developing FirebreaksEduard Plana, Rufí Cerdan, and Marc Castellnou

Key Points to Retain

Firebreaks are useful to stop low-intensitysurface fires, as a line from which firefighterscan operate, and as perimeters for prescribedfire projects.

Firebreaks vary in their effectivenessdepending on adjacent hazards, the land-scape to protect, and maintenance. Whenused alone, firebreaks cannot contain high-intensity head fires, but may serve as controlpoints for extinction.

Firebreaks are expensive and more empha-sis should be placed on understanding andmanaging fires.

269

270 E. Plana et al

• To improve the efficiency of preventionmeasures, local knowledge is needed of firebehaviour patterns in a particular region.

• Human settlements and infrastructure devel-oped in fire risk areas need to tackle the phenomenon of fire from an environmentalrisk prevention perspective (in the same wayas floods, avalanches, etc.) and integrate firemanagement into planning policies.

A number of alternatives exist in terms offuel management including linear firebreaks(areas without vegetation or with low treedensity); commercial forest management orselective thinning within forest areas to simulate resistance within the natural forest structure; prescribed burning to simulate thenatural fire regime and fuel elimination; or fuel control through grazing. All of these meas-ures are complementary and are focussed onreducing the fuel availability and fire severity,adapting the landscape structure to the naturalfire regime or protecting the urban/forest interface.

Firebreaks must be established as barriersdesigned to stop surface fires (low-intensityfires), to be used as a line from which firefight-ers can operate, to set a backfire if necessary,and to facilitate the movement of people andequipment. They are also useful as perimetersfor prescribed fire projects. Firebreaks preventheat conduction, but not radiation, which mayignite fuel on the other side of the break (thiscommonly happens in high-intensity fires).Instead of total vegetation suppression, moreand more firebreaks are designed as low treedensity forest structures, which have less visualimpact on the landscape and make it easier tocontrol grass growth under the canopy. Firebehaviour models can be used to help us toplace firebreaks in the optimal site, taking intoaccount predominant winds, topography, andforest types among other factors. Using naturalbarriers like rivers or crests can be useful.Whenreducing tree density, it is also important toincrease the canopy base height throughpruning to create forests safe from crown fires.In commercial forestry, the choice of less com-bustible species such as Acacia spp. can be alsoconsidered in some cases.

No absolute standards for firebreak width or fuel manipulation are available. Firebreakwidths have always been quite variable, both interms of theory and on-the-ground practice. Asthe literature shows, the rule of thumb oftenadopted for firebreak widths is as follows347:

• Two to four times the height of adjacent trees• Six to seven times the height of trees: wind

regime passes from laminar to turbulent,letting flying embers and firebrands fall in thestrip

• Average wind speed multiplied by time offlight of burning embers (about 15 seconds)

• Width greater than potential horizontallength of flames to be expected at the headof the fire. (For other recommendations seeTable 39.1)

Unfortunately, for many reasons, firebreaksare sometimes not wide enough to be effective.Firebreaks may even sometimes act as chim-neys, creating a route for the wind to blow andincrease fire spread and intensity. The lack ofshade on the ground creates good conditionsfor germination and growth of annual plants,which can themselves turn into dangerous fuels,characterised by a high rate of spread and highlinear intensity. In windy sites firebreaks are not efficient because of the great flame length,which allows fires to jump across a completenetwork of firebreaks. A complete periodiccleaning is necessary for the proper mainte-nance of firebreaks. Prescribed fire can be effec-tive but there is a potential risk of fire escapingalong the edges. Mechanical treatments are analternative but are quite expensive. A cheaperalternative can be promoting grazing into thearea (sheep, goats, cows), but for this the forestowner’s cooperation is needed. Grazing mustalso be managed carefully to avoid damage totrees and erosion of soil.

Another important issue is the urban/forestinterface. Structural fire losses are increasingdramatically as more people build and live inproximity to flammable plant communities.A basic list for reducing the fuel load and therefore, risk in urban/forest interface is asfollows348:

347 Leone, 2002.348 Schmidt and Wakimoto, 1988.

39. Developing Firebreaks 271

• Remove enough trees to reduce crown coverto less than 35 percent, leaving a minimum of3m of open space between crowns.

• Thin to a minimum of the height of two treesin each direction from home on level terrain(twice on slopes of 30 percent, four times onslopes higher than 55 percent).

• Prune with elimination of live and dead por-tions of crown up to 3m from the ground toa minimum of twice the trees’ height in eachdirection from home on level terrain, toreduce the incidence of surface fires gettinginto the tree crowns.

• Remove understorey trees or space themwidely enough to reduce the chances ofsurface fires igniting them and in turn themain forest canopy.

• Clean up woody material including that accumulated in the above operations toreduce incidence and intensity of surfacefires.

As a final conclusion, firebreaks and otherspatially restricted fuel management zones varyin their effectiveness according to adjacenthazards, project construction (e.g., width), andmaintenance. When used alone, firebreaks donot contain high-intensity head fires, but mayserve as control points for indirect attack andflank fire containment. This is an importantpoint given the high cost of constructing andmaintaining firebreaks. Simulation studies interms of such factors as fire spread, intensity,and the occurrence of spotting and crowning

(fire of design) are basic for a cost-effectiveinvestment.

2. Examples

2.1. A Network of Firebreaks inBages County, Catalonia (Spain) with Local Community Participation

The network of firebreaks project in Spain’sCatalonia province had three main interrelatedobjectives.The first one, the assessment of risks,was intended to produce a spatial account ofthe potential forest fire risks occurring in thecounty by analysing each of the identifiabledimensions that contribute both to the increasein the likelihood of fire and in the negativeimpacts once the fire has started. This implieda detailed analysis, using a mixture of sources,of the distribution and causes and meteorolog-ical conditions of fire within the forested terri-tory. The FARSITE programme generated riskanalysis and Geographical Information System(GIS) maps were produced by the ARC/INFO© programme. The aim was to produce aterritorial representation of risks and vulnera-bility in order to proceed with the assessment,as the second objective, of the human and tech-nical resources available to minimise both therisk and the eventual harm due to forest fires inthe county. The purpose, then, was to estimatethe correspondence between fire risk and

Table 39.1. Recommended minimum distances needed in firebreaks with high-risk conditions.

Minimum distances needed in firebreaks with high risk conditions

Vegetation Flat land Land with 70% slope

Tree stand and low, dense brush 12m 20mTree stand and dense brush 25m 35m

Terrain Width

Crests with slopes higher than 50% 60mCrests with high slope in one side (50%) and low slope in other (20%) 80mCrest with slow slopes (20%) 60–100mFlat land 100mThin watercourse 150m

Source: Vélez, 2000.

272 E. Plana et al

control capacity in the different locations. Inturn, such resources were divided into fire pre-vention, detection, intervention, and infrastruc-ture. The variables taken into account in thisrespect were (1) structure of fire protection bar-riers, (2) other measures to break fuel continu-ity (prescribed fire, grazing, green plantations),(3) forest management and selective thinning,(4) number and visibility of look out posts, and(5) forest mass accessibility. As the third objec-tive, the overall aim of the project was todevelop and implement a strategic plan to dealwith such risks. This plan was the outcome ofthe integration of expert and relevant stake-holder knowledge carried out during the empir-ical research. In a series of 14 meetings, localmanagers, forest owners, and many other actorsrepresenting a large amount and diversity ofthe county’s population were shown, and askedto respond to, the results of the expert GISanalysis of the situation.These maps and resultswere revised, modified, and enhanced as aresult of the discussions. Eventually, specificmeasures were debated, actors’ roles identified,and the actions to be pursued agreed upon withregard to fire prevention, fire prediction, andfire extinction. Thus, the crucial role of localpopulations was underlined during the wholeprocess of the research and policy action. Par-ticipation was carried out at different stages,including for the assessments of fire risk, theestimation of control capacity resources, and,last but not least, at the implementation stage.The meetings were composed of individualsrepresenting the following actors and agents:voluntary forest protection patrols, forestlandowners, local public officials, fire brigades,the local environmentalist group, a local envi-ronmental consultancy company, a local experton environmental issues, and the local media.349

2.2. Fuel Management Versus FireSuppression? A Worldwide Overview

After years of investing in fire suppression,many developed countries have had to recog-nise that high-intensity fires are out of reach of

suppression efforts, due to high fuel accumula-tion. Economic analysis shows easily that thecost per hectare of prescribed burning or thin-ning is cheaper than extinction,350 but there is alot of discussion about the optimum amount oftreated forest surface, due both to the difficul-ties in analysing the fuel management produc-tivity, and to the lack of completed data (cost of planning and monitoring). American andAustralian fire control systems, which have hadto deal with major fire problems in the last fewseasons, have decided to increase the amount offuel management, and the use of prescribedburning in particular (Victorian BushfireColonel Inquiry in 2004; Forest Healthy Initia-tive by USDA Forest Service in 2001), and evento let the natural fires do part of this job. Largeand intense fires always take the majority of the costs of suppression. In California, someresearch simulating fire suppression scenariosusing the fire growth model FARSITE havedemonstrated how silvicultural treatment instrategic sites into forest areas (nonlineal fire-breaks) can reduce the fire cost (damages andsuppression costs) by 500 percent, with benefit-cost ratios of 2.94 and 1.47 in return intervalsof 50 and 100 years, respectively.351 Therefore,the priorities for investment in fuel manage-ment should be aimed at minimising theselarge-scale events, and fires of design are thebest tool to do this.

3. Outline of Tools

• Landscape fuel management techniques andfirebreaks maintenance measures: Manage-ment guidelines adapted to specific local con-ditions for silvicultural treatments (selectivethinning and pruning), prescribed burning,or grazing are needed. Wherever possible,local agrarian activity should be used withinfire prevention strategies as a means of pro-moting rural development and local stake-holders’ involvement.

• Participatory methods with local stakehold-ers and policymakers: Agreement among all

349 Tàbara et al., 2003.

350 Agee et al., 2000.351 Finney et al., 1997.

39. Developing Firebreaks 273

the stakeholders involved is essential toensuring the social sustainability of any fireprevention project.

• Territorial planning and legislative tools.In Italy, Spain and France for instance,grazing is legally recognised as a tool for fire prevention. It is highly desirable toinclude fire risk in urban and infrastructureplanning.

4. Future Needs

The following three points are priorities forfuture work on firebreaks:

• Knowledge of the natural fire regime in eachregion and the forest structure is needed toavoid high-intensity destructive fires. Infor-mation tools such as fire behaviour modelslike FARSITE or geographic informationsystems should provide the information todesign our infrastructures in the most cost-effective manner.

• Incentives are needed to ensure economicviability and cross-cutting legislation for the policy development of fuel manage-ment activities in a landscape, especiallytaking into account local stakeholders’ participation.

• Awareness must be raised among society andpolicymakers showing the fire as a naturalelement of Mediterranean ecosystems, andthe need to include fire risk management inlandscape management and territorial plan-ning. Improving the knowledge of fire as a

natural risk shall improve the social viabilityof the measures adopted.

References

Agee, J., Baahro, B., Finney, M., et al. 2000. The useof shaded fuelbreaks in landscape fire manage-ment. Forest Ecology and Management 127:55–66.

Finney, M.A., Sapsis, D.B., and Bahro, B. 1997. Use of FARSITE for simulating fire suppression andanalyzing fuel treatment economics. Symposiumon Fire in California Ecosystems: IntegratingEcology, Prevention, and Management, 17–20November 1997, San Diego, California. Associa-tion for Fire Ecology Misc. Pub. No. 1, pp. 180–199.

Leone, V. 2002. Forest management: pre and post firepractices. In: Pardini, G., and Pintó, J. eds. Fire,Landscape and Biodiversity: An Appraisal of theEffects and Effectiveness. Diversitas No. 29, Uni-versitat de Girona, Spain.

Schmidt, W.C., and Wakimoto, R.H. 1988. Culturalpractices that can reduce fire hazards to home inthe Interior West. In: Fischerm, W.C., and Arno,S.F., eds. Protecting People and Homes from Wildfire in the Interior West: Proceedings of theSymposium and Workshop, 6–8 October 1987,Missoula, MT. Gen. Techn. Rep. INT-251, UT:USDA, Forest Service, Intermountain ResearchStation, pp. 131–141.

Tàbara, D., Saurí, D., and Cerdan, R. 2003. Forest firerisk management and public participation. In:Changing Socioenvironmental Conditions:A CaseStudy in a Mediterranean Region. Risk Analysis23(2):249–260.

Vélez, R. 2000. La Defensa Contra Incendios Fore-stales. Fundamentos y Experiencias. McGraw-Hill,Madrid. ISBN: 84-481-2742-0.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Tree Cover, Soil Fertility,and Agriculture

Forest soils are often fertile, especially whereforest ecosystems are relatively undisturbedand have been able to cycle and recycle essen-tial plant nutrients and organic matter overlong periods. Even where forest soils are poor,significant amounts of nutrients are often heldin the above-ground biomass. In relativelyyoung secondary forests or woody fallows,organic matter from tree litter (leaves, bark,branches, etc.) can quickly accumulate. More-over, the deep root systems of trees are able to“pump” nutrients from the soil that are inac-cessible to other plants.

1.2. The Dilemma of ShiftingAgriculture

Farmers have targeted forest ecosystems forcenturies. Usually this has taken the form ofshifting agriculture, whereby a patch of forest iscleared, burnt, and then farmed for a few yearsuntil much of the soil fertility has been depletedand/or colonisation of the plot by weedsbecomes too difficult to manage. In these tradi-tional systems, the area is then abandoned andleft fallow for a number of years.

If the duration of fallow periods is longenough, shifting cultivation is a sustainablesystem. However, in many tropical developingcountries, high population growth rates haveled to an increased demand for arable land thathas, in turn, resulted in shorter and shorterfallow periods for these systems. The shorterfallow periods result in unsatisfactory soil fer-tility and declining yields. Over time, this hasled to severely degraded lands no longer suit-able for agriculture. Farmers are then forced toclear the primary forest again for the fertilesoils needed for acceptable crop yields. Thelong-term result has been an accelerated rate offorest degradation and deforestation.

1.3. A Short Introduction to Agroforestry

Agroforestry is not a new practice and has, infact,existed for as long as humans have practisedagriculture. However, it is only during the past30 years that it has received ample scientific

40Agroforestry as a Tool for RestoringForest LandscapesThomas K. Erdmann

Key Points to Retain

Agroforestry systems that provide perma-nent tree cover should be promoted in forestlandscape restoration initiatives whereneither natural forest restoration nor full-sun crops are viable large-scale options.

An intimate knowledge of local livelihoods,forest use, and farming systems will berequired for successful initiatives that aspireto restore forest landscapes and develop sustainable agriculture.

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40. Agroforestry as a Tool for Restoring Forest Landscapes 275

attention and systematic study. The accepteddefinition of agroforestry is “a collective namefor land-use systems and technologies wherewoody perennials are deliberately used on thesame land-management units as agriculturalcrops and/or animals, in some form of spatialarrangement or temporal sequence.”352 The keyword here is “deliberately,” as the peopleemploying these systems do it intentionally.Some forms of agroforestry are potentialavenues for contributing to forest landscaperestoration while also responding to agriculturalneeds and the shifting cultivation dilemma.

1.4. The Multipurpose Tree andSpecies’ Choice: Domestication of Natural Forest Species and Biodiversity Considerations

One of the foundations of agroforestry is themultipurpose tree. This is a woody species (treeor shrub) that can furnish more than oneproduct or service. Species that can providethese multiple benefits are preferable to thosethat furnish only one product or service andshould be actively promoted in restorationefforts aimed at sustaining agriculture. Forexample, many nitrogen-fixing shrub speciesmay enhance soil fertility while at the sametime providing nutritious fodder for livestockand holding soil in place (combating erosion).Similarly, fruit trees can provide food while alsocontributing to soil conservation.

Which woody species to promote in restora-tion efforts is also important from a biodiversitystandpoint. There may be natural forest speciesthat provide sustenance for key threatenedfauna in the landscape.Ideally, it would be prefer-able to encourage species that fill this nichewhile at the same time providing goods and services that are valuable for the local farmingsystems. Efforts to master propagation of thesenatural forest species so that they can be plantedin densely populated landscapes may be a keyingredient to successful restoration. This is thefirst step in the domestication process wherebyvaluable, local native species are planted andincorporated into the farming system.

1.5. Competition Between WoodyPlants and Herbaceous Crops

One critical issue to consider when planningforest restoration to sustain agriculture is competition for light, water, and soil nutrientsbetween trees/shrubs and crops. Spatial trade-offs may need to be negotiated in order toachieve an acceptable balance of agriculturalyields and forest goods and services. Forexample, it may be necessary to increase thespacing between hedgerows in order to achievethe desired agricultural yields in alley cropping(hedgerow intercropping) systems.

1.6. Trees Scattered Throughout theLandscape Versus Restoring a Closed Canopy Forest

In densely populated landscapes where arableland is in high demand, it may not be possible,from a socioeconomic standpoint, to restoresignificant areas wholly devoted to tree coveror forests. Alternatively, one may have to focuson planting trees and shrubs in “in-between”places on farms. These places could includefarm or field borders, hedgerows along contourlines in sloping areas, or small clusters of treesand shrubs adjacent to homes. The goal wouldstill remain restoration of the goods and serv-ices that woody plants provide.

1.7. Stakeholder/Client Needs andForest/Tree Services

Lastly, but most importantly, it is critical to havea firm understanding of who the key stake-holders or clients are as well as what their landand natural resource use viewpoints and prior-ities are in any forest landscape restoration initiative. When it comes to restoration aimedat sustaining agriculture, the key stakeholdergroup will be local farmers who practise agri-culture within the landscape in question. It willbe of paramount importance to comprehendthe local agricultural systems and their rela-tionship to forest cover. Similarly, it is impor-tant to know how the forest is traditionallyused, that is, which species provide productsthat are beneficial to the local population. This352 Lundgren and Raintree, 1982, cited in Nair, 1993.

276 T.K. Erdmann

knowledge is required in order to design appro-priate restoration interventions.

2. Examples

2.1. Extension of Home Gardensand Farming Under Natural Forest Fallow and Secondary Forests

Multistory home gardens that combine trees,shrubs, and shade-tolerant crops are foundthroughout the tropics.353 Usually, they arediverse and can include fruit trees; nut trees;trees and shrubs that produce edible oils;high-value timber trees; woody and herbaceousplants that produce aromatic compounds;shade-tolerant tree crops such as rubber, cacao,and coffee; and shade-tolerant crops such asbananas, yams, cassavas, and spices. Due to theirdiversity, these systems are risk-averse and canprovide economic and food products through-out the year. They are an important componentof the livelihoods’ strategies of uncountablepoor, rural smallholders. Establishing, extend-ing, and diversifying these home gardens offerenormous potential in many threatened anddegraded forest landscapes throughout theworld; the practice should thus be consideredpart of any forest landscape restoration (FLR)strategy. The following three examples ofcash/tree crop systems could easily be com-bined with or connected to diverse homegardens. This can easily be practised in second-ary forest and older fallow areas and, indeed isalready an important practice of rain-forestcolonists in Brazil, Peru, and Nicaragua.

2.2. Tree Crops and ForestRestoration

2.2.1. Rubber in Borneo354

Rubber is one of the principal tree crops forsmallholders in southeast Asia. Despite claimsto the contrary, rubber has actually led toincreased tree cover in some areas of Borneo.This has happened as local farmers move from

an extensive to a more intensive land usesystem. It is also coupled with the entry of thelocal population into a cash economy—rubberis a major cash crop—as well as an increasedgovernment presence and enforcement of leg-islation aimed at controlling forest encroach-ment and a switch from upland to irrigated rice production. Farmers in the cases studiedactively created forests or rubber gardens infallow or secondary forest areas or addedrubber to traditional multistory home gardens.In both situations, the rubber trees are mixedwith fruit trees and other trees that provideeconomic products as well as with spontaneousnatural forest regeneration. These man-madeforests are structurally complex and floristicallydiverse. The overall policy conclusion355 wasthat it was preferable to promote tree or treecrop technologies when the maintenance of aforested landscape was desired.

2.2.2. Cacao in Côte d’Ivoire356

The introduction of cacao, coupled withinfluxes of migrants, has generally led to exten-sive deforestation in Côte d’Ivoire. Morerecently, however, land scarcity and better gov-ernmental enforcement against forest clearinghas led to a change in this trend. Farmers arenow adapting practices that lead to an overallincrease in forest cover, planting grasslands andshrubby fallows with cacao in combination withfruit trees and high value timber trees (loggingcompanies are now turning to valuable trees onolder cacao plantations that were spared duringplantation establishment). Old, unproductive,often shaded cacao plantations are beingreplanted with newer varieties of cacao andintercropped with yams and bananas. Defor-ested areas often pose new challenges tofarmers who are forced to adapt and innovate;new practices can lead to restoration of forestor tree cover.

2.2.3. Shade-Grown Coffee in Central America

Coffee grown under the shade of natural foresttrees or planted trees—often nitrogen-fixing

353 Landauer and Brazil, 1990.354 de Jong, 2001.

355 de Jong, 2001.356 Ruf, 2001.

40. Agroforestry as a Tool for Restoring Forest Landscapes 277

leguminous species—is common throughoutthe coffee-producing areas of the world. As inthe previous examples, these “coffee forests”can be both biologically diverse and diversefrom an economic standpoint as they can becombined with fruit trees and high-valuetimber species. In Central America and Mexico,shade-grown coffee plantations are importanthabitats for migratory birds. They are often asignificant livelihood component of poorfarmers. Proposals are currently being devel-oped to expand these systems and market themfor their environmental services includingwatershed protection, biodiversity benefits, andcarbon sequestration. This type of coffee pro-duction could be an important component of aforest landscape restoration strategy in manyareas.

2.3. Improved Fallow

Improved fallow practices generally involveplanting or directly seeding shrubby legumes inagricultural fields that have lost their soil fertil-ity. Once the cropping cycle is ready to beginagain, these shrubs are usually cut down andtheir biomass incorporated into the soil as“green manure.” In some cases, the practice cancommence in the last season or two of agricul-tural production if farmers retain regenerationof soil-enhancing woody plants in their fieldsduring weeding, or even direct seeding of thesespecies during hoeing or weeding operations.Another variation is that farmers spare a fewwidely spaced trees in their fields at the time ofclearing; these trees contribute to maintainingsoil fertility (and other products and services)during the cropping cycle and provide an imme-diate favourable micro-climate for the estab-lishment of additional woody vegetation oncethe field enters the fallow cycle.

2.3.1. Using Nitrogen Fixing Species Sesbania Sesban and Tephrosia Vogelii in Zambia

Improved fallow systems have been tested andsometimes adopted throughout the tropics.One of the most successful examples is a systemusing the nitrogen-fixing species Sesbaniasesban and Tephrosia vogelii in Zambia. Maize

yields after 2 years of fallow with these speciesapproach those of fully fertilised fields. Thesesame species plus Crotalaria grahamiana alsoproved highly successful in western Kenya,doubling maize yields there.357 Poor householdstend to prefer this technology over the use ofchemical fertilisers. However, the problem offarmers possessing insufficient land to place infallow renders the potential widespread adop-tion of this practice problematic for many areasin the tropics where population growth ratesare high.

Incorporating improved fallow systems inforest landscape restoration initiatives may bechallenging, however. As indicated above, treesand shrubs are usually removed once the crop-ping cycle begins anew.The practice is thus onlya temporary restoration of tree or shrub cover.One possible compromise would be to designatea contiguous shifting agricultural zone within agiven landscape in which some of the land wouldalways be covered by improved fallows. Theseimproved fallow areas would shift from year toyear within the designated zone.

2.4. Hedgerow Intercropping

Like improved fallow, hedgerow intercroppingor alley cropping is a soil fertility maintenanceor restoration practice. It involves establishingpermanent hedgerows of shrubs and smalltrees—often species that fix nitrogen—in agri-cultural fields. The hedgerows are periodicallypruned back and the biomass incorporated intothe soil between them where crops are grown.

Despite promising results of experimentaltrials at many agricultural research stations,the practice has not been widely adopted byfarmers. This stems from two major drawbacks.First, competition between crops and thehedgerow trees and shrubs is often severe, espe-cially for water in semi-arid and subhumidareas. Second, the required periodic pruningrepresents a significant labour input that manysmall farmers cannot afford. Insecure landtenure, access to land and credit, and a focus byextension agents on soil conservation ratherthan economic returns are other often prob-lematic issues that limit adoption.

357 Place et al, 2003.

278 T.K. Erdmann

2.4.1. Potential Adverse Impacts

There are some risks associated with wide-spread adoption in a given landscape of the examples outlined above. The first one isthat the agroforestry practices become too successful from an economic point of view and attract human migration to the landscape.Increased immigration could subsequentlycause increased clearing of natural forest.Second, some of the exotic species used in thesepractices may become weeds and displacenative woody species. This would likely have a negative impact on the landscape’s natural biodiversity.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Rapid and Participatory Rural Appraisals

The rapid or participatory rural appraisal(R/PRA) method is now widely accepted andpractised in rural development work. Ingeneral, it is a fairly quick and very usefulmeans of gathering information on and engag-ing stakeholders. It is particularly appropriatefor local communities. The method can be tailored to a wider variety of subjects. It usuallyconsists of semistructured interviews that canbe conducted with large, mixed groups orsmaller, more homogeneous subgroups. In thecontext of restoration, R/PRAs can be used tounderstand local natural resource use, espe-cially in relation to natural forests. They canalso be critical tools for obtaining informationon agricultural practices and the associated calendar of agricultural activities. It is com-mon during R/PRAs to carry out a transect—walking across the landscape—noting pertinentinformation along the way and later assemblinga visual summary of what was encountered.Similarly, participatory mapping exercises arecommonly employed. Most importantly, R/PRAs can be used as a starting point for engag-ing stakeholders living in the landscape in question. After an analysis of problems asso-ciated with natural resource use, one can con-duct a participatory brainstorming session on

potential solutions to these problems. Restora-tion activities will often be proposed at thispoint.

3.2. Livelihoods’ Analysis

Much of the following information is para-phrased from the Livelihoods Connect Website358 developed by the U.K. Department forInternational Development and the Institute ofDevelopment Studies. Livelihoods’ analysis is apeople-centred approach aimed at eliminatingpoverty. This approach is important for anyforest landscape restoration initiative but par-ticularly in those landscapes where agricultureis a major land use—after all, it is people whopractise farming. Analysis is based on a sus-tainable livelihoods framework that includes anexamination of assets (human, natural, finan-cial, social, and physical capital), vulnerability,and how livelihood strategies can transformstructures and processes. Besides being people-centred and always considering sustainability,the approach utilises other core concepts:dynamism, holism, macro–micro links, flexibil-ity, and building upon strengths rather thanneeds. The approach also calls for a multidisci-plinary team that covers environmental, eco-nomic, social, and governance aspects. Manytools can be used in livelihoods’ analysis includ-ing R/PRAs. Other important tools cited in theliterature include gender, macroeconomic andstakeholder analyses, as well as governanceassessment.

3.3. Agroforestry Technologies forForest Landscape Restoration

As seen in the examples in the preceding sec-tions, there are a number of agroforestry prac-tices or technologies that can be incorporatedinto restoration initiatives. These fall into threemain categories:

• Technologies for restoring and maintainingsoil fertility (e.g., improved fallows, hedgerowintercropping)

• Technologies for soil conservation (e.g., hed-gerow intercropping on slopes, windbreaks)

358 www.livelihoods.org.

40. Agroforestry as a Tool for Restoring Forest Landscapes 279

• Cash crop technologies for income genera-tion (e.g., home gardens)

The first two practices use trees and shrubsto provide essential agricultural services, whilethe third is more directly linked to maintainingand improving human well-being. Most of thetechnologies have been briefly described above.

4. Future Needs

Priorities for the future include:

• Negotiating land use trade-offs between agri-culture and forests: One of the key, potentialstumbling blocks in implementing forestrestoration in landscapes where farming is a major land use is negotiating trade-offsbetween agriculture and forests. The successof these negotiations will be a critical deter-minant of stakeholder engagement and willultimately dictate the success of the restora-tion initiative. In general, conservation prac-titioners have little or no experience in landuse planning and stakeholder negotiations(also see more on this in “Negotiations andConflict Management”). It is thus critical thatguidance and training are provided in thisarea. It is also important to promote part-nerships between conservation entities andthose dealing with livelihood and develop-ment concerns.

• Propagation of indigenous tree species:Incorporating indigenous tree species intoagroforestry systems can make any forestlandscape restoration initiative more “biodi-versity friendly” while at the same time pro-viding goods and services desired by localfarmers. Unfortunately, the biology of manyof these species is little known or understood.Some basic, applied research may be neededto ascertain the most appropriate propaga-tion techniques. The inclusion of thesespecies in agroforestry systems is analogousto the domestication process; much has beenwritten on this subject and this can presum-ably provide the foundation for guidance forrestoration practitioners on this subject.

References

de Jong, W. 2001. The impact of rubber on the forestlandscape in Borneo. In: Angelsen, A., andKaimowitz, D. eds. Agricultural Technologies and Tropical Deforestation. CAB International,Wallingford and New York, pp. 367–381.

Landauer, K., and Brazil, M. eds. 1990. TropicalHome Gardens. United Nations University,Tokyo.

Nair, P.K.R. 1993. An Introduction to Agroforestry.Kluwer, Dordrecht, Boston and London.

Place, F., Franzel, S., Noordin, Q., and Jama, B.2003. Improved fallows in Kenya: history, farmerpractice and impacts. Paper presented at theInWEnt, IFPRI, NEPAD and CTA conference,“Successes in African Agriculture,” Pretoria,South Africa.

Ruf, F. 2001. Tree crops as deforestation and refor-estation agents: the case of cocoa in Côte d’Ivoireand Sulawesi. In: Angelsen, A., and Kaimowitz, D.eds.Agricultural Technologies and Tropical Defor-estation. CAB International,Wallingford and NewYork, pp. 291–315.

Additional Reading

Angelsen, A., and Kaimowitz, D. eds. 2001.Agricultural Technologies and Tropical Deforesta-tion. CAB International, Wallingford and NewYork.

Elevitch, C.R. ed. 2004. The Overstory Book: Culti-vating Connections with Trees. Permanent Agri-culture Resources, Holualoa, Hawaii.

Gladwin, C., Peterson, J., and Uttaro, R. 2002. Agro-forestry innovations in Africa: can they improvesoil fertility on women farmers’ fields? AfricanStudies Quarterly 6(1&2).

McNeely, J.A., and Scherr, S.J. 2003. Ecoagriculture:Strategies to Feed the World and Save Wild Bio-diversity. Island Press, Washington, USA, Covelo,California.

Schroth, G., da Fonseca, G.A.B., Harvey, C.A.,Gascon, C.Vasconcelos, H.L., and Izac,A.M.N. eds.2004. Agroforestry and Biodiversity Conservationin Tropical Landscapes. Island Press, Washington,Covelo, London.

Young, A. 1989. Agroforestry for Soil Conservation.CAB International, Oxford, UK.

Part DAddressing Specific Aspects of

Forest Restoration

Section XIIRestoration of Different Forest Types

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Vast expanses of the Earth’s warm regions—perhaps 40 to 45 percent of all intertropicallands—were once covered with tropical dryforests (TDF).359 These areas included theleeward coastal plains of tropical America andMadagascar, and many (or even most) islandsof the Caribbean, the Pacific and the IndianOceans, as well as many inland regions ofAfrica, Asia, and Australia. Today, TDFs are

deeply, and perhaps irreversibly, transformed.Only 1 to 2 percent of the original (prehuman)area remains in a relatively intact and ecologi-cally healthy condition. The remainder are sofragmented and subject to species’ loss, habitatchange, and genetic erosion that they must beconsidered in imminent danger of extinction.

1.1. Characteristics and Biological Wealth

Reflecting the very wide range of geologicalsubstrates on which they occur and the variable,unpredictable climate to which they are subject,TDFs harbour an astonishing variety of plants and animals that are remarkable in their structure, ecophysiology, chemistry, andecology. They also show exceptionally highrates of endemism in all major groups of organ-isms. Sadly, however, the ecological importanceand conservation value of TDFs only began tobe recognised in the last 10 to 15 years, that is,much later than for tropical humid forests.

Tropical dry forests are characterised by continuous tree cover and a multitiered canopy.They also present a unique set of selectiveforces that have driven the evolution of aremarkable array of life forms. Unpredictableperiods of sometimes severe water stress,followed by sudden and often spectacularincreases in rainfall, lead to pulses in the availability of water, energy, and nutrients toplants and animals alike. This combination ofinterannual variation and unpredictability inresources, in areas where temperatures never

41Restoring Dry Tropical ForestsJames Aronson, Daniel Vallauri, Tanguy Jaffré, and Porter P. Lowry II

Key Points to Retain

Dry tropical forests have been overexploitedby humans, and little remains now of thisbiologically rich and unique ecosystem.

There are a number of valid reasons torestore tropical dry forests, including theirrates of endemism, their potential to yieldmedicines, aromatic herbs, and foods, recre-ational reasons, their genetic uniqueness, andtheir potential adaptability to climatechange.

Case studies show that restoration of tropical dry forests in a landscape context,although a difficult undertaking, is highlypossible and necessary.

285

359 Bullock et al, 1995.

286 J. Aronson et al

drop below freezing, has catalysed the evolu-tion of impressive arrays of deciduous, semide-ciduous, and evergreen trees, shrubs, and lianas,with very diverse chemistry, life forms, andreproductive systems. We speak of arrays in theplural because virtually every island, peninsula,or archipelago with TDF has its own unique setof species, many of which are locally endemic.Given the advanced fragmentation they havesuffered, each surviving TDF communityshould be considered as a unique entity of thehighest possible conservation value.

1.2. Attractiveness to People andIts Consequences

Due to their seasonality, gentle topographicrelief, relatively rich soils, and proximity to tropical coasts where abundant food and watersources were available, TDFs attracted humansettlers and hunters from very early times.Theirrich and varied mineral deposits drew entrepre-neurs and industrialists as well. As a result, thetransformation and degradation of these forestsoften has gone on for long periods of time.

Prior to the onset of major human impact,TDFs were rich in tall canopy and emergenttrees of great value for their dense, hard, andoften beautiful and fragrant wood, such as San-dalwood (Santalum album). These were selec-tively harvested for local construction and,later, for international timber markets. Onlyrelatively few people, rarely from the local com-munity, benefited as a rule.360

Once the tree canopy giants were removed,the TDFs were usually subjected to progressiveor wholesale cycles of transformation for cattlegrazing or, more rarely, farmland or extractiveproduction of fuel wood and charcoal (e.g.,in southwest Madagascar, see below). Thisprocess—dating mostly from the late 1800s—often consisted of repeated burning and clear-ing until there remained little or none of theoriginal assemblages of woody plants and soil-borne seed banks. Faunal and microbial biotaalso changed as a consequence.

Nowadays, TDF fragments and adjacentareas are mostly used for extensive livestock

grazing of limited economic value or biodiver-sity interest. In some areas, the surviving TDFsnear cities are disappearing to make way forcoastal hotel complexes and unplanned urbansprawl. In the few places where some TDFremains but is neither protected nor currentlysought after for “development,”TDF fragmentsare still subject to selective logging for theirslow-growing but often exceedingly valuabletimber [e.g., Cordia, mahogany, teak, sandal-wood, and yellow wood (Podocarpus spp.)].This short-sighted exploitation of the mostvaluable remaining trees constitutes a flagrantexample of “artificial negative selection” which,in TDF and other endangered forests, surelyshould be controlled and re-legislated, or betteryet halted altogether until natural regenerationor active restoration have had some time topermit forest recovery.

1.3. Reasons to Restore

It must be recognised, however, that whatremains of TDF today are not especially attrac-tive to most people, and only rarely do theycapture the attention of tourists. Their lowannual productivity makes TDF of minor inter-est to foresters or farmers. Therefore, lobbyingfor their conservation, and, more so still, theirrestoration, is problematic. However, biodiver-sity criteria alone more than justify the need forgreater efforts, especially at the landscape andecoregional scales. What’s more, the economicperspectives for restored tropical dry forestsare by no means negligible, even if the mostvaluable timber trees and game animals have inmost cases long ago been removed.

Many plants in tropical dry forests are knownto be of value for nontimber products, includ-ing medicines, biopharmaceuticals, food prod-ucts, potential sources for crop improvement(e.g., an endemic wild rice species in New Caledonia), perfumes, cosmetics, etc. Also,TDFs have significant economic value if man-aged under multipurpose, multiuser forestryapproaches, including the incorporation ofinnovative eco- and cultural tourism. Restora-tion should clearly play a major role in bothscenarios, with community involvement builtinto these programmes.360 Roth, 2001.

41. Restoring Dry Tropical Forests 287

Additionally, in urban or peri-urban zones,like those of Grande Terre, New Caledonia,restoration of native TDF is the obvious and most cost-effective approach to meetinggrowing demands for amenity plantings andgreen areas. The maintenance costs of climati-cally adapted ecosystems would surely be lessthan for conventional horticultural plantationsof exotic species—and lawn grass!—and theaesthetic result could be well superior. Suchgarden forests, albeit confined to urban parks,roadside planting areas, and the like, could be a useful complement to educational efforts,and serve as gene banks for extra-urban or peri-urban restoration projects, where hectaresof contiguous forest, or corridors among TDF fragments, are in need of seed and germplasm.

Finally, with global warming and an overalltrend toward drying in terrestrial systems, theplants, microorganisms and animals of tropicaldry forests represent a wealth of genetic cap-ital that should not be underestimated. Theseorganisms can be anticipated to respond morereadily to warming and desertification on aglobal scale than those adapted to humid trop-ical forests. Accordingly, they merit specialattention from managers and engineers as wellas public policy decision makers.

2. Examples

2.1. Area de ConservaciónGuanacaste, Costa Rica

An extensive and innovative landscape-scalerestoration and management project has beenunderway in Guanacaste, northern Costa Rica, since 1985, under the direction of DanJanzen.361 This 110,000 hectare conservationarea began as Santa Rosa National Park, andthrough the efforts of Janzen and successive,far-sighted Costa Rican governments, was gradually increased to a landscape scale thatincludes not only TDF but also wet forest andmontane cloud forest, as well as 45,000 hectaresof off-shore marine reserve, and integrates the

people who live in the area.This effort may wellbe unique, and is certainly of considerable rel-evance and importance to worldwide efforts atTDF conservation. The key points are that eco-logical management, conservation, and restora-tion are approached conjointly and at a reallandscape scale. Restoration is seen as biocul-tural and involves the development of highlyinnovative education activities and ecologicaleconomics.

2.2. New Caledonia (French Pacific Territory)

Following early initiatives of one of the authors(Jaffré), and his colleagues B. Suprin and J.-M.Veillon (as well as the Services Provinciaux del’Environnement), attention began to growabout 15 years ago to the plight of the dwin-dling TDFs on the western coast of the largestisland of New Caledonia—la Grande Terre.In 1998, WWF, the global conservation organi-sation, launched an effort to organise a consortium of nongovernmental organisations(NGOs), research institutions, and local gov-ernment agencies to establish a multifacetedTDF programme in the context of the WWFforest landscape restoration programme.Underway since 2001, this programme hasalready carried out much of the preliminaryreconnaissance and mapping of the many scat-tered TDF fragments, and has conducted valu-able ecological, silvicultural, and horticulturalstudies for experimental restoration effortsslated to begin in 2005. At the time of thiswriting, a major effort is underway to secure thepossibility of enabling the restoration of a sig-nificant pilot landscape in Gouaro Deva, one ofthe few remaining sites containing a relativelylarge area (450 hectares) of forest with thepotential to conserve a representative piece ofthe formerly widespread dry tropical forests on Grande Terre. The prospects for an integrated protect, manage, and restore pilotproject remain to be worked out with provin-cial and national policies, decision makers and,of course, local stakeholders.

Apart from the challenges of restoring a frag-mented and degraded forest landscape, TDFseverywhere are facing very high and increasing361 Janzen, 2002.

288 J. Aronson et al

pressures due to invasive species (ants, plants,deer, etc.), fire, and overgrazing. New Caledo-nia has perhaps the most endangered TDFs inthe world,362 which face all these threats andmore. New Caledonia is one of the highest pri-ority conservation hot spots in the world, witha very rich and highly endemic biota,363 morethan justifying the considerable effort beingmade to achieve lasting protection.

2.3. Western Madagascar

Together with many others NGOs, WWF hascalled attention to the alarming state and press-ing need to initiate protect, manage, and restoreefforts for what is left of TDFs in westernMadagascar. Unlike New Caledonia and Costa Rica, relatively larges tracts still remainin Madagascar, from the Baobab-dominatedforests north of Tuléar to the spiny forests in theextreme southwest. However, centuries-oldBaobabs and all their extraordinary andendemic cohorts are increasingly being cut andcleared to make way for housing and hotels,while the other-worldly and unique Didier-aeaceae/tree Euphorb-dominated spiny forestis being cut and transformed into charcoal bypoverty-stricken people entirely dependent onlocal resources.

In this kind of socioeconomic context, thechallenge of protecting and restoring TDF isintimately linked to the lives and livelihoods ofthe neighbouring human populations, who arethe ones primarily impacting the environment.While the Malagasy government has strength-ened its commitment to biodiversity conserva-tion, its capacity to implement policy through“normal” administrative measures is verylimited in isolated rural areas. Alternatives arerequired that make use of community-basedconservation approaches in which naturalresource management is tightly linked to local(traditional) economic and land tenure systemsand to youth education aimed at instilling abasic understanding of the short- and long-termimportance of natural ecosystems.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Monitoring Pressures

Controlling the pressures caused by livestock,invasive species, fire or land conversion is itselfa restoration tool. For example, in northwesternArgentina, an innovative landowner andrancher named Carlos Saravia Toleda hasdeveloped techniques for controlled cattlegrazing that actively favour reintroduction ofselected native multipurpose trees, such as Cae-salpinia paraguariensis, which has the specialfeature of flowering and fruiting over very long periods of the year, offering abundant,nutritious feed for livestock, while also provid-ing habitat for birds, rodents, and othermammals, and a favourable canopy for theautogenic reestablishment of other trees andshrubs.

Passive control methods are usually prefer-able (see below), but in extreme cases directaction may be necessary, as in the volunteer-based initiative to protect TDF on the island ofHawaii. In other situations, costly tools such asfences or enclosures are required, for examplein New Caledonia, where introduced deer otherwise prevent any regeneration of nativedry forest species.

3.2. Promoting Natural Dynamics

Relatively inexpensive, passive restorationtechniques are best suited to forests where,after controlling or limiting the sources ofdegradation, ecosystem resilience is high. Thisis the case in some overgrazed or severely burntecosystems, where the exclusion or completerestriction of livestock grazing or fire forseveral years is sometimes sufficient to promoteself-recovery. Because plantations, especially indry conditions, require considerable technicaland financial investment, it is preferable toattempt passive restoration, evaluating itseffectiveness and benefiting from innovativetechniques developed. Doing so, however,requires knowledge of the functional ecology of tropical dry forests, and especially of theanimals that disperse seeds of the main trees

362 Gillespie and Jaffré, 2003.363 Lowry et al, 2004.

41. Restoring Dry Tropical Forests 289

(birds, bats, etc.). Passive restoration has, forexample, been used effectively in Costa Rica.

3.3. Active Restoration: ImprovedPlanting Methods

In many instances restoration requires theintroduction of woody species through plant-ing, especially of the common and frameworkspecies of the original ecosystem, but also ofrare or endangered species. The “Frameworkspecies” approach developed in Queensland,Australia, and applied with success in northernThailand tropical dry forests364 seems highlypertinent. Using this approach, 20 to 30 key treespecies are selected that together seem to formthe structural framework of the forest to berestored. Nursery work on germination andpropagation is then required, followed byexperimental plantations involving the selec-tion and evaluation of individual species, mix-tures of species, or presumed functional groups.This method is a large improvement on the clas-sical approach of old forestry or revegetationefforts where, typically, only two or three fast-growing tree species are used. In long-termprojects, the goal will often be to create islandsor nuclei of framework trees with animal-dispersed propagules to catalyze the return ofmammals, birds, and other mobile dispersers tothe area.

Tree planting in seasonally dry areas withunpredictable rainfall obliges foresters, landowners, and restorationists to take into consid-eration the perennial risk of drought. Thisunderscores the importance of selecting theright species, producing good-quality nurserystock, and carefully timing and effecting out-planting. In some situations direct seeding ofdry or pregerminated propagules should beattempted. Inoculation with appropriate strainsof rhizobia and/or mycorrhizae may also beadvantageous or even necessary.

As mentioned, TDFs are characterised byvery high levels of spatial heterogeneity, whichhas great impact on microscale differences inthe availability of water, nutrients, and energy.

Planting in straight lines or prepared terraces isthus not necessarily the best way to proceed.

3.4. Soil Fertility and Amendments

Soils of badly degraded TDFs are frequentlypoor in organic matter and low in phosphorusavailability. Thus, the adjustment and/or addi-tion of organic or inorganic components is frequently essential to achieving plant estab-lishment, even though the original soils mayhave been very rich.

4. Future Needs

The ecological economic valuation of dry trop-ical forests has rarely been evoked, let aloneattempted. This represents a clear goal for thenear future.

A better understanding of TDF biodiversityand ecosystem function is needed to reachmeaningful restoration objectives. From earlytimes, humans selectively removed the tallest,straightest, hardest trees for use in boat build-ing, housing, and other activities that requiredense, relatively long-lasting timber. A clearindication of the past removal of entirecanopies may be found in the presence ofremarkable numbers and diversity of lianas andvines representing a broad range of families,which clearly evolved to climb to the tops oftrees taller than anything we see today. Theremnant tropical dry forests we are now leftwith are truncated, so to speak, and restora-tionists must take this into account when settingstructural, functional, and compositional objectives.

References

Blakesley, D., Elliot, S., Kuarak, C., Navakitbumrung,P., Zangkum, S., and Anusarnsunthorn, V. 2002.Propagating framework tree species to restoreseasonally dry tropical forest: implications of sea-sonal seed dispersal and dormancy. Forest Ecologyand Management 164:31–38.

Bullock, S.H., Mooney, H.A., and Medina, E. eds.1995. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, UK.364 Blakesley et al, 2002.

290 J. Aronson et al

Gillespie T.G., and Jaffré, T. 2003. Tropical dry forestin New Caledonia. Biodiversity and Conservation12:1687–1697.

Janzen, D.H. 2002. Tropical dry forest: Area de Con-servación Guanacaste, northwestern Costa Rica.In: Perrow, M., and Davy, A. eds. Handbook ofEcological Restoration,Vol. 2 Restoration in Prac-tise. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK,pp. 559–583.

Lowry, P.P., II, Munzinger, J., Bouchet, P., Géraux, H.,Bauer, A., Langrand, O., and Mittermeier, R.A.2004. New Caledonia. In: Mittermeier, R.A.,Robles Vil, P., Hoffman, M., Pilgrim, J., Brooks, T.,Mittermeier, C.G., Lamoreux, J.L., and da Fonseca,G.A.B. eds. Hotspots Revisited: Earth’s Biologi-cally Richest and Most Threatened Ecoregions (inpress).

Roth, L.C. 2001. Subsistence Farmers and PerverseProtection of Tropical Dry Forest. Journal ofForestry 99:20–27.

Additional Reading

Aronson, J., and Saravia Toledo, C. 1992. Caesalpiniaparaguariensis: forage tree for all seasons. Eco-nomic Botany 46:121–132.

Dirzo, R. 2001. Forest ecosystems functioning,threats and value: Mexico as a case study. In:

Chichilnisky, G., Daily, G.C., Ehrlich, P., Heal, G.,and Miller, J. eds. Managing Human-DominatedEcosystems. Monographs in Systematic Botanyfrom the Missouri Botanical Garden, vol. 84. Mis-souri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, MO, pp.47–64.

Elliot, S., Navakitbumrung, P., Kuarak, C., Zangkum,S., Anusarnsunthorn, V., and Blakesley, D. 2003.Selecting framework tree species to restore sea-sonally dry tropical forest in northern Thailandbased on field performance. Forest Ecology andManagement 184:177–191.

Gordon, J.E., Hawthorne, W.D., Reyes-Garcia, A.,Sandoval, G., and Barrance, A.J. 2004. Assessinglandscapes: a case study of tree and shrub diver-sity in the seasonally dry forest of Oaxaca, Mexicoand southern Honduras. Biological Conservation117:429–442.

Janzen, D.H. 1988. Tropical dry forests: the mostendangered major tropical ecosystem. In: Wilson,E.O. ed. Biodiversity. National Academy Press,Washington, DC, pp. 130–137.

Lerdau, M., Whitbeck, J., and Hollbrook, N.M. 1991.Tropical deciduous forest: death of a biome.Trendsin Ecology and Evolution 6:201–202.

Murphy, P.G., and Lugo, A.E. 1986. Ecology of trop-ical dry forest. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 17:67–88.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Degraded tropical landscapes now cover largeareas. The nature and extent of these areasvaries considerably, with some being so

degraded that they have crossed an ecologicalthreshold and been transformed into grass-lands. Some of these grasslands are extensiveand relatively homogeneous, and contain onlya few remnant patches of undisturbed woodyvegetation. Other tropical moist forest areashave been less disturbed but have lost theirclosed canopies and much of their previousstructure and biological diversity. Manydegraded landscapes now contain a mosaic of grassland and degraded forest together with patches of intact remnant forest. Thesedegraded lands also differ in the extent towhich they are occupied and used by humanpopulations. Some are so degraded that onlysmall human populations remain, while othersare still heavily used by large numbers offarmers. These differences mean there are nosimple prescriptions for restoring degradedtropical landscapes. The approach used in anylocation must take account of both the ecolog-ical and social circumstances present.

Of course, the same could be said of manydegraded lands other than those occupied bytropical moist broad-leaved forests. And tropi-cal forests are usually found in environmentswhere plants grow quickly so that the potentialfor successional development and recovery is relatively rapid. But three particular issuesmake these ecosystems rather more difficult torestore than most. First is the sheer diversity ofplant and animal species usually present inundisturbed tropical moist forests that must beconsidered if forests are to be restored. Second,very little is known about the ecology of most

42Restoring Tropical Moist Broad-Leaf ForestsDavid Lamb

Key Points to Retain

Three issues make tropical moist forestsmore difficult to restore: (1) the sheer diver-sity of plant and animal species that theyusually hold, (2) very little is known aboutthe ecology of most of these species, and (3) the human populations living in mostdegraded tropical landscapes are often poorand with few resources.

Some of the key questions to consider whenrestoring tropical moist forests are: (1) whichspecies to use, (2) where to get the seeds, (3)how to raise the seedlings and establish themin plantations, (4) how to ensure animal andplant diversity, and (5) how to make restora-tion attractive to landowners.

All stakeholders must derive some benefitsif restoration is to succeed.

It is likely to be difficult to restore all theoriginal biodiversity and some more inter-mediate stage may be all that is possible. Ifparticular key species are of interest, theymay need to be restored separately.

291

292 D. Lamb

of these species. Third, the human populationsliving in most degraded tropical landscapes areoften poor and have few resources. Indeed,their poverty may have been part of the reasonthe lands were degraded in the first place. Ifrestoration is to be successful, it must help over-come this rural poverty. This often means com-plete biodiversity restoration is rarely achievedover large areas.

2. Examples

2.1. Restoration via NaturalSuccession

Large areas of tropical forest have developedon old farmland in Puerto Rico following theabandonment of farming on many areas acrossthe island in the 1940s. This succession hasoccurred with little active intervention and rep-resents a major increase in forest cover at littledirect cost. The regenerated forest now has adensity, basal area, above-ground biomass andspecies’ richness similar to that of old-growthforests. However, the species’ composition isdifferent from that in old-growth forests, sug-gesting some intervention will be needed if themissing species are to be recovered.365

2.2. Intensive Restoration After Mining

One of the most intensive ecological restora-tion projects in the humid tropics is that whichtook place after bauxite mining in Brazil. In this case extensive research by the miningcompany had identified the plant and animalspecies present and revealed something of their ecology. Restoration was expensive and involved intensive site preparation (re-spreading topsoil, deep ripping) and replanting.Seedlings of 160 species were established atdensities of around 2500 trees per hactare.Monitoring has also taken place to identifypotential problems. Thirteen years after theproject commenced, most of the original plantspecies are now present at the site and many

wildlife species are beginning to recolonise thearea.366

2.3. Restoration to IncreaseLandscape Linkages

Fragmentation is a common outcome of distur-bance in many tropical areas. If these remnantscan be linked by corridors, it should be possibleto rejoin the isolated populations of plants and wildlife species. Such a corridor has beencreated in north Queensland. In this case thecorridor is 1.5km long and 100m wide. Theboundaries have also been “sealed” with anadditional boundary of dense crowned treespecies to minimise the so-called edge effect.The new forest was created using dense treeseedling plantings (less than 2-m spacing) and involved about 100 tree species. Intensiveweeding meant that canopy closure was rapid.Additional plant species have colonised the sitefrom intact forest at each end of the corridor.367

2.4. Single Species’ PlantationsCatalyse Restoration

Most traditional forest plantations use a singlespecies grown in a monoculture.These are com-monly planted at an original density of around1100 trees per hectare, which means canopyclosure is rapid and weeds are quicklyexcluded. Thereafter, thinning is carried outand the trees are harvested at the end of therotation—commonly about 40 years. If theseplantations are near intact forests they canacquire a significant understorey of native plantspecies. If no thinning is carried out and the plantations remain unlogged, a significantdiversity of plant species may accumulate. Thisis often greater than would have occurred if thesite had remained unplanted (because of thecompetitive abilities of weeds and grasses orbecause of recurrent fires that would have con-tinued to burn the site). Several 60-year-oldmonoculture plantations (conifer and broad-leaved hardwood) in northern Australia have

365 Aide et al, 2000; Zimmerman et al, 2000.

366 Knowles and Parrotta, 1995; Parrotta and Knowles,1999.367 Goosem and Tucker, 1995; Tucker, 2000a,b.

42. Restoring Tropical Moist Broad-Leaf Forests 293

acquired more than 350 species of trees, shrubs,epiphytes, vines, and herbs from nearby intactforest. Some of the trees have now grown up tojoin the canopy layers transforming the mono-culture to a complex species-rich community. Itshould be noted, though, that in most mono-specific plantations, active management forproduction prevents this from happening.368

2.5. Using High-Value Native Species

Malaysia has had a long silvicultural history. Itis perhaps best known for the work carried outon devising silvicultural methods for naturalforests, but significant areas of plantation have also been established. Much early workinvolved plantations of exotic species such aspine or Acacia. But more recently there havebeen a large number of species’ trials toexamine the silviculture of native species whenthese are grown in simple monoculture planta-tions as well as in more complex plantationdesigns.369

2.6. Reforestation in an ExtensivelyCleared Landscape

Large areas of Vietnam have been deforested.Extensive reforestation using mostly exoticspecies of genera such as Eucalyptus andAcacia has been carried out in recent years.Land is now being allocated to farmers andmany are interested in reforestation. Very fewof these farmers are interested in restorationbecause they cannot afford to be.This is despiteVietnam being a biodiversity-rich country.What is more likely to occur is that the land-scape will evolve as a mosaic of agriculturalland and small plantations. Many of these plan-tations will be composed of native species andsome will contain simple mixtures of two orthree species. The identity of these will varyfrom site to site. This means site diversity willremain modest, although landscape diversitywill be enhanced. Opportunities for morespecies-rich plantations and more complex

forms of silviculture may develop in the futureas the standard of living increases, and arebeing tested in many rural areas withinVietnam.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Choosing a Method for Restoration

A variety of approaches have been used torestore tropical moist broad-leaved forests, andsome of these are summarised in “Overview ofTechnical approaches to Restoring Tree Coverat the Site Level.” Where funds are limited andregrowth forests are widespread it is probablymore appropriate simply to protect these sec-ondary forests from further disturbances andallow successional development to take place.Under most situations species-rich and struc-turally complex forests will then develop overtime (see example 2.1 above). These forests will not necessarily regain all of the originalplant or animal species. For example, poorlydispersed large-seeded plant species may beabsent and wildlife with specialised habitatrequirements may not be able to reach theregenerated forest. Determining which, if any,species have not reoccupied a particular siterequires knowledge of the original forest biotaand also necessitates that some form of moni-toring is carried out to determine the extent ofthe recovery process. Once the identity of anymissing species is known, action may be takento attempt to remedy these losses.

Some more active form of intervention willbe needed where regrowth forest is absent orwhere the opportunities for recolonisation are more limited (e.g., because fragments of the original forest are more distant). This mayinvolve an initial planting with a short-lived fastgrowing tree species that shades out weeds andgrasses. These trees can then be underplantedwith specific target species. Alternatively, directplanting of all the target species can be done to initiate restoration. Active intervention likethis requires significant funds, which are usuallyavailable only for purely restoration purposes

368 Keenan et al, 1997.369 Akioka, 1999, Appanah and Weinland, 1993.

294 D. Lamb

under certain conditions (see example 2.3).More commonly, reforestation will be carriedout only where landowners expect to derive a benefit themselves, and in most cases thismeans some form of commercial harvesting willbe required. Active intervention in these cir-cumstances can range over a variety of methodsand may involve enrichment planting ofregrowth forests or some form of mixed-species’plantation establishment. Any biodiversitybenefit from this reforestation will necessarilyrequire the landowner to strike a compromisebetween optimising production and optimisingthe recovery of biodiversity present at that site.Under these circumstances “production” caninvolve timber trees as well as nontimber prod-ucts (e.g., nuts, fruit, etc.) and the plantationsmay involve trees as well as understorey plant-ings of medicinal plants or cash crops. That is,there may be a range of possibilities availablethat offer different degrees of biodiversity gainas well as benefits for stakeholders.

3.2. Some Key Questions to Consider

Irrespective of which form of active interven-tion is used, several key problems commonlyoccur. These follow from the three issuesreferred to initially in the introduction.

3.2.1. Which Species to Use?

Moist tropical forests contain a variety ofspecies and little is usually known about theecology of most of these except for a compara-tive handful that might once have been har-vested for timber. Since tree planting is mostlyundertaken in the expectation of some com-mercial gain there is a tendency to use thosespecies with the highest timber values. Butthese indigenous species often have particularsite requirements and many are comparativelyslow-growing.This means that plantations usingthese species have often failed—especiallywhen the lands available for reforestation arepoorer quality lands or where weeds are dom-inant. This has increasingly led plantation man-agers to use a relatively small number of fastergrowing and more tolerant exotic species such

as pines, eucalypts, and Acacia that can growwell at these poorer sites. These offer produc-tion benefits but they contribute few ecologicalservices. The reason for this choice is becausemanagers are often unaware of the full range ofoptions available to them or because they havebeen unable or unwilling to risk the variousalternatives.

3.2.2. Where to Get Seed?

It is often difficult to get seed for many tropi-cal forest species. Most species are usuallypresent as scattered, isolated trees in relativelysparse populations, and most species have irregular fruiting patterns. Many also produce seed for only a short period and this seed can be difficult to store. This means it can behard to collect seed from natural forests forlarge-scale plantings. But it may be even moredifficult to collect seed from an adequatenumber of parent trees in heavily degradedlandscapes.

3.2.3. How to Raise Seedlings and Establish These in Plantations?

Some species germinate readily and quicklyreach a size suitable for planting. But otherspecies germinate irregularly or need up to ayear in a nursery before they can be planted inthe field. Some species also depend on spe-cialised mycorrhiza which may have been lostfrom the field when soil fertility has beendepleted and sites have been degraded. Thismeans that care needs to be taken to inoculatethese species in nurseries prior to planting.In short, different species require differentforms of nursery treatment in the nursery.This makes it difficult to raise seedlings of,say, 100 species to plant together in the field on a particular planting date. Species also differin their capacity to become established in thefield and tolerate acid soils, low nutrient levels,or full sunlight. Optimal conditions for onespecies may be suboptimal for another. Unfor-tunately, little is known about the attributes and tolerances of most moist tropical forestspecies.

42. Restoring Tropical Moist Broad-Leaf Forests 295

3.2.4. How to Make Large-Scale Tree Planting Attractive to Land Managers?

Intensive restoration using large numbers ofspecies to reestablish plant biodiversity rapidlyover a large area is an expensive undertaking.Unless there is some kind of early financialreturn relatively few landowners are likely tobe able to afford to use this approach. On theother hand, some individuals or communitiesmay take the view that financial gains are lessimportant than the provision of a range offorest services. In such cases reforestation thatprovides a production benefit whilst also gen-erating some biodiversity or functional gainmay be more attractive. The question in thesecircumstances may then be what kind of a pro-duction-biodiversity trade-off to make. Some ofthe site-based alternatives are outlined in thechapter on interventions (cited above), and thechoice of which of these to use will depend onboth ecological and socioeconomic circum-stances.The most likely solution will be that thelandscape will contain a mosaic of approaches,with some areas being devoted to intensive pro-duction while others such as riverine areas orsteep slopes will be reforested largely for pro-tection or biodiversity benefits.

3.2.5. How to Foster Animal as Well as Plant Diversity

It is commonly assumed that many wildlifespecies will recolonise reforested areas oncesuccessional development has generated suffi-cient habitat complexity. While this may bebroadly true, many species require certainminimum areas to be reforested before theyrecolonise, and particular species sometimeshave specialised habitat or resource require-ments. Such species will require more detailedstudy before any restoration programme is suc-cessful. Of course, a more general prerequisiteis that any wildlife remaining in undisturbedforest remnants in the region are able to reachthe newly reforested areas.That is, reforestationshould seek to provide linkages across the land-scape to allow wildlife to move from residualforest areas into the newly restored forests.

4. Future Needs

There are several key issues that commonlylimit the restoration of tropical moist forests:

4.1. Silviculture and Ecology of KeyStructuring Species

There is little knowledge of the ecology ofmany of the key species needed to initiate suc-cessional development in tropical forests. Thisincludes knowledge of fruiting and seedingphenology as well as information on where toobtain seed of these species, how to store thisseed, how to raise seedlings, and how to estab-lish these seedlings in the field.

4.2. Species-Site Relationships

There is often surprisingly little knowledge ofthe distribution patterns and site requirementsof most tropical tree species. This problem isoften even more acute because many sites atwhich a particular species was once found arenow degraded in some way, for example, theyhave suffered a decline in soil fertility. This maymean a two-stage approach is needed in whichthe first plantings (e.g., a nitrogen-fixingspecies) modify the sites and make them moresuitable for the target species. The preferredspecies might then be introduced as an under-planting or after the first forest has been har-vested and removed (thereby paying for thecost of rehabilitation).

4.3. Methods of EnrichingDegraded or Regrowth Forests

There are increasing areas of degraded orregrowth forests (regenerating after some dis-turbance such as agriculture or severe logging).These have lower levels of plant and animalbiodiversity than the original forest. They oftenhave a reduced ability to supply goods and serv-ices to communities living nearby. One way ofovercoming both these problems is to acceler-ate their recovery by enriching these forestswith certain target species (e.g., endangered orrare species; species providing commerciallyattractive nontimber forest products). But

296 D. Lamb

methods for doing this are often expensive orinefficient, and better, more effective means areneeded.

4.4. Overcoming Impediments toFarm Forestry

Farm forestry is one means by which significantareas of land might be reforested and ruralpoverty might be tackled. Many farmers areinterested in planting trees on land not neededfor food production or other purposes. Butthese farmers may be prevented from doing sobecause of land tenure arrangements, financialconstraints, limits on harvesting, or a lack ofknowledge about the species best suited to thesites they have available. Such species must beecologically appropriate and financially suit-able. The impediments to farm forestry areoften specific to particular sites and so will needspecific solutions. A general principle, however,is that beneficiaries of reforestation (down-stream land users, catchment authorities,conservation authorities, etc.) should assistlandowners with the costs of reforestation.

4.5. Better Market Information for Farmers

Isolated traditional farming communitiesdevelop agricultural and silvicultural systemsappropriate for their particular circumstances.But the arrival of roads and a cash economyusually means a major change is needed in theway they manage their crops and land. In manycases they become beholden to middlemen ortimber buyers so that farming activities arecarried out to suit these players rather than the farming community itself. As the areas ofnatural forests decline, better information isneeded on the real value of certain tree cropsand, potentially, the emerging market for eco-logical services.

References

Aide,T.M., Zimmerman, J.K., Pascarella, J.B., Rivera,L., and Marcano-Vega, H. 2000. Forest regenera-tion in a chronosequence of tropical abandoned

pastures: implications for restoration ecology.Restoration Ecology 8:328–338.

Akioka, J. 1999. The Multi-Storied Forest Manage-ment Project in Malaysia. Forest Department,Peninsular Malaysia, Perak State ForestryDepartment, Japan International CooperationAgency.

Appanah, S., and Weinland, G. 1993. Planting qualitytimber trees in Peninisular Malaysia: a Review.Malayan Forest record No. 38. Forest ResearchInstitute of Malaysia, Kepong, Malaysia.

Goosem, S., and Tucker, N. 1995. Repairing the rainforest: theory and practice of rainforest re-establishment in north Queenslands Wet Tropics.Wet Tropics Management Authority, Cairns,Australia.

Keenan, R., Lamb, D., Woldring, O., Irvine, A., andJensen, R. 1997. Restoration of plant diversity ben-eath tropical tree plantations in northern Australia.Forest Ecology and Management 99:117–132.

Knowles, O.H., and Parrotta, J. 1995. Amazonianforest restoration: an innovative system for nativespecies selection based on phenological data andperformance indices. Commonwealth ForestryReview 74:230–243.

Parrotta, J., and Knowles, H. 1999. Restoration of tropical moist forests on bauxite mined lands in the Brazillian Amazon. Restoration Ecology7:103–116.

Tucker, N. 2000a. Wildlife colonization of restoredtropical lands: what can it do, how can we hastenit and what can we expect? In Elliott, S., Kerby, J.,Blakesley, D., Hardwick, K., Woods, K., andAnusarnsunthorn, V., eds. Forest Restoration for Wildlife Conservation. International TropicalTimbers Organisation and Forest RestorationResearch Unit, University of Chiang Mai,Thailand, pp. 279–295.

Tucker, N. 2000b. Linkage restoration: interpretingfragmentation theory for the design of rainforestlinkage in the humid wet tropics of north-eastQueensland. Ecological Management andRestoration 1:35–41.

Zimmerman, J., Pascarella, J., and Aide, T. 2000.Barriers to forest regeneration in an abandonedpasture in Puerto Rica. Restoration Ecology8:350–360.

Additional Reading

Banerjee, A. 1995. Rehabilitation of DegradedForests in Asia. World Bank Technical Paper No.270. World Bank, Washington, DC.

42. Restoring Tropical Moist Broad-Leaf Forests 297

International Tropical Timbers Organisation 2002.ITTO Guidelines for the restoration, managementand rehabilitation of degraded and secondarytropical forests. ITTO Policy Development SeriesNo. 13. Yokohama, Japan.

Krishnapillay, B., ed. 2002. A Manual for Forest Plantation Establishment in Malaysia. Malayan

Forest Records No. 45. Forest Research Institute,Malaysia.

Lamb, D. 1998. Large-scale ecological restoration ofdegraded tropical forest land: the potential role oftimber plantations. Restoration Ecology 6:271–279.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Main Characteristics ofTropical Montane Forests

Drastic changes in elevation, precipitation, anddirection of prevailing winds across small alti-tudinal ranges generate high levels of species’and habitat diversity in tropical montane for-ests. Also, because of their cool ambient tem-peratures, tropical montane forests serve as

refugia of relict tree populations that are moretypical of temperate latitudes. Moreover, tropi-cal montane forests are home to unique verte-brate fauna—for example, mountain gorillas(Gorilla beringei beringei) in Africa, quetzals(Pharomachrus mocinno) in Central America,and spectacled bears (Tremarctos ornatus) inSouth America—and serve as elevational corri-dors for many bird species during times of sea-sonal food scarcity.Tropical montane forests aresometimes found as isolated patches within amatrix of either contrasting climate conditions(e.g., surrounded by desert vegetation such as innorthwestern Venezuela) or vegetation types(e.g., surrounded by pine-oak forest in Mexico),which adds to their conservation value.

Other key characteristics of tropical montaneforests are steep slopes with associated thin,infertile soils, chronic exposure to strong winds,low levels of solar radiation, and reduced ratesof organic matter decomposition, all of whichcontribute to overall slow plant growth. From arestoration perspective, this means that recov-ering desired levels of forest structure andcomposition may take longer than in the sur-rounding lowlands.

1.2. Socioeconomic Rationale for Restoring Tropical Montane Forests

Restoration of tropical montane forests canfulfil both economic and conservation objec-tives. Landslides, for example, are a majorsource of damage to roads, dams, and humansettlements in many montane areas. By restor-

43Restoring Tropical Montane ForestsManuel R. Guariguata

Key Points to Retain

Many characteristics of tropical montaneforests make them a unique habitat for bio-diversity, but they also have important eco-nomic and social values such as providingprotection from landslides, and steady andclean water downstream.

Tools and approaches for restoring montaneforests are not very different from thoseused in the lowlands; however, factors thatmay influence the outcome of a given res-toration activity in montane areas are steep,erosion prone slopes, exposure to strongwinds, and slow plant growth rates.

In the context of landscape scale restoration,there is a need to address the ecological andsocial linkages between tropical montaneforests and their surrounding lowlands.

298

43. Restoring Tropical Montane Forests 299

ing forest cover in deforested, landslide-pronesites, further mass erosion can be minimisedthrough substrate stabilisation. In human-deforested areas, restoration of tropicalmontane forests may also be justified for theprovision of environmental services as theyplay a critical role in the local hydrologicalcycle due to their role in cloud interception,especially in areas that do not receive muchprecipitation. Forest conservation elsewhere,however, may need to be actively linked toforest restoration in the uplands. For example,reduced forest cover in lowland areas couldleave adjacent montane forests with not toomany clouds to intercept.370

1.3. Restoring Montane Forests in the Face of Natural Disturbance

Although suppressing human disturbances suchas fire and uncontrolled grazing is a key initialstrategy of a given restoration initiative, takinginto account the effects of natural disturbanceson forest restoration may also be critical forsuccess. For example, montane forests located inmany tropical islands are usually prone to suf-fering severe hurricane damage as much asthree times per century. In this case,options mayinclude planting tree species with a knownability to resprout after stem breakage, withhigh stem wood density, or with specific archi-tectural features; many palm species, forexample, are known to survive hurricanes verywell. Identification of naturally occurring,landslide-chronic areas may also help to priori-tise or avoid investing in potentially costly res-toration efforts that otherwise might be wasted.

2. Examples

2.1. Mount Kenya371

Mount Kenya is situated in the central high-lands of Kenya. The national park is 715,000hectares and it was gazetted in 1949. The sur-

rounding forest reserves add another 1820km2

of protected area, making Mount Kenya thelargest area of natural forest in the country.

The forest forms a major water catchmentarea from which two of the country’s five riverbasins—the Tana and Ewaso Nyiro—rise, whichtogether supply water to more than a quarterof Kenya’s human population and more thanhalf of its land area.Water users include the fivemain hydroelectric power sources, agriculturalland, pastoralist range lands, and major urbancentres.

Threats to the surrounding forests includeillegal logging, charcoal production, cultivationof bhang, and encroachment. The glaciers onthe mountain are also retreating because ofglobal warming and climate change. A numberof initiatives are now being undertakentogether with communities to address the con-servation and restoration needs of the montaneforest. These are interesting examples of com-munity initiatives of land management, restora-tion and protection of a unique environment inKenya.

2.2. Sierra de las Minas, Guatemala

The Sierra de las Minas in Guatemala containsa biological treasure. At least 885 species ofbirds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles, whichamounts to 70 percent of all the species fromthese groups that are known to exist inGuatemala and neighbouring Belize can befound here. It is also an important tropical genebank of conifers with 17 distinct endemic ever-green species. The area is thus considered anirreplaceable seed resource for reforestationand agroforestry throughout the tropics.

Besides its robust population of diverse floraand fauna, the Sierra de las Minas plays animportant role in providing fresh, clean waterto the many farms and villages in the Polochicand Motagua valleys below. More than 63 per-manent rivers drain the reserve, making it thecountry’s biggest single water resource. Localpeople depend on these small rivers for theiragricultural crops (e.g., melon, tobacco, grapes,citric fruits, tomatoes). Bigger industries, suchas soft drinks, fertiliser and paper-recyclingplants, and hydroelectricity all rely on water

370 Lawton et al, 2001.371 Carlsson and Lambrechts, 1999; Emerton, 1999.

300 M.R. Guariguata

generated at the Río Hondo station. A drop of40 percent in water flow in the last 10 years hasbeen attributed to forest loss.

Since October 1990 the reserve has beenmanaged by a local nongovernmental organisa-tion (NGO), Defensores de la Naturaleza. Thereserve’s managers are engaged in an environ-mental education programme designed to per-suade local community leaders of the need toprotect, manage, and restore the forests inSierra de las Minas in such a way that they cancontinue to offer the services locally but alsodownstream. Payment schemes have been setup (see “Payment for Environmental Servicesand Restoration” for more information on suchschemes) to ensure that those engaged in pro-tecting and restoring the watershed, are paid bythe beneficiaries downstream.372

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Overcoming Barriers toNatural Succession

Assessing patterns of tropical montane forestsuccession following pasture abandonment, orafter natural disturbances such as landslides,can provide important clues when designingrestoration activities and when selecting whatspecies to plant (or not) under a given level ofsite degradation. For example, in many tropicalmontane forests, those canopy tree species thatdominate old-growth stands are the samecolonisers of open, deforested areas.373 Thus ifa restoration goal is to re-create original spe-cies’ composition, the selection of these partic-ular species could be an appropriate choice.

Simple observations and experiments in sitesthat merit restoration can also help to discernwhat are main biotic and abiotic barriers thatcould be retarding natural forest recovery whendesigning a project. For instance (as in the low-lands), one of the main factors that retardsforest recovery in tropical mountains is poor

seed dispersal rates from adjacent forest.374

Even when lack of seed supply is overcome,however, grasses and ferns that thrive in aban-doned pastures tend to suppress growth andsurvival of tree seedlings; hence the removal ofcompeting vegetation seems necessary duringtree planting.375 Controlled grazing can alsofacilitate both the establishment of plantedtrees and natural forest recovery through sec-ondary succession.376

Another common barrier to the naturalrecovery of tropical montane forests is highrates of vertebrate seed predation in deforestedareas. In other cases, reduced nutrient levelsdue to soil compaction or recurring fires canimpede forest recovery even when seed sur-vival is high. In short, strategies to restore tropical montane forests may need to beassessed on a case-by-case basis, and designedwhenever possible for overcoming simultane-ous barriers.377

3.2. Forest Plantations and the Roleof Remnant Forest

Tree plantations in tropical montane areas canfulfil both conservation and production pur-poses as part of a restoration strategy. Yet, thechoice of what species to plant must be madecarefully, and it may be better to invest sometime in selecting the appropriate species378

rather than planting whatever is available in thelocal nursery. Tree species with high growthrates, prolific regeneration, or with any otherdesirable attributes can be easily identifiedafter a few months of observations when pub-lished information is not readily available (Fig. 43.1).

Under conditions of severe soil degradation,for example, good candidate species are thosethat can quickly provide a closed forest canopywhile improving soil fertility. However, in somecases, this alternative may be only part of an

372 http://www.planeta.com/planeta/97/0897guatemala.html.373 Guariguata, 1990; Kappelle et al, 1996; Venegas andCamacho, 2001.

374 Shiels and Walker, 2003.375 Pedraza and Williams-Linera, 2003.376 Posada et al, 2000.377 See an example in Holl et al, 2000.378 See an example in Knowles and Parrotta, 1995.

43. Restoring Tropical Montane Forests 301

overall restoration strategy. For example, plan-tations of the fast growing, nitrogen-fixing treeAlnus acuminata in the Colombian Andes maynot be the best long-term restoration tool asthey seem to harbour fewer plant species in theunderstorey compared to similarly aged sec-ondary forests following natural regenera-tion.379 In severely degraded sites, however,planting nitrogen fixing trees such as Alnus canbe an option in the short term as they help torecover soil productivity.

Planted windbreaks in montane agriculturallandscapes are known to facilitate tree coloni-sation by increasing seed dispersal rates fromnearby, remnant forest.The location and spatialarrangement of agricultural windbreaks as arestoration tool may be important in produc-tion landscapes where the enhancement of ecological connectivity and biodiversity recu-peration is also a management objective.Planted windbreaks that are connected toforest may harbour more naturally dispersedseeds and contain higher diversity in theirunderstoreys than those not connected.380 Thismeans that in some cases both the size and relative location of remnant forest fragmentsneed to be considered when designing a givenrestoration strategy.

4. Future Needs

Currently, most tropical montane forests arehighly fragmented. As a consequence, many oftheir component vertebrate species may belocally extinct either because of the smallhabitat area of the remaining fragments, orbecause those plant species that provide themwith food resources are absent, or both.381 Insome cases, tropical montane forest restorationcould focus on connecting existing fragmentsvia forest plantations as a way to facilitate alti-tudinal bird migration, and therefore seed dis-persal. More research is needed to support theselection of appropriate sets of plant charac-teristics, as well as the spatial arrangement ofthe planted trees in order to favour interpatchanimal movement and habitat use—and notnecessarily to restore forest cover per se.

References

Carlsson, U., and Lambrechts, C. 1999. Communityinitiatives and individual action on and aroundMount Kenya National Park. Paper presented atthe East Africa Environmental Network (EAEN)

Figure 43.1. Establishment of aforest plantation for restoring tropi-cal cloud forest in abandonedpasture in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.The plantation consists of a mix ofspecies typical of primary forest(Quercus and Fagus) and early successional species (Heliocarpusand Trema). (Photo © GuadalupeWilliams-Linera.)

379 Murcia, 1997.380 Harvey, 2000. 381 Cordeiro and Howe, 2001.

302 M.R. Guariguata

Annual Conference, 28–29 May 1999, Nairobi,Kenya.

Cordeiro, N.J., and Howe, H.F. 2001. Low recruitmentof trees dispersed by animals in African forestfragments. Conservation Biology 15:1733–1741.

Emerton, L. 1999. Mount Kenya: the economics ofcommunity conservation. Evaluating Eden Series,discussion paper No.4. International Institute forEnvironment and Development, London.

Guariguata, M.R. 1990. Landslide disturbance andforest regeneration in the upper Luquillo moun-tains of Puerto Rico. Journal of Ecology 78:814–832.

Harvey, C.A. 2000. Colonization of agricultural wind-breaks by forest trees: effects of connectivity andremnant trees. Ecological Applications 10:1762–1773.

Holl, K.D., Loik, M.E., Lin, E.H.V., and Samuels, I.A.2000. Tropical montane forest restoration in CostaRica: overcoming barriers to dispersal and estab-lishment. Restoration Ecology 8:339–349.

Kappelle, M., Geuze, T., Leal, M., and Cleef, A.M.1996. Successional age and forest structure in aCosta Rican upper montane Quercus forest.Journal of Tropical Ecology 12:681–698.

Knowles, O.H., and Parrotta, J.A. 1995. Amazonianforest restoration: an innovative system for na-tive species selection based on phenological dataand field performance indices. CommonwealthForestry Review 74:230–243.

Lawton, R.O., Nair, U.S., Pielke, R.A., and Welch,R.M. 2001. Climatic impact of tropical lowlanddeforestation on nearby montane cloud forests.Science 294:584–587.

Murcia, C. 1997. Evaluation of Andean alder as a catalyst for the recovery of tropical cloud forestsin Colombia. Forest Ecology and Management99:163–170.

Pedraza, R.A., and Williams-Linera, G. 2003. Evalu-ation of native tree species for the rehabilitationof deforested areas in a Mexican cloud forest. NewForests 26:83–99.

Posada, J.M., Aide, T.M., and Cavelier, J. 2000. Cattleand weedy shrubs as restoration tools of tropicalmontane rainforest. Restoration Ecology 8:370–379.

Shiels, A.B., and Walker, L.R. 2003. Bird perchesincrease forest seeds on Puerto Rican landslides.Restoration Ecology 11:457–465.

Venegas, G., and Camacho, M. 2001. Efecto de untratamiento silvicultural sobre la dinámica de unbosque secundario montano en Villa Mills, CostaRica. Serie Técnica No. 322. CATIE, Turrialba,Costa Rica.

Additional Reading

Bubb, P., May, I., Miles, L., and Sayer, J.. 2004.Cloud Forest Agenda. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge,UK.

Guariguata, M.R., and Kattan, G.H., eds. 2002.Ecologia y conservacion de bosques neotropicales.Editorial Libro Universitario Regional, CostaRica.

Kappelle, M., and Brown, A., eds. 2001. Bosquesnublados del neotropico. InBio, Costa Rica.

Rising majestically from lowland rice paddiesto a height of 3726m, Gunung Rinjani domi-nates the Indonesian Island of Lombok. Theupper slopes of the mountain are clothed incloud forest. The winds coming in off the seacool as they are funnelled up the slopes of themountain, moisture condenses onto the vege-tation, and as a result the trees are perma-nently wet and are festooned in epiphyticorchids, lichens, and mosses. These forests arehome to rare birds, black ebony leaf monkeys,barking deer, leopard cats, and palm civets.

The forests are now under intense pressure.Lombok is one of Indonesia’s poorest andmost densely populated islands. Pressure forland has always been intense but the problemhas become much worse in recent years. First,following the Asian economic crisis in 1997large numbers of Lombok people who hadbeen migrant workers in Malaysia were senthome. Many of them returned to farming.Then the Bali bombing in 2001 had a hugeimpact on the tourist industry. As a result, thelocal Sassak people have fallen on hard times.A large part of their income came from workin hotels and restaurants, and from producingthe beautiful handicrafts for which Lombok is renowned. Lack of cash employment isforcing them back onto the land. And with 2.9million people crowded onto this 5625km2

island, it is hard to make a living from tradi-tional agriculture alone.

In theory, Gunung Rinjani’s cloud forests—the only ones left on Lombok—are legally

protected. But the Forest Department finds itdifficult to enforce the laws when they cannotoffer any alternative to the poverty strickenfarmers. A large swathe of forest on the lowerslopes has now been reduced to a patchworkof small fields, scattered trees, scrub, andgrasses. Fires originating in these degradedareas are beginning to eat into the rich forestshigher up the mountain.

This has implications for the entire island.Rinjani’s forests act as water collectors for allof Lombok. Water flowing from the mistyupper slopes irrigates the highly productiverice cultures of the plains and supplies domes-tic water to the towns and tourist resorts. Nowthe rice farmers in the lowlands are com-plaining that there is not enough water fortheir crops in the dry season, and they experi-ence an increased number of floods when itrains.

In response to the crisis, Lombok’s provin-cial government has linked up with the globalconservation organisation WWF, and the U.K.Department for International Developmentto devise a strategy that can protect the forestsand their vital watershed functions and stillprovide land and employment for the people.

As a contribution to this effort we havebeen developing a simple computer model totry and unravel the complexity of the Rinjanisocial-ecological system. The model uses theSTELLA software and enables us to investi-gate the main drivers of land cover changeand links between these changes and the

Case Study: Conserving the CloudForests of Mount Rinjani, LombokJeff Sayer and Triagung Rooswiadji

303

304 J. Sayer and T. Rooswiadji

early years the farmers made money bygrowing crops such as chilli peppers betweenthe tree seedlings. Now they are planting awide variety of fruit and even timber trees.Mangoes, papayas, durians, jackfruit, custardapples, rambutans, and salak fruit are all beingproduced for sale to traders in the provincialcapital Mataram. Jackfruit and macadamia areespecially popular as they produce valuablefruit and nuts but also timber that is in highdemand for the curio carvers in Bali.

The land remains under forest department“ownership” and the farmers have to pay asmall rent for the right to cultivate it. On apilot scale this programme has been anundoubted success, and previously degradedareas are now covered in profitable agro-forests. However, the market for fruit andtimber is limited, and unless the generaleconomy picks up it will be difficult to extendthe scheme to all the degraded areas of pro-tection forest around the mountain.

The agroforestry trees protect the soils andthe water supplies and the people earn a goodliving. These artificial forests do not have thesame biodiversity values as the natural foreststhat used to exist in the protection forests, butthey are better than the degraded scrub andfarmland that covered the sites when the pro-gramme began. They offer the hope of pro-viding stable and secure land use around thelower boundary of the forests.

The success of the agroforestry approachwill be very sensitive to the incomes thatfarmers can obtain for their fruit and timbercrops. We are going to continue to use ourmodel of the Rinjani system to track how boththe environment and people’s livelihoodsevolve over time. The model will provide adatabase and monitoring tool that will be usedby the local stakeholder committee to helpunderstand how the system is performing. Itshould help to determine how livelihoodschange over time and how this is linked tochanges in landcover.

The idea of payments for environmentalservices is still being pursued but as a comple-ment to other approaches.The isolated hillsidevillages have few social services and the

livelihoods of the people. The model has beendeveloped with local stakeholders and it hasbeen useful in making their assumptions andinterests more explicit.

We began by investigating the possibilitiesfor making environmental payments toupland farmers in return for better farmingand forestry practices. A bottled watercompany in the lowlands indicated that amodest amount of money could be availablefor this programme. The 42,000 water users inthe provincial capital Mataram have agreed toa small levy to pay for watershed protection.However, the model suggested considerabledifficulties in this approach.The number of far-mers is very high—several hundred thousand—and payments that were high enough to havea real impact on their behaviour would costmore than the amounts that are likely to beavailable. Lack of legal clarity about landrights and the high diversity of farmingsystems that they use would combine to makethe management of such payments very complicated.

The modelling exercise suggested that fewsolutions would be effective if they were notaccompanied by more effective application oflaws. But the difficult transition to democracythat Indonesia is now experiencing and theeconomic crisis are combining to make lawenforcement very unpopular amongst thepopulation.

So far one of the best options that hasemerged has been to abandon governmentattempts to protect the watershed forests and,instead, to parcel out the land to poor people,who can use it on condition that they planttrees. This is a rather revolutionary idea. It isin fact saying that conventional approaches towatershed management are not workable inthe present economic and social conditionsfound on Lombok.The compromise of encour-aging the formation of a buffer zone of agro-forestry plantations around the base of themountain seems like a better option.

The initial trials have centred on the villageof Sesaot. Farmers are given 0.1 hectare ofland and are allowed to grow field crops forthe first 4 years, until the trees grow. In the

Case Study: Conserving the Cloud Forests of Mount Rinjani, Lombok 305

The situation in Lombok, where valuablenatural forests exist alongside poverty-stricken people desperate for more land, istypical of many developing countries in thetropics.

Rinjani National Park is one of Indonesia’smost spectacular natural areas but there is noway that it can be protected if thousands ofpoverty stricken, land-hungry people livearound the base of the mountain. Givingpeople rights to some areas of degradednatural forest may help save the nationalpark.

people’s lives are still precarious. The peoplein the lowlands are richer and the rice farmersare making money out of the water that flowsfrom the mountains, so there is some potentialfor a small water tax. This will not be given ascash to the upland farmers but will be used tobuild clinics and schools and improve theroads. The hillside people will get these ser-vices only if they respect the agreement andgrow only tree crops.They will lose these socialcontributions if they grow tobacco, cassava, orother annual crops that are bad for soil erosionand do not conserve water.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Characteristics of Floodplain Forests

Floodplain forests are unique ecosystems thatare located alongside rivers and streams. Thesesystems derive their characteristics from peri-odic inundations. The extent, structure, anddiversity of floodplain forests have beenstrongly modified by human pressures acting atthe catchment, reach, and local scales. Even

though many floodplains in Europe are charac-terised by natural forestation that began afterthe Second World War due to widespreadchanges in land-use practices, most Europeanfloodplain forests have disappeared.

Since the 1970s, the scientific community andland managers have recognised the ecological,economic, and social values of floodplain forest.These forests are very valuable because of theirhigh potential in terms of wood production,protection of water quality, flood control, recre-ation, and improvement of the landscape. Inaddition, they are natural areas with a high bio-logical diversity and ecological specificity dueto the influence of water on habitat conditions.Riparian areas are important for fish, amphib-ians, and mammals (e.g., beavers). Additionally,the forests provide breeding habitat for birds,and are navigational aids and stopover sites formigrating species (e.g., the songbirds in theNorth Platte River). The need to preserve andrestore them is now widely recognised.

Forest ecosystems that are under hydrologi-cal control evolved their original ecologicalprocesses in response to their proximity to andthe dynamics of the river. Thus, the periodicwater supply is a key process characterisingfloodplain forests. The land–water interfacesare important areas for biological exchanges,water supply and content, soil moisture, organicmatter evolution, seed dispersal, and nutrientcycling.382 Floodplain forests are part of

44Restoring Floodplain ForestsSimon Dufour and Hervé Piégay

Key Points to Retain

The extent, structure, and diversity of flood-plain forests have been strongly modified by human pressures. Yet they are areas witha high biological diversity, and specificity,and riparian areas are important for fish,amphibians, and mammals and for fluvialsystem functioning.

Restoration of floodplain forests can beachieved at three scales: catchment, reach,and local scales.

Some important tools for restoring flood-plain forests include assessment and inven-tories, monitoring, and integrated river basinmanagement.

382 Naiman and Décamps, 1990.

306

44. Restoring Floodplain Forests 307

dynamic systems, and their conservation andrestoration must take into account the hydro-geomorphic processes that structure the catch-ment and the landscape evolution.

In most cases, it is impossible to re-createpristine floodplain forest conditions, but miti-gation measures can be developed to im-prove ecosystem quality. For this purpose,managers must identify practical strategies andtools.383

1.2. General Principles

The restoration of floodplain forest is oftenachieved at three scales:

1. Catchment scale: The improvement (e.g.,more natural levels) of controlled factors (discharge, bedload supply) can be done at thecatchment scale or in an upstream branch of the river network. Such hydrological and sedi-mentary river improvements have positiveeffects on floodplain habitats in terms of structure and diversity. The success of such“self-restoration” options, when they can bepromoted, are difficult to evaluate because ofmultiple potential channel adjustments actingat various timescales.

2. Reach scale (10 to 100km river length):The improvement of the hydrological connec-tion between the active channel and the flood-plain is an approach that can be accomplishedat the reach scale by modifying the topographyto lower the riparian surface in order toimprove water flow across the floodplain, andalso by raising the groundwater table.

3. Local scale (a few hectares of forest): Themaintenance of the riparian structure slowsdown succession (preserves pioneer stageswhen the river has lost its capacity to do so) orfavours specific assemblages of the modifiedecosystems (removes exotic species, reforesta-tion in cultivated areas, grazing control).

Restoration can be promoted at differentscales depending on the target. The interven-tions at local scale usually generate fewer prob-lems in terms of social acceptance, becauseplots are smaller in size and concern fewer

users. The stakes are also less complex withfewer conflicts than those that must bemanaged when dealing with entire systems.384

1.2.1. Hydrological Connections

Reestablishment of hydrological fluctuation isa common topic in floodplain restoration, par-ticularly reestablishment of the flood pulse thatinundates forest patches according to theirposition within the riparian corridor. For thispurpose, some actions must be promoted at alarge scale, by specific management strategiescontrolling water diversion and storage forhydroelectric and pumping purposes. Increas-ing minimum flow downstream of dams is oneof the most common options at this scale.

At the reach scale, various options can alsobe implemented to reestablish a more activehydrological connection, such as reinundatingareas by dike removal or reconnecting sidechannels. Low-flow in groundwater levelsshould also be considered carefully, in particu-lar downstream of dams and in reaches withactive water pumping for agriculture and indus-tries. Managers can then perform some meas-ures to raise the groundwater level, such asfavouring more flow in the floodplain’s formerchannel network or artificial groundwater inputfrom a reservoir or canal.

1.2.2. Bedload Transport

Restoration of sediment transport is anotherprocess-based option. Complete restoration ofa dynamic system with all types of forest suc-cessional stages, when it has been affected by lateral and longitudinal disconnection(embankment, dams that interrupt sedimenttransfers), must include not only channel shift-ing, but also bedload transport preservation.

Bedload reintroduction and riparian zone re-dynamism can be accomplished at the reachscale by increasing levels of bank erosion andsediment remobilisation during floods, and byremoving unnecessary dikes. Sediment reintro-duction to maintain channel dynamics is beingconsidered along the Ain River in France,

383 FISRWG, 1998. 384 Hughes, 2003.

308 S. Dufour and H. Piégay

where dam construction in the 1960s disruptedpeak flows and the character of sediment trans-fers (through a Life Nature Programme).

Even within the framework of process-basedrestoration at the basin scale, the problem ofdams and their possible removal sparks consid-erable debate within the scientific community.If the solution looks good from an ecologicalpoint of view (i.e., more natural hydrology,bedload transport, and biological connection),the reality is much more complex. It is advis-able, in particular, to distinguish big dams fromsmall dams that are located in the upper part ofthe channel network. Next, the socioeconomiccontext of each dam must be taken intoaccount. Lastly, all the effects of dam removalare not known (for example, in the case of sediment contaminated by organic or inorganiccomponents).

1.2.3. Forest Structure

Actions proposed at the catchment and reachscales can be achieved by interventions at finerscales by focussing on existing forested struc-tures (which is cheaper and easier), throughstructural transformation of degraded wood-lands or by creating new units.

For existing woodlands, forestry practiceshave to be adapted to their specificities. Gen-erally, the ecological aims of restoration will beto improve biodiversity by respecting somebasic rules that enhance or conserve near-natural functioning and structuring of theforest: high vertical complexity of differentstrata (uneven age structure), broad range ofdifferent successional states organised as apatchy mosaic, presence of woody debris, use ofnatural regeneration, etc. Such an approach isproposed in reaches where alluvial forest is stillpresent but is no longer rejuvenated by channelprocesses (primarily bank erosion and flood-ing). The preservation of pioneer units is bestaccomplished artificially (cutting). Moreover,actions can also be performed to fight exoticspecies that themselves form monospecificcommunities on pioneer biotopes.

For highly disrupted forest structures likeartificial plantations, modification of forestry

practices is often not enough, except in the verylong term. Instead, reconversion measures(defined as transformation of stand structurewith a change of socioeconomic functions) haveto be implemented. This often implies moreintensive and expensive programmes (likeplantations of indigenous species). In agricul-tural areas, plantation programmes can be pro-moted at a large scale for biodiversity purposesbut also for flooding management (preservingareas of low vulnerability that can attenuate thepeak flow), for water quality (buffer strip alongagricultural-river contact), and for globalwarming (sequestration of carbon dioxide fromthe atmosphere).

2. Examples

Experiences in floodplain forest restoration areshaped by specific ecological problems, such asbase flow decrease, peak flow cutting, sedimenttransport disruption, channel degradation andgroundwater drop down, channel stabilisation,and diking and flooding protection, and bysocioeconomic issues, industrial or agriculturalwater pumping, human pressure on forestedcorridor and landscape fragmentation. Whenlooking at the European examples, a few casesuse a process-based approach, such as on theRhone, the Danube, the Elbe, and the Rhine(Table 44.1). In North America, the objectivesfor the Mississippi river and the ChesapeakeBay watershed (Potomac River, SusquehannaRiver) focussed more on water quality im-provement (nutrient, pollutant, and sedimentcontents).

In other parts of the world, such as inMalaysia, the objective of floodplain restora-tion tends to be for the preservation of nativefauna and flora. Finally, for many large rivers, inparticular in recently industrialised countries,some restoration programmes are in place(River Ganga, River Yamuna in India,Amazonas/Solimoes River in the Amazonianwatershed). In these cases the main priority,even if restoration is considered, often remainsthe conservation of natural areas and the decr-ease of physical and chemical water pollution.

44. Restoring Floodplain Forests 309

Examples of different restoration measuresproposed on large rivers in Europe, Americaand Asia are shown in Table 44.1.

2.1. Restoration of PhysicalProcesses at the Reach Scale:The Rhone River (France) on the Site of la Platière

The Rhone River has been regulated since themiddle of the 19th century to fight flooding, toimprove navigation and irrigation, and toproduce electricity. Along most of its Frenchcourse the Rhone is characterised by adegraded landscape. In the reach of l’Île de laPlatière (60km south of Lyon), channel degra-dation and bank stabilisation caused by theinstallation of groins at the end of the 19thcentury, water pumping by chemical factoriesafter 1950, and flow diversion to bypass canalsafter 1977 have all led to floodplain-channeldisconnection and lowered the groundwatertable (a loss of 2m between the end of the 1960sand 1990). Consequently the forest has becomedrier, losing much of its alluvial characteristics.A restoration project has been in place since

1992 to re-inject water into the aquifer byreconnecting a side channel from which watercan infiltrate and raise the groundwater tableby half a metre. The hydrological connection is still infrequent for some forest patches,but functionality is greater today than it was 20 years ago. The next step to improve the hydrological connection is to increase theminimum flow that is not derived from thecanal for electricity production.

2.2. Buffer Zone Restoration toReduce Nutrient Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

In 1983 federal, state, and local stakeholdersestablished a programme to restore waterquality and health conditions in the ChesapeakeBay watershed in Virginia and Maryland. Theobjective of the programme was to increasewater quality and habitat resources within thisformerly forested watershed (forest covered 95percent of the watershed 300 years ago versus 6percent today). One of the main measures wasthe restoration of streamside forests along thehydrographic network. After restoring almost

Table 44.1. Examples of restoration measures proposed on different large rivers in Europe, America,and Asia.

From catchment To reach To local options

Danube River, Austria x xDanube River, Bulgaria xElbe River, Germany xRhone River, France x x xRhine River, France x x xChesapeake Bay watershed, U.S. xLower Mississippi River, U.S. x xMiddle Sacramento River, U.S. xKissimmee River Corridor, U.S. xChikuma River, Japan x x xKinabatangan, Malaysia x x

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310 S. Dufour and H. Piégay

5000km along the river bank, today the riparianforest buffers almost 60 percent of the channelnetwork.This forest growth is complemented bya decrease in nitrogen and phosphorus utilisa-tion, and has led to a significant decrease innutrient pollution in the bay.

2.3. Actions on Riparian CoverCharacteristics: Reforestation Along the Kinabatangan River (Malaysia)385

With the exception of the southeastern part ofthe United States, the issue of floodplain forestrestoration in nontemperate areas is a morerecent development than in industrialisedregions.Thus, few projects exist.The restorationand conservation programme of the Kin-abatangan River floodplain forest is one of the most advanced examples in the tropics.The forest, located in the Malaysian part of theisland of Borneo, is highly impacted by thepresence of palm plantations. This programmeis carried out by the Sabah Wildlife department,Sabah’s Department of Irrigation, and WWFMalaysia, and includes several actions, in par-ticular reforestation along the riverbanks andreconnection of isolated forest fragments. Atthe regulatory scale, actions include modifyingthe legislation that enables the transformationof the natural forest patches into palm planta-tions, and campaigns that inform consumers ofthe origin of the palm oil and the forestry prac-tices of the producer.

3. Outline of Tools

Two types of tools must be differentiated: (1)diagnosis tools to understand the status of thefloodplain ecosystems in terms of diversity andconnectivity, and (2) implementation tools andmethods to use in restoration projects.

3.1. Assessment and Inventory

Before improving any landscape patch, oneneeds to understand how the landscape func-

tions, how it has evolved to its present state, andthe causes of human-induced modifications.Historical analysis is helpful in understandingforest cover evolution over the last century.Land-survey maps and aerial photos are usefuldocuments to establish the structural state ofalluvial forests over the past 50 to 100 years.Written forestry reports can be used for somelarge alluvial forest corridors, such as the Rhineor the Mississippi river that have both beenmanaged for a few centuries.

Prior to acting at a local scale, it can behelpful to approach the problem at a largerregional scale to tailor actions to the right scale.An inventory at the national scale can be usedas a preliminary step to identify possibleproject sites. Such inventories can be exhaus-tive for small areas, like in Switzerland or inBelgium, or more cursory for larger regions (forexample, by satellite imagery). With eithermethod, the inventory must include a databasethat contains some information on each site(percent of surface forested, stand structure,regrowth, plant diversity, river form, etc.).

3.2. Monitoring

Monitoring is important, as with all restorationprogrammes and should include both ecologi-cal and socioeconomic factors. Some socio-economic factors that need to be taken intoaccount for floodplain forests, but also for otherlarge-scale restoration efforts, include ensuringlegal protection status and property rights, andunderstanding and mitigating the impact onlocal stakeholders. Specifically, for floodplainforests, variables that need to be measuredinclude hydrological, geomorphic, and biologi-cal characteristics (pre- and postrestorationsurvey).

3.3. Integrated River BasinManagement

Integrated river basin management is one ofthe tools that can be used to attain objectivesof water quality improvement, local develop-ment, flooding management, etc., and allowstakeholders to consider their options in 385 Teoh et al, 2001.

44. Restoring Floodplain Forests 311

managing and implementing floodplain forestrestoration. It involves looking at the entirebasin when determining interventions (Fig.44.1).

4. Future Needs

4.1. Improve Knowledge

During the last few decades, ecologists and geo-morphologists have made important progressin understanding stream corridor response toriver system evolution. A better quantificationis now needed of the influence of site conditionson species’ development and growth and oncommunities’ composition, and diversity as well as better comprehension of the potentialtrajectories of the communities (i.e., rupturethresholds, lag of time response). To assess thevalue of floodplain forests, field-based studiesare necessary to quantify realistically the influ-ence of these forests on system fluxes (waterand nutrient consumption, organic matter pro-duction) in a broad range of hydrogeomorphicconditions, for example, highly dynamic sys-tems, incised or aggraded rivers, downstreamdams, in cultural landscapes, etc. Physical andbiological coupling models must be developedto evaluate better the efficiency of proposedmanagement and restoration.

4.2. Apply the Idea of ActingLocally, but Thinking Globally

Most of the time, the restoration plan is devel-oped at a local scale rather than at a largerscale. Managers should develop macromanage-ment strategies in order to make current envi-ronmental policies sharper. In Europe, theWater Framework Directive is a chance topromote such a large-scale approach. It is, forexample, well known that the de-nitrificationcapacity of riparian units depends on connec-tivity conditions between the soil, root systems,and groundwater. However, these conditionsdo not exist all along the hydrographic networkbecause of various channel geometry condi-tions. Before replanting forest along rivers toimprove water quality, one must identify targetreaches. It is possible to use GeographicalInformation System (GIS) analysis to identifysources of pollution and potential natural bar-riers to restoration.

4.3. Cost-Benefit Analysis

One of the most important issues is the assess-ment of the benefit provided by the alluvialforests, and also by the restoration measures interms of resources, flood protection, waterquality improvement, and heritage. For this

Figure 44.1. A reconnected channelin the Erstein natural reserve—Rhine river. (Photo © Simon Dufour.)

312 S. Dufour and H. Piégay

purpose, there is a need to identify and todevelop technical and methodological tools toquantify these benefits (the costs are easier to estimate). Economic studies should be con-ducted in different local demonstration pro-grammes in order to validate the benefit of themeasures for stakeholders.

References

FISRWG. 1998. Stream corridor restoration: princi-ples, processes and practices. The Federal Intera-gency Stream Restoration Working Group, GPOitem n° 0120-A.

Hughes, H.G. ed. 2003. The flooded forest: guidancefor policy makers and river managers in Europeon the restoration of floodplain forests.FLOBAR2, Department of Geography, Universityof Cambridge, UK.

Naiman, R.J., and Décamps, H. eds. 1990. TheEcology and Management of Aquatic-TerrestrialEcotones. MAB 4, UNESCO.

Teoh, C.H., Ng, A., Prudente, C., Pang, C., and TekChoon Yee, J. 2001. Balancing the need for sus-tainable oil palm development and conservation:the lower Kinabatangan floodplains experience.Proceeding in ISP National Seminar, StrategicDirections for the Sustainablility of the Oil PalmIndustry, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, 11–12June 2001.

Additional Reading

Alpert, P., Griggs, F.T., and Peterson, D.R. 1999.Riparian forest restoration along large rivers:initial results from the Sacramento river project.Restoration Ecology 7(4):360–368.

Goodwin, C.N., Hawkins, C.P., and Kershner, J.L.1997. Riparian restoration in the Western United

States: overview and perspective. RestorationEcology 5(4):4–14.

Griggs, F.T., and Golet, G.H. 2002. Riparian valleyoak (Quercus lobata) forest restoration on theMiddle Sacramento River, California. USDAForest Service; pp. 543–550.

Harris, R., and Olson, C. 1997. Two-stage system forprioritising riparian restoration at the streamreach and community scales. Restoration Ecology5(4):34–42.

Hunter, J.C., Willett, K.B., McCoy, M.C., Quinn, J.F.,and Keller, K.E. 1999. Prospects for preservationand restoration of riparian forests in the Sacra-mento Valley, California, USA. EnvironmentalManagement 24(1):65–75.

Landers, D.H. 1997. Riparian restoration: currentstatus and the reach to the future. RestorationEcology 5(4):113–121.

Moring, J.R., Garman, G.C., and Mullen, D.M. 1985.The value of riparian zones for protecting aquaticsystems: general concerns and recent studies inMaine. In: Johnson, R.R., Ziebell, C.D., Pattern,D.R., Folliot, P.F., and Hamre, R.H., eds. RiparianEcosystems and their Management: ReconcilingConflicting Uses. USDA Forest Service.

National Research Council. 2002. Riparian Areas,Functions and Strategies for Management.National Academy Press, Washington DC.

Piégay, H., Pautou, G., and Ruffinoni, C. 2003. LesForêts Riveraines des Cours d’Eau: Écologie,Fonctions, Gestion. Institut pour le Développe-ment Forestier, Paris.

Schoenholtz, S.H., James, J.P., Kaminski, R.M.,Leopold, B.D., and Ezell, A.W. 2001. Afforestationof bottomland hardwoods in the Lower Missis-sippi Alluvial Valley: status and trends. Wetlands21(4):602–613.

Tockner, K., and Schiemer, F. 1997. Ecologicalaspects of the restoration strategy for river-floodplain system on the Danube River in Austria. Global Ecology and BiogeographyLetters 6:321–329.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Forest Degradation in theMediterranean: An Old Problem with a New Face

The Mediterranean basin has been enduringheavy and extensive human use for millennia.

Throughout this long history, periods ofresource overexploitation have led to signifi-cant forest loss and the reshaping of landscapes.Already in the fourth century b.c., Plato warnedabout both the degradation of Greek forests inthe uplands and soil loss: “Hills that were oncecovered by forests and produced abundantpasture now produce only food for bees.” In thepast, fluctuations in human population wereaccompanied by fluctuations in land exploita-tion, with peaks of overgrazing, forest clearingfor agriculture, forest overexploitation for fire-wood, charcoal production, and logging, inter-mingled with periods of land abandonment.Frequent wars often devastated the forests aswell.The forest was especially overused in crisissituations. The consequent impact on forestswas the degradation of vegetation, the reduc-tion of forest surface, the degradation of soilquality, and the increase in soil erosion andflooding. The images of Mediterranean forestsprojected by enlightened travellers of the 17thto 19th centuries and the direct images from theearly 20th century were discouraging. Mostmountain areas were depicted as spoilt and thescarce preserved forests were hidden in remote,inaccessible areas, or belonged to wealthy families and/or the nobility, who used them as private hunting parks.

Socioeconomic and political circumstancesdrive land use and forest exploitation, and this is particularly marked in a region with along history of human settlement such as theMediterranean basin. In Southern Europe,economic development since the middle of the20th century has resulted in a sharp change in

45Restoring Mediterranean ForestsRamon Vallejo

Key Points to Retain

The Mediterranean region has been heavilymodified by millennia of human interven-tion. This intervention has included differenttree planting phases, with varying results.

Land abandonment and forest fires arecommon problems in the north of theMediterranean, while demand for fuelwoodand fodder are a key issue in the south.

Because of centuries of landscape modifica-tion, there are fewer reference ecosystems toguide restoration in the Mediterranean.There are instead three types of landsca-pes: highly degraded, cultural, and seminat-ural landscapes.The second type is also beingmodified under present land-use conditions.

The challenge lies in trying both to conservekey cultural landscapes and to restore theecosystems that are the most degraded orunder pressure.

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314 R. Vallejo

tendencies, moving from thousands of years ofsteady degradation to a new phase of regener-ation that is related to the loss of direct marketprofit from forests and woodlands and ruraldepopulation. Clearly, this general process haslocal exceptions in the less economically devel-oped regions of southern Europe.

Meanwhile, in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries, resource exploitationmostly follows the same historical trends inrelation to the increasing population growthand direct dependence of rural populations onnatural resources. Poverty, now and in the past,is one of the main drivers of forest degradationforced by the primary need for food, fuelwood,and fibre.

Recent land use changes in southern Europeare resulting in the abandonment of less productive lands and substantial reductions ingrazing pressure and forest exploitation. Thesechanges are enabling spontaneous vegetationto recover, increasing connectivity in wildlandareas and promoting fuel load accumulation in forests and shrublands. In addition, largeafforestation programmes conducted duringthe 20th century significantly increased theforest surface, mostly with pine species and, toa minor extent, eucalyptus. A direct conse-quence of this dramatic modification in land-scape structure and composition has been thespread of large wildfires in the NorthernMediterranean countries since the last quarterof the 20th century.386 Wildfires have nowbecome the major forest management problemin the region. We can expect the problem tobecome more and more acute in southernMediterranean countries if the trend towardrural abandonment continues in the future.

1.2. Structural Problems

Ancient societies adjusted their lives tonature’s pace. Industrialisation has caused thegap between both paces to increase dramati-cally. Present industrial and postindustrial soci-eties change faster than forests. As aconsequence, forest policies that respond to

current demands from forests (or more gener-ally from land-use interests) may become obso-lete in only a few decades, leaving the nextgenerations with a problem that may be diffi-cult to reverse or that may even be irreversible.Examples of this time mismatch include (1) theclear-cutting of cork oak woodlands conductedin Portugal for wheat production during the1930s, the later abandonment of many of thesefields because of poor soil productivity, and therecent attempts to recover cork oak in thesenow degraded soils; and (2) the eucalyptusplantations established in dry areas of westernSpain in the 1960s, which are now abandonedand no longer exploited, suffer wildfires, and, insome cases, are uprooted at a large economiccost to restore native forest.

Forest management and restoration is con-strained by land tenure and traditional uses andrights, which are very diverse throughout theMediterranean countries. There are countrieswhere most of the forest land is private, such asPortugal with around 90 percent, and countrieswhere practically all forest land is public, suchas Turkey, Greece, and the Maghreb countries(forêt domaniale).

1.3. Reforestation Activities

Recognition of the need to preserve andenhance forests is very old. Already in 13th-century Spain, King Alfonso X promoted regu-lations to preserve forests against fires anduncontrolled clearing. Some relevant and documented pine afforestation dates back tothe early Middle Ages in Spain.Throughout theMiddle and Modern Ages, forests competedwith grazing and agriculture, with rural peoplealways trying to convert forests into pastureand cropland. Traditionally, grazing was consid-ered by foresters as the prime enemy of forestconservation. The traditional pastured wood-lands (dehesa, montado, pascolo arbolato) inthe western Mediterranean can be consideredmultifunctional adaptations and compromiseland uses given to these forests to solve thedemands of rural population. Throughout the18th and 19th centuries, there was an attemptto preserve and promote forests. Efforts began386 Pausas and Vallejo, 1999.

45. Restoring Mediterranean Forests 315

to crystallise in the afforestation of relevantsurfaces by the end of the 19th century andbecame fully developed during the 20thcentury. In southern Europe, most of theseafforestation efforts addressed watershed protection and dune fixation.

In relation to socioeconomic developmentand the decreasing dependence of the popula-tion on forest resources, a new perception of nature is growing in the European Mediterranean countries.This is generating newdemands on the wildlands, more biased towardrecreation, ecological, cultural, and landscapevaluation. Of course, these new demands onforests and other wildland uses require the corresponding adaptation of forest restorationtechniques to meet these demands.387 With thisin mind, recent afforestation measures forsetting aside agricultural lands, promoted under the Common Agricultural Policy of theEuropean Union, were conceived with the aimto recover native forest ecosystems.

2. Examples

The old reforestation projects conducted in theMediterranean countries were not, strictlyspeaking, restoration projects as we understandthis term nowadays. However, they share themain global aims of restoration, such as reduc-ing soil erosion and runoff, or recoveringnatural forests, though sometimes exoticspecies were used as intermediate stages in therehabilitation process.

2.1. Old vs. New Approaches388

2.1.1. Sierra Espuña (Murcia, Southeast Spain) in the Late 19th and early 20th Centuries

Frequent severe floods were chronicallycausing heavy casualties and large economiclosses on the coastal floodplains in Eastern

Spain. These were caused by torrential streamsdraining from the nearby mountain ranges.Most of these ranges were denuded of trees asa result of long-term overexploitation and thelarge logging activities pursued by the Navy forship construction, especially during the 18thcentury. In the Segura basin (Murcia), after thedevastating floods of October 1879 (761 casu-alties), the forest administration launched areforestation project in 1886 called DefenceWorks Against the Floods in the Segura basin.The forest engineer R. Codorniu, one of thedirectors of this restoration project, wrote thatin 1889 he did not see a single tree when cross-ing the hill slopes of the basin. This projectstarted in 1892 and included the reforestationof almost 5000 hectares, accompanied by checkdams, firebreaks, and temporary on-site forestnurseries. The climate of the site is dry to sub-humid. After studying the ecological conditionsof the site, the species planted were mostly thenative conifers Pinus halepensis, P. nigra, P.pinaster, and P. pinea, but with minor propor-tions of hardwoods (Quercus faginea, Ulmusminor) and other allochthonous or nonnativespecies in the site such as P. canariensis, Acaciasp., and Abies pinsapo. In 1902 some twomillion seedlings were produced for the project.In those times, most of the plantation work wasmanual and it took almost 30 years! (Thiswould be difficult to repeat today.) Every yeargaps were filled in order to achieve full survivalof the stands. Nowadays, the site is covered withbeautiful pine forests that have reached thesecond generation (Figs. 45.1 and 45.2), with arich understorey and some scattered patchesand individuals of hardwoods, mostly holm oak(Quercus ilex). Flood incidence in the basin hassignificantly decreased since the establishmentof the forest. After several protection regula-tions, the site was declared a natural park in1978 and a regional park in 1992. The site con-stitutes an island of green surrounded by agri-cultural lands, and desertified, hilly landscapeswith a semiarid climate, and it is the main greenrecreational attraction in the whole region. The site has thus generated economic activitiesmostly related to ecotourism for the entire localpopulation.

387 Cortina and Vallejo, 1999.388 These projects are collected in the REACTION data-base: www.ceam.es/reaction.

316 R. Vallejo

2.1.2. Running a Pilot Project in Albatera (Alicante,Eastern Spain)

Some 50km Northeast from the Espuña site,but at lower elevations and restricted to semi-arid climate (300–350mm of precipitation per

year), the Albatera site in the Crevillete Rangesconsists of a pilot project of approximately 25 hectares to combat desertification under the initiative of the Spanish Ministry of Environment, and in the framework of theUnited Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) for the NorthernMediterranean countries. The area is covered

Figure 45.1. Sierra Espuña example.Plantation works and general look of the site in 1895. (Photo © TheRegional Ministry of Agriculture,Water and Environment, MurciaRegion.)

Figure 45.2. Sierra Espuña example,present situation (2004). (Photo ©Ramon Vallejo.)

45. Restoring Mediterranean Forests 317

with sparse vegetation and shows evidence ofsoil compaction and water erosion in the formof rills and gullies.Attempts to reforest the areawith Aleppo pine were conducted throughplantations in terraces in the 1970s and again inthe 1990s, both times without success. Terracesshow signs of advanced degradation. Under the initiative of the Spanish Ministry of Environment, the Regional Forest Administra-tion of the Valencia Region conducted a pilotrestoration project, with the aim of putting inpractice the latest scientific and technical inno-vations developed through several research anddevelopment projects funded by the regional,national, and European Commission pro-grammes. The project was carried out with sci-entific assessment from CEAM Foundation(Mediterranean Centre for EnvironmentalStudies). The challenge for plantations in thesedegraded semiarid lands lies in improving plantsurvival rates (which are often lower than 50percent) and growth. Irrigation is not applied inregular reforestation/afforestation projects inSpain. The main objective of the project was toenhance the recovery of woody vegetation andits diversity, and to stop land degradation, espe-cially soil erosion. The project was based onprevious field research in the same region andon a specific study on the physical and ecolog-ical characteristics, and degradation processoccurring in the site. Restoration work was exe-cuted during the period 2002–2004. A relativelylarge number of native shrubs and trees wereplanted in the various habitats identified in thesite: wild olives (Olea europaea var. sylvestris),mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus), kermes oak(Quercus coccifera), juniper (Juniperus oxyce-drus), oleander (Nerium oleander),Aleppo pine(Pinus halepensis), carob tree (Ceratoniasiliqua), Rhamnus lycioides, Tetraclinis articu-lata, Retama sphaerocarpa, Ephedra fragilis,European palm (Chamaerops humilis), Tamarixafricana, Salsola genistoides, and the alpha grass(Stipa tenacissima) for the most degraded soils.Seedlings were produced in the nursery usingthe latest criteria for quality control, promotingroot development and good physiological per-formance. Soil preparation was designed tooptimise water collection under the extremelydry conditions of the site. Therefore, micro-

catchments for runoff collection were created,and complemented with mulching using forestdebris. The soil was amended with good-qualitycompost from urban bio-solids, and the see-dlings protected using tree shelters. Soil prepa-ration techniques were efficient in collectingrunoff, thereby significantly increasing wateravailability for the planted seedlings. As a con-sequence, seedling survival and growth wasmuch higher than usual in these harsh, semiariddegraded lands. Two years after planting, someseedlings reached 70cm in height.Although theproject is in its very early stages of develop-ment, good seedling establishment in the criti-cal transplanting shock provides promisingperspectives for the recovery of mature anddiverse native macchia in the medium-term.This recovery would entail more diverseecosystems and improved protection againstsoil erosion and flooding risks.

2.2. National Mobilisation Project

In the 1970s, the Algerian governmentlaunched an ambitious reforestation pro-gramme to “stop the desert,” called the GreenBelt. The target area was a strip (1500km, oraround 3 million hectares) of steppes receivingbetween 200 and 300mm of precipitation peryear, and crossing the whole country from westto east parallel to the Sahara desert. Thesesteppes were degraded because of overgrazingand inappropriate cropping promoting winderosion and exacerbating the natural droughtof the region. In its initial phase, the project wasimplemented by the Army using nearly exclu-sively Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis). The local population, especially shepherds, reactedstrongly against the plantations that obstructedtheir pastoral activities and in some casesdestroyed natural pastures of alpha grass (Stipatenacissima). Later on (from 1986 onward), andunder the direction of the National Institute ofForest Research, the whole programme wasrevised and reshaped. The local population wasinvolved in the afforestation work and ruraldevelopment criteria were introduced, integrat-ing afforestation with other activities. As a consequence, the species used were diversified,

318 R. Vallejo

including both native and alien species: Cupres-sus sempervirens, C. arizonica, Gleditsia triacan-thos, Casuarina sp., Acacia sp., Pistacia atlantica,Eleagnus angustifolia, and Simmondsia chinen-sis. In addition, seeding with herbs was con-ducted for dune fixation, and fodder shrubs(Atriplex, Opuntia, Acacia, Prosopis) and trees(Tamarix gallica, Retama sp., Eleagnus angusti-folia) were planted for small family holdings.The initially ambitious target of 3 millionhectares was revised down to around 300,000hectares. The estimated survival rate for plan-tations was around 70 percent in the longterm.389 The programme received both positiveand negative coverage. On the negative side,the initial lack of agreement with local popula-tions, the extensive use of monospecific planta-tions of Aleppo pine, facilitating the expansionof pests (mostly pine processionary moth), andthe little attention paid to biodiversity werecited. The positive aspects included the estab-lishment of native Aleppo pine forests in thebest sites and the national and internationalimpact of the initiative.

2.3. The Pilot Experiences in SidiJaber: Approaching the Limits for Restoration

Sidi Jaber is located in southeast Morocco, witha precipitation between 200 and 300mm peryear, with large interannual variability. Theregion is considered to be at the threshold limit of having any productivity. As in the pre-vious example, overgrazing and overcroppingresulted in severe wind and water soil erosion.In the area there was competition betweencereal cropping and the production of firewoodand fodder. A project funded by the WorldBank was set up with the objective to establishtree cover to produce fire wood, fodder, andshelter, and to reduce the drought effects onagricultural lands and pastures. For thatpurpose, adapted trees and fodder shrubs wereselected, including both native and alienspecies. Seedlings were produced in local nurs-eries using on-site materials and applyingreduced irrigation to pre-adapt the seedlings to

water stress. Planting was carried out in winter,from November to February when the accu-mulated precipitation reached 50mm. Thesurface of the project site was 22 hectares, andthe project implementation was carried outduring the period 1991–1993. Out of the 18species tested, the best growth results wereobtained with some exotics, especially Acaciacyanophylla (firewood species) that reached 21/2 m in height in 2 years in the field, and someeucalyptus. Retama monosperma, bridal veilbroom, which is native in the region had a 100percent survival rate after the first postplanta-tion year. It is used for firewood in the regionand cultivated as an ornamental plant in manywarm areas of the world; Atriplex nummulariaalso yielded good survival and growth rates.This species accumulates salt from the soil andis used for fodder, although sheep and goatsonly consume it when no better palatablespecies are available. Therefore, its extensiveuse in Northern Africa has been questioned.Native species such as Argania spinosa (aspecies that is good for fodder), Pistaciaatlantica, and Acacia gummifera (a NorthAfrican endemic) also gave acceptable results.This pilot project proved that using appropriatespecies and plantation techniques may bothpromote ecosystem recovery and supply valu-able resources for local people.

3. Outline of Tools

Hydrology and forest restoration projects havea long tradition in southern Europe.390 Com-bining short-term stream correction engineer-ing with reforestation for long-term watershedprotection has resulted in the global improve-ment of degraded ecosystems and landscapes,and reduced floods and soil erosion. Nowadays,these projects have to be compatible with the social demands for biodiversity and land-scape services. Recent research and develop-ment advances enable using a larger variety ofnative woody species for forest restoration.391

One specific difficulty in the Mediterranean is the lack of original reference ecosystems

389 Lahouati, personal communication.

390 See, for example, Molina et al, 1989.391 Pausas et al, 2004.

45. Restoring Mediterranean Forests 319

to guide restoration. Instead, cultural land-scapes that were created and were functionalunder past land-use systems are widespread but are being degraded under present land-useconditions. The challenge is trying to make the conservation of these cultural landscapes,and their diversity, compatible with stoppingdegradation.

New forest restoration techniques have beenrecently developed from several EuropeanCommission (EC) research projects. Theseinclude the procedures for cultivation of good-quality seedling, soil preparation techniques,including water harvesting with micro-catchments, mulching and organic amend-ments, and the use of tree shelters to improveseedling survival and growth under harsh soiland climate conditions.392 These techniquesallow the use of local seeds and alternativematerials, so they tend to be cheap and of wide-spread application.

Reforestation projects are traditionally weakin monitoring and evaluation. This deficiencylimits the opportunities to learn from past successes and failures, and especially to takeadvantage of the unique source of informationprovided by old afforestation and reforestationprogrammes. For that purpose, evaluation toolsand the inventory of old paradigmatic forestrestoration projects in southern Europe are being undertaken within the EuropeanCommission’s Research and Development Programme (see REACTION project:www.ceam.es/reaction).

4. Future Needs

Who pays the bill? Forest restoration is a veryexpensive activity. In the Mediterranean coun-

tries, it is usually carried out using public funds.The generalised decrease of direct profit fromforest exploitation under semiarid and dry cli-mates results in a negative cost-benefit balancein market terms. Therefore, the most relevantbenefits from forest restoration derive fromnonmarket goods and services provided byrestored forest and shrublands, such as limitingsoil erosion and floods, carbon sequestration,increase of diversity, aesthetic landscape values,and recreation. Public investments in forestrestoration rely too much on political fluctua-tions, all the more so in developing countries.Economic internalisation of the goods andservices provided by forests is clearly needed to progress in sustaining forest restorationactivities.

References

Cortina, J., and Vallejo, V.R. 1999. Restoration ofMediterranean ecosystems. In: Farina, A. ed.Perspectives in Ecology. Backhuys, Leiden, pp.479–490.

Molina, J.L., Navarro, M., Montero de Burgos, J.L.,and Herranz, J.L. 1989. Afforestation Techniquesin Mediterranean Countries (multilingual publica-tion: Spanish. English and French). ICONA,Madrid.

Pausas, J.G., Bladé, C., Valdecantos, A., et al.2004. Pines and oaks in the restoration of Mediterranean landscapes of Spain: new perspec-tives for an old practice—a review. Plant Ecology171:209–220.

Pausas, J.G., and Vallejo, V.R. 1999. The role of fire in European Mediterranean ecosystems. In:Chuvieco, E. ed. Remote Sensing of Large Wild-fires. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 3–16.

Vallejo, V.R., Bautista, S., and Cortina, J. 1999.Restoration for soil protection after disturbances.In: Trabaud, L. ed. Life and Environment in theMediterranean. WIT Press, Southampton, pp.301–343.392 Vallejo et al, 1999.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Description of TemperateForests

Temperate forests cover more than 20 millionkm2 of the Earth’s surface, including foresttypes such as boreal conifer forests, the mixeddeciduous forests of the United States, Europe,western Asia, China and Japan, and the ever-green rain forests of Chile, New Zealand, andTasmania.393 In the Northern Hemisphere,dominant tree genera are typically members ofthe oak family (Fagaceae) or conifers such aspines (Pinus) and spruces (Picea). SouthernHemisphere forests are often dominated by southern beeches (Nothofagus spp.),mixed with conifers such as members of theAraucariaceae and Podocarpaceae. While tem-perate forests tend to be lower in diversity ofplant or animal species than tropical forests, thediversity of fungi, mosses, and lichens may oftenbe very high, particularly in areas of highhumidity. Those of the Southern Hemisphereare characterised by many species that haverestricted distribution. Temperate forests canbe structurally complex, with up to seven dis-tinct canopy layers. The largest trees can reachover 50m in height with girths of 2m or more.Spatial variation in forest structure and com-position is influenced by the pattern of naturaland anthropogenic disturbance, such as wind or

46Restoring Temperate ForestsAdrian Newton and Alan Watson Featherstone

Key Points to Retain

While temperate forests tend to be lower in diversity of plant or animal species than tropical forests, the diversity of fungi,mosses, and lichens may often be very high,particularly in areas of high humidity.

Many temperate forests have been subst-antially modified by human activity, overperiods of hundreds or even thousands ofyears, limiting our understanding of the orig-inal ecosystem and hindering the develop-ment of goals for restoration.

In many places where temperate forests arefound, the value of the land is high, whichlimits opportunities for restoration.

The rate of recovery of temperate forestsfrom anthropogenic disturbance tends to bevery low.

Very little is known regarding the function-ing of the soil fauna and microbial com-munities, which are likely to be of criticalimportance to ecosystem function andshould be considered during development ofrestoration plans.

320

393 Groombridge and Jenkins, 2002.

46. Restoring Temperate Forests 321

fire. When canopy trees die, the resulting gapsin the canopy are colonised by different ele-ments of the forest flora. This process of “gapdynamics” is important in maintaining standstructure and diversity.

Temperate forests provide many services topeople, including watershed protection and soilstabilisation, and also account for more thanhalf of the carbon stored in forest ecosystems.In many areas they provide significant rec-reational use. Natural temperate forests areimportant reservoirs of genetic material oftimber trees of economic importance, such asoaks, beeches, pines, and eucalypts. However,more than 500 temperate tree species are nowthreatened with extinction, often as a result ofoverexploitation.394 Large areas of temperateforest have been cleared for agriculture. InEurope and parts of Asia, this process of defor-estation has taken place over thousands ofyears, but continues to be a principal threat inmany areas. Timber harvesting is also wide-spread. As a result many temperate forests arehighly fragmented and old growth forests arenow very restricted in extent. Other mainthreats to temperate forests include invasivespecies, urban development, browsing by verte-brates, mining, acid rain, and air pollution.

1.2. Restoration Issues

Forest landscape restoration depends on pre-venting forest loss and degradation caused bythe above-mentioned threats, and enablingforest ecosystems to recover their functionality.Many of the issues relating to restoration oftemperate forests are the same as those forother forest types. As elsewhere, the main focusof restoration will be to identify the maincauses of forest loss and degradation, and todevelop management responses to addressthem. Issues that are particular to temperateforests include:

Attributes of temperate forests: Keddy andDrummond395 provided a detailed analysis ofthe properties or attributes of temperate

deciduous forest ecosystems that could beused to define restoration objectives, or asthe basis for monitoring restoration progress(Table 46.1). While providing a valuable firststep, this analysis placed relatively littleemphasis on landscape-scale attributes, andwas restricted to temperate deciduous forestecosystems in the eastern United States.The approach, therefore, could be usefullyextended to other temperate forest types,such as conifer forests and Southern Hemisphere forests,and to the landscape scale.

Definition of restoration objectives: In someareas, such as central Europe and easternAsia, deforestation has occurred over timescales of thousands of years. In such situa-tions, the characteristics of pristine forest can be difficult or even impossible to definewith precision, greatly complicating thedevelopment of appropriate restorationobjectives.

Rate of forest recovery: Temperate trees, partic-ularly those growing on infertile or marginalsites, display relatively low growth rates com-pared to tropical forests. Rates of forestrecovery following the alleviation of distur-bance generally tend to be low; it could takemany centuries to fully restore the charac-teristics of old-growth forest ecosystems.Many conifers are particularly slow growing.

Restoration of key ecological processes: Eco-logical processes and natural disturbanceregimes (e.g., occasional large-scale wildfires,wind throw, insect infestations, etc.) areimportant characteristics of temperate for-ests, particularly at a landscape level. Theabsence of such processes is a key differencebetween old-growth forests and the ecologi-cally simplified plantations that have oftenreplaced them. Restoration of these ecologi-cal processes presents challenges in many situations today, yet this may be critical to the recovery of fully functioning forestecosystems.

Restoration potential of secondary forests: Insome temperate areas where forests werepreviously cleared (e.g., the northeast UnitedStates and parts of Scandinavia), second-growth forests have become established nat-urally, and relatively minimal management is

394 Oldfield et al, 1998.395 Keddy and Drummond, 1996.

322 A. Newton and A.W. Featherstone

required to facilitate the further restorationof such sites toward an old-growth condition.

Socioeconomic context: Extensive temperateforest areas are situated within countrieswith a high level of economic development.While this can be of value in obtaining thenecessary financial support for restorationaction, it also creates difficulties. Land pricesare often high, particularly in areas where theland has some agricultural value. Coupledwith the high costs of human labour, this can

make the cost of forest restoration prohibi-tive. Many areas are subject to intensive patterns of land use, which may themselveshave long cultural traditions, such as in muchof Europe. This greatly reduces the scope for large-scale forest restoration, which oftencan be achieved only through the deve-lopment of partnerships with relevant lan-downers. In such circumstances economicincentives for forest restoration may be ofcritical importance.

Table 46.1. Ecological attributes for the evaluation, management, and restoration of temperate decidu-ous forest ecosystems.

Property Potential values

Tree size Old growth forests tend to be characterised by relatively high numbers of large trees.A mean basal area of 29 + 4m2 per hectare was recorded on 10 pristine sites.

Canopy composition Mature forests tend to be dominated by only a few relatively shade-tolerant species.Successional forests tend to incorporate a larger number of tree species, including shade-intolerant species.

Coarse woody debris Includes fallen logs, snags, and large branches. An important habitat component for many organisms including birds, mammals, invertebrates, and fungi. Highest volumestend to be recorded in old growth stands (a mean of 27mg per hectare recorded on 10 pristine sites).

Herbaceous layer Many temperate deciduous forests are characterised by a diverse herbaceous flora,which may be sensitive to logging and especially grazing.

Epiphytic bryophytes Diverse communities of cryptogams (mosses, and lichens) may typically be present on and lichens the trunks and branches of trees, particularly in undisturbed forests unaffected by

aerial pollution, in humid environments.Wildlife trees Many birds, mammals, and invertebrates require trees with particular characteristics for

habitat (e.g., as sites for nesting, perching, roosting, or foraging). Large-diameter snags (standing dead trees) and cavity trees (live trees with central decay) are of particular importance. Old growth forests tend to be characterised by ≥4 wildlife trees per 10 hectares.

Fungi Temperate forests are often characterised by diverse communities of larger fungi,which play a critical role in decomposition and nutrient cycling. Many temperate trees form associations with ectomycorrhizal fungi, which assist in nutrient uptake and form an important food resource for many other organisms. The composition of fungal communities remains poorly documented, but diversity in old growth forests may exceed 100 species per hectare.

Birds The composition of bird communities appears to be particularly sensitive to the area offorest patches, some species being dependent on large areas of intact forest.

Large carnivores As large carnivores tend to be at the top of food chains, their presence indicates an intact food web. They may play an important role in keeping herbivore numbers in check, preventing overgrazing and browsing. Large carnivores have explicitly been exterminated in many temperate forests and therefore may need to be considered asan explicit objective of restoration action.

Forest area In many areas, once-continuous tracts of forest have been highly fragmented as a result of human activity. Fragmentation reduces species’ diversity and changes species’composition in remaining forests. Many mammals and birds are most affected because of their large territorial requirements. For a forest to contain the full complement of species, it must be large enough to accommodate, those species with largest area requirements (i.e. >100,000 hectares).

Adapted from Keddy and Drummond, 1996.

46. Restoring Temperate Forests 323

Ecological complexity: Given that the ecologi-cal functioning of temperate forests is rela-tively well understood, and that temperateforests are relatively simple in terms of struc-ture and composition, it could be argued thatthe restoration of temperate ecosystemsshould be technically simpler than in tropicalregions. However, very little is known regard-ing the functioning of the soil fauna andmicrobial communities, which are likely to beof critical importance to ecosystem function.

Restoration methods: Forest restoration shouldideally focus on encouraging natural regen-eration and ecological recovery. However,many temperate forest areas are so degradedthat artificial establishment of trees may berequired to facilitate restoration efforts. Suchplanting has to be done with great care, andshould seek to mimic natural regeneration as much as possible, if restoration objec-tives are to be achieved. Tree establishmentapproaches typically employed in commer-cial afforestation initiatives are generallyinappropriate for use in forest restoration.

2. Examples

2.1. Caledonian Pine Forest, GlenAffric, Scotland

The native pinewoods of the Caledonian Forest in Scotland, characterised by Scots pine(Pinus sylvestris), comprise the westernmost

extent of boreal forest in Europe, and originallycovered 1.5 million hectares. By the late 20th century, their area had been reduced to 17,000 hectares, in isolated remnants con-sisting mostly of old trees, and there was a realdanger of the forest disappearing completely.Situated west of Inverness in the northernHighlands, Glen Affric contains the thirdlargest remnant of the native pinewoods, andthis is also the largest extent of least-disturbedforest in Scotland. Most of the pinewood areathere is owned by the U.K. government, andrestoration work began in the early 1960s, when800 hectares of forest were fenced off toexclude deer and sheep. This enabled a newgeneration of young trees to regenerate—the first to do so in 150 years (Figs. 46.1 and46.2). Restoration work increased substantiallyfrom 1990 onward, and the main managementtechniques initially utilised included the following:

• Facilitating natural regeneration of the sur-viving native forest, through the exclusion ofdeer by fencing

• Extending the forest in areas where it hadalready disappeared by planting native trees,grown from seed of local provenance, in pat-terns that sought to replicate those of naturalregeneration

• Felling of substantial areas of commercialplantations of exotic tree species, which wereinhibiting the regeneration of the nativeforest

Figure 46.1. Athnamulloch. Plant-ing Scots pine seedlings in a defor-ested part of Glen Affric in theHighlands of Scotland in 1991, aspart of the restoration of the Caledonian Forest there. (Photo ©Alan Watson Featherstone/ForestLight.)

324 A. Newton and A.W. Featherstone

In recent years, the restoration work hasentered a new phase, with greater emphasis oncorrecting imbalances in the diversity of treespecies (due to the effects of past selectiveovergrazing and browsing by herbivores),linking up forest fragments throughout thewatershed to provide an enhanced sense of aforested landscape, and paying greater atten-tion to the restoration of other components ofthe ecosystem, such as scarce tree species,woodland insects such as wood ants, forest floorflowering plants, etc. A key factor for achievingfurther restoration of the forest community isreduction of the deer population, so thatongoing regeneration of trees and herbaceousplants becomes possible without the need forfences. Other significant work that will takeplace in the years ahead includes the conver-sion, or naturalisation, of the remaining planta-tions (many of which are of Pinus sylvestris) toa more natural forest structure. In recognitionof Glen Affric’s ecological importance and theprogress made with restoration work, almost15,000 hectares of land was declared a NationalNature Reserve in 2002—the most stringentcategory of protected area in the U.K. A keyfeature of this restoration initiative has beenthe use of volunteer labour: work weeks in the

forest have proved popular with a wide rangeof people keen to participate in practical forestrestoration activities.

2.2. Temperate Rain Forests,Valdivian Ecoregion, Chile

The temperate forests of southern Chileaccount for more than half of the total area oftemperate forests in the Southern Hemisphere,extending to a total of 13.4 million hectares.Theforests are home to over 900 plant species, over90 percent of which are endemic.396 Clearancefor agriculture, human-set fires, browsing, andlogging have reduced the original forest coverof Chile by more than 50 percent. The temper-ate rain forests of the Valdivian ecoregion havebeen identified as a priority for conservationaction by WWF. Although there is growingrecognition of the importance of native forestswithin Chile, attempts at native forest restora-tion have only recently been initiated, primarilyby collaborative partnerships between aca-demic researchers and nongovernmental con-servation organisations. A first attempt hasbeen made to restore populations of alerce(Fitzroya cupressoides), a threatened coniferthat produces a highly valued timber. This wasachieved by first carrying out an intensive fieldexploration, which identified a number ofremnant populations in an area where thespecies was thought to have become extinct.These provided a source of seed and cuttingsthat have been raised in local nurseries. Youngplants have now been established on a numberof sites near to remnant populations, primarilyon agricultural land. As the species is very slowgrowing, and can live for thousands of years, itis clear that very long time scales are neededfor restoration of alerce forest. However, thereal value of this initiative may lie in the impactthat it has had as a demonstration of howrestoration can be achieved in practice, and inraising awareness about the potential for nativeforest restoration in the region. The participa-tion of local private landowners in the initiativehas been of particular importance in thiscontext.

Figure 46.2. Athnamulloch. By 2002, the plantedpines were growing healthily and had been joined bynaturally regenerating rowans. In the absence ofovergrazing by deer, heather and blueberries havealso flourished, covering up much of the exposedpine stump. (Photo © Alan Watson Featherstone/Forest Light.)

396 Armesto et al, 1995.

46. Restoring Temperate Forests 325

Further restoration initiatives have beendeveloped in Senda Darwin, a field station onthe island of Chilöe, by the Fundación SendaDarwin. This area is typical of much of south-ern Chile, having suffered the combined effectsof forest fire, logging, and browsing by live-stock. Restoration is being achieved by remov-ing livestock from remnant forest areas, andprotecting them by fencing. Although recoveryof the forest is slow, a noticeable increase intree cover has been observed within the first 10years of the initiative. Evidence suggests thatloss of soil organic matter as a result of forestburning has resulted in soils becoming water-logged, which has limited tree seedling estab-lishment. Research has indicated that on suchsites the presence of decaying logs or treestumps is of particular importance in providingsites for seedling establishment. Recent activi-ties have focussed on developing a nursery facil-ity to raise native tree seedlings for artificialestablishment, to assist the restoration process.Seedlings are being planted as linear corridorsconnecting forest fragments, to assist in themovement of plant and animal species betweenfragments. In this way, and by developing col-laborative links with neighbouring landowners,the project is moving toward a landscapeapproach to forest restoration.

3. Outline of Tools

Restoration of temperate forests is greatlyassisted by the extensive information resourcesthat exist, based on many years of research andforest management, regarding the ecologicalrequirements of different species and theprocesses of forest dynamics.

3.1. Geographical InformationSystems

Geographical information systems (GISs) haveproved to be of great value as a tool for plan-ning and managing forest restoration projects.Their databases incorporating environmentalinformation, such as soil, hydrology, and currentland use, combined with maps of forest cover

and associated biodiversity, can be used to prioritise areas for forest restoration and todevelop restoration plans at the landscapescale.397

3.2. Spatial Modelling

Spatial modelling of forest dynamics is increa-singly being used to explore managementoptions and possible restoration pathways.Spatial modelling approaches coupled with GISare also being used to analyse the habitatrequirements and distribution of particularspecies.398

4. Future Needs

There is a general need for a shift from site-based restoration action to landscape-scalerestoration. The development of forest habitatnetworks, linking forest fragments, is a usefulconcept in this context.

There is a need for increased research on theeffectiveness of different restoration options intemperate forests, e.g., expansion of core areaof forest fragments versus increasing connec-tivity between fragments. Research is alsoneeded on identifying appropriate methods for monitoring progress toward restorationobjectives.

A critical need is to identify how the restora-tion of forest landscapes can be achieved inareas of intensive, competing land uses, forexample, through the development of partner-ships of many stakeholders, supported by devel-opment of appropriate policy and fundingmechanisms.

Increased emphasis is needed on restoringecological processes in degraded temperateforests; many restoration initiatives currentlyfocus solely on reestablishing tree cover, ratherthan on entire communities of plants andanimals. In particular, practical methods arerequired for the reestablishment of microbialcommunities on degraded soils, as these mayoften be of critical importance for ecosystemfunction.

397 Humphrey et al, 2003.398 Humphrey et al, 2003.

326 A. Newton and A.W. Featherstone

References

Armesto, J.J., Villagrán, C., and Arroyo M.K., eds.1995. Ecología de los Bosques Nativos de Chile. Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile,Chile.

Groombridge, B., and Jenkins, M.D. 2002. WorldAtlas of Biodiversity. California University Press,Berkeley, CA.

Humphrey, J., Newton,A., Latham, J., et al., eds. 2003.The Restoration of Wooded Landscapes. ForestryCommission, Edinburgh, UK.

Keddy, P.A., and Drummond, C.G. 1996. Ecologicalproperties for the evaluation, management, andrestoration of temperate deciduous forest ecosys-tems. Ecological Applications 6(3):748–762.

Oldfield, S., Lusty, C., and MacKinven, A., eds. 1998.The World List of Threatened Trees. World Conservation Press, WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

Additional Reading

Buckley, P., Ito, S., and McLachlan, S.M. 2003. Tem-perate woodlands. In: Handbook of RestorationEcology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,UK.

Hunter, M.I. 1999. Maintaining Biodiversity in Forest Ecosystems. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, UK.

Peterken, G.F. 1996. Natural Woodland. Ecology andConservation in Northern Temperate Regions.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Around two thirds of Finland’s land area iscovered by forest. For hundreds of years,slash-and-burn agriculture and tar burninghave influenced the structure of forests. Also,the intensive forestry practised after theSecond World War has caused significantchanges in forest habitats. Few natural forestsremain, and they are fragmented and nowfound mainly in protected areas.

In natural boreal forests, decaying wood ofvarying size and in various stages of decay isformed all the time. The decaying wood orig-inates from various tree species, and is farmore abundant than in commercial forests.Astrees fall, they create small openings wherenew saplings grow. Deciduous trees, whichdemand more light, grow in the slightly largeropenings, whereas spruces grow in the moreshaded ones. Due to the constant changes, anatural forest is like a mosaic. Trees of differ-ing size and species grow in random order;occasional small openings are found, as wellas thickets.

As a result of effective fire prevention,extensive forest fires hardly occur anymore inFinland. In the past, there were frequentforest fires that left behind dead or dyingcharred wood. If a forest fire is limited toground level, the entire tree stand maysurvive. If the fire reaches the tree tops, atleast some of the trees die, and sometimes allof them. Forest fires usually increase themosaic nature of forests. After the fire, deadand decaying wood is found unevenly distrib-uted in the forest. Saplings grow in the open-ings formed, and the variation in the age and

species’ distribution of the trees, as well as thespatial variation of the forest, is oftenincreased.

Forests are the primary habitat for 564 (38percent) of Finland’s threatened species.Furthermore, some 60 (33 percent) forest-dwelling species have already gone extinct inFinland. Many more species have gone extinctfrom parts of the country, especially from thesouthern part, which has been most influ-enced, and for the longest period of time, byhumans. Particularly invertebrates, especiallybeetles, as well as fungi have become extinct.

Only a small fraction of the forests in pro-tected areas are being restored. It has beenestimated that the forest area on mineral soilthat needs to be restored is approximately29,000 hectares in protected areas in Finland.In addition, many extensions that are to bejoined to existing nature protected areas arein need of ecological restoration. During theyears 2003 to 2012, 16,500 hectares of forestare to be restored in protected areas in south-ern and western Finland. The need for eco-logical restoration of forests will diminish inthe future, because natural processes thatcreate habitats for endangered species beginto take place.

Increasing the Amount of Deadand Decaying Wood

The amount of dead and decaying wood isincreased primarily in areas where the natural

Case Study: The EcologicalRestoration of Boreal Forests in FinlandJussi Päivinen and Marja Hokkanen

327

328 J. Päivinen and M. Hokkanen

Burning

Burning is one forest restoration method. Thesites picked for burning are usually of low ormedium fertility, because highly fertile forestsare usually too moist to be burned. When theforest is burned, some of the trees are charred,some die immediately, and some die over aperiod of years. As a result, wood in all stagesof decay is continually produced in the area.The diversity of tree species usually increasesafter a fire. The new tree stands sometimesform in clusters, sometimes separately, withvarying distances between the trees. The treesare of different ages, because part of the orig-inal stand survives the fire. Increased insola-tion caused by burning is a prerequisite forcertain rare or endangered species.

The European Union (EU) supports borealforest restoration in Finland. Several projectshave received EU Life Nature funding for theecological restoration of forests. The mostextensive of the projects currently under wayis the Restoration of Boreal Forests andForest-Covered Mires project (www.metsa.fi/metsa-life), in which around 5000 hectares of former commercial forests belonging toNatura 2000 will be restored. The project willlast until the end of 2007, and the state enter-prise Metsähallitus and its partners areresponsible for its execution.

continuum of decaying wood is in danger of being broken, and in areas lacking decay-ing wood but with valuable species in thevicinity.

Dead and decaying wood can be producedby stripping the bark off trees while they arestanding, or by cutting them down. Both strip-ping and felling are mainly done by chainsaw.Stripping irons or marking tools can also beused for stripping. Excavators can be used tofell trees together with their root clumps. Themineral soil thus exposed forms a good sub-stratum for saplings.

Creation of Small Openings

Small openings are usually created in young,homogeneous conifer forests. The openingsare created by felling all conifers within anarea of a few hundred square metres.There aretwo main methods. Small openings, in whichnew deciduous trees may grow, can be created.Alternatively, conifers can be felled aroundthe existing deciduous trees which are losingthe competition for light and living space.The creation of small openings increases theamount of deciduous trees, and increases themosaicity of the forest. The saplings growingin the openings also increase the diversity ofthe age distribution of the stand.

Section XRestoring After Disturbances

III

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

The need to restore a landscape for its conser-vation objectives after fire has impacted mayappear to be clear and is often obvious.However, without an understanding of thecauses of the fire and its role in the ecosystem,then what is “clear” and “obvious” may betotally misunderstood.

1.1. Short Historical Account of Fire

Throughout history there have been large firesthat have damaged human assets and impingedon human perceptions. Some of these eventshave framed human response to fire. They con-tinue to do so—Portugal, Spain, Los Angeles,

and eastern Australia in 2003 and the GreatBorneo fires of 1997–1998 are examples.

Fire is one of the oldest tools known tohumans. It has been used as a managementtechnique in land clearance and preparation for crops for centuries. For the thousands offarmers, ranchers, and plantation owners on theedge of the agriculture frontier pushing intoforests, fire is the obvious mechanism. It is nor-mally the least expensive and most effectiveway of clearing vegetation and of temporarilyfertilising nutrient poor soils. In most cases thedeliberate fire use we see in developing nationsis an echo of what occurred historically in whatare now developed countries such as the north-east United States in the 1700s where fire wasused to clear forest and convert land to otheruses, initially agriculture.

1.2. Short Introduction to Fire inthe Landscape

Fire is a prominent disturbance factor in mostvegetation zones throughout the world, themost ubiquitous after human urban and agri-cultural activities.399 In many ecosystems fire isa natural, essential, and ecologically significantforce, organising physical and biological attrib-utes, shaping landscape diversity, and influenc-ing the global carbon cycle. Fire has been partof the landscape since Mesozoic times. Thecombination of fires and grasses helped createthe savannahs and open plains and provided

47Forest Landscape Restoration After FiresPeter Moore

Key Points to Retain

The fire situation needs to be analysed aswell as possible with available data tosupport decisions about restoration.

Identifying and engaging with those wholight fires, have fire responsibilities, or areimpacted by fires is critical.

Protecting the restoration site from fire untilspecies being used can withstand fire, if it isa natural disturbance, is essential.

331

399 Bond and van Wilgen, 1996.

332 P. Moore

opportunities for the proliferation of a widerange of grazing animals. For example, Aus-tralian vegetation has been subject to the influ-ence of fire, by indigenous (aboriginal) burningand then by the burning practices of Europeansettlers,400 over a wide range of environments.401

This pervasive fire presence has influenced atransformation in Australia to the current florathat are considered both fire tolerant and alsoin many cases are fire adapted requiring fire forregeneration and life-cycle stages.402 This samestory can be told for many ecosystems.

Forest fires occur because of either anthro-pological or natural causes. Lightning is themost common natural cause of fire. The major-ity of fires around the globe are caused byhuman activity. The extent and timing of firesdiffers between natural ignitions and fires by people, those by people generally beingsmaller. While it is difficult to compile precisefigures, in the year 2000, a year that was notstrongly associated with bad fires, the EuropeanCommunity’s Global Burned Area AssessmentProject identified 251,000,000 hectares of burnscars worldwide.403

In fire-sensitive ecosystems fire causes severedamage. One widely known example, tropicalrainforest ecosystems, are characterised by highlevels of humidity and moisture, they do notnormally burn and are extremely prone tosevere fire damage when they do. Damage fromfire can be long lasting on a tropical forestecosystem.404

Just as too much fire can cause problems, socan too little. Many fires in boreal forests arecaused naturally by lightning. However, somecountries, such as the United States, have had apolicy of suppressing most fires that threaten togrow out of control. Under these circumstancesfire suppression can lead to unnatural condi-tions in which forests, which have historicallyexperienced small intermittent fires, no longerburn. Fire suppression can lead to a buildup ofdead biomass, and altered tree species’ compo-

sition, so when a fire does start, instead of beingrelatively small, it is much more intense and ona large scale. This conclusion seems to havebeen reinforced almost annually in the UnitedStates since 1986.

Understanding the reason fire is introducedto or suppressed from a landscape is critical.Should the reason not be addressed, restoringthe landscape will be difficult and ultimatelyfutile.

1.3. Brief Description of Fire Impacts

Fire has played, and will continue to play, amajor role in shaping ecosystems throughoutthe world. Fires can produce local extinctions of species, alter species’ composition and suc-cessional stages, and bring about substantialchanges in ecosystem functioning (includingsoils and hydrology). In almost all forest ecosys-tems throughout the world, humans havealtered the natural fire regimes by changing thefrequency and intensity of fires. People haveexcluded or suppressed fires and changed thenature of the landscape so that a naturallyoccurring fire will not behave in the same wayit would have done in the absence of humanimpact. The interrelationship between humans,fire, and forests is a complex one and has beenthe subject of many studies and reports.405

In some ecosystems, however, fire is anuncommon or even unnatural process thatseverely damages vegetation and can lead to long-term degradation. Such fire-sensitiveecosystems, particularly in the tropics, arebecoming increasingly vulnerable to fire due togrowing population, economic, and land-usepressures.406

In most developed nations the process ofnatural area loss and degradation has beenslowed or reversed. Public responses to fire,generally viewing fire as negative and destruc-tive, have led to a focus on fire suppression.Thisin its turn has had “profound effects on vege-tation patterns.”407400 Singh et al, 1981.

401 Luke and McArthur, 1978.402 Gill, 1981.403 Joint Research Center of the European Commission,2002.404 Cochrane, 2002.

405 Jackson and Moore, 1998.406 Goldammer, 2000.407 Bond and van Wilgen, 1996.

47. Forest Landscape Restoration After Fires 333

1.4. The Fire Impact Cycle

The key variables of fire regimes are the following:

• Season in which the fire takes place• The extent and “patchiness” of the fire• The fire intensity—either too low or too high

can create both negative and positive effects• Fire frequency—too little time or too much

time between fires can be negative

The cycle of fire impact hinges around theseregime characteristics. The impact of a fire will be positive or negative depending on thedegree to which the fire conforms to a regimethat the landscape can accommodate. Wrongseason, too small or too large, too high or toolow an intensity, and too often or not oftenenough and the cycle may become out ofbalance leading to negative impacts. If the cycleremains too far out of balance with the land-scape, then fire may lead to a long-term alter-ation to the ecosystem.

These characteristics of fire can create signif-icant impacts if they hinder the ecosystem’scapacity to absorb and harness their influence.So fire may not be intrinsically positive or neg-ative but always has the potential to have a pro-found impact with potentially long-term effects.Fire is of specific concern where a particularlandscape represents a significant or uniqueecosystem of global importance. Under suchcircumstances it becomes even more importantto evaluate and manage the role of fire tosustain those values.

Changes in the fire regime that fall outsidethe capacity of the landscape to contain themwill possibly influence a cycle of impact that,depending on perspective, will be consideredeither negative or positive.

1.5. The Questions of RestorationAfter Fire

1.5.1. Why and When Restoring?

The natural and human created role of fires inlandscapes sets up the context for decisionsabout restoring landscapes. The decisions needto be based very clearly on an understanding of

the role of fire in a particular landscape. This in turn needs to be informed about the firepresence in the landscape—How many? Howoften? How large? How intense? What season?Also, the cause of fire in the landscape must beidentified. Fires can be thought of as having thefollowing characteristics:

• A source—the ignition means, such as light-ning, matches, metal striking rocks

• A cause—the agent that lit the fire, such asfarmer, tourist, or land-clearing contractor

• A motivation—the reason the fire was lit,such as negligence, livelihood, or accident

Armed with good knowledge of the fire char-acteristics, the reasons underlying the origin ofthe fire, and understanding the role of fire in aparticular landscape, the following restorationquestions can be answered:

• Is restoration likely to be successful oruseful?

• Can/should the same species be used forrestoration?

• Will restoration have to be “staged,” withinitial work creating the opportunities forlater efforts?

1.5.2. Fire as a Natural Disturbance

The need for restoration will rest on the extentto which the fire regime is out of step with whatthe landscape can accommodate. Actions mightinclude the following:

1.5.2.1. Controlling Fire to Bring It withinthe Regime that the Landscape can Absorb

• Reducing ignition sources• Managing fuels• Suppressing fires that do not meet the

requirements for the landscape (a very diffi-cult decision to make408)

408 It is far easier to suppress all fires than to make such adecision. Human assets may be impacted, perceptions ofthe role of fire in the landscape will differ, and hence thefires that should or should not be suppressed will vary. Con-flict is likely, particularly when damage is caused.

334 P. Moore

• Replanting with local species to overcomelosses, which will normally have to includeprotecting the replanting from fire that isinconsistent with the landscape fire regime

• Removing species that have been favouredby inappropriate fire or that have invaded,including the use of fire in some cases

• Undertaking physical works to protect,restore, or limit the degradation of the land-scape features such as soil and drainage lines

1.5.2.2. Introducing Fire to Reestablish a Fire Regime Consistent with the Landscape

• Setting fires under prescribed conditions con-sistent with the fire regime

• Measuring and if necessary managing fuels• Suppressing fires that do not meet the

requirements for the landscape• Removing species that have been favoured

by inappropriate fire or that have invaded(including the use of fire in some cases)

• Undertaking physical works to protect,restore or limit the degradation of the land-scape features such as soil, drainage lines.

1.5.3. Fire as a Degradation Factor

Where fire has no natural role in the landscape,then the steps are much clearer. Fire needs tobe controlled to reduce its pressure on the land-scape. Removing fire from a landscape entirelyis generally impossible—accidents and veryinfrequently occurring combinations of factorswill at some time create conditions that lead to fires.

1.5.4. Fire Used as a Tool

Where fire is being used as a tool in the land-scape there is first a need to clearly establish the aspects of cause: ignition, source, and moti-vation. Depending on the insights developedthere are likely to be a range of options for landscape restoration. If fire is not impact-ing negatively on the landscape, there may beno need to deal with fire and restoration to

meet other objectives can continue. Fire mayalso be used as an active tool to acceleraterestoration.

2. Examples

In general there are very few efforts to restorelandscapes after fire anywhere in the world.Of the aspects of fire management, two—prevention and restoration—are notablyabsent and apparently ignored in most jurisdic-tions. Much of the work that is done on burntareas has apparently been simplistic in origin(to stop erosion) and implementation (drop-ping grass seed from aircraft). Consequently in the literature and documentation there islittle carefully considered fire-related restora-tion work described.

2.1. Attempting to RehabilitateRainforests in East Kalimantan,Indonesia

Following the severe fires that burnt throughGrand Park Bukit Soeharto in East Kaliman-tan in the 1980s and early 1990s, the timber concession companies that had responsibilityfor areas elsewhere in the province wererequired to rehabilitate the park. This has taken the form of narrow plantings of an intro-duced Acacia species and roadside signs identi-fying the company responsible for each sectionof the rehabilitation. While it has reestablishedtree cover, the vegetation is introduced anddoes not resemble the forest removed or lost tothe fires in terms of species’ mix, structure, orhabitat.

As part of GTZ’s Sustainable Forest Man-agement Project, which was operating at thetime of the fires, the following principles weredeveloped for the rehabilitation of fire-affectedforests:

• Maintenance of the forest area• Sustainable management of forest resources:

Economically sound management targetsshould be defined and agreed to by the con-cession’s stakeholders, giving considerationto the local conditions and forest functions.

47. Forest Landscape Restoration After Fires 335

Appropriate silvicultural treatments shouldbe performed to reach these managementtargets.

• Ecological sustainability: Management tar-gets should be directed toward the type offorest that is native to the area. Silvicultureactivities should have minimal negativeeffects on the remaining stand and soil andshould prioritise management of the residualstand, natural regeneration, and mixed plant-ing using local species suitable to the site.

• Forest protection: The forest is the foremostasset so it must be protected from pests,disease, illegal logging, fire and other disturbances.

• Community participation to increase com-munity welfare through benefits from forestresources and support efforts to protect theforest

2.2. Restoration in Giant Forest—Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, California409

Development in giant forest in Sequoia andKings Canyon National Parks altered the veg-etation in several ways. Trees were cleared forbuildings and parking lots, leaving distinctopenings in the forest canopy. The forest overstorey was thinner because trees thatthreatened human safety and property wereremoved. Trampling and soil compactionreduced or eliminated the forest understorey,including grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, and treeseedlings. The soil seed bank, which influencesthe regenerative potential of the forest, waslikely depleted. Small patches of wetland vege-tation were lost where fill was placed overmeadow edges or streams.

The disturbance caused by human develop-ment resembled that caused by natural, pre-scribed fire killing patches of mature trees,creating openings, or gaps, in the canopy. Thesefire-caused gaps were colonised by patches ofabundant shrub and tree regeneration, particu-larly giant sequoia, with little regenerationbeneath intact canopy.

Shrub and tree regeneration in fire-causedgaps was mapped and the patterns of regener-ation were used as a model for restoring vege-tation in Giant Forest Village. The short-termgoal of vegetation restoration in Giant ForestVillage is to reproduce the species’ composi-tion, density, and spatial pattern of regenerationthat would result from a natural fire event. Thelong-term goal is to integrate the site into thenatural fire regime typical of surrounding areasof giant forest, re-creating the range of naturalvariability and then allowing natural processesto thin the vegetation.

2.3. Restoration After Fires inMediterranean Forest Landscapes410

Fires are part of the natural disturbances towhich Mediterranean forests are adapted.Nevertheless, during the last decades thenatural fire regimes have been altered andincreasingly there are large-scale, very intense,and frequent human-induced fires. From expe-rience in Portugal, where in 2003 WWF and thelocal nongovernmental organisation (NGO),Associação de Defesa do Património deMértola (ADPM), developed plans to restoreforest landscapes that were devastated by fires,a number of steps were taken:

• Geographical information system (GIS)assessment of soil degradation and hydro-logic erosion risk of the different landscape components

• The GIS assessment of the fire incidence inthe forest cover and mycorrhizal soil compo-nent in the mosaic of habitat types within theforest landscape

• Analysis of the socioeconomic impact, in-cluding forecasts in productivity loss and risk of abandonment of forest uses and ruralexodus

• Planning the different technical options to be adopted within the landscape for preventing degradation and activating thenatural recovery of burned areas, including burned vegetation management techniques;

409 Source: http://www.nps.gov/seki/snrm/gf/ecology/vegetation.htm.

410 This example was provided by Pedro Regato, WWFMediterranean Programme.

336 P. Moore

it is preferable not to remove burned vegetation from the forest area, as it pro-vides protection to soil and to the natural regeneration.

• Active restoration in landscape areas withrisk of soil erosion and little or no naturalregeneration in the first years. As much as possible, it would be preferable to pro-mote planting by combining root-sproutingspecies, such as evergreen oaks, small trees—strawberry tree, myrtle, mastic tree—withleguminous shrubs

• Management of sprouting trees, mainly oakspecies, through cutting operations to accel-erate the establishment of healthy coppicewoodlands

• Clearance of fire-prone monospecific shrub-lands, for example, rocky rose shrubs andplantation of scattered trees and shrubs, aswell as pasture patches to increase plantdiversity, accelerate succession, and reducethe risk of fires

• Nonintervention in areas with low fire impactwhere the natural regeneration has a goodafter-fire response

• Reducing the risk of fires recurring in theforest landscape

• Creation of natural firebreaks within theforest landscape, especially in areas whereforest management options have simplifiedthe landscape structure (see “DevelopingFirebreaks”).

• Restoring riparian forest vegetation inravines and river networks

• Redesigning tree plantations where timber/pulp commercial tree stands should be alter-nated with silvipastoral woodland stands—dominated by oak, ash, chestnuts, juniper,stone pine, etc.

• Restoring the economic and social potentialof the burned forest landscape

• Activities should be participatory in order tounderstand and restore the economic andsocial values of burned forest landscapes

• Restoration should be designed and planned to reduce large-scale fire risk and may implythe need for funding schemes, such as gov-ernmental subsidies or environmental serv-ices payments, to support the establishment

of natural and economically beneficial fire-breaks, and to diversify the existing land-useoptions in private and public land

2.4. Potential Adverse Impacts

Adverse impacts of restoration after fires aremost likely to result from the use of inappro-priate (exotic) species, physical restorationefforts that change or impact soils or drainagefeatures, or replanting that alters the preferredmix of local species. In the Bitterroot NationalForest in Montana, wildfires burnt extensiveareas in 2000. The amount of disturbance byboth wildfires and fuel treatments before firescombined with the use of exotic seed in mixesapplied for erosion control are suggested asfactors in establishing invasive species in thelandscape.411 Conditions that potentially favourinvasive species included increased light andnutrient levels, reduced plant competition, andexposed soil. In some sites, 2 years later, the fire weeds had increased in density and werepresent on plots that had previously been free of invasive species. Knapweed (there areseveral species) had increased in relation to theseverity of fires—the more severe, the higherthe density of this weed.There are cases of inva-sive species following wildfires that reduce thechance of native plant recovery identified inNew Mexico in the United States.412

3. Outline of Tools

The major input required for framing restora-tion after fires is strong insight into the firesthemselves. The facts, factors, and informationthat need to be gathered include those listedearlier. Collectively, fire-related data, identifica-tion of the fire regime, and clarity about cause(ignition, source of fire, motivation for fire)provide a solid foundation for dealing with thefires and then restoring the landscape if itproves possible and desirable. For developingnations, fire is often perceived as part of that

411 Sutherland, 2003.412 Hunter et al, 2003.

47. Forest Landscape Restoration After Fires 337

development. Consequently analysis of liveli-hood requirements and sectoral use of fire ineconomic development is needed.

Analysing fires is essential and relativelystraightforward if the data and information areavailable.The key information is simple and thefocus is on the motivation for the fires—dealingwith this is essential to identify the restorationstrategy required and its components. Thoughthere is no documented “formal” or “system-atic” process for the analysis of fires, the processbasically involves obtaining answers to a seriesof questions:

For fires:When did the fire start?Where did the fire start?When did the fire finish?How large is the area burnt?What ignited the fire?Why was the fire started?Where are the fires likely to be?What time of year/season are fires likely tooccur?

For people:Who manages and influences land—

communities, forest agencies, concession-aires, ministry of agriculture, ministry oftransmigration, provincial and districtleadership, others?

Who is impacted—people, transport sector,tourism sector, health sector, agriculturalsector, manufacturing industry?

Who can assist with fires—fire services, com-munities, forest agencies, concessionaires,ministry of agriculture, ministry of trans-migration, provincial and district leader-ship?

For those identified above:What role do they play?What is their motivation?Why should they be involved?Who is responsible and should fight the fire?Who is affected and will need/want to fight

the fire?Who is responsible for fires that cause

damage?Who is impacted by fires?Who should pay or undertake recovery?

For the landscape:What is the ideal landscape state, given the

influences of fires and people?Is there an ecological role for fire in the

landscape?Should/must fire have a role in the

landscape?

By collating the answers to these questionsas far as possible (informed guesses are some-times the only information available), the fire“picture” can be framed.

Once the fire situation is understood,then decisions about restoration strategies andtechniques can be made. If the fires are goingto be repeated, then restoration itself may notbe successful or require fire management toensure restored areas are not burnt at all, notburnt before they can be, or are ready to beburnt.

4. Future Needs

There is increasing recognition of the oftenstrong capacity communities have in fire man-agement. Their reasons, skills, and understand-ing can be highly developed and should beharnessed. The community/local understandingof fire and its role as well as techniques forusing fire should be the basis for improving firemanagement. Expanding the recognition ofcommunity-based fire management (CBFiM)and the core role people play through using firein the landscape is essential in the context of nations where government structures andapproaches are developing and resources andsupport may be limiting.

As discussed earlier it is critical to obtain,maintain, or initiate records of unwanted fires,fire use, and fire behaviour to enable analysis tosupport the refinement of techniques of delib-erate fire use and targeting of information andinputs to reduce unwanted impacts of fires.

References

Bond, W.J., and van Wilgen, B.W. 1996. Fire andPlants. Chapman & Hall, London.

338 P. Moore

Cochrane, M.A. 2002. Spreading like wildfire—tropical forest fires in Latin America and theCaribbean. Prevention, assessment and earlywarning. UNEP, Regional Office for LatinAmerica and the Caribbean, Mexico.

Gill, A.M. 1981. Adaptive responses of Australianvascular plant species to fires. In: Gill, A.M.,Groves, R.H., and Noble, I.R., eds. Fire and theAustralian Biota. Australian Academy of Science,Canberra.

Goldammer, J. 2000. Global Fire Issues. In: Saile, P.,Stehling, H., and von der Heyde, B., eds. WALD-INFO 26. Special Issue—Forest Fire Managementin Technical Co-operation. Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). Eschborn,Germany.

Hunter, M.E., Omi, P.N., Martinson, E.J., Chong,G.W., Kalkhan, M.A., and Stohlgren, T.J. 2003.Effects of fuel treatments, post-fire rehabilitationtreatments and wildfire on establishment of inva-sive species. Second International Wildland FireEcology and Fire Management congress and FifthSymposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology,Orlando, Florida, 16–20 November.

Jackson, W.J., and Moore, P.F. 1998. The role ofindigenous use of fire in forest management andconservation. International Seminar on Cultivat-ing Forests: Alternative Forest Management Prac-tices and Techniques for Community Forestry.Regional Community Forestry Training Center,Bangkok, Thailand.

Joint Research Center of the European Commission.2002. Global Burnt Area 2000 (GBA2000) dataset:http://www.gvm.jrc.it/fire/gba2000/.

Luke, R.H., and McArthur, A.G. 1978. Bushfires in Australia. Australian Government PublishingService, Canberra.

Singh, G., Kershaw, A.P., and Clark, R. 1981. Quater-nary vegetation and fire history in Australia. In:Gill, A.M., Groves, R.H., and Noble, I.R., eds. Fireand the Australian Biota. Australian Academy ofScience, Canberra.

Sutherland, S. 2003. Wildfire and weeds in the north-ern Rockies. Second International Wildland FireEcology and Fire Management congress and FifthSymposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology.Orlando, Florida, 16–20 November.

Web Sites

US National Parks Servicehttp://www.nps.gov/fire/fire/fireprogram.html.Global Fire Manitoring Centrehttp://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/programmes/

natcon/natcon_5.htm.

Additional Reading

Bowman, M. 2003. Landscape analysis of aboriginalfire management in Central Arnhem Land, NorthAustralia. Second International Wildland FireEcology and Fire Management Congress, Orlando,Florida, 16–20 November.

Ganz, D., Fisher, R.J., and Moore, P.F. 2003. Furtherdefining community-based fire management: criti-cal elements and rapid appraisal tools.Third Inter-national Wildland Fire Conference, October 6–8,Sydney, Australia.

Moore, P.F. 2001. Fires, community action and lawenforcement in S.E. Asia. Paper prepared for the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance:World Bank East Asia Ministerial Conference,September 11–13, Denpasar, Indonesia.

Moore, P.F. 2001. Forest fires in ASEAN: data, defi-nitions and disaster? ASEAN Regional Center forBiodiversity Conservation, Workshop on ForestFires: Its Impact on Biodiversity, Brunei Darus-salam, 20–23 March.

Moore, P.F., Ganz, D., Tan, L., Enters, T., and Durst,P.B., eds. 2002. Communities in flames: proceedingsof an international conference on communityinvolvement in fire management. FAO RAP Pub-lication 2002/25.

Petty, A., Banfai, D., Prior, L.D., and Lehmann,C. (2003) Introducing the Kakadu LandscapeChange Project: a multidisciplinary assessment of50 years of landscape change in the tropicalSavannah Region of Northern Australia. ThirdInternational Wildland Fire Conference, October6–8, Sydney, Australia.

Reeb, D., Moore, P.F., and Ganz, D. 2003. Five CaseStudies of Community Based Fire Management.FAO Headquarters, Rome.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Every year somewhere in the temperate zoneviolent storms damage forests and cause largeeconomic losses for forest owners. In anaverage year in Northern Europe the areadamaged is equivalent to the net increase in

commercial forest area. The overall forest areaaffected is many times larger.

Forest damage due to violent storms is oftendescribed as a climatic and economic disaster.After a violent storm, there is typically a move by politicians, the general public, themedia, and foresters to restore, starting as soonas possible to implement salvage logging andreplanting. However, when consideringresponses to storms two main paradoxes shouldbe considered:

• The economic paradox: Broken anduprooted trees have lost part of their timbervalue. Harvesting in forests damaged byviolent storms is more difficult and danger-ous, thus many trees do not cover the cost of logging operations. Artificial replanting(including soil treatments) is also expensive.As a whole, such a salvage logging/artificialreplantation policy is extremely expensivefor society, which generally supports theseoperations through European Union (EU)and national subsidies. These facts lead to afirst paradox that even though financial profitis not always guaranteed in post storm operations, investment is facilitated andincreased.

• The ecological paradox: Modern ecologicaltheory asserts that natural disturbances,including violent storms, are essential to the functioning of old-growth forests and that they contribute positively to thepreservation of biodiversity. Indeed, theydrive greater species’ diversity and sustain

48Restoring Forests After Violent StormsDaniel Vallauri

Key Points to Retain

After a violent storm, there is typically amove to restore, starting as soon as possibleto implement salvage logging and replanting.

This leads to two paradoxes: an economicparadox, that financial profit is not alwaysguaranteed but investment is facilitated; andan ecological paradox, that natural distur-bances, including violent storms, are essen-tial to the functioning and the preservationof biodiversity.

There is a good deal of information in the lit-erature, and field experience includes large-scale use of natural dynamics.

Restoration questions after storms are a keytopic in order to encourage forest manage-ment improvements, both on paper and inthe field.

Careful lobbying, policy work, and commu-nications are needed.

339

340 D. Vallauri

never-ending forest cycles. This paradox ispartly explained by the fact that, over recentdecades, forest structure and compositionhave been increasingly modified for humanuses. Management rules have sometimesweakened the resistance (e.g., large-scale, pure, even-aged spruce or poplar plantations) and resilience of forests (natural ability to regenerate without assis-tance), especially in central and westernEurope.

In the aftermath of a violent storm, the main challenges for conservationists are the following:

• Avoid additional harsh human intervention,especially on soils or key habitats whilelogging. Numerous experiences prove thatthe direct impact of violent storms is often farless dangerous for biodiversity than poorlyplanned and implemented post-stormactions.

• Reintroduce forest productivity along withforest biodiversity and other social uses, ifany of these functions have been damaged by the storms, and avoid restoration errors.

• Because it is one of the very few forest eventsthat raise public interest about forest issues,the aftermath represents a key period forefficient lobbying and communication toimprove field practices and above all forestpolicies (including subsidies).

Today forestry is facing the challenge ofachieving sustainable and multifunctional man-agement in complex ever-changing social andecological environments. Storms are predictedto become more frequent in the temperate zoneas a consequence of global climate changes.Thus, storms above all provide us with theopportunity to define management in closerharmony with nature’s rules. Key questions toexplore and answer to help with this processinclude: How can we better integrate naturaldisturbances in science-based forest manage-ment? How can we reduce forest vulnerability?How can we recover natural resilience? Howcan we help to restore?

2. Examples

There is a good deal of information in the lit-erature on the effect of storms on forests andon restoration in various contexts. Here are afew recent examples from the temperate forestsof Europe and North America.

2.1. Learning from EcologicalStudies413

Nothing is permanent, except change.Eraclite, 500 a.d.

Forest management ought to better integratethe consequences of ecological disturbances.This requires a deep understanding of naturaldisturbance regimes and forest resistance andresilience, which is also essential for forest land-scape restoration.

Some of the key ideas about storm distur-bance are listed below. We use as an exampledata from Fontainebleau National Forest,France:

• Time period, frequency, and intensity ofevents are variable. Climatic data on winds,ice storms, tornadoes, etc., and an analysis ofpast events that affected forests facilitate riskassessment. In Fontainebleau the periodicityof violent medium-size storms, for example,is evaluated as one event every 25 to 30 years(1938, 1967, and 1990 for the last century),more than half occurring between Novemberand January.

• Resistance of forests to winds is a complexissue, expressed by a nonlinear and multi-scale relationship among climatic, geo-graphic, and ecological factors. Of the latter,the relationship between soil and forest standstructure is particularly decisive (type of rootsystem, deciduous or evergreen, etc.). Over-simplified forest structures are dangerouslysensitive to strong winds at landscape scales.In Fontainebleau, all stands are sensitive towind speeds higher than 120km/h, but pureevergreen trees with shallow root systems

413 Pontailler et al, 1997; Rogers, 1996; Schaetzl et al, 1989.

48. Restoring Forests After Violent Storms 341

(like spruce) on sandy or humid soils aremore sensitive to damage.

• One of the consequences of the two previouspoints is that violent storms may result invery different levels of damage in terms ofthe proportion of uprooted trees or snags,and in terms of distribution (single-treeopenings, medium-size gaps, or very largegaps). In Fontainebleau, violent winterstorms in old-growth broad-leaved forestusually damage from 2.7 to 21.2 trees perhectare (a majority of beech trees with dbh(diameter at breast height) from 35 to 85cm)and create a mosaic of small gaps (mean size175m2) on 4 to 21 percent of forest area.

• Resilience depends on numerous factors,including biodiversity, ecosystem health, andstructural complexity (forest stand andunderstorey). Depending on the size, charac-teristics, and context of gaps (seed availabil-ity, for example), natural regeneration occursrapidly or not, with the expected targetspecies or not. In Fontainebleau, single-treegaps are rapidly closed by beech, whereas inlarger openings oak could be dominant andbirch colonises bare soil.

• Where forest is near natural in structure,storms support natural functioning which inturn supports biodiversity conservation,including species depending on open andhumid habitats.

2.2. New York State: BanningSalvage Logging in Protected Areas414

In northern New York State, strong windscaused significant damage in July 1995 overapproximately 400,000 hectares of private and public forests. Out of the approximately175,000 hectares of public area designated asthe Adirondack Park Forest Preserve, damagewas particularly high (60 to 100 percent) over9700 hectares and moderate (30 to 60 percent)over 25,300 hectares.

State policy following such events since the1950s was technically based, focussed on foresthealth (threat of fire, deadwood, pests) and gen-

erally started with complete and rapid salvagelogging, including in wilderness area (althoughit required a waiver from wilderness state legislation).

Considering the specific context of the 1995storm, for which key elements were a well-prepared science-based expertise (including aninformation system that enabled rapid and reli-able evaluation of scenarios), ecological pres-sure from society and weak economic demandfor timber, a new official policy was adopted bythe governor for the forest preserves. It corre-sponds to a near-complete reversal of preced-ing policy: no salvage logging, reinforcement of the “forever wild” statement for forest preserves; and operations limited to cleaningroads, trails, and campsite facilities. Salvagelogging was specifically rejected as beinguneconomic.

In Europe, another example of such a policyis the one from Bavaria National Park(Germany) following violent storms in 1983and 1990.415 Both examples are very relevant to the violent storm that damaged TatraNational Park (Slovakia) in November 2004.In Tatra National Park the restoration thatbegan after the storm of 1915, which includedsalvage logging and artificial replanting ofspruce, led 90 years later to the same catastrophic results, both ecologically and economically.

2.3. Restoration After the 1999Storm in France: When Short-Term Subsidies Definethe Strategy

The storms of December 1999 in Franceaffected about 500,000 hectares, that is, 1/30 ofthe French forest area (140 million m3 ofdowned wood). Apart from the importance of the damage, the sharp social debate followingthis storm forced forest stakeholders, includingNGOs, to revise their strategy and to design restoration far more carefully than in thepast.

WWF promoted a science-based strategyemphasising multifunctionality and sustainable

414 Robinson and Zappieri, 1999. 415 Fisher, 1992.

342 D. Vallauri

management. The strategy outlines seven mainprinciples:

• Make a clear analysis of forest goals withinthe landscape.

• Define the priority of the actions (logging,planting, natural regeneration).

• Follow the time scale of nature (especially toallow natural regeneration).

• Reduce additional actions likely to lead todegradation while logging, such as using pesticides, etc.

• Use all the opportunities offered by nature(alternative natural successions).

• Closely mimic nature and facilitate its work.

• Avoid doing poorly and at high cost whatnature could do better and at a lower cost(reduce artificial work, ploughing, spraying).

WWF and partner NGOs proposed detailedmanagement rules, compiled into a publishedcharter in 2000.416 The Office National desForêts, the manager of national and municipalforests, published also in 2001417 a detailedguidebook for restoration.

However, despite important evolution inFrench forest management rules on paper, twomain problems were driving the operations inthe field:

1. Salvage logging was the norm and done ina hurry, sometimes with very little concern forsoil sensitivity and biodiversity. It was evenimplemented in some protected areas or forestidentified as being of high conservation value(e.g., forests inhabited by the last highly endan-gered capercaillie Tetrao urogallus in theVosges mountains). Because of the storm’s psy-chological shock and the will to sell damagedwood, forest managers and owners sometimesseek above all to work fast, which means veryoften work as usual, and they forget recentinnovative rules and agreements.

2. The French forest subsidies’ framework(including EU subsidies) after the storms ofDecember 1999 was redefined nationally and

adapted by each regional administration.Although some improvements were proposedat the national level, very little was in fact sub-sidised at the regional level. The result was thatkey operations like salvage logging and artifi-cial plantations were relied on more thannatural regeneration, for example. Salvagelogging was subsidised for up to 1500euros/hectares, without any precise rules forkey environmental topics (like deadwood orhabitat tree retention for example).

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Learning About Storms, ForestEcology, and Restoration

Storms, their impact on forests and biodiversity,and strategies for restoration are frequentlywritten about in the scientific literature forvarious countries and forest types. Good syn-theses of these reports also exist, but are notused enough as references to renew forestmanagement and policies.

3.2. Forest Policies

There are three main reasons to support policywork that integrates natural disturbances intonational forest laws and science-based manage-ment guidelines. First, forest managers areusually reactive to storms rather than proactive.We need to anticipate forest damage due tostorms. Second, as stated earlier, national poli-cies and subsidies tend currently to supportrapid implementation of salvage logging in thefield. Third, a rapid response to such disorgan-ising, catastrophic, psychologically shockingevents rarely produces good results unlessthere is already a deep understanding of forestecology, firmly embedded in management rulesand culture. It is important to be well prepared.Political lobbying helps to clarify questionsabout salvage logging, deadwood retention,logging in protected areas, management ofpests, biodiversity, and sustainable manage-ment. Developing laws, subsidies, and technicaltools in accordance with these issues is animportant task.

416 Vallauri, 2001; WWF et al, 2000.417 Mortier, 2001.

48. Restoring Forests After Violent Storms 343

3.3. Restoration Guidelines

“Slow down the tractors,” “Set wise restorationtargets and trajectories in accordance with sus-tainable multifunctional forest management.”“Take time to let nature do its work.” “Helpnature only when necessary.” “Save nature aswell as money.”These could become the mottosof forest restorationists after violent storms. Or,to paraphrase, “Think and, only if needed, logand plant” should replace the common “Log,plough, plant, then think.”

Good guidelines and experiences do exist innumerous regions, especially those hit byviolent storms during the last 15 years, such asfor example New York State, Switzerland,Germany, and France. However, a better pro-motion of existing guidelines and pilot experi-ences is important for the future. Key principlescan be drawn from these examples. Theyinclude a deeper respect for forest ecology,forest functions, natural dynamics, and biodi-versity, and thus wisely using what nature canprovide for free, keeping subsidies for those sil-vicultural actions that may be needed in themedium term (such as thinning and additionalplanting).

3.4. Press and Communication

Forest issues suffer from low media interest, asthey tend to be too technical and complex andnot embedded in a strong political or socialdebate. They are not key financial issues formost developed countries, and are not appeal-ing enough visually. They are based on too longterm an agenda, with relatively rare, urgent andcatastrophic events to catch people’s attention;that is, they are not “sexy,” except for forestfires, and violent storms! Recent debates invarious countries have proven that the multi-faceted questions raised by violent storms(drama, forest mismanagement, biodiversity,restoration) could be real topics for the media.It is also an important opportunity for forestersand conservationists to explain to society theirideas, choices, and field experiences. But as itbecomes a hot issue, professionals should beprepared to deliver the right message at theright time, from the day after the storm to

several months after the event. Rapid responsepackages, like the one initiated by the WWF European forest team, are very useful(also see “Marketing and CommunicationsOpportunities”).

4. Future Needs

4.1. Learning from Past Events,Adapting Guidelines, and Pilot Sites

In terms of scientific knowledge, the needs liein synthesising and widely promoting key ideas,rather than developing new research, althoughsome important questions, such as the compar-ative resistance to storms of mixed or uneven-aged forest stands vs. even-aged stands, and theeconomics of salvage logging, need some devel-opment. More could also be learnt from study-ing the old-growth forest ecology of protectedforests.

Another important need is the adaptation ofscience-based management rules and tools(geographical information system, modelling),and ecological and economical expertise to dif-ferent regional contexts.Thus, a wider exchangeof experience after storms, together with anetwork of long-term pilot restoration sites,should be promoted.

4.2. Policy Needs

Restoration after storms is a key topic, espe-cially in Europe, in order to encourage forestmanagement improvements, both on paper andin the field, although the latter takes time. ForEurope, part of the solution could be toimprove guidelines for the use of EU subsidiesin case of storm damages and for plantations.Careful lobbying at the time of changes innational forest law is needed.

References

Fisher, A. 1992. Long term vegetation developmentin Bavarian mountain forest ecosystems followingnatural destruction. Vegetatio 103:93–104.

Mortier, F. 2001. Reconstitution des forêts après tem-pêtes. ONF, Paris.

344 D. Vallauri

Pontailler, J.Y., Faille,A., and Lemée, G. 1997. Stormsdrive successional dynamics in natural forests: acase study in Fontainebleau forest (France). ForestEcology and Management 98(1):1–15.

Robinson, G., and Zappieri, J. 1999. Conservationpolicy in time and space: lessons from divergentapproaches to salvage logging on public lands.Conservation ecology [online] 3(1): 3,http://www.consecol.org/vol3/iss1/art3.

Rogers, P. 1996. Disturbance ecology and forest man-agement: a review of the literature. USDA ForestService Intermountain Research Station, reportINT-GTR-336.

Schaetzl, R.J., Johnson, D.L., Burns, S.F., and Small,T.W. 1989. Tree uprooting: review of impacts onforest ecology. Vegetatio 79:165–176.

Vallauri, D. 2001. Si la forêt s’écroule. Quelle gestionforestière française après les tempêtes. RevueForestière Française 54(1):43–54.

WWF, Greenpeace, RNF, FNE. 2000. Partnershipcharter for forest restoration after the December99 storms in France. Paris.

Additional Reading

Armstrong, G.W. 1999. A stochastic characterisationof the natural disturbance regime of the borealmixedwood forest with implications for sustain-able forest management. Canadian Journal forForestry Research 29:424–433.

Baker,W.L. 1992.The landscape ecology of large dis-turbances in the design and management of naturereserves. Landscape Ecology 7(3):181–194.

Bergeron,Y., and Harvey, B. 1997. Basing silvicultureon natural ecosystem dynamics: an approachapplied to the southern boreal mixedwood forestof Quebec. Forest Ecology and Management92(1–3):235–242.

Dale, V.H., Lugo, A.E., MacMahon, J.A., and Pickett,S.T.A. 1998. Ecosystem management in thecontext of large, infrequent disturbances. Ecosys-tems 1:546–557.

Ennos, A.R. 1997. Wind as an ecological factor.Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12(3):108–111.

Faille, A., Lemée, G., and Pontailler, J.Y. 1984a.Dynamique des clairières d’une forêt inexploitée(réserves biologiques de la forêt de Fontaine-bleau). I. Origine et état actuel des ouvertures.Acta Oecologica, Oecologica Generalis 5(1):35–51.

Faille, A., Lemée, G., and Pontailler, J.Y. 1984b.Dynamique des clairières d’une forêt inexploitée(réserves biologiques de la forêt de Fontaine-bleau). II. Fermeture des clairières actuelles.Acta Oecologica, Oecologica Generalis 5(2):181–199.

Foster, D.R., Knight, D.H., and Franklin, J.F. 1998.Landscape patterns and legacies resulting fromlarge, infrequent forest disturbances. Ecosystems1:497–510.

Larsen, J.B. 1995. Ecological stability of forests andsustainable silviculture. Forest Ecology and Man-agement 73:85–96.

Peterson, C.J., and Pickett, S.T.A. 1991. Treefall andresprouting following catastrophic windthrow inan old-growth hemlock-hardwoods forest. ForestEcology and Management 42(3–4):205–217.

Peterson, C.J., and Pickett, S.T.A. 1995. Forest reor-ganisation: a case study in an old-growth forestcatastrophic blowdown. Ecology 76:763–774.

Pickett, S.T.A., Kolasa, J., Armesto, J.J., and Collins,S.L. 1989. The ecological concept of disturbanceand its expression at various hierarchical levels.Oikos 54:129–136.

Romme, W.H., Everham, E.H., Frelich, L.E.,Moritz, M.A., and Sparks, R.E. 1998. Are large,infrequent disturbances qualitatively differentfrom small, frequent disturbances? Ecosystems1:524–534.

Schaetzl, R.J., Johnson, D.L., Burns, S.F., and Small,T.W. 1989. Tree uprooting: review of terminology,process and environmental implications. CanadianJournal of Forest Research 19:1–11.

Sousa, W.P. 1984. The role of disturbance in naturalcommunities. Annual Review of Ecological Systematics 15:353–391.

Ulanova, N.G. 2000. The effect of windthrow onforests at different spatial scales: a review. ForestEcology and Management 135:155–167.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Overview of Invasive Alien Species

Globalisation has encouraged the free move-ment of goods but also of plants. On the onehand, plants are available from virtually any-where in the world for various uses, but on theother hand, species that are moved by people

from one part of the world to another canexpand beyond the area where they wereplanted, and end up causing substantial damageto natural ecosystems. Further, global trade,transport and tourism also provides new op-portunities for unintentional introduction ofspecies, for example by introducing a nonnativespecies of beetle that can devastate plants beingused to restore a forest.

Those alien species that become establishedin a new environment, and then proliferate andspread in ways that damage both ecosystemhealth and human interests, are consideredinvasive alien species (IAS). For example,a plant or animal transported beyond the ecosystem in which it occurs naturally may multiply out of control, endangering nativespecies in the invaded ecosystem, underminingagriculture, threatening public health, or creat-ing other unwanted—and often irreversible—disruptions.

Perhaps as many as 10 percent of the world’s400,000 vascular plants, have the potential toinvade other ecosystems and harm native biotain a direct or indirect way.418 Invasive speciescan transform the structure and species’ composition of ecosystems by repressing orexcluding native species, either directly by out-competing them for resources or indirectly bychanging the way nutrients are cycled throughthe system.

Invasive alien species have many negativeimpacts on human economic interests. Weeds

49Managing the Risk of Invasive AlienSpecies in RestorationJeffrey A. McNeely

Key Points to Retain

Introduced species that become invasive canbecome a major concern as they can causesignificant ecological and economicaldamage. Restoration may often equate tothe removal of these species. On the otherhand, in some cases, attempts to restoreusing inappropriate species has itself led tothe problem of invasive alien species (IAS).

Restoration may often equate to theremoval of these species.

Prevention and best practices for alienspecies are amongst the most importanttools to contain the problem.

Because the problem is transboundary, it isnecessary to create common protocols andto enhance the capacity to deal with invasivealien species.

345

418 Rejmanek and Richardson, 1996.

346 J.A. McNeely

reduce crop yields, increase control costs,and decrease water supply by degrading watercatchment areas and freshwater ecosystems.Pests and pathogens of crops, livestock, andtrees destroy plants outright, or reduce yieldsand increase pest control costs.

1.2. Controlling Invasive Species

Removal of IAS often forms an important com-ponent of efforts to restore forest quality toexisting forests.

Because of their adaptability and releasefrom their natural prey or enemy, alien speciesare very difficult to control and can seriouslyhamper restoration efforts. Often a majorfactor of restoration is the removal of invasivespecies; for example, control of Rhododendronponticum from the Himalayas is a major task inmany U.K. nature reserves. In recent decadescontrol has typically included herbicides andfire. However, both of these may in turn causeserious damage to the natural landscape unlessproperly supervised and managed.

In addition, some stakeholders may not wish for an invasive species to be removed, forexample, if the species in question provides eco-nomic benefits. In such cases, it will be neces-sary to negotiate trade-offs and see how best tocontain the species and ensure that its prolifer-ation can be controlled.

2. Examples

2.1. Invasive Species IntroducedIntentionally

In some cases, introduced species can be a sig-nificant problem, becoming established in thewild and spreading at the expense of nativespecies and affecting entire ecosystems. Notori-ous forest examples of these IAS that have neg-ative effects on native biodiversity includevarious species of Northern Hemisphere pines(Pinus spp.) and Australian acacias (Acaciaspp.) in southern Africa, and Melaleuca fromSouth America invading Florida’s EvergladesNational Park. These and many other woodyplants were introduced intentionally but hadunintended consequences. Of the 2000 or so

species used in agroforestry, perhaps as many as10 percent are invasive.419 While only about 1 percent are highly so, this includes somepopular species such as Casuarina glauca,Leucaena leucocephala, and Pinus radiata.

2.2. Invasive Species IntroducedUnintentionally

A worse risk may be the IAS that are intro-duced unintentionally, such as disease organ-isms that can devastate an entire tree speciesthat is being used to restore a habitat.The Dutch Elm disease (Ophiostoma ulmi andO. nova-ulmi) and the American chestnut blight(Cryphonectria parasitica) in North Americaare notorious examples. Pests can have pro-found economic impact on native forests orplantations, such as gypsy moths (Lymantriadispar) or long-horned beetles (Anoplophoraglabripennis). The economic impact of suchpests amounts to several hundred milliondollars per year.420 Much of this economic tollis felt in forested ecosystems, even within well-protected national parks.

2.3. Controlling Invasive Grasses inHawaii to Promote Restoration of a Unique Ecosystem

In Hawaii, the invasion of alien grasses hasdramatically increased the frequency and intensity of fires in dry forests. This has con-tributed to the conversion of almost all nativedry forests to grasslands dominated by alienspecies.A study was launched to investigate therole that landscape-level herbicide applicationsfollowed by native plant reforestation plays inreducing fire fuel load hazards and reversingthe cumulative adverse ecosystem level effectsof monotypic stands of invasive grasses.420a Suc-cessful small-scale restoration and alien grasscontrol efforts at the Ka’upulehu Forest,located in North Kona on the Big Island ofHawaii, have provided baseline informationnecessary to expand restoration efforts to alandscape level. Fountain grass (Pennisetum

419 Richardson, 1999.420 Perrings et al, 2002.420a Cordell et al, 2002.

49. Managing the Risk of Invasive Alien Species 347

setaceum) cover has effectively been reducedfrom over 90 percent to less than 10 percentusing weed-whacking and follow-up herbicideapplications. Following this, natural regenera-tion can be observed in the following sequence:vines, followed by herbs, and then nativecanopy trees 2 to 3 years after grass removal.Furthermore, it has been documented thatnative tree canopy cover reduces fountain grassbiomass by 50 percent, and native tree growthincreases by 50 percent when fountain grass isremoved from forested areas.

2.4. Controlling Invasive Species inNew Caledonia’s Dry Forests

Since Europeans arrived in New Caledonia 150years ago, over 800 exotic plant species, 400invertebrates and 36 vertebrates, have invadedthe original ecosystem.421 One notable exampleis an Indonesian deer (Cervus timorensis russa),which provides game for hunters on the island.Because this deer does not have any naturalpredator, it has multiplied rapidly and becomea serious problem as it feeds on dry forestspecies. In doing so, this deer also hampersnatural regeneration by eating the understoreyand saplings. Fencing has been used to limit thedamage caused by these ungulates. However,because of the high costs involved, this tech-nique has only limited value. Research is alsounderway to identify more specifically whichplants are preferred by the deer in order tobetter focus which species to use in restorationactivities.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Prevention

Preventing damage requires predicting whichspecies can cause harm and preventing theirintroduction, and dealing effectively with thecases in which a species is already causing prob-lems. It is not always simple to distinguish analien species from an invasive one; taxa that areuseful in one part of a landscape may invadeother parts of the landscape where their pres-

ence is undesirable. The first line of defence isto avoid introducing nonnative species in thefirst place, so forest restoration should usenative species to the maximum extent possible.That said, it may well happen that a nonnativespecies has characteristics that are especiallyvalued by the local people, for example pro-ducing valuable fruit, nuts, or gums. In such acase, special efforts (for example, see point 3.2,below) are required to ensure that the speciesdoes not become invasive.

3.2. Containing PurposefullyIntroduced Species

Great care is required to ensure that suchspecies serve the economic purposes for whichthey were introduced, and do not escape tocause unanticipated negative impacts on nativeecosystems and their biodiversity. One man-agement option would be to plant only sterileforms, so reproduction and spread would beimpossible. An even better option, especiallywhen seeking to restore habitats, is to use onlynative species.

3.3. International Agreements

The 1951 International Plant Protection Con-vention was established to address some of theissues pertaining to invasive species, and newinternational programmes have been devel-oped to respond to current serious problems.

3.4. Best Practices for Managementof Invasive Species at the Site Level

Best practices for prevention and managementof IAS have been designed.422

3.5. Global Strategy

A global strategy has been developed by theGlobal Invasive Species Programme (GISP).This has been widely circulated and providesguidance to countries. It includes aspects ofresearch, capacity building, communications,international cooperation, and quick response.

422 Wittenberg and Cock, 2001.421 Gargominy et al, 1996.

348 J.A. McNeely

These elements are expanded in section 4,below.423

4. Future Needs

A comprehensive solution for dealing withinvasive alien species as part of forest restora-tion is needed. Here is a suggested outline ofthis framework:

1. An effective national capacity to dealwith IAS. Building national capacity couldinclude:• Designing and establishing a rapid-response

mechanism to detect and respond immedi-ately to the presence of potentially invasivespecies as soon as they appear, with sufficientfunding and regulatory support

• Appropriate training and education pro-grammes to enhance individual capacity,including customs’ officials, field staff, man-agers, and policy makers

• Developing institutions at the national orregional level that bring together biodiversityspecialists with agricultural quarantine spe-cialists to collaborate on implementingnational programmes on IAS

• Building basic border control and quarantinecapacity, ensuring that agricultural quaran-tine officers, customs’ officials, and foodinspection officers are aware of the elementsof the biosafety protocol.2. Fundamental and applied research, at

local, national, and global levels: Research isrequired on taxonomy, invasion pathways, man-agement measures, and effective monitoring.Further understanding on how and why speciesbecome established can lead to improved pre-diction on which species have the potential tobecome invasive, improved understanding oflag times between first introduction and estab-lishment of IAS, and better methods for excluding or removing alien species fromtraded goods, packaging material, ballast water,personal luggage, and other methods of trans-port.

3. Effective technical communications: Anaccessible knowledge base, a planned systemfor review of proposed introductions, and aninformed public are needed both within coun-tries and between countries.Already, numerousmajor sources of information on invasivespecies are accessible electronically, and morecould also be developed and promoted, alongwith other forms of media.

4. Appropriate economic policies: New oradapted economic instruments can help ensurethat the costs of addressing IAS are betterreflected in market prices. Those responsiblefor the introduction of economically harmfulIAS should be liable for the costs they impose.User rights to natural or environmentalresources should include an obligation toprevent the spread of potential IAS, andimporters of potential IAS should have liabil-ity insurance to cover the unanticipated costs ofintroductions.

5. Effective national, regional, and interna-tional legal and institutional frameworks: Coor-dination and cooperation between the relevantinstitutions are necessary to address possiblegaps, weaknesses, and inconsistencies, and topromote greater mutual support among themany international instruments dealing withIAS. National, legal and institutional frame-works should be designed along the lines rec-ommended by Shine et al.424

6. A system of environmental risk analysis:Such a system could be based on existing envi-ronmental impact assessment procedures thathave been developed in many countries. Riskanalysis measures should be used to identifyand evaluate the relevant risks of a proposedactivity regarding alien species, and determinethe appropriate measures that should beadopted to manage the risks. This would alsoinclude developing criteria to measure and clas-sify impacts of alien species on natural ecosys-tems, including detailed protocols for assessingthe likelihood of invasion in specific habitats orecosystems.

7. Public awareness and engagement: IfIAS management is to be successful, thegeneral public must be involved. A vigorous

424 Shine et al, 2000.423 McNeely et al, 2001.

49. Managing the Risk of Invasive Alien Species 349

public awareness programme would involve thekey stakeholders who are actively engaged inissues relevant to IAS, including botanicgardens, nurseries, agricultural suppliers, andothers. The public can also be involved as vol-unteers in eradication programmes of certainIAS, such as woody invasive species of nationalparks.

8. National strategies and plans: The manyelements of controlling IAS need to be wellcoordinated, and a national strategy shouldpromote cooperation among the many sectorswhose activities have the greatest potential tointroduce IAS, including the military, forestry,agriculture, aquaculture, transport, tourism,health, and water supply.The government agen-cies with responsibility for human health,animal health, plant health, and other relevantfields need to ensure that they are all workingtoward the same broad objective of sustainabledevelopment in accordance to national andinternational legislation. Such national strate-gies and plans can also encourage collaborationbetween different scientific disciplines andapproaches that can seek new options to dealwith IAS problems.

9. Build IAS issues into global change ini-tiatives: Global change issues relevant to IASbegin with climate change but also includechanges in nitrogen cycles, economic develop-ment, land use, and other fundamental changesthat might enhance the possibilities of IASbecoming established. Further, responses toglobal change issues, such as sequesteringcarbon, generating biomass energy, and recov-ering degraded lands, should be designed inways that use native species and do not increasethe risk of the spread of IAS.

10. Promote international cooperation: Theproblem of IAS is fundamentally international,so international cooperation is essential todevelop the necessary range of approaches,strategies, models, tools, and potential partnersto ensure that the problems of IAS are effec-tively addressed. Elements that would fosterbetter international cooperation could include

developing an international vocabulary, widelyagreed and adopted; cross-sectoral collabora-tion among international organisationsinvolved in agriculture, trade, tourism, health,and transport; and improved linkages among the international institutions dealingwith phytosanitary, biosafety, and biodiversityissues related to IAS and supporting these by strong linkages to coordinated national programmes.

References

Cordell, S., Cabin, R.J., Weller, S.G., and Lorence,D.H. 2002. Simple and cost-effective methodscontrol fountain grass in dry forests (Hawaii). Eco-logical Restoration 20:139–140.

Gargominy, O., Bouchet, P., Pascal, M., Jaffré, T., andTourneur, J.C. 1996. Conséquences des introduc-tions d’espèces animales et végétales sur la biodi-versité en nouvelle-calédonie. Revue d’Ecologie(Terre et Vie) 51:375–402.

McNeely, J.A., Mooney, H.A., Neville, L., Schei, P.,and Wagge J. eds. 2001. A global strategy on inva-sive alien species. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.

Perrings, C., Williamson, M., and Dalmazzone, S. eds.2002. The Economics of Biological Invasions.Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK.

Rejmanek, M., and Richardson, D.M. 1996. Whatattributes make some plant species more invasive?Ecology 77(6):1655–1661.

Richardson, D.M. 1999. Commercial forestry andagroforestry as sources of invasive alien trees andshrubs. In: Sandlund, O.T., Schei, P.J., and Viken,A.eds. Invasive Species and Biodiversity Manage-ment. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht,pp. 237–257.

Shine, C., Williams, N., and Burhenne-Guilmin, F.2000. Legal and institutional frameworks on alieninvasive species: a contribution to the Global Inva-sive Species Programme Global Strategy Docu-ment. IUCN Environmental Law Programme,Bonn, Germany.

Wittenberg, R., and Cock, M. eds. 2001. InvasiveAlien Species: A Tool Kit of Best Prevention and Management Practices. CAB International,Wallingford, UK.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Forest landscape restoration requires the stabilisation of soil resources. The loss of soil to erosion leads to irreversible changes anddegrades physical, chemical, and biologicalproperties. Although natural erosion occurs onmany landforms, accelerated erosion (causedby human activity) is the appropriate focus of most restoration efforts. Wind erosion is aserious problem that may occasionally bereduced by planting trees. Hill slope erosion,wind erosion, and mass movement (slumperosion) are common problems and are theprimary focus of this chapter.

1.1. Understanding the Variety ofErosion Processes

Hill slope erosion is caused by the direct impactof raindrops on the soil surface, overland (inter-

rill) flows, and small channel flows.425 Overlandflow begins as surface depressions are filled andwhen rain falls faster than water infiltrates intothe soil.Although overland flow is often viewedas a sheet of water flowing over the surface, ittypically includes numerous shallow, but easilydefinable channels, called rills. The relativeamount of sediment detached and transportedby inter-rill flow is small compared to splashand rill erosion. Rills are small enough to beremoved by normal tillage operations, but maybecome too large (gully) to remove with tillage.Rill erosion is substantially more erosive thanoverland flow and is a function of hill slopelength, depth of flow, shear stress, and criticaldischarge. Rill erosion starts when the erodingforce of the flow exceeds the ability of the soilparticles to resist detachment. Flow depth andvelocity increase substantially where surfaceirregularities concentrate overland flows intorills. Once rills are established, the concentratedflow develops more detachment force, and therill formation process is enhanced. Rill devel-opment moves upslope as headcuts. Some rills develop rapidly and become more deeplyincised. These master rills become longer anddeeper than their neighbours. Occasionallyflows from adjacent rills break into master rillsby eroding the boundary between them. As therill flow becomes concentrated toward masterrills, previously parallel rills develop a recog-nisable dendritic drainage pattern. As rills coa-

50First Steps in Erosion ControlSteve Whisenant

Key Points to Retain

Although natural erosion occurs on manylandforms, accelerated erosion (caused bypeople’s activities) is the focus of mostrestoration efforts.

Increasing the cover of vegetation or litter,preferably both, is the most effective strat-egy for reducing erosion.

350

425 Brooks et al, 1991.

50. First Steps in Erosion Control 351

lesce, flow concentrations and velocity increaseuntil the more deeply incised rills becomegullies.

Wind erosion is greatest on fine soil particlessuch as silt, clay, and organic materials. Thiswind-driven sorting increases the proportion ofcoarse materials in wind-eroded sites. Wind-blown particles are moved in three ways: (1)saltation, the bouncing of particles across thesurface; (2) suspension in wind; and (3) surfacecreep, the movement of larger particles causedby the pushing action of saltating particles striking larger particles.426 The amount of winderosion is affected by soil erodibility, surfaceroughness, climate, unsheltered distance of soilexposed to wind, and vegetation cover. Thuswind erosion is reduced by rougher soil sur-faces, lower wind speed at the soil surface, andmore plant or litter coverage of the soil surface.

Mass movement is the downward movementof slope-forming materials without the primaryassistance of a fluid. It occurs on steep slopesunder the influence of gravity, often exacer-bated by the weight of water in the soils. Massmovement occurs on steep slopes when defor-estation, mining, fire, overgrazing, construction,or cultivation disrupts the landform–climate–vegetation equilibrium by removing the vege-tation. Well-vegetated slopes generally movedownward much slower than less vegetatedslopes.427 Plants, especially woody plants with strong, deep roots, greatly increase soilstrength, providing a stabilising effect on theslope. In some cases, the plants also transpiresignificant quantities of water from the slope,thus reducing the weight that contributes tomass movements.

1.2. Protection Against Wind andWater Erosion

Increasing the cover of vegetation or litter,preferably both, is the most effective strategyfor reducing erosion. Plants protect the soilwith their canopy, add litter to the soil surface,and stabilise the soil with their roots. Litter onthe soil surface reduces erosion. Soil erosion,

from water or wind, is reduced with strategiesthat accomplish the following:

1. Maintain or establish a cover of vegeta-tion, especially when erosion is most probable.Although perennial plants are most desirable,annual plants may provide critical, short-termseasonal protection.

2. Create a ground cover of litter, rocks,woody debris, erosion matting, or other materi-als until vegetation becomes established.

3. Increase soil surface roughness withabove-ground structures or soil surface manip-ulations (such as pits or furrows) that are per-pendicular to water or wind flows. Thisincreases infiltration, reduces water velocity,and increases the wind speed necessary to ini-tiate saltation.

4. Reduce fetch length of unobstructed slope surfaces. This reduces the ability of water or wind to detach and transport soil par-ticles and minimises opportunities for overlandflows to coalesce and form larger rills andgullies.

5. Incorporate biomass into the soil where possible. Like the previous strategies, itincreases the rate and capacity of infiltration,thus reducing the amount of water available for erosion. Biomass incorporation also stimulates plant growth and soil biotic devel-opment that improve soil structure and nutri-ent cycling.

1.3. Additional Protection AgainstMass Movement of Steep Slopes

Each of the previous strategies provides someprotection against mass movement. Two addi-tional strategies provide specific protection forslopes susceptible to mass movement.428

1. Steep slopes susceptible to mass move-ment are most effectively stabilised with treesand shrubs that have strong woody rootsystems. Significant taproot development belowthe slip surface greatly increases slope shearstrength, which has a strong slope-stabilisinginfluence.

426 Toy et al, 2002.427 Morgan and Rickson, 1995. 428 Morgan and Rickson, 1995; Whisenant, 1999.

352 S. Whisenant

2. High transpiration rates reduce sus-ceptibility to mass failure by reducing theamount of water in the soil. Water increases theslope shear stress that causes mass movementof a slope. Transpiration increases as the leafarea of a particular species becomes higher.Thus, transpiration losses of new plantings are often increased with higher planting densities or larger trees. It is also important toselect species that transpire during the highestwater season when mass movement is mostprobable.

2. Examples

2.1. Slope Stabilisation in SichuanProvince, China

In the upper watershed of the Yangzi River,steep, deforested slopes of unconsolidatedmaterials are very susceptible to mass move-ment. To reduce mass movement and soilerosion into the Three Gorges Reservoir, theSichuan Forestry Institute, and several cooper-ating organisations initiated forest landscaperestoration. The goal was to reforest cultivatedfields and deforested slopes within this water-shed. They created landscapes with fuel wood,medicinal plants, tree crops, and Chinesepeppers around the villages. The landscape

matrix, between villages, consisted of slope-stabilising trees that will provide woodresources in the future. Many of the long, steepslopes were terraced to increase both surfaceroughness and infiltration. Many of the terraceswere reinforced with rock walls built by areadily available labour force in this region(Fig. 50.1). This created a stable environmentfor forest landscape restoration that shouldprovide soil coverage, organic materials, andincreased shear strength from the woody roots.With careful management, the forest vegetationwill stabilise the slopes indefinitely.

2.2. Stabilising Mobile Dunes inShaanxi Province, China

Highly mobile sand dunes were covering pro-ductive farms in northern China, near Yulin.These dunes, created by overgrazing of sandylands to the north, were moving southward intoproductive agricultural lands. Local scientistsdeveloped a simple, practical strategy for dunestabilisation. Dormant willow (Salix spp.)branches cut to 1-m lengths were stuck verti-cally into the dune crests with only about 1decimetre (dm) above the soil level. The willowbranches set root and began a rapid growth thatstabilised the dunes and captured additionalwind-blown soil and organic particles (Fig.

Figure 50.1. Rock terraces con-structed in Sichuan Province, Chinato reduce runoff and soil erosionduring the establishment of trees.Theavailability of labour and the localpresence of rocks made this schemepossible in this situation. (Photo ©Steve Whisenant.)

50. First Steps in Erosion Control 353

50.2). Combined with an effective ban ongrazing by sheep and goats, this was a highlyeffective dune stabilisation programme thatprotected the farmland. Policies that improvedgrazing practices on the sand sources (in thenorthern desert) also diminished the volume ofsand reaching the farms.

2.3. Reducing Off-Site Erosion withWatershed Restoration in Niger

Laterite plateaus in the Sahel of southwestNiger contain banded woody vegetationaligned on contours of gentle slopes. Withdegradation of these bands, caused by woodyharvesting and browsing animals, less water isretained on the plateaus. This reduces vegeta-tive growth and significantly increases runofffrom the plateaus.This additional runoff duringstorm events leads to serious erosion and flood-ing in adjacent villages and farm fields. Reduc-ing these off-site erosion problems requiredrestoration of the vegetation and naturalhydrologic regime of the plateaus.429 This was accomplished by planting rapidly growingshrubs into microcatchments on the plateau.The catchments held sufficient water to allowestablishment of shrubs.These shrubs producedground cover, litter, shade, wind speed reduc-tion, and root systems that fed soil organisms.

These changes dramatically increased infiltra-tion, water retention, nutrient cycling, andenergy flows into the soil. This effectively pre-vented erosion and flooding problems on theplateau as well as in the villages and farms sur-rounding the plateaus.

3. Outline of Tools

The most effective tools for reducing erosionare governmental policies and land manage-ment practices that maintain healthy vegetationand a cover of duff, litter, or woody debris.430

Though conceptually simple, this protects thesoil from raindrop impact, increases infiltration,reduces runoff, reduces saltation, and signifi-cantly reduces soil erosion. Once the area hasbeen cleared, reestablishing a ground coverprior to the next erosion season is essential.

3.1. Grazing Management thatMaintains Ground Cover

Poor grazing management probably con-tributes to more land degradation than anyother practice, even in forested environments.Grazing practices that allow plants to periodi-cally grow and reproduce will stabilise soilresources more effectively. Recently planted

Figure 50.2. Dormant willow (Salixspp.) stems (1–2m long) wereplanted into active dunes near Yulin,Shaanxi Province, China, with only 5 to 10cm remaining above the soilsurface. They established rapidly andbegan to stabilise the dunes by capturing sand and other wind-blown materials. (Photo © SteveWhisenant.)

429 Manu et al, 1999. 430 Whisenant, 1999.

354 S. Whisenant

available organic materials. Organic materialscan be incorporated into the soil or placed onthe surface to reduce erosion, increase infil-tration, and moderate temperature extremes.Examples of organic materials include woodydebris following wildfire (Fig. 50.3), animalwaste, cotton gin trash, coconut fibre, olive pulp,and other readily available materials that canbe used to protect the soil surface. Gravel or rocks may also be used as above-groundobstructions or to protect the soil surface.

3.4. Soil Surface Manipulations orAbove-Ground Obstructions

Features that roughen the soil surface have thepotential to reduce wind and water erosionwhile increasing soil water available for plantgrowth.431 Pits, microcatchments, furrows, orcultivation may be used in appropriate circum-stances to roughen the soil surface. Rocks,gravel, terraces, soil bunds, or plant materialsare potential above-ground obstructions whereavailable. These surface changes contribute toadditional plant growth that establish positivefeedback improvement systems that continueto increase infiltration, water storage, and nutri-ent cycling. This leads to still more functionalimprovements on the site.

forests may require protection from grazinganimals for several years.

3.2. Wood Harvesting Schedules,Methods, and Spatial Patterns that Maintain Soil Coverageand Root Biomass

Fuel wood, timber, or any other type of wood harvesting must be scheduled and spatially arranged to maintain good soil cover-age of plants and litter. Uneven aged and mixed species’ forests are more easily har-vested in small areas, which reduces the size ofdisturbed areas that can contribute to soil loss.Harvesting methods that reduce the presenceof skid trails will reduce the concentration ofwater flows that increase erosion problems.Practices that leave more leaves, duff, andwoody debris on the surface will reduce erosionhazards.

3.3. Local Materials for Soil Protection

Ultimately, perennial plants are the most effec-tive and practical means of protecting the soil.However, it is often necessary to provide a“window of opportunity” during which plantscan be established. Soil protection is essentialand may be obtained with the use of locally

Figure 50.3. Following a wildfire inChipinque Ecological Park outsideMonterrey Mexico, the remainingwoody debris was used to createabove ground obstructions to reduceerosion, hold water, and increase thenatural recruitment of trees. (Photo© Steve Whisenant.)

431 Whisenant, 1999.

50. First Steps in Erosion Control 355

3.5. Soil Conditioners(Polyacrylamides)

Polyacrylamides (PAMs) are synthetic poly-mers that bind soil particles and reduce surface crusting, thus increasing pore space and infiltration. They can produce dramatic,but short-lived, infiltration increases, with de-creased erosion. They are still too expensive for widespread application during forestrestoration, but may be practical in high-priority areas.

4. Future Needs

4.1. Policies that DiscourageDegrading Forest Management Practices

Government policies may increase soil erosionfrom forests or they can be crafted to encour-age the restoration and management of forestlandscapes that provide important goods andecological services without accelerating soilloss. Policies that prevent the complete removalof trees on the steepest slopes have the great-est impact on soil loss.

4.2. Improved Understanding ofWatershed-Scale Processes

Forest restoration programmes are usuallyplanned based on the attributes and objectivesof specific fields, ownership units, or forestopenings. This approach effectively assumesthat the sites are functionally isolated fromother parts of the landscape or watershed.This can lead to problems since each part of alandscape is continuously gaining and losingwater, nutrients, soil, organic materials, and

seed. Organic materials, landform, or micro-topographic features control these movementsof water, nutrients, and organic materials. Agreater recognition and understanding of theseresource fluxes can be used to great advantagein forest landscape restoration.

References

Brooks, K., Folliott, P.F., Gregersen, H.M., andThames, J.L. 1991. Hydrology and the Manage-ment of Watersheds. Iowa State University Press,Ames, Iowa.

Manu, A., Thurow, T.L., Juo, A.S.R., and Zanguina, I.1999. Agroecological impacts of five years of apractical programme for restoration of a degradedSahelian watershed. In: Lal, R., ed. IntegratedWatershed Management in the Global Ecosystem.CRC Press, New York, pp. 145–163.

Morgan, R.P.C., and Rickson, R.J. 1995. Slope Stabi-lization and Runoff Control: A BioengineeringApproach. E. and F.N. Spon, New York.

Toy, T.J., Foster, G.R., and Renard, K.G. 2002. SoilErosion: Process, Prediction, Measurement, andControl. John Wiley and Sons, New York.

Whisenant, S.G. 1999. Repairing Damaged Wild-lands: A Process-Oriented, Landscape-ScaleApproach. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, UK.

Additional Reading

Lal, R. 1990. Soil Erosion in the Tropics: Principlesand Management. McGraw Hill, New York.

Satterlund, D.R., and Adams, P.W. 1992. WildlandWatershed Management, 2nd ed. John Wiley andSons, New York.

Wu, X.B., Thurow, T.L., and Whisenant, S.G. 2000.Fragmentation and changes in hydrologic functionof tiger bush landscapes, southwest Niger. Journalof Ecology 88:790–800.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Globally, degraded land due to agriculturalactivities is estimated at about 12,400,000km2.432 In addition, large areas of cropland andpasture land have been abandoned during thelast few years for different ecological andsocioeconomic reasons. Ecological factorsleading to land abandonment are in many casesultimately the result of mismanagement at alandscape level (e.g., unadapted agriculture and

overgrazing), and include productivity loss orthe land exceeding cattle carrying capacity.Socioeconomic factors leading to land aban-donment include a loss in farmland productiv-ity, diversion of labour toward the industrialand service sectors, reduced subsidies for manycrops and regions, and subsidised set-aside programmes.

These and other deforested areas can be (1)left to undergo secondary succession or passiverestoration or (2) subjected to active restora-tion processes, mostly consisting of planting andmanaging native shrubs and trees. In the world,land abandonment and passive restorationhave restored much more, and at a lower cost,than active restoration. However, active re-storation is needed when the abandoned landsuffers continuous degradation (e.g., soilerosion in dry regions), when the natural vege-tation cover cannot recover in the area (e.g.,abandoned cropland colonised by dense weedsin the tropics), and when accelerating second-ary succession is desirable (e.g., reforestation of abandoned Mediterranean cropland). Anadditional benefit of active restoration is thecreation of labour associated with ecosystemmanagement in rural areas.

This issue is also important because publicand private funds are being invested in aban-doned land reforestation. From a holistic per-spective, these actions must be viewed as therestoration of the world’s natural capital, theservices that ecosystems provide to humankind.Thus, research is needed to optimise the investment-benefit ratio.

51Restoring Forests After LandAbandonmentJosé M. Rey Benayas

Key Points to Retain

Land that is abandoned for a number of ecological and socioeconomic reasons canregenerate either naturally or through man-agement interventions.

Significant public and private funds arebeing invested in abandoned land reforesta-tion, often without good planning.

Abandoned lands offer a huge potential forrestoration.

Restoration of abandoned land must beviewed as an investment in ecosystem goodsand services.

356

432 Bot et al, 2000.

51. Restoring Forests After Land Abandonment 357

2. Examples

A large number of worldwide examples ofecosystem restoration are related to land aban-donment and associated secondary succession.The scientific and technical literature reports anumber of case studies that highlight both suc-cesses and failures. Typically, secondary succes-sion has led to renewed functional ecosystemsin scenarios where abandoned cropland andpastures had not been intensively used in thepast, vegetation colonisation and growth wasnot limited by climate and/or soil constraints,the abandoned land was relatively small in sizeand there were remnants of natural vegetationnearby. Some examples are related to tropicalslash-and-burn fields and paddocks that haveturned to forest, Mediterranean mountain pas-tures and cropland that have turned to forest orshrubland, and abandoned rural areas in Africathat have turned to savannah or dwarf shrubland.

Failures are reported for abandoned landswhere the environmental conditions areunfavourable to natural regeneration. Exam-ples include all areas under desertification inthe arid and semiarid regions of the world, largetropical paddocks with very compacted ground,and abandoned tropical cropland colonised bya dense carpet of weeds such as Saccharaumspontaneum that impedes the establishment of

natural vegetation. For instance, seedling mor-tality in abandoned tropical pastures has beenfound to be above 50 percent, whereas it dropsto less than 25 percent with appropriate management.433 Active restoration is essentialwhere ecosystem breakdown has occurred. Thefunctioning of natural ecosystem processessuch as seed dispersal are key factors to addresswhen assessing restoration requirements. Manymoist tropical forests depend on animal disper-sal (as much as 90 percent of tree species). Inthe eastern rainforests of Madagascar, arboreallemurs are essential for forest maintenance andregeneration. As lemur populations are deci-mated, most of the former rainforest regions inMadagascar are now severely degraded, repre-senting an arrested succession dominated byalien species.434

2.1. Planting in Euro-Mediterranean Environments

In European Mediterranean environmentspublic funds from the European Union havebeen available to encourage farmers to turntheir cropland into forest plantations (Fig.51.1). In these ecosystems, different abiotic andbiotic factors hinder the establishment andgrowth of shrubs and trees, and some research

Figure 51.1. A plot of abandonedagricultural land in a Mediterraneanlandscape that was actively revege-tated with Quercus ilex 12 years ago.(Photo © Jose M. Rey Benayas.)

433 Hooper et al, 2002.434 Holloway, 2000.

358 J.M. Rey Benayas

has been devoted to study how plantation proj-ects benefit from appropriate management.Themortality of native Quercus species’ seedlingsduring the first year is often above 60 percentif nothing is done to facilitate their establish-ment, and around 10 percent if management isapplied.435 Further, some studies have shownthat appropriate management may provide arapid plot cover by the introduced seedlingsand reproductive saplings of slow-growingspecies by the seventh year. For instance, it hasbeen reported for an experimental Q. ilex plan-tation in central Spain that, after 3 years ofmanagement—artificial shading and summerirrigation—and six additional years of inter-rupted management, the plot cover attained bythe managed seedlings was 50 percent higherthan that attained by the unmanaged seedlings;additionally, 15 percent of the managedseedlings produced acorns, whereas only 1.5percent of the unmanaged seedlings werecapable of producing seeds.436

2.2. Passive and Active Restorationin Mosaic Rainforest Landscapes of Latin America

Landscape mosaics are typical of many rain-forest areas of Latin America, consisting pri-marily of a mix of cleared areas, secondaryforest, and limited residual patches of primaryforest. A portion of the cleared area is agricul-turally marginal, and in many cases is beingabandoned. Natural regeneration of forestcover from neighbouring seed sources on thisland is typically rapid. For instance, in cloudforest landscapes in Oaxaca (Mexico), it hasbeen reported that abandoned paddocks attain,after 35 years, an average of 63 percent of thetree basal area that is characteristic of themature forests in the region.

However, species’ diversity after naturalregeneration is usually low, with stands typi-cally dominated by a few fast growing pioneerspecies. Natural regeneration of a species’ mixmore typical of a primary forest will only occurover the long term. Planting seedlings of inte-

rior forest species after land abandonmentcould sharply accelerate the process of restora-tion of complex communities. Pioneer stands ormonocultural plantations may be enriched withseedlings of late-successional animal-dispersedtrees, or initial plantings could be done withmixes of late-successional and pioneer species.Active ecological research related to this topicis being undertaken in a few places such as theHighlands of Chiapas (Mexico). There, broad-leaved tree species have declined because theyare intensively harvested by the local Mayan communities for firewood, and pines are consequently in expansion. Seedlings of thebroad-leaved trees are being introduced at thefringe between the pine-dominated forests andclear cuts, with survival rates higher than 50percent after 3 years due to the positive effectof pines on the introduced seedlings. However,pines may inhibit establishment of native vege-tation in some environments.

3. Outline of Tools

The tools at hand for favouring restoration ofabandoned land are a mix of ecological andsocioeconomical actions (and sometimes “inac-tion”) and techniques. Passive restoration is byfar the main force that turns abandoned landinto “original” or healthy ecosystems.437 It hasthe advantage of being cheap. On the otherhand, the disadvantages include that it can be very slow in low productive ecosystems,involves few people (no labour is needed), andmay turn into a more degraded land or auto-succession loops. Secondary succession can beaided by simply eliminating grazing in certainareas after agreement with local users and landmanagers. Fencing can be used for this purpose,although this can add substantially to the costin some situations.

3.1. Active Restoration Techniques

A number of techniques have been proposed inactive restoration programmes in those parts ofthe world where shortage of water availability

435 Rey Benayas, 1998.436 Rey Benayas and Camacho, 2004. 437 Running, 2003.

51. Restoring Forests After Land Abandonment 359

is a major limiting factor for seedling establish-ment of native shrubs and trees. These tech-niques include artificial shading, irrigation inthe dry season, elimination of herb competi-tion, use of gels that absorb and very slowlyrelease water, ground preparation to increaseinfiltration, and microtopography modificationto canalise run-off toward the reforested plots.When nutrients are limiting, manure and com-post from agricultural, industrial, or sewageplants’ residues have been utilised. Anothertechnique that has successfully been used isplanting the seedling below the canopy of naturally established nurse shrubs, whichprovide an ameliorated microenvironment forthe introduced seedlings. Many of these tech-niques are discussed in more detail in otherchapters of this book. It should be noted thatthe choice of technique will need to be deter-mined by the climatic, biophysical, and socio-economic conditions.

3.2. Socioeconomic Tools

Socioeconomic tools can also be passive andactive. In a free market economy, the ratiobetween benefits and costs of livestock or agri-cultural production has triggered the abandon-ment of large extensions of land throughout theworld. In other cases, removal of perverse subsidies—such as elements of the CommonAgricultural Policy in Europe that has encour-aged farming on uneconomic and marginallands—could help stimulate natural regenera-tion. Active financial tools that foster abandon-ment of livestock grazing and agriculturalproduction also exist.

An innovative and promising tool is paymentfor the environmental services that forestsprovide to humans, which favours forest con-servation first and encourages forest restora-tion second. This programme is already widelyapplied in Costa Rica (see “Payment for Envi-ronmental Services and Restoration”).

Another tool is to subsidise set-aside pro-grammes for agricultural lands and to convertthose into forest plantations or restore thenatural vegetation. This tool has been widelyapplied in the European Union (EU) Mediter-ranean countries. However, its success has been

limited by the fact that the subsidies haveencouraged some landowners to plough andreforest lands that had already been abandonedand were undergoing passive restoration.

Further socioeconomic tools—which are stillvery marginal—are related to the links betweenactive restoration and environmental educa-tion and local sustainable development. Forinstance, the reforestation of vast extensions ofabandoned land or the enrichment of second-ary forests in developing countries requires thecreation of a labour force and small industriessuch as specialised nurseries.

4. Future Needs

4.1. Evaluating Ecosystem Values

Before initiating any restoration programmeafter land abandonment, it is necessary toanswer this question: Active or passive restora-tion? The answer necessarily goes through anevaluation of costs and benefits of the variousoptions. We must never forget that the envi-ronmental benefits that humans receive fromfunctional ecosystems or the loss of these ben-efits is part of the balance. We need betterknowledge and awareness of what couldenhance natural succession after abandonment,and the temporal terms, in various ecosystems.Natural regeneration should be properly mon-itored and mapped by field work and remotesensing and geographical information system(GIS) techniques. We must also take intoaccount the potential social benefits of activerestoration, particularly in developing coun-tries. There is a need for scientific research tocorrectly assess such benefits.

4.2. Rethinking the Concept of Reforestation

It seems that we need a different concept ofreforestation of abandoned cropland whereplant production is limited as it occurs, forexample, in dry Mediterranean regions. Nowa-days, these reforestation efforts are based onextensive plantations of aligned trees, often ofexotic species, that provide artificial monocul-

360 J.M. Rey Benayas

tures that are rarely managed. Restorationecology and forest landscape restorationpresent more integrated approaches to resto-ration. After land abandonment, the reforesta-tion approach should be replaced by little,dense, diverse, strategically placed, and wiselymanaged reforested patches. These patcheswould actually be islands of functional ecosys-tems in a sea of intensively used or abandonedland, thus being compatible with other landuses (e.g., livestock grazing or crop production)and passive restoration in their surroundings.The islands would act as “sources and traps”of propagules of different species of plants and animals since many organisms would findrefuge and food. These biodiversity reservoirscould function as nuclei for passive restorationof large extensions in the world. Such experi-ences need to be started rapidly and theirlessons shared and replicated widely.

References

Bot, A.J., Nachtergaele, F.O., and Young, A. 2000.Land Resource Potential and Constraints atRegional and Country Levels. Land and WaterDevelopment Division, FAO, Rome, Italy (avail-able on line at ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/agll/docs/wsr.pdf).

Holloway, L. 2000. Catalysing Rainforest Restora-tion in Madagascar. In: Lorenco, W.R., and

Goodman, S.M., eds. Diversity and Endemism inMadagascar. Orstom Editions, Paris.

Hooper, E., Condit, R., and Legendre, P. 2002.Responses of 20 native tree species to refo-restation strategies for abandoned farmland inPanama. Ecological Applications 12:1626–1641.

Rey Benayas, J.M. 1998. Growth and mortality inQuercus ilex L. seedlings after irrigation and artificial shading in Mediterranean set-aside agri-cultural lands. Annals of Forest Sciences 55:801–807.

Rey Benayas, J.M., and Camacho, A. 2004. Perfor-mance of Quercus ilex saplings planted in aban-doned Mediterranean cropland after long-terminterruption of their management. Forest Ecologyand Management 194:223–233.

Running, S.W. 2003. Climate-driven increases inglobal terrestrial net primary production from1982 to 1999. Science 300:1560–1563.

Additional Reading

Bakker, J.P., van Andel, J., and van der Maarel, E.1998. Plant species diversity and restorationecology: introduction. Applied Vegetation Science1:3–8.

Perrow, M.R., and Davy, A.J. 2002. Handbook ofEcological Restoration. Vol. 2. Restoration inPractice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Temperton, V.M., Hobbs, R.J., Nuttle, T., and Halle,S. 2004. Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology.Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice.Island Press, Washington.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

1.1. Logged-Over Forests andLogging Impacts

Poor logging practices using heavy machineryare a prominent reason for the degradation oftropical forests. The term overlogged forest438 isusually applied to this situation.

Logged over forests show a wide range ofconditions according to the degree of direct orindirect disturbance, which depends on the

logging system (Box 52.1), the intensity and fre-quency of timber extraction, and the quality ofsupervision and control.The amount of damagesustained by residual stands increases generallywith the size of the machinery used and withincreasing volumes of timber harvested.

Logging operations inevitably impact soils,stream flows, remaining vegetation, fauna, andbiodiversity in general,439 creating a more heterogeneous structure with patches of fellinggaps, skid trails, etc. (Box 52.2). Soil impacts anddamage to the residual forest all increase withincreasing logging intensity. High extractionrates, by creating big canopy openings, favourfast-growing pioneer species or undesirable,weedy species (such as vines) and induce des-iccating conditions. Moreover, large openingsare subject to invasion by lianas that can be anobstacle to tree regeneration, and in heavilylogged forests such openness also increases firerisks and propagation (particularly during longperiods of drought). High extraction rates alsoresult in a depleted residual stand that will not

52Restoring Overlogged Tropical ForestsCesar Sabogal and Robert Nasi

Key Points to Retain

Overlogged forests are degraded but never-theless important. They may continue to bea source of timber and supply an importantamount of forest products, particularly forlocal people whose livelihoods depend ontheir extraction.

One aspect of restoration would be toprevent adding more overlogged areas byimplementing sound logging, silvicultural,and management practices.

There is an urgent need to appropriately dis-seminate the existing strategies, approaches,and techniques that are most appropriate forforest restoration of overlogged forests.

361

438 Overlogged forests in Asia are defined as naturalprimary or older secondary natural forests that have beenbadly damaged by overcutting and poor logging methodsand have resulted in impoverished and ecologically unsta-ble stands. If left untreated, these forests are unable torestore their original state within a reasonable period oftime, or even to recover enough to provide the normal services of a forest (Banerjee, 1995).439 Bruijnzeel and Critchley, 1994; Fimbel et al., 2001;Frumhoff, 1995; Grieser Johns, 1997; Haworth, 1999; Putz etal., 2002; Stadtmüller, 1994; Thomson, 2001; Weidelt andBanaag, 1982; Woods, 1989.

362 C. Sabogal and R. Nasi

Box 52.1. Logging Systems in Tropical Forests

Two main logging systems are usually distinguished:

Monocyclic logging represents the re-moval of up to 100 percent of the commer-cially valuable stocking from a forest atrelatively long intervals. The intervalbetween harvesting operations is typicallyequal to the maturation period of the mainspecies of trees felled, the so-called rotationperiod, which may be as long as 60 to 80years or more. Because monocyclic loggingremoves not only mature but also semi-mature trees, a relatively large proportion ofthe forest may be affected. The volume oftimber removed during monocyclic opera-tions may be as high as 120m3/hectare incertain Southeast Asian forests, althoughmore commonly the harvested volumes tendto converge around a value of about 60m3/hectare. The result of such intense logging isthe creation of relatively large gaps in thecanopy, stimulating light-demanding speciesin the regrowth.

Polycyclic logging is the selective removalof only the largest individuals of desirablespecies. The objective is to wait for a suffi-

cient number of trees to reach maturity,and then to remove these alone. Comparedwith monocyclic logging, fewer trees and a lower volume of timber is harvested,but the intervals between harvests areshorter. In some polycyclic systems, such as the CELOS (Centre for AgriculturalResearch in Surinam) system developed forSurinam, or the Tebang Pilih system advo-cated in Indonesia, this interval may be asshort as 20 to 25 years. Volumes of woodremoved are typically 20 to 30m3/hectare percoupe.

Monocyclic logging inevitably causesmore disturbances to the forest canopy andthe soil surface than polycyclic systems. Typ-ically, for every tree that is logged, a secondis destroyed and a third is damaged beyondrecovery. Under unimproved, standard management practices, polycyclic loggingmay cause damage to 15 to 35 percent of theremaining trees, whereas under monocycliclogging this figure may increase to 40 to 60 percent.

(Adapted from Bruijnzeel and Critchley, 1994.)

Box 52.2. Biodiversity Impacts of Logging on Tropical Forests

The most severe impacts at the landscapelevel result from indirect consequences oflogging such as increased access to remoteareas, fragmentation, and altered fireregimes. Changes in the size, spatial distri-bution, and connectivity of habitat patchesalter species’ distribution patterns, forestturnover rates, and hydrologic processes.Most ecosystem-level impacts are a directconsequence of logging activities. The struc-tural impacts of logging change the relativeproportions of life forms and biogeochemi-cal stocks, as well as nutrient and hydrologiccycling, productivity, and energy flows.At thecommunity level, logging can substantiallychange the characteristics, composition, and

trophic structure of forest stands. The mostobvious impact is the change in proportionsof successional stages in forest stands. Keyecological processes such as pollination, her-bivory, seed dispersal, and predation are allaffected by logging especially when it ismore intensive. The most obvious species-level impact of logging is on the abundanceand age/size distribution of harvested anddamaged trees. The genetic component ofbiodiversity is likely to be the most sensitiveof all components to logging because ofreductions in effective population size andinterruptions in gene flow.

(Source: Putz et al. 2002)

52. Restoring Overlogged Tropical Forests 363

be able to recover an acceptable timber yieldwithin a reasonable and economically prof-itable harvesting cycle period.440 The extractionpressure on a set of high-value species maycause a dysgenic trend (removal of large treeswith each cut leaving genetically inferior treesfor future crops and seed sources).441

Other dramatic, indirect impacts are associ-ated with logging wherever social pressures(e.g., by colonists) and institutional weaknesses(e.g., law enforcement) prevail. Under theseconditions logged-over forests are frequentlysubject to further disturbance, leading toincreased degradation or even conversion toother land uses. Land invasions, illegal logging,poaching, and fire are amongst the most seriousthreats faced by forest owners/managers. Thistragedy is at the crux of most of the debate onsustainable forestry in tropical regions and willcertainly last for a while.

1.2. Why Restore Logged-OverForests?

Overlogged forests are degraded but neverthe-less important. They may continue to be asource of timber and supply an importantamount of forest products, particularly for localpeople whose livelihoods depend on theirextraction. Such forests may still providespecial biodiversity conservation services or beimportant for other environmental services(e.g., water, carbon). With alarming rates oflandscape fragmentation, these remnant forestresources—more and more frequently found aspatches of logged-over/degraded primaryforests—are becoming critical components ofrestoration strategies. Logged-over forests mayalso represent a valuable means of stabilisingsmall-scale colonists in agricultural frontierareas.

Objectives for restoration of overloggedforests must be set by societal demand andencompass both social and ecological goals.They will depend on the degree of degradation,the desired future condition as defined by the

landowner or land user, and the (biophysicaland socioeconomic) context at the landscapelevel. The restoration work can either empha-sise the protection functions for biodiversityrecovery and other environmental services(e.g., water, carbon uptake) or privilege thepotential for production functions of theecosystem (safety net functions, commercialproduction, or multiple-use) or both.

1.3. Improving Logging Practices

One aspect of restoration would be to preventadding more overlogged areas by implementingsound logging, silvicultural, and managementpractices. Good planning and careful imple-mentation of timber harvesting operations substantially contribute to reduce the negativeimpact of bad logging. Reduced-impact logging(RIL), a term now widely used, encompassesthe implementation of a series of pre- and postlogging guidelines designed to protectadvanced regeneration (i.e., seedlings, saplings,poles, and small trees) from injury, to minimisesoil damage, to prevent unnecessary damage tonontarget species (e.g., wildlife and nontimberforest products), and to protect critical ecosys-tem processes (e.g., hydrology and carbonsequestration). The Model Code of Forest Harvesting Practices published by the UnitedNations Food and Agriculture Organisation442

has been widely used as a reference to elabo-rate similar sets of harvesting guidelines.

The RIL techniques constitute a substantialstep toward sustainable management.A furtherimprovement in RIL is the integration of silvi-cultural principles, guidelines, and practices.443

These techniques should in particular aim tokeep extraction rates below an acceptablethreshold compatible with timber yield capa-bility, limit the impact of harvesting on treespecies’ diversity and composition, and main-tain timber species’ populations by reducingthe impact of logging on their ecology.444

440 Applegate et al., 2004.441 ITTO, 2002.

442 Dykstra and Heinrich, 1996.443 Wadsworth, 1997.444 Sist et al., 2003.

364 C. Sabogal and R. Nasi

2. Examples

2.1. Restoration of DegradedForests by Enrichment Planting

Overlogging and forest fires, or combinations ofthe two, have created millions of hectares ofmedium to heavily disturbed forests in manyparts of Southeast Asia.

One of the main technical approaches forrestoration in these forests has been the estab-lishment of enrichment plantings, either in linesor in gaps. Line planting has been used if thesurrounding trees are small (£10m). The gapplanting method is especially suitable when thesurrounding trees are taller (>10m). In practice,line and gap planting methods using artificial ornatural regeneration complement each other.

In Indonesia, where degraded forests result-ing from unsustainable management and wildfires account for over 20 million hectares, theInternational MOFEC (Ministry of Forestryand Estate Crops)—Tropenbos KalimantanProject developed in 1987 a research program-me based on indigenous Dipterocarpaceaespecies aiming at rehabilitating these heavilydisturbed forests.444a Line planting experimentswere conducted in the Wanariset ResearchForest (East Kalimantan), mainly consisting ofenrichment plantings with dipterocarps. Severaltechniques were employed for the productionof planting stock, including seedling productionin nurseries from seeds, wildlings collected inthe forest, and seedlings derived from cuttingsraised in the nursery. Vegetative propagation ofdipterocarp species, especially stem cuttings’production, gave promising results and is beingused for large-scale plantations, for instance,Meranti (Shorea spp.) plantations with stemcuttings in Long Nah, East Kalimantan.

Other practical experiences with enrichmentplanting were conducted in Banjarmasin, SouthKalimantan, under the Reforestation and Tropical Forest Management Project financedby the Finnish International DevelopmentAgency.445

2.2. Rehabilitation of Log Landingsand Skid Trails446

Unplanned logging using heavy machinerycauses excessive damage to the soil, water-courses, and vegetation, particularly throughthe opening up of harvesting infrastructure(roads, log landings, and skid trails). The reha-bilitation of most impacted areas has beenattempted in different ways. In heavily loggeddipterocarp forests, skid trails and log landingsrepresent a significant proportion (up to 40percent) of the total area. This level of distur-bance also affects the recovery of the residualstand, prolonging the next cutting cycle from20–30 to 40–50 years.

In Sabah, Malaysia, two rehabilitation tech-niques were tried for planting dipterocarps onlog landings and skid trails: direct open plant-ing of seedlings, and planting a nurse crop withsubsequent underplanting of dipterocarps. Foropen planting, in general species with droughtand heat tolerance and resistance to pests anddiseases should be used.The major drawback ofthis option is that the dipterocarp seedlingsgrow too slowly to provide protection fromerosion or to rehabilitate the damaged soil.Therefore, the technique is most suitable forskid trails where flanking vegetation providessome remnant canopy and where naturalregeneration of pioneer tree species along theskid edges provides organic matter and helpsameliorate the soil.

An alternative to open planting, especiallyfor large open areas, is to plant fast-growingnative pioneer trees on the site first and thenunderplant with dipterocarp seedlings. Pioneertrees are better adapted to the open conditionsof degraded sites, and they grow much fasterthan dipterocarps. Once the dipterocarpseedlings have established, the nurse treesshould be thinned to allow increasing amountsof light to reach the seedlings.

Using this system has several advantages: (1)the nurse crop trees are fast-growing, allowingthem to compete well with vines and climbingbamboo, and reduce soil erosion; (2) rapid

444a Effendi et al. 2001.445 Adjers et al., 1995; Korpelainen et al., 1995; Tuomela et al., 1996. 446 Source: Nussbaum and Hoe, 1996.

52. Restoring Overlogged Tropical Forests 365

growth and production of organic matter willimprove the soil’s physical and chemical prop-erties, particularly if nitrogen-fixing species areused; (3) as the dipterocarp seedlings areplanted under a partially established canopy, awider range of species can be used, and mor-tality due to heat and water stress will bereduced.

3. Outline of Tools

Restoration interventions to attain the definedobjectives may range from simply protectingthe site from further disturbances (e.g., illegallogging, fire) and allowing natural regenerationand successional processes to restore ecosystemfunctionality, to intensive silvicultural practicesto improve species’ composition and com-mercial productivity, and even soil and waterconservation measures to prevent and controlerosion.

Most tools and technologies needed forrestoration of logged-over (and also secondary)forests can be found in the extensive literatureon silviculture and forest management.447

Four broad steps may be considered forrestoration: secure protection of the area; planfor restoration; implement restoration inter-ventions; and monitor and evaluate them. Thesections below mainly focus on some of thetools and technologies for planning and implementation.

3.1. Secure Protection of the Area

A precondition of investing in restoration workis to secure the protection of the area againstfurther undesired disturbance (illegal logging,poaching, fire, grazing, etc.). This entails anassessment of the local conditions (e.g.,exploitation practices and consequences, pastand existing agreements) and the analysis of itsoutcomes, as well as the capacity to effectivelycontrol or reduce stress and risk factors. Thereis an ample suite of participatory techniques

(approaches, tools, and methods) that can beused for this purpose.448 The ITTO restorationguidelines449 also provide some principles andrecommended actions (see principles 8, 11, 12,15, 16, 20, and 22).

As a result of the field assessment, some pre-ventive or corrective measures will need to beput in place. Most critical in many situations arefire prevention and control measures. Badlogging creates favourable conditions for fireoutbreaks (e.g., accumulation of biomass, inva-sion by weed species, and desiccation of organicsoil matter, all of which can increase fire risks).Other threats frequently result from externalforces such as illegal extraction activities, inva-sion by settlers, and the expansion of agricul-tural activities. Fire prevention and control aretherefore critical for any sustainable use of thearea to be restored. These involve a range ofactive and passive measures, including consul-tation and training of local people, buffer zonesof green firebreaks (especially comprisingspecies valued by the local people), and systemsfor early detection and suppression. (Moreinformation on restoration and fires can befound in “Forest Landscape Restoration AfterFires.”)

3.2. Plan For Restoration

Protection measures and restoration interven-tions should be adequately planned. Drawingup a medium-term management/restorationplan may be necessary.

A management plan requires informationsuch as an inventory of the standing stock andits condition, including composition, size, andstem quality.An assessment of the regeneration(seedlings, saplings, and advanced growth ofmarketable or preferred timber and nontimberspecies) should be considered. Information onnontimber forest products (NTFPs) can be collected as part of this inventory. Important for planning (zonation and mapping purposes)is also the systematic assessment of the physi-cal conditions affecting the restoration work

447 Useful references for tropical forests include Dupuy,1998; FAO, 1998, 2000; Higman et al., 1999; Hutchinson,1988; Lamprecht, 1989; Peters, 1996; Thomson, 2001; Wyatt-Smith, 1963.

448 For instance; Carter; 1996; Jackson and Ingles, 1998;and Shell et al., 2002.449 ITTO, 2002.

366 C. Sabogal and R. Nasi

(watercourses, topography, soils, vegetationtypes, etc.).

The advanced regeneration of current andpotential commercial or useful tree speciesshould be the first target for interventions. Toguide decisions on silvicultural intervention asimple assessment method called diagnosticsampling can be used. Diagnostic sampling is arapid and inexpensive method intended to esti-mate the potential productivity of a forest standand decide whether treatment is necessary ornot, and if necessary, whether it can be delayedor not, and what type of treatment should begiven. Steps and field procedures for using thismethod can be found in Hutchinson450 andFAO.451

For monitoring purposes, permanent plots or continuous forest inventory plots should beestablished in order to provide the necessarybaseline data of forest growth and response tothe interventions.

Based on the medium-term plan, an annualplan (at the compartment level) is usually done.This is an operational tool for guiding theimplementation of the planned activities. It mayentail measures for erosion control and/or toprotect/enhance biodiversity (of particular veg-etation types or species), demarcation of river-ine corridors to be retained for hydrologicalreasons or of wildlife corridors, etc.

3.3. Implement SilviculturalInterventions

Silvicultural interventions are generally neces-sary to overcome the relative depletion of com-mercial tree species, to compensate for the slowgrowth rate, and to ensure a future commercialtimber value of the forest.452 Options that canbe applied, depending on the condition of theforest stand and the objectives (what majorproducts are expected), include improvementtreatments, treatments to stimulate naturalregeneration, enrichment planting, and directplanting.

Working with preexisting natural regenera-tion is the cheapest and safest way to recoverthe original forest, provided there is plenty ofthe desirable (e.g., current and potential com-mercial) species. This is usually the case withforests that have only been lightly degradedthrough uncontrolled timber exploitation. Inmore degraded conditions, however, the lack ofadequate regeneration or an uneven distribu-tion over the area entails difficult silviculturalwork, making it necessary to resort to morecostly interventions.

Some examples of interventions are givenbelow. The interested reader will find moredetailed information in the various dedicatedchapters of this volume (see Section XI, ASelection of Tools that Return Trees to theLandscape).

3.3.1. Improvement Treatments

Improvement treatments (or tending opera-tions) basically aim to provide more space fortrees of desirable species. This is done firstthrough the application of an operation calledoverstorey removal, by which overmature,defective noncommercial individuals (calledrelics) are removed (usually by poison-girdling)from the upper levels of the forest canopy. Asecond phase consists of liberation thinning, atreatment that releases young growth from thecompetition from commercially less desirablespecies. The prescriptions for liberation mayeasily be altered to accommodate changes inmarket demand or alternative managementrequirements (e.g., maintain keystone foodresources for animals).

Timber stand improvement (TSI) is a well-known silvicultural treatment used by prefer-ence in dipterocarp forests. Usually conducted5 to 10 years after logging, it basically involvesthe cutting or killing of unwanted trees andclimbers to improve growing conditions for theremaining trees and species’ composition of thestand. A detailed description of procedures isfound in Weidelt and Banaag.453

450 Hutchinson, 1991.451 FAO, 1998.452 ITTO, 2002. 453 Weidelt and Banaag, 1982.

52. Restoring Overlogged Tropical Forests 367

3.3.2. Treatments to Stimulate Natural Regeneration

The lack of advanced regeneration (or itsunsatisfactory spatial distribution), particularlyof the desirable species, is a main constraintusually found in more heavily disturbed forests. If the objective is to restore populationsof these species, treatments to stimulate their natural regeneration thus become a pri-ority as part of the post-logging interventions.

3.3.3. Enrichment Planting

Enrichment planting (also known as under-planting) is defined as the introduction of valuable species on degraded forests withoutthe elimination of valuable individuals alreadypresent. Enrichment of logged-over forests maybe appropriate in areas where natural regener-ation of desired species is insufficient or soilcharacteristics are not conducive to other uses,or even when the interest is to introduce high-value species that do not regenerate easily, key-stone food species or even fruit trees or otherspecies with commercial or local value.454

3.3.4. Direct Planting

Direct tree planting in logged-over forests issometimes used for rehabilitating localisedareas that were more heavily impacted by harvesting infrastructure (roads, log landings).These patches of trees or shrubs are plantedprimarily for erosion control (e.g., slope stabil-isation). Planting in log landings and other openareas for growing commercial trees is anotheroption.

4. Future Needs

We probably know enough about the generalimpacts of timber harvesting on tropical forests,and also about the main courses of action forrestoring these ecosystems. We certainly needto know more, but above all we need to apply

what is already known and learn as we go along.This entails the need to substantially increaseefforts to appropriately disseminate the strate-gies, approaches, and techniques most appro-priate for forest restoration. Awareness-raising,training, and technical assistance are precondi-tions to the actual application of restoration inpractice.

There are many challenges posed to improverestoration of overlogged forests. Some of themost pressing are as follows:

• Analyses of financial and environmentalcosts and benefits of restoration options and their effects on forest productivity,species’ recovery, biodiversity, and carbonsequestration

• Development of enrichment planting guide-lines that are species- and site-specific

• Development of cost-effective fire controlmeasures with minimal biodiversity impacts

• Development of an adequate and suppor-tive legal framework for overlogged forestrestoration.

References

Adjers, G., Hadengganan, S., Kuusipalo, J., Nuryanto,K., and Vesa, L. 1995. Enrichment planting ofdipterocarps in logged-over secondary forests:effect of width, direction and maintenance methodof planting line on selected Shorea species. ForestEcology and Management 73:259–270.

Applegate, G., Putz, F.E., and Snook, L.K. 2004. Whopays for and who benefits from improved timberharvesting practices in the tropics? Lessonslearned and information gaps. CIFOR, Bogor,Indonesia.

Banerjee, A.K. 1995. Rehabilitation of degradedforests in Asia. World Bank Technical PaperNumber 270. World Bank, Washington, DC.

Bruijnzeel, L.A., and Critchley, W.R.S. 1994. Envi-ronmental impacts of logging moist tropicalforests. International Hydrological Programme/IHP Humid Tropics Programme Series No. 7.UNESCO–IHP–MAB. Paris, France.

Carter, J. 1996. Recent Approaches to ParticipatoryForest Resource Assessment. Rural DevelopmentForestry Study Guide 2. ODI, London.

Dupuy, B. 1998. Bases pour une Sylviculture en ForêtDense Tropicale Humide Africaine. Document 4.454 Lamprecht, 1989; Montagnini, 1997; Weaver, 1993.

368 C. Sabogal and R. Nasi

Projet FORAFRI, CIRAD, CIFOR, Montpellier,France.

Dykstra, D., and Heinrich, R. 1996. FAO—Modelcode of forest harvesting practice. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.FAO, Rome.

Effendi, R., Priadjati, A., Omom, M., Rayan, M.,Tolkamp, W., and Nasry, E. 2001. Rehabilitation ofWanariset secondary forest (East Kalimantan)through dipterocarp species line plantings. In:Hillegers, P.J.M., and Iongh, H.H., eds.The BalanceBetween Biodiversity Conservation and Sustain-able Use of Tropical Rain Forests. TropenbosInternational, Wageningen, The Netherlands, pp.31–44.

FAO. 1998. Guidelines for the Management of Trop-ical Forests–1. The Production of Wood. FAOForestry Paper 135. Rome.

FAO. 2000. Management of Natural Forests of DryTropical Zones. FAO Conservation Guide 32.Rome. Prepared by R. Bellefontaine, A. Gastonand Y. Petrucci.

Fimbel, R., Grajal, A., and Robinson, J., eds. 2001.Conserving Wildlife in Managed Tropical Forests.Columbia University Press, New York.

Frumhoff, P.C. 1995. Conserving wildlife in tropicalforests managed for timber. BioScience 45(7):456–464.

Grieser Johns, A. 1997. Timber Production and Bio-diversity Conservation in Tropical Rain Forests.Cambridge Studies in Applied Ecology andResource Management. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, UK.

Haworth, J. 1999. Life After Logging: The Impacts of Commercial Timber Extraction in TropicalRainforests. Friends of the Earth Trust,London.

Higman, S., Bass, S., Judd, N., Mayers, J., and Nussbaum, R. 1999. The Sustainable ForestryHandbook. A Practical Guide for Tropical ForestManagers on Implementing New Standards.IIED–SGS. Earthscan Publications Ltd., London.

Hutchinson, I.D. 1988. Points of departure for silvi-culture in humid tropical forests. CommonwealthForestry Review 67(3): 223–229.

Hutchinson, I.D. 1991. Diagnostic sampling to orientsilviculture and management in natural tropicalforest. Commonwealth Forestry Review 70(3):113–132.

International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO).2002. ITTO guidelines for the restoration, man-agement and rehabilitation of degraded and sec-ondary tropical forests. ITTO Policy DevelopmentSeries No. 13. ITTO, Yokohama, Japan.

Jackson, W.J., and Ingles, A.W. 1998. ParticipatoryTechniques For Community Forestry. A FieldManual. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cam-bridge, UK and World Wide Fund for Nature,Gland, Switzerland.

Korpelainen, H., Adjers, G., Kuusipalo, J., Nuryanto,K., and Otsamo, A. 1995. Profitability of rehabili-tation of overlogged dipterocarp forest: a casestudy from South Kalimantan, Indonesia. ForestEcology and Management 79:207–215.

Lamprecht, H. 1989. Silviculture in the Tropics. Trop-ical Forest Ecosystems and Their Tree Species—Possibilities and Methods for Their Long-TermUtilization. GTZ, Eschborn, Germany.

Montagnini, F. 1997. Enrichment planting in over-exploited subtropical forests of the Paranaenseregion of Misiones, Argentina. Forest Ecology andManagement 99:237–246.

Nussbaum, R., and Hoe, A.L. 1996. Rehabilitation ofdegraded sites in logged-over forest using dipte-rocarps. In: Schulte, A., and Schöne, D., eds. Dipte-rocarp Forest Ecosystems. Towards SustainableManagement. World Scientific Publ., Singapore,pp. 446–463.

Peters, C.M. 1996. The Ecology and Management ofNon-Timber Forest Resources. World Bank Tech-nical Paper Number 322. Washington, DC.

Putz, F.E., Redford, K.H., Robinson, J.G., Fimbel, R.,and Blate, G.M. 2002. Biodiversity conservation inthe context of tropical forest management. TheWorld Bank, Environment Department Papers,Paper No. 75. Washington, DC.

Sheil, D., et al. 2002. Exploring biological diversity,environment and local’s people’s perspectives in forest landscapes. Methods for a multidiscipli-nary landscape assessment. CIFOR, Bogor,Indonesia.

Sist, P., Fimbel, R., Nasi, R., Sheil, D., and Chevallier,M.-H. 2003. Sustainable management of mixeddipterocarp forests needs more ecological rulesthan a minimum diameter for harvesting. Envi-ronmental Conservation 30(4):364–374.

Stadtmüller,T. 1994. Impacto hidrológico del manejoforestal de bosques naturales tropicales: medidascomo mitigarlo. Una revisión bibliográfica.CATIE, Proyecto silvicultura de Bosques Natu-rales, Turrialba, Costa Rica.

Thomson, L. 2001. Management of natural forests forconservation of forest genetic resources. In:FAO/DFSC/IPGRI, Forest Genetic ResourcesConservation and Management. Vol. 2: InManaged Natural Forests and Protected Areas (In Situ). International Plant Genetic ResourcesInstitutte, Rome pp. 13–44.

52. Restoring Overlogged Tropical Forests 369

Tuomela, K., Kuusipalo, J., Vesa, L., Nuryanto, K.,Sagala, A.P.S., and Adjers, G. 1996. Growth ofdipterocarp seedlings in artificial gaps: an experiment in a logged-over rainforest in SouthKalimantan, Indonesia. Forest Ecology andManagement (81):95–100.

Wadsworth, F.H. 1997. Forest Production for Tropi-cal America. USDA Forest Service. AgricultureHandbook 710. USDA, Washington, DC.

Weaver, P.L. 1993. Secondary forest management. In:Parrotta, J.A., and Kanashiro, M., eds. Manage-ment and Rehabilitation of Degraded Lands andSecondary Forests in Amazonia. Proceedings of anInternational Symposium. Santarem, Para, Brazil,18–22 April 1993, International Institute of Tropi-cal Forestry, USDA Forest Service, and UNESCOMan and the Biosphere Programme. Rio Piedras,Puerto Rico and Paris, pp. 117–128.

Weidelt, H.-J., and Banaag, V.S. 1982. Aspects ofManagement and Silviculture of Philippine Dipte-rocarp Forests. Philippines–German Rain ForestDevelopment Project. GTZ, Eschborn, Germany.

Woods, P. 1989. Effects of logging, drought, and fireon structure and composition of tropical forests inSabah, Malaysia. Biotropica 21:290–298.

Wyatt-Smith, J. 1963. Manual of Malayan silviculturefor inland forests. Malayan Forest Record No. 23,part III.

Additional Reading

Hutchinson, I.D. 1996. Techniques for silvicultureand management in natural tropical forests, loggedand secondary. In: Parrotta, J.A., and Kanashiro,M., eds. Management and Rehabilitation ofDegraded Lands and Secondary Forests in Amazonia. Proceedings of an International Sym-posium. Santarem, Para, Brazil, 18–22 April 1993,International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDAForest Service, and UNESCO Man and the Bios-phere Program. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico andParis, pp. 142–152.

Louman, B., Quirós, D., Nilsson, M., eds. 2001.Silvicultura de Bosques Latifoliados Húmedos en América Central. CATIE, Turrialba, CostaRica. Serie técnica: Manual técnico/CATIE no.46.

Weaver, P.L. 1987. Enrichment plantings in tropicalAmerica. In: Figueroa, J.C., Wadsworth, F.H.,and Branham, S., eds. Management of the Forests of Tropical America: Prospects and Technologies. Proceedings of a Conference. SanJuan, Puerto Rico, September 22–27, 1986, pp.259–278.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Human activities involving major soil removal,such as open-cast mining, urban development,civil works, and so on, are the first source of sed-

iment reaching the oceans via rivers. At a localscale, mining impacts on biodiversity, waterquality, and land use are frequently very high.Mining is one of the anthropic activities causing some of the most dramatic distur-bances on nature. In fact, there is a positivefeed-back interaction between nonenergeticand energetic mineral extraction, which alsocontributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Tech-nology for mining reclamation has been widelydeveloped in the last two decades for mostregions of the world. However, in practice, mostof the “reclaimed lands” have achieved poorresults.455

Application of an inadequate conceptualframework is often behind the failure of mining reclamation projects. There are twotypes of driving forces in mining reclamation:determinism and contingency.456 Usually onlydeterministic processes are considered. In addi-tion, reclaimed areas must be recognised asopen ecosystems interacting with their sur-rounding environment. A conceptual modelincluding its practical consequences on miningreclamation planning is shown in Figure 53.1.This model assumes that change more thanequilibrium is the essence of nature, followingthe new paradigm in ecology.457

Reclamation success depends on several contingent or circumstantial events, which areoften unpredictable: (1) initial conditions

53Open-Cast Mining ReclamationJosé Manuel Nicolau Ibarra and Mariano Moreno de las Heras

In addition to science, imagination is needed to seethe potential of the land and to relate it to the needof the local region.

Bradshaw, 1988

Key Points to Retain

Application of an inadequate conceptualframework is often behind the failure ofmining reclamation projects, including insufficient understanding of reference eco-systems, short-term planning, and insuffi-cient consideration of contingencies.

Cooperation between mining companies andenvironmental institutions is necessary tointegrate reclaimed areas into conservationprogrammes at a regional scale.

Good erosion models for reclaimed areas astools for land-form design have been devel-oped.

One major area in need of improvement isthe application of laws that require rehabil-itation of mined sites.

370

455 Haigh, 2000.456 Pickett et al, 2001.457 Kolasa and Pickett, 1991.

53. Open-Cast Mining Reclamation 371

(natural climate and topography, type andabundance of topsoil); (2) natural perturba-tions (droughts, extreme rainfall events, frostperiods, pests); (3) influence of the surroundingecosystems and people (runoff and sedimentflows, sources of propagules, herbivorism,grazing, hunting, land uses); and (4) human contingencies (modification/intermittence ofmining operations; mistakes in the performanceof reclamation works; changes in legal rules,etc.).

Deterministic processes involved in miningreclamation have been well studied and a wide

set of reclamation techniques and tools havebeen developed. Most typical of them in miningreclamation are abiotic limiting factors andnutrient cycling. Bradshaw458 identified themain physical and chemical problems that canbe found in mine soils and their short and long-term treatments, which are shown in Table 53.1.

Following the proposed conceptual frame-work, the Reclamation Planning box in Figure53.1 shows the main issues that should be con-sidered, from the practical perspective, in order

INITIAL CONDITIONS / LEGACY

(lithology, natural topography and landforms, topsoil, opportunities (source of propagules, springs)

SURROUNDINGECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE:

- Runoff and sediment flows. - Sources of propagules. - Herbivorism. - Grazing, hunting, land uses

ECOSYSTEM DESIGN

- Topography - Topsoil - Species’ composition - Pattern - Key biological interactions (mycorrhizae, N fixers pollinisators, ...) - Successional trajectories (inhibitor species, facilitation, alternative stable states)

ENVIRONMENTALLIMITING FACTORS

- Soil physical constraints (texture, structure, water holding capacity, stability). - Soil nutrients. - Toxicity (pH, heavy metals, salinity). - Climate

P

NATURAL PERTURBATIONS: droughts /frost/ pests/ extreme rainfall events/ ...

HUMAN CONTINGENCIES:

- Modification/intermittence of mining operations Æ changes in reclamation works and plan. - Mistakes in the performance of reclamation works. - Changes in environmental rules and/or policies)

P

P

P

RECLAMATION PLANNING

- Integration into mining operation planning.- Land use objectives (social actors participation)- Deep knowledge about ecosystem of reference. - Research programme- Earthworks (landforms design and erosion control plan).- Topsoil handling - - Revegetation- Nutrient accumulation and cycling.- Management.- Monitoring.- Success criteria

Figure 53.1. Conceptual framework for open-cast mining reclamation.

458 Bradshaw, 1988.

372 J.M. Nicolau Ibarra and M. Moreno de las Heras

to improve the performance of open-castmining reclamation.459 In addition:

1. Both mining and reclamation activitiesmust be carried out simultaneously in an inte-grated way in order to optimise the opportuni-ties offered by mining operations. This makesreclamation works cheaper, quicker, and moresuccessful.

2. Reclamation projects must be designedand developed by companies and social actorstogether. It is critical to get an agreement aboutthe final objectives for the reclaimed areas aswell as their use and maintenance.

3. Although general protocols for reclama-tion are available, it is always necessary to carry out specific research in order to adapt ordevelop them to the local conditions and toobtain in depth knowledge about the referenceecosystem. Cooperation between companiesand conservation organisms and nongovern-mental organisations (NGOs) is valuable forthis phase.

4. A plan of monitoring and survey is essen-tial for checking, improving, or redirecting theapplied practices.

2. Examples

2.1. Fire Management in JarrahForest Restoration on Bauxite Mines in Western Australia460

Alcoa World Alumina Australia commencedmining bauxite in the Jarrah forest of westernAustralia in 1963. Since then, 10,600 hectareshave been rehabilitated.The climate is typicallyMediterranean with winter rainfall and summerdrought. Early restoration efforts were basedon imported species of pine and eucalypt fromEastern Australia.This exotic vegetation is veryresilient to natural forms of disturbance, soplant richness remains low and ecological suc-cession runs slowly. The current rehabilitationobjective is to reestablish a functional Jarrahforest ecosystem that will fulfil the forest landuses (conservation, timber production, watercatchment protection, and recreation). Reha-bilitation began with the reshaping of the 2- to5-m-high pit walls. Topsoil was re-spread. Astopsoil returned, a few tree stumps, logs, androcks were returned to the mined areas toprovide habitat for fauna. The ground wasripped to a depth of 1.5m. A seed mix of 70 to100 local species was broadcast on the freshlycultivated ground. Other plant species were

Table 53.1. Specific problems of mine soils and their treatments (Bradshaw, 1988).

Category Problems Immediate treatment Long-term treatment

Physical Structure Too compact Rip or scarify VegetationToo open Compact or recover with fine material Vegetation

Stability Unstable Stabiliser/mulch VegetationMoisture Too wet Drain Drain

Too dry Organic mulch VegetationNutrition Macronutrients Nitrogen Fertiliser Legume

Others Fertiliser + lime Fertiliser + limeMicronutrients Fertiliser —

Toxicity pH Too high Organic matter or pyritic waste WeatheringToo low Lime Lime

Heavy metals Too high Organic mulch or tolerant cultivar Inert covering or tolerant cultivar

Salinity Too high Weathering or irrigate Tolerant species or cultivar

459 Adapted from Australian Environmental ProtectionAgency, 1995. 460 Smith et al, 2004.

53. Open-Cast Mining Reclamation 373

planted. A mixed fertiliser (nitrogen, pho-sphorus and potassium (NPK) and micronutri-ents) was applied at 500kg per hectare byhelicopter.

In 1997 Alcoa and the Department of Con-servation and Land Management (CALM)developed completion criteria and standards.Specifically, the completion criteria requirerestored areas to be resilient to fire and capableof integration into CALM’s Jarrah forest firemanagement programme. Alcoa supportedresearch to determine how the vegetation andassociated faunal communities respond to fire,in order to define when and under what condi-tions fire should be reintroduced into rehabili-tated areas.

2.2. Restoring Tropical Forests onLands Mined for Bauxite—Examples from BrazilianAmazon461

Since 1979, the Brazilian mining company Min-eraçao Rio do Norte (MRN) has developed areforestation programme aimed at restoringthe evergreen equatorial moist forest destroyedat a rate of 100 hectares per year during bauxiteore extraction at Trombetas in western ParáState. The Trombetas bauxite mine is located in the Saracá-Taquera National Forest on anupland mesa at an elevation of 180m. Restora-tionists working in most tropical settings areusually hampered by lack of basic informationon the wide variety of native tree species thatcharacterise the pre-disturbance forests, as wellas insufficient understanding of the ecology of disturbance and natural recovery to designeffective restoration programmes. A notableexception is MRN, which has used a systematicnursery and field research strategy to develop a reforestation programme based on mixedplantings of more than 70 native old-growthforest tree species.

Two main research programmes were carriedout in the last 11 years, and a number of refor-estation methods as well as site preparation andtopsoil replacement protocols were tested.

Native forest species’ propagation and per-formance assessment programmes involvedevaluations of fruiting phenology, seed viability,seed germination treatments, propagationmethods (direct seeding, use of stumpedsaplings, wildings, and nursery-grown seed-lings), and early survival and growth during thefirst 2 years after outplanting. A total of 160species were evaluated. The standard reclama-tion and site preparation sequence was fol-lowed, which includes levelling of the clayoverburden, replacement of approximately 15cm of topsoil and woody debris (removedfrom the site prior to mining and stockpiled forup to 6 months prior to application), deep-ripping of lines to a depth of 90cm (1mbetween lines), and planting along alternate riplines at 2- by 2-m spacing (2500 trees perhectare) using seeds, stumped saplings, orpotted seedlings, depending on species andtreatment. The total cost came to approxi-mately $2500 per hectare.

The following conclusions can be drawn:Careful site preparation practices, particul-arly judicious topsoil handling and reappli-cation prior to tree planting, are essential forthe establishment of forest cover, elimination ofcompeting grasses, and acceleration of naturalforest succession. Floristic enrichment of thereforested areas is largely dependent on seed-dispersing wildlife, so restoration managersneed to be cognizant of the critical role ofwildlife, actively encourage wildlife conserva-tion in the surrounding landscape, and designrestoration treatments that will provide suit-able habitats for a variety of target wildlifespecies.

2.3. Open-Cast Coal MiningReclamation in Utrillas-Teruel (Spain) in a Semiarid(Mediterranean-Continental)Environment462

Minas y Ferrocarril de Utrillas, SA (MFUSA)company commenced open-cast mining in theUtrillas coalfield in the early 1980s. The area is

461 Parrotta and Knowles, 2001. 462 Nicolau, 2003.

374 J.M. Nicolau Ibarra and M. Moreno de las Heras

located in central-eastern Spain at 1100m ofaltitude. A major limiting factor is water defi-ciency in soil, and therefore reduced wateravailability for plants. Mean annual rainfall is466mm, 28 percent falling in June and May and20 percent in September. The water deficit is292mm from June to October. Restoration ofthe mines was orientated toward agriculturaluses in agreement with social actors.

Improving soil moisture content was the key success factor in the Utrillas region. TheMFUSA company developed a restoration pro-tocol in which the three elements of the ecosys-tem, namely, landform, soil, and plants, weredesigned in an integrated fashion to optimisethe supply of water and nutrients and to controlthe abiotic exploitation of erosion.

Land forms based on the platform-bankmodel with slopes of about 30 degrees had tobe abandoned because rainfall infiltration islow in steep slopes, and runoff leads to high rilland sheet erosion. In turn, rill erosion increaseswater deficiency at the slope scale by reducingopportunities for runoff reinfiltration into thesoil downslope.463 The best-identified topogra-phy was that based on the hydrological basin as unit for reclamation. This is composed ofslopes with natural vegetation, flat areas foragricultural use, and a drainage network includ-ing watercourses, pools and sediment ponds.Topsoil was carefully selected for its physicalproperties (water-holding capacity).

Characteristics of constructed slopes were asfollows: gradient between 18 degrees and 21degrees; insulation from runoff from platforms,tracks, and upper berms; topsoil spreading (50cm thick); tillage transverse to the slope;supply of organic fertiliser; sowing with herba-ceous species at the end of winter; surfacetillage to bury seeds. Three years later, inwinter, woody species were planted.

This protocol has been successful to get grassback, which controlled soil erosion and startedsoil formation. However, ecological successionis proceeding slowly. In fact, introduced grasscommunity have inhibited natural colonisation.

2.4. Problems in the Reclamation ofCoal-Mine Disturbed Lands in South Wales Coalfield464

Reclamation in South Wales started in Pwll Dumine in the 1940s. Three surface mines werereclaimed during the 20th century.

More recent land reclamation practice ofteninvolves applied topsoil (100 to 150cm) and theestablishment of seeded grass covers to allowsheep to graze. Reclaimed areas are managedby Commoners Associations.

However, large tracts of land, officially listedas “reclaimed” from former mineral operations,are in very poor condition. On-site problemsinclude gullying, poor vegetation cover, erosion,and poor soil structure. Off-site they causeproblems due to accelerated runoff and, moreoccasionally, chemical and sediment pollution.Some of these problems are due to poor engi-neering and poor land husbandry, but they aremagnified by natural processes. Some minespoils/soils include a high proportion of friableshales.These break down rapidly, when exposedto disturbance/weathering, releasing clays,which clog up soil pores and impede the infil-tration of water. This causes a progressive dete-rioration of the land with symptoms that mayinclude water logging, replacement of grass bymoss/lichen/bare ground, dieback of soil micro-biota, increases in soil bulk density, anddecreases in soil aggregate stability.

Remedies that are being applied by theOxford Brookes University group includedeveloping a large/active soil microbiotacapable of transforming clays in water-stablesoil aggregates. This is done by introducingdeep-rooting tree species because they are vig-orous and reliable soil formers and because,with a little help, they can support large andactive populations of microorganisms.

3. Outline of Tools

A wide set of tools can be found in the refer-ences below. The following tools are more spe-cific to mining reclamation:

463 Nicolau, 2002. 464 Haigh, 1992.

53. Open-Cast Mining Reclamation 375

• The first measure for protecting the mostvaluable ecological areas from miningimpacts should be the use of geographicalinformation systems (GIS) plus environmen-tal planning methodologies at the regionalscale.

• In relation to topography design, Evans465

affirms that “to successfully incorporate thedesign of relief forms, the stability of the finalforms must be predicted, which implies theuse of hydrological and erosion models.” Inrecent years, some erosion models forreclaimed areas have been developed, whichare now being used in relief design. Wesuggest using the RUSLE (Revised Univer-sal Soil Loss Equation) 1.06 (for mined lands,construction sites, and reclaimed lands),which is a model that estimates the annualsurface erosion by water466 and can be usedfor slope design. This model is available freeon the Web site http://sedlab.olemiss/rusle.

• As off-site impacts on aquatic ecosystems areamong the heaviest disturbances producedby open-cast mining, an erosion and runoffcontrol plan is essential. Several softwarepackages are available on the market. Werecommend evaluating the effectiveness oferosion and sediment control plans.467 Thiscan be acquired through the InternationalErosion Control Association at http://www.ieca.org.

• Topsoil handling is a key but easy issue whenit is planned. A critical point is storage. Itshould be stored for a short period of timeand in small stockpiles. A second point is thespreading of topsoil on the reconstructedtopography. To avoid soil compaction, suchan operation must be carried out with topsoilthat is neither too dry nor too wet.

• Soil amendment is a quite general matter inland reclamation. Table 53.1 shows a numberof remediation procedures proposed byBradshaw.468

• A very useful “tool” from the practical pointof view is to count on an environmental

expert working in the field as mining andreclamation projects are going on. Thisperson—in addition to being responsible forthe fulfilment of the reclamation project—should foresee the contingencies and shouldprofit from the opportunities offered by thephysical environment, mining operations,local administration, and social actors.

4. Future Needs

Performance of surface mining reclamationshows high heterogeneity depending on thecountries, the environments, and the companies;consequently, the needs are very different. Indeveloped countries the main task is to reclaimagain thousands of “reclaimed” hectares, whichdo not fulfil minimum requirements.

From the technical point of view the weakestpoints are land-form design and ecosystemdynamics knowledge. Erosion and hydrologicalmodels should be incorporated into reclama-tion planning. Also the reference ecosystem has to be used for reclaimed ecosystem designand to identify a number of successional tra-jectories, stable states, and thresholds of irreversibility.

In developing countries, efforts in researchmust be intensified as has been seen in theexample of the Brazilian bauxite mine. Recla-mation laws must be enhanced or enacted insome cases, but most importantly, laws must be observed and enforced. However, often in practice, this may seem utopian. In manycases mineral deposit discovery and exploita-tion means deep environmental impacts, socialand political conflicts, corruption, and evenarmed violence. The imbalance is so high thatoften neither society nor the politicians are sufficiently prepared to have a positive rela-tionship with the transnational mining corpora-tions. Given such conditions, an internationalmining code of good practice would be useful.

We think that NGOs can be very helpful in:(1) promoting experimental research, (2) train-ing local restorationists, (3) favouring localcommunities’ participation, and (4) advisinggovernments of developing countries.

465 Evans, 2000.466 Toy and Foster, 1998.467 Fifield, 1997.468 Bradshaw, 1988.

376 J.M. Nicolau Ibarra and M. Moreno de las Heras

References

Australian Environment Protection Agency. 1995.Rehabilitation and revegetation. Best PracticeEnvironmental Management in Mining. Common-wealth of Australia, Barton.

Bradshaw, A.D. 1988. Alternative Endpoints forReclamation. In: Cairns, J.R., ed. RehabilitatingDamaged Ecosystems, vol. 1. CRC Press, BocaRaton, Florida, pp. 70–85.

Evans, K. 2000. Methods for assessing mine site reha-bilitation design for erosion impact. AustralianJournal of Soil Research 38:231–247.

Fifield, S.J. 1997. Field Manual for Effective Sedi-ment and Erosion Control Methods. Hydrody-namics, Inc., Parker, CO.

Haigh, M. 1992. Problems in the reclamation of coal-mine disturbed lands in Wales. InternationalJournal of Surface Mining and Reclamation 6:31–37.

Haigh, M. 2000. The aims of Land reclamation. In:Haigh, M., ed. Reclaimed Land. Erosion Control,Soils and Ecology. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, TheNetherlands. pp. 1–20.

Kolasa, J., and Pickett, S.T.A. 1991. Ecological het-erogeneity. Ecological Studies, No. 86. Springer-Verlag, New York.

Nicolau, J.M. 2002. Runoff generation and routing onartificial slopes in a Mediterranean-continentalenvironment: the Teruel coalfield, Spain. Hydro-logical Processes 16:631–647.

Nicolau, J.M. 2003. Trends in relief design and con-struction in opencast mining reclamation. LandDegradation and Development 14:215–226.

Parrotta, J.A., and Knowles, O.H. 2001. Restoringtropical forests on lands mined for bauxite: exam-ples from Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Engi-neering 17:219–239.

Pickett, S.T.A., Cadenasso, M.L., and Bartha, S. 2001.Implications from the Buell-Small SuccessionStudy for Vegetation Restoration. Applied Vege-tation Science 4:41–52.

Smith, M.A., Grant, C.D., Loneragan, W.A., andKoch, J.M. 2004. Fire management implications offuel loads and vegetation structure in jarrah forestrestoration on bauxite mines in Western Australia.Forest Ecology and Management 187:247–266.

Toy, T., and Foster, G. 1998. Guidelines for the Useof the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation(RUSLE) version 1.06 on Mined Lands, Con-struction Sites and Reclaimed Lands. Office ofSurface Mining, Denver, CO.

Additional Reading

Barnhisel, R.I., Darmondy, R.G., and Daniels, W.L.,eds. 2000. Reclamation of drastically disturbedlands, No. 41 Agronomy series. ASA, CSSA, SSSAPublishers. Madison, WI.

Bradshaw, A.D. 2000. The use of natural processes inreclamation—advantages and difficulties. Land-scape and Urban Planning 51:89–100.

Haigh, M., ed. 2000. Reclaimed Land. ErosionControl, Soils and Ecology. A.A. Balkema.,Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Harris, J.A., Birch, P., and Palmer, J. 1996. LandRestoration and Reclamation. Principles andPractice. Longman Higher Education, Horlow,Essex, UK.

Hobbs, R.J. 1999. Restoration of disturbed ecosys-tems. In: Walker, L.R., ed. Ecosystems of Dis-turbed Ground. Series Ecosystems of the World,16. Elsevier, New York, pp. 673–689.

Parker, V.T., and Pickett, S.T.A. 1997. Restoration asan ecosystem process: implications of the modernecological paradigm. In: Urbanska, K., Webb, N.,and Edwards, P., eds. Restoration Ecology and Sus-tainable Development. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, UK, pp. 17–32.

Urbanska, K., Webb, N., and Edwards, P., eds. 1997.Restoration Ecology and Sustainable Develop-ment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,UK.

Section XIVPlantations in the Landscape

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

A rapidly increasing proportion of the world’swood is coming from plantations. Many of theseare large-scale industrial plantations and theyare often established on degraded lands. Suchplantations can represent an opportunity forthe restoration of landscape functions but theycan also represent a threat to natural systems.Tree planting has been seen as the solution tomany environmental problems as witnessed bynational tree planting campaigns, programmes

to re-green deserts, etc. Elsewhere environ-mental groups campaign against all plantationforestry on the grounds that it replaces nativevegetation and often intrudes on land used bylocal people. Plantations are often viewed assterile monocultures with little biodiversity orother environmental value yet many studieshave shown that even intensively managedindustrial plantations often support surpris-ingly high biodiversity values.469 In addition,industrial plantations can form parts of land-scape mosaics in ways that help to provide amix of production and environmental func-tions. The European Union has pioneered theuse of environmental payment systems toachieve these “multifunctional landscapes.”

Forest plantations are defined by the UnitedNations Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO) as “forest stands established by plantingand/or seeding in the process of afforestation or reforestation.” The FAO does not restrict its definition to timber or pulp plantations.Because of their increasing significance as asupply of fibre for wood industries, rubber(Hevea spp.) plantations are now included inglobal assessments of forest plantations. Recentfigures from FAO show that new forest planta-tion areas are being established at a rate of 4.5million hectares per year, with Asia and SouthAmerica accounting for more new plantationsthan any other region.About 70 percent of newplantations, or 3.1 million hectares per year, aresuccessfully established; in the remainder, an

54The Role of Commercial Plantationsin Forest Landscape RestorationJeffrey Sayer and Chris Elliott

Key Points to Retain

Plantations can represent an opportunity forthe restoration of landscape functions, butthey can also represent a threat to naturalsystems.

This chapter illustrates how commercialplantations can be part of the solution to thechallenge of restoration and not always partof the problem.

A basic principle to be agreed to is that plan-tation forestry should provide multiple pro-duction and environmental functions.

Considerable work has been done on moreenvironmentally friendly approaches to treeestablishment.

379

469 IUFRO, 2003.

380 J. Sayer and C. Elliott

astonishing 30 percent, trees are planted butthey are often not cared for and die.

Of the estimated 187 million hectares ofplantations worldwide, Asia has by far thelargest area, accounting for 62 percent of theworld total. In terms of composition, Pinus (20percent) and Eucalyptus (10 percent) remainthe dominant genera worldwide, although thediversity of species planted is increasing. Indus-trial plantations (producing wood or fibre forsupply to wood processing industries) accountfor 48 percent of the global forest plantationestate and nonindustrial plantations (e.g., forprovision of fuelwood or soil and water protec-tion) for 26 percent.The purpose of the remain-ing 26 percent is unclear.

The extent of plantations in industrialisedcountries is harder to measure than in develop-ing countries. Most forests in Western Europecontain some planted trees, so the distinctionbetween plantations and natural forests is lessclear cut than in the new plantations in thetropics. Industrialised countries tend not to dis-tinguish between plantations and naturalforests in their inventories.

The FAO has identified the 10 countries with the largest plantation development pro-grammes (as reported by percentage of theglobal plantation area): China, 24 percent;India, 18 percent; the Russian Federation, 9percent; the United States, 9 percent; Japan, 6percent; Indonesia, 5 percent; Brazil, 3 percent;Thailand, 3 percent; Ukraine, 2 percent; and theIslamic Republic of Iran, 1 percent.These coun-tries account for 80 percent of the global forestplantation area. All of them are countries withlarge extents of degraded landscapes.

Global interest in forest landscape restora-tion was partly triggered by environmental con-cerns about plantation forestry. Public criticismof large-scale Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis)plantations in Scotland led the U.K. ForestryCommission to reverse its policies on uplandtree planting. The emphasis is now given toplanting native woodlands for amenity andwildlife values. Not only the species planted butalso the spatial layout of the plantations isdesigned to imitate natural woodlands.470

Large commercial plantations subsidised by the World Bank were a cause célèbre for the environmental movement in India in the 1980s. Rural people complained that the exoticspecies planted did not provide fodder for theiranimals or supplies of the nontimber productsthat they needed for their daily subsistence.Tree-hugging campaigns were launched toprevent the clearing of natural forests by theplantation agencies.471

Pulp plantations in Indonesia have beenstrongly opposed by environmentalists becausethey often replace natural forest and denyaccess to the land to local people. Similar controversies have surrounded commercialplantations in Chile and government sponsoredplantation schemes in Vietnam.472

However, forest landscape restorationalmost always involves reestablishing trees, andthe purpose of this chapter is to illustrate howcommercial plantations can be part of the solu-tion to the challenge of restoration and notalways part of the problem.

2. Examples

2.1. Environmentally BeneficialCommercial Plantations:Plantations in Brazil

The plantations established by the Americanbillionaire Harvey Ludwig at Jari in Brazil473

are an excellent example of how sensible man-agement has turned what started as a majorenvironmental threat into a model of goodlandscape management. The scheme startedwith the planting of large areas of a singleexotic species. Many trees died and the planta-tions failed to achieve their commercial objec-tives, but their establishment did cause the loss of large areas of natural forests. The Jariplantations have changed hands twice and arenow owned by a Brazilian family company.A greater diversity of trees is now planted in300,000 hectares of plantations and large areas

470 See Smout, 2000.

471 Carrere and Lohman, 1996; Cossalter and Pye-Smith,2003.472 Lang, 2002.473 See www.metsopaper.com.

54. The Role of Commercial Plantations 381

of natural forest have been set aside for pro-tection within the plantation area.Additionally,700,000 hectares of natural forest in the imme-diate areas have been brought under sustain-able management for timber. The Jari opera-tions are now certified by an internationallyaccredited certification scheme. The area nowrepresents an environmentally sound balancedlandscape containing protected, managed, andplantation forests.

2.2. Environmentally BeneficialCommercial Plantations: Pulp Plantations in Sumatra474

Pulp plantations in Sumatra have been under alot of criticism for their negative environmen-tal and social impacts. They often replacednatural forest of high biodiversity value, andmany local people were displaced by theirestablishment. Indonesian law required thatplantation companies set aside up to a third oftheir land as natural forest set asides, but thisrule was largely ignored or the set asides wereneglected and illegally logged, often by sub-contractors who sold the logs to the pulp mills.Under pressure from environmental NGOs,one of the companies, APRIL, has now sup-ported the establishment of a national park toconserve the remaining forests located withinits plantation estate. The infrastructure of theplantation company provides access for parkmanagers, and profits from the plantation oper-ation help to pay for park protection costs.

2.3. Environmentally BeneficialCosmmercial Plantations:Conifer Plantations in theUnited Kingdom

In the United Kingdom exotic conifer planta-tions have long been opposed by the public,which often preferred the open treeless land-scapes of upland Scotland and Wales eventhough these were the result of overgrazing bysheep in the 19th century. A good account ofthe controversy surrounding the issue of uplandconifer plantations is given in Smout.475 As

commercial conifer plantations began to bephased out, a new problem arose. It was dis-covered that the conifer plantations when theywere newly planted provided the habitat for alarge proportion of the U.K. population of therare falcon, the merlin (Falco columbarius).Early successional woodlands that occur aftercommercial plantations have been logged wereproviding the only habitat for a rare species. Inthis case, keeping some of the land under com-mercial plantations was contributing to land-scape functionality.

3. Outline of Tools

In many landscapes commercial plantationswill have a potential role in restoration. Muchwill depend on where in the landscape they arelocated and how they are managed.

Plantations do not always have to be of asingle species. It is not always necessary to keepthe land under the trees bare; weeds and spon-taneously colonising local trees can be encour-aged. Mixed local species can be planted alongwater courses or around the periphery of theplantation to soften the visual impact of theplantation and provide habitat for wildlife.Plantations can be used to provide corridorsbetween patches of natural woodlands. Planta-tions can provide many products and therebyreduce the pressure on natural forests. Planta-tions can sometimes be used as nurse crops tohelp improve the soil and create conditions sothat native species can become established.

Plantations are often established using indus-trial techniques that tend to result in uniformstands that are relatively low in biodiversityand other environmental and social values.But considerable work has been done on more environmentally friendly approaches totree establishment.476 In any use of commercialplantations to contribute to landscape restora-tion objectives, it is essential to ensure that theplantations are managed to the highest possiblestandards. The International Tropical TimberOrganisation (ITTO) Guidelines for the

474 APRIL, 2004.475 Smout, 2000.

476 Good accounts of this work are given in Nilsen, 1991,and Whisenant, 1999.

382 J. Sayer and C. Elliott

Establishment and Sustainable Management ofPlanted Forest477 remains a good source ofinformation on the important issues. But thoseguidelines were issued 11 years ago, and theygive only passing attention to landscape andbiodiversity issues. These are the areas ofcurrent concern, and the rest of the chapters inthis volume address issues that are pertinent tothis issue.The more recent ITTO Guidelines forthe Restoration, Management, and Rehabilita-tion of Degraded and Secondary TropicalForests478 go further in addressing these largerscale issues. They probably constitute the besttechnical document currently available on therole of plantations in restoring landscape functions.

The key to harnessing the potential benefi-cial roles of plantations will be to develop avision of what the ideal configuration of thelandscape would look like. This vision needs tobe based on an understanding of the uses thatall stakeholders will make of the landscape.Public participation in the process of develop-ing this vision is important. Commercial plan-tation companies must be brought into thisprocess as early as possible and be convincedthat the commercial viability of their enter-prises will be enhanced through developingtheir plantations in an environmentally sustain-able way. Arguments for this might include theavoidance of local opposition or even sabotageof the plantations, the possibility of achievinggreen certification and thus better marketaccess, and the general advantages that comewith being seen as good corporate citizens.

The basic principle needs to be agreed on—that plantation forestry can and should providemultiple production and environmental func-tions. This multifunctionality can be achievedthrough diversification within the plantation orby the development of landscape mosaics thatare designed in such a way that production andenvironmental functions are spatially distrib-uted so that the “whole is greater than the sumof the parts.” Achieving optimal landscapemosaics is often difficult because it requires

coordinated land allocation by different landmanagers and owners. Formal spatial planningcan often achieve this, but informal negotia-tions amongst local land owners can also beeffective. Some large plantation operatorscontrol enough land to establish mosaics withina single land-holding.

A number of publications deal with the issueof how plantation management can supportbiodiversity conservation objectives. Several ofthese are listed in the references to this chapter.Many of them focus on the biodiversity that canbe encouraged within the plantations them-selves. There is now more interest in the land-scape ecology of plantation forestry. Significantrecent experience comes from Western Europeand the Mediterranean, and the books on land-scape ecology listed in the references begin todescribe these experiences.

4. Future Needs

Much still has to be learned about how emerg-ing understanding of landscape ecology can beused as a tool for forest landscape restoration.This is one of the challenges of conservation forthe coming decades.

A new challenge is emerging that will play amajor role in the future of plantations and landscapes. This is the prospect of significantfunding for afforestation in attempts to sequ-ester carbon. These forest plantations will beacceptable to the conservation community only if they provide multiple environmentalbenefits. This means that forests established tosequester carbon will have to provide land-scape and biodiversity benefits as well. Theywill have to contribute to forest landscaperestoration.

References

APRIL. 2004. Sustainability Report 2004. AsiaPacific Resources International Holdings ltd.Jakarta, Indonesia.

Carrere, R., and Lohmann, L. 1996. Pulping theSouth: Industrial Tree Plantations and the WorldPaper Economy. Zed Books, London.

477 ITTO, 1993.478 ITTO, 2002.

54. The Role of Commercial Plantations 383

Cossalter, C., and Pye-Smith, C. 2003. Fast WoodForestry: Myths and Realities. CIFOR, Bogor,Indonesia.

ITTO. 1993. ITTO Guidelines for the Establishmentand Sustainable Management of Planted TropicalForests. ITTO, Yokohama, Japan.

ITTO. 2002. ITTO Guidelines for the Restoration,Management and Rehabilitation of Degraded andSecondary Tropical Forests. ITTO, Yokohama,Japan.

IUFRO. 2003. Occasional paper No. 15. Part 1:Science and technology—building the future ofthe world’s forests. Part ll: Planted forests and bio-diversity. ISSN 1024–1414X, IUFRO, Vienna.

Lang, C. 2002. The pulp invasion; The internationalpulp and paper industry in the Mekong Region.World Rainforest Movement, Moreton-on-the-Marsh, UK.

Liu, J., and Taylor, W.W. 2002. Integrating LandscapeEcology into Natural Resource Management.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Nilsen, R., ed. 1991. Helping Nature Heal: An Intro-duction to Environmental Restoration. A WholeEarth Catalogue, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA.(Deals with restoration in a U.S. context.)

Smout, T.C. 2000. Nature Contested: EnvironmentalHistory in Scotland and Northern England since1600. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, UK.

Whisenant, S.G. 1999. Repairing Damaged Wild-lands—A Process-Oriented, Landscape-ScaleApproach. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, UK.

Additional Reading

Aide, T.M., Zimmerman, J.K., et al. 2000. Forestregeneration in a chronosequence of tropicalabandoned pastures: implications for restorationecology. Restoration Ecology 8(4):328–338.

Buckley, G.P., ed. 1989. Biological Habitat Recon-struction. Belhaven Press, London.

Cairns, J. Jr., ed. 1988. Rehabilitating DamagedEcosystems, Vols 1 and 2. CRC Press, Boca Raton,FL.

FAO. 2001. Global Forest Resources Assessment2000—Main Report. Forestry Paper 140. ISBN 92-5-104642–5. FAO, Rome.

Gobster, P.H., and Bruce Hull, R., eds. 1999.Restoring Nature: Perspectives from the SocialSciences and Humanities. Island Press,Washington, DC.

Holl, K.D., Loik, M.E., et al. 2000. Tropical montaneforest restoration in Costa Rica: overcoming bar-riers to dispersal and establishment. RestorationEcology 8(4):339–349.

Jordan, W.R. III, Gilpin, M.E., and Abers, J.D., eds.1987. Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approachto Ecological Research. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, UK.

Lamb, D. 1998. Large scale ecological restoration of degraded tropical forest lands: the potential roleof timber plantations. Restoration Ecology 6(3):271–279.

Luken, J.O. 1990. Directing Ecological Succession.Chapman and Hall, London.

Reiners, W.A., and Driese, K.L. 2003. Propagation ofEcological Influence Through EnvironmentalSpace. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,UK.

Walker, L.R., and del Moral, R. 2003. Primary Suc-cession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, UK.

Web Sites

www.metsopaper.com.www.developments.org.uk/data/issue21/amazon.htm.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Even-aged plantations (i.e., plantations thatwere established by planting tree seedlings allat the same time, or within a few months of eachother) are the most frequent plantation type inboth tropical and temperate regions. In gen-

eral these plantations are monospecific (i.e.,planted with a single species in large blocks).Frequently, they are composed of exotic species(for example, pine plantations in the SouthernHemisphere; plantations of eucalypts in anytemperate or tropical region except Australia;teak in Indonesia or Latin America). Themajority of plantations are established forindustrial purposes (timber or fibre). However,in addition to providing wood products, planta-tions could have a function in combating deser-tification, providing fuelwood, protecting soiland water resources, rehabilitating degradedlands, providing rural employment, and absorb-ing carbon to offset carbon emissions.479 Treeplantations can also be a source of cash, savings,and insurance for local farmers.

With regard to biodiversity conservation orrestoration, plantations are often viewed in a negative light.480 It has been claimed thatmonocultures of exotic plantations are no morediverse than monocultures of soybeans or otheragricultural crops. Some authors do not evenwant to use the term forest plantations, claim-ing that monospecific plantations are not trulyforests.

However, while plantations in generalsupport fewer native wildlife species than anatural forest, they may sometimes hold morediversity that other land uses in the same region(e.g., agricultural land, pastures, degradedland).

55Attempting to Restore Biodiversity inEven-Aged PlantationsFlorencia Montagnini

Key Points to Retain

While even aged plantations offer much lessbiological wealth than natural forests, theymay prove more valuable than severelydegraded lands and may even be a step alongthe way to restoring a forested landscape.

Plantations can help recovery of biodiver-sity by (1) attracting seed dispersers, (2)reducing grasses and favouring the growth of seedlings, and (3) ameliorating the microclimate.

Plantations can be designed to improve bio-diversity by (1) planting at low densities, (2)using mixed-species designs, (3) using nativespecies, (4) planting close to a natural seedsource (forest), and (5) thinning to allowmore native vegetation to come through.

Further work is necessary on how to achievebetter plantation connectivity with forestsacross landscapes, and on improving legisla-tion related to plantations.

384

479 Keenan et al, 1999; Lamb, 1998; Montagnini, 2001.480 Carnus, 2003.

55. Attempting to Restore Biodiversity in Even-Aged Plantations 385

tant species through quite simple managementchanges—for example, managing plantationsfor specific nesting birds or mammals thatcan utilise them, such as the establishment ofDipteryx panamensis plantations, a specieswhose seeds are feed for the endangeredgreen macaw in North Eastern Costa Rica

• When plantations are situated close to bio-logically important areas, and where changesin the management of the plantation can helpmaintain or support these areas

• When part of the plantation land, either bylaw, economics, or feasibility, is not underplantation and could be managed in such away as to counterbalance the effect of theplantation on biodiversity

To make judgements about when and wherethese approaches might be applicable, it isimportant to understand the context in whichthe plantation exists and the factors that alterbiodiversity. In all these cases, a key question is whether the desired changes should comeabout by allowing or encouraging naturalregeneration or whether some more active typeof intervention is needed. In some cases,restoration may result in a more natural forestoverall; in others, the plantation may remain asa highly unnatural crop but with specific ele-ments that support a small number of desiredspecies (which can also be important to main-tain a functional landscape).

1.2. Factors that Alter Biodiversityin Even-Aged Plantations

The following factors can alter biodiversity ineven-aged plantations:

• The use of nonnative species: Although theydo not always become invasives, nonnativespecies are often less adapted to environ-mental conditions, could disturb the ecologi-cal balance between functional groups ofspecies, both vertebrates and invertebrates,and could result in ecosystem viability prob-lems in the long run.They may also thrive outof control because of the absence of theirtraditional predators.

• Tree species’ diversity, pure or mixed planta-tions: Diversity is clearly less in monospecific

1.1. Even-Aged Plantations and Biodiversity

Plantations may serve biodiversity undercertain conditions:

1. In severely degraded areas: Plantationscan support a greater diversity of native plantspecies in their understoreys than agriculture or pasture systems. Plantation composition,design, and management will vary according tothe objectives of the plantation, and so will thefactors that influence biodiversity within andaround them.

2. In areas where natural regeneration isvery slow or very difficult: In some areas,natural forest regeneration may be significantlydelayed by physical or biological barriers (e.g.,distance from seed source, heavily compactedterrain, etc.). The establishment of plantationsmay overcome some of these barriers byattracting seed dispersal agents into the land-scape and by ameliorating local microclimaticconditions within the area, thereby acceleratingthe recovery of biodiversity. Plantations mayhelp local biodiversity by facilitating regenera-tion of native tree species and providing habitatfor forest animals.481

If large-scale, monospecific plantations are in full production, concern for biodiversity bycompany owners is often restricted to the con-servation areas that they maintain by law or asa result of pressure from society. Nonetheless,there are exceptions, such as when plantationsare managed to address particular conservationpressures.The prime interest in a plantation willnot be biodiversity; however, conservation orrestoration of biodiversity may become a sec-ondary objective. In general, there are cases inwhich restoration of biodiversity and natural-ness in existing plantations is justifiable andshould be actively sought, for instance:

• Where plantations are established on degradedland that could be restored into native forest

• Where plantations have been abandoned• When even quite unnatural plantations can

still provide habitat for a specific and impor-

481 Cusack and Montagnini, 2004; Parrotta, 1992; Parrottaand Turnbull, 1997.

386 F. Montagnini

than in mixed plantations. In contrast, inmixed plantations there is a greater variety ofhabitats both in the vertical and horizontaldimensions of space that can also attract alarger number of animals (birds, bats, andother mammals), which can act as seed dis-persers of species from nearby natural forests.

• Loss of forest habitats and microhabitats: Ifa plantation replaces natural forest, there isa loss of species. That is the case with manyreforestation projects in the tropics, whereplantations of a single species are establishedin areas that once supported rain forest.

• Loss of other natural habitats: Sometimesplantations are established in regions thathave never supported forest in historicaltimes (afforestation), for example, pulpwoodand timber plantations in the delta of LaPlata river in Argentina, and in Uruguay,where the natural ecosystems are prairies. Inthese, plantations result in loss of specific bio-diversity and landscape naturalness.

• Status of plantation exploitation: When aplantation is no longer productive, due,for example, to market changes that haveaffected the prices of tree products, planta-tion owners may not manage the plantationsfor production, but may let natural regener-ation proceed under the plantation canopies.For example, several plantations were estab-lished in Puerto Rico by the U.S. ForestService and the Department of NaturalResources in the 1960s. Management of these plantations was limited and abundantunderstorey biomass and species’ diversity is found under the canopy of Caribbean pines,mahoganies, and other exotic species.

• Chemical influences on soils by tree species:Eucalypts have been claimed to have negative effects on understory vegetation482;however, effects may vary according to thespecies and sites. For example, in highlandecosystems in Ethiopia, richness and biomassof herbaceous species in plantations of euca-lypts and pines were as high as in naturalforest (most of the species found under plantations were widespread species, mainlyweeds invading from montane or woodedgrassland).483

2. Examples

2.1. Increasing Biodiversity inTropical Plantations by Mixing Indigenous Tree Species (Costa Rica)

At La Selva Biological Station, mixed planta-tions that integrated native tree species had arelatively high abundance and high numbers of regenerating species in their understory, asopposed to pure plantations.484 Higher plantspecies’ richness accumulated under Vochysiaguatemalensis,Virola koschnyi, Terminalia ama-zonia, Hyeronima alchorneoides, and Vochysiaferruginea—all species commonly planted byfarmers in the region (Fig. 55.1). Natural regen-eration was higher in understoreys with low or intermediate light availability. Most of

482 Cossalter and Pye-Smith, 2003.483 Michelsen et al, 1996.

Figure 55.1. Understory regeneration under thenative tree species Vochysia guatemalensis in a 12-year-old plantation at La Selva Biological Station,Costa Rica. (Photo © Florencia Montagnini.)

484 Cusack and Montagnini, 2004.

55. Attempting to Restore Biodiversity in Even-Aged Plantations 387

the seeds entering open pastures were wind-dispersed, while most seeds entering the plantations were bird- or bat-dispersed. Thissuggests that the plantations facilitate treeregeneration by attracting seed-dispersingbirds and bats into the area (Fig. 55.2). The dif-ferent species of the plantations created differ-ent conditions of shade and litter accumulation,which in turn affected forest regeneration.485

Competition from grasses is a major factorinfluencing woody invasion under these planta-tions. High accumulation of litter on the plan-tation floor may help diminish grass growth and thus encourage woody invasion under thespecies’ canopies. Farmers who manage theirplantations with the purpose of restoring localbiodiversity may have as an option, after har-vesting the timber, the tending of the naturalregeneration of useful species. In this manner,they obtain the profits from selling the timberfrom the plantation, and later they will havevaluable timber species in the regeneratedforest.

2.2. Thinning to RestoreBiodiversity in Pure Plantations of Teak (Costa Rica)

In the Parrita valley, seven teak stands of threeto 12 years and one 49-year-old stand that had

been planted on old pasture or agricultural landwere surveyed.486 Soils were acid Ultisols andInceptisols. Initial spacing was 21/2 by 3m or 3by 3m. Plots were set along transects wherebasal area of trees, open canopy percentage,leaf litter, percent plant cover, number of indi-viduals, and biomass of understorey were measured. A total of 66 plant families and 132genera were recorded. Teak density was thestrongest predictor of understorey develop-ment; therefore, it was concluded that thinningis the most important management strategy to increase understorey biodiversity in theseplantations.

2.3. Restoring IndigenousBiodiversity While Dealing with Invasive Species in Plantations

In several cases, a previously forested area is invaded by aggressive grass, for example,Imperata cylindrica in Indonesia, Imperatabrasiliensis in Brazil, Saccharum spontaneum inPanama, and Pennisetum purpureum in Africa,or by ferns. The competitive advantage ofgrasses, combined with degraded soils and lackof nutrients, prevents germination and initia-tion of tree seedlings. These grassland areas areoften maintained by fires that inhibit colonisa-

Figure 55.2. Regeneration of woodyspecies was very low in areas notused by plantations, in comparisonwith regeneration under plantationsof native tree species at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica.Seeds were collected from undereach plantation species and in areasnot covered by trees for compar-ison of seed dispersal by birds and bats. (Photo © Florencia Montagnini.)

485 Carnevale and Montagnini, 2002. 486 Luoma, 2002.

388 F. Montagnini

forests by long and narrow patches. Some spe-cies are better as “perches” due to their archi-tectural characteristics. For example, at LaSelva Biological Station in Costa Rica, moreabundant regeneration was found under thecanopy of Vochysia guatemalensis than underother native species of the same plantation.490

The result was attributed in part to the archi-tecture of this species, whose branching patternis particularly suited to birds and bats. In addition, the architecture of this tree speciesallowed for a more varied light environmentthat could accommodate a larger number ofspecies.

3.2. Planting to Improve LocalMicroclimatic Conditions

As mentioned in the examples above, planta-tions create better light conditions for seedlingsthat are shade-tolerant. Plantation shade sup-presses grass and fern growth, thus favouringthe growth of woody seedlings. Temperaturefluctuations are also ameliorated under thecanopy. Litter production can also help sup-press the growth of grass.491

3.3. Factors Influencing NaturalRegeneration Under Plantation Canopies

3.3.1. Plantation Type

A low-density plantation may favour growth of grasses instead of a varied understorey. Aninitial tight tree planting density (2 ¥ 2m,3 ¥ 3m) will ensure early shading of grass,thus favouring competition by shade-tolerantwoody seedlings. Thinning will be needed laterto free up the growing tree seedlings.

3.3.2. Plantation Design

Mixed plantations have a higher variety ofenvironments for seed dispersers and creategreater variety of ecological niches allowing formore diverse regeneration.

tion by tree species.487 In many cases it is notfeasible to plant tree seedlings without firstremoving the invasive vegetation. Followingtreatment to eliminate or reduce the invasivevegetation, fast-growing tree species, oftenexotic, are planted to initiate tree cover, sup-press the grass, and ameliorate the environ-ment.488 This facilitates the establishment ofother tree seedlings that may be brought laterto restore the original forest, or to start a mixedor a monospecific plantation, depending on theobjectives.

2.4. Fighting Invasive Species in aPlantation in the Eastern United States

In the eastern U.S., one of the most challenginginvasive plants for forest restorationists is the nonindigenous shrub, Amur honeysuckle(Lonicera maackii), which has an ability toresprout after cutting and possibly has allelo-pathic effects on native vegetation, turninginvaded sites into shrublands.489 In southwest-ern Ohio, glyphosate herbicides were used to eliminate honeysuckle and facilitate theestablishment of planted seedlings of nativetree species (Fraxinus pennsylvanica, Quercusmuehlenbergii, Prunus serotina, Juglans nigra,Cercis canadensis, Cornus florida). The endresult was successful restoration with anincrease in native woody plant diversity.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Role in Attracting SeedDispersal Agents into the Landscape

Positioning of plantations in the landscapeinfluences the movements of seed-dispersingbirds. For example, plantations attract more dis-persers if they are set between forest patches tofacilitate bird movement. Tree recruitment maybe higher in plantations that are connected to

487 Chapman and Chapman, 1996.488 Ashton et al, 1997; Fimbel and Fimbel, 1996; Kuusipaloet al, 1995; Otsamo et al, 1999; PRORENA, 2003.489 Hartman and McCarthy, 2004.

490 Guariguata et al, 1995.491 Lamb, 1998; Parrotta and Turnbull, 1997.

55. Attempting to Restore Biodiversity in Even-Aged Plantations 389

Planting at different times so as to have amosaic of plantations of different ages is oftendone to suit different market demands. Thisoffers a more varied environment that can helprecruitment of other species and can create different niches and habitats that may favoursome wildlife.

Planting at wider distances and thinning canallow greater light penetration in the under-storey. At the same time, early shading by a rapidly developing plantation canopy may help suppress aggressive grass vegetation,therefore favouring broad-leaved species incolonising the understorey and thus increasingbiodiversity.

3.3.3. Distance to Natural Forest orOther Sources of Seeds

Regeneration may be seriously prevented bylack of seed and other propagules, if plantationsare set like islands in a sea of pasture or otherdegraded vegetation.

3.3.4. Species’ Choices

Native pioneer species should be the first choicebecause fast-growing pioneer species shade outgrasses sooner. Native species are in betterbalance with the rest of the ecosystem.However, in extreme cases, when the land hasbeen too damaged for native species to grow on,exotics are an option as shown in the examples.

3.3.5. Plantation Management

Thinning is probably the most important man-agement intervention to favour regeneratingtrees in plantations. For example, an analysis offorest restoration after 120 years of reforesta-tion with the exotic Pinus nigra in the Alps in France, showed that in order for the pines to serve as a true nurse for the native broad-leaved vegetation, thinning and enrichmentplanting were needed. Thinning facilitates the dissemination of seeds of the native species.Gap openings or even small clear cuts in the pine plantations were recommended inareas affected by infestation with mistletoe.Planting patches of native trees can serve as

492 Vallauri et al, 2002.493 Carnus et al, 2003.494 Ashton et al, 2001.

seed sources for future regeneration of nativespecies.492

There are a variety of management strategiesthat can be used to increase diversity in plantation ecosystems, even those includingexotic species. These strategies include thin-ning, as mentioned above; decreasing the inten-sity of management operations (fertilisation,weeding); diversifying the number of treespecies planted; planting so as to have a mosaicof plantations of different ages; and leavingforest remnants in the landscape.493 Manage-ment strategies that fall within the guidelinesneeded for forest certification (according to schemes such as the Forest StewardshipCouncil scheme, FSC) help to ensure that plantation forests as well as native forests aremanaged in a way that promotes wildlifehabitat.

4. Future Needs

More experiences are needed on plantationsand connectivity across landscapes. Forexample, connectivity can be obtained throughthe use of lines or even isolated trees in thelandscape, serving to buffer the actual planta-tion area, changing the “shape” of the planta-tion, etc.

There needs to be more work on the rela-tionship between the plantation itself and itssurroundings. Taking a landscape approachhelps deal with both the area inside a planta-tion and the area around it.

More information is needed on the long-termdynamics of tree regeneration in plantations;most studies focus on young plantations.

Specific management guidelines are neededto favour biodiversity, especially thinning and enrichment. For example, Ashton et al494

designed a comprehensive set of guidelinessuited to the forests of Sri Lanka. The guide-lines indicate silvicultural treatments neededfor a number of understorey and canopyspecies, including size of the canopy openings

390 F. Montagnini

needed for each species, and mode of planting(isolated seedlings or in groups or patches), aswell as the economic value of each species. Seenext chapter “Best Practice for Industrial Plan-tations” for other management interventions topromote biodiversity.

Attention should be given to alternativesthat can help farmers to increase biodiversitywhile maintaining a profitable system, byenquiring into farmers’ goals and preferencesfor tree species.

Finally, many countries need to improve leg-islation related to subsidies and establishmentand monitoring of plantations, and their influ-ence on biodiversity.

References

Ashton, P.M.S., Gamage, S., Gunatilekke, I.A.U.N.,and Gunatilekke, C.V.S. 1997. Restoration of a Sri Lanka rainforest: using Caribbean pine Pinuscaribaea as a nurse for establishing late-successional tree species. Journal of AppliedEcology 34:915–925.

Ashton, P.M.S., Gunatilleke, C.V.S., Singhakumara,B.M.P., and Gunatilleke, I.A.U.N. 2001. Restora-tion pathways for rain forest in southwest SriLanka: a review of concepts and models. ForestEcology and Management 525:1–23.

Carnevale, N.J., and Montagnini, F. 2002. Facilitatingregeneration of secondary forests with the use ofmixed and pure plantations of indigenous treespecies. Forest Ecology and Management 163:217–227.

Carnus, J.-M., Parrotta, J., Brockerhoff, E.G., et al.2003. Planted forests and biodiversity. In: Buck,A.,Parrotta, J., and Eolfrum, G., eds. Science andTechnology—Building the Future of the World’sForests. Planted Forests and Biodiversity. IUFROOccasional Paper No. 15. IUFRO, Vienna, Austria,pp. 33–49.

Chapman, C.A., and Chapman, L.J. 1996. Exotic treeplantation and the regeneration of natural forestin Kibale National Park, Uganda. Biological Conservation 76(3):253–257.

Cossalter, C., and Pye-Smith, C. 2003. Fast-woodforestry. Myths and realities. Forest perspectives.Center for International Forestry Research(CIFOR), Jakarta, Indonesia.

Cusack, D., and Montagnini, F. 2004. The role ofnative species plantations in recovery of under-

story diversity in degraded pasturelands of CostaRica. Forest Ecology and Management 188:1–15.

Fimbel, R.A., and Fimbel, C.C. 1996. The role of exotic conifer plantations in rehabilitatingdegraded tropical forest lands: a case study fromthe Kibale forest in Uganda. Forest Ecology andManagement 81:215–226.

Guariguata, M.R., Rheingans, R., and Montagnini, F.1995. Early woody invasion under tree plantationsin Costa Rica: implications for forest restoration.Restoration Ecology 3(4):252–260.

Hartman, K.M., and McCarthy, B.C. 2004.Restoration of a forest understory after theremoval of an invasive shrub, Amur honeysuckle(Lonicera maackii). Restoration Ecology 12(2):154–165.

Keenan, R.J., Lamb, D., Parrotta, J., and Kikkawa, J.1999. Ecosystem management in tropical timberplantations: satisfying economic, conservation, andsocial objectives. Journal of Sustainable Forestry9:117–134.

Kuusipalo, J., Goran, A., Jafarsidik, Y., Otsamo, A.,Tuomela, K., and Vuokko, R. 1995. Restoration ofnatural vegetation in degraded Imperata cylin-drica grassland: understory development in forest plantations. Journal of Vegetation Science6:205–210.

Lamb, D. 1998. Large scale ecological restoration of degraded tropical forest lands: the potential role of timber plantations. Restoration Ecology6:271–279.

Luoma, J. 2002. Understory vegetation characteris-tics along teak (Tectona grandis) plantation/natural forest ecotones in Costa Rica. In: TropicalResources: The Bulletin of the Tropical ResourcesInstitute. Yale University, School of Forestry andEnvironmental Studies, New Haven, CT, pp. 11–16.

Michelsen, A., Lisanework, N., Friis, I., and Holst, N.1996. Comparison of understory vegetation andsoil fertility in plantations and adjacent naturalforests in the Ethiopian highlands. Journal ofApplied Ecology 33:627–642.

Montagnini, F. 2001. Strategies for the recovery ofdegraded ecosystems: experiences from LatinAmerica. Interciencia 26(10):498–503.

Otsamo, A., Hadi, T.S., Kurniati, L., and Vuokko, R.1999. Early performance of 12 Acacia crassicarpaprovenances on an Imperata cylindrica dominatedgrassland in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Journalof Tropical Forest Science 11(1):36–46.

Parrotta J.A. 1992. The role of plantation forests inrehabilitating degraded tropical ecosystems. Agri-culture, Ecosystems and Environment 41:115–133.

55. Attempting to Restore Biodiversity in Even-Aged Plantations 391

Additional Reading

Montagnini, F., and Jordan, C.F. 2005. Plantationsand agroforestry systems. pp. 163–215. In: Mon-tagnini, F., and Jordan, C.F. 2005. Tropical ForestEcology. The Basis for Conservation and Manage-ment. Springer-Verlag, Berlin-New York.

Piotto, D., Montagnini, F., Kanninen, M., Ugalde, L.,and Viquez, E. 2004. Forest plantations in CostaRica and Nicaragua: performance of species andpreferences of farmers. Journal of SustainableForestry 18(4):57–77.

Parrotta, J.A. and Turnbull, J. 1997. Catalizing nativeforest regeneration on degraded tropical lands.Forest Ecology and Management 99:1–290.

PRORENA. 2003. The Native Species ReforestationProject (PRORENA) Strategic Plan 2003–2008.Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) (Smith-sonian Tropical Research Institute) (STRI), andTropical Resources Institute at the Yale School ofForestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven,CT. (Unpublished document.)

Vallauri, D., Aronson, J., and Barbero, M. 2002. Ananalysis of forest restoration 120 years after refor-estation of badlands in the south-western Alps.Restoration Ecology 10(1):16–26.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

The area of forest plantation in the world hasincreased by 17 percent in the last decade,half from the conversion of natural forests to plantations and half from afforestation orreforestation on previously nonforested ordeforested lands. Timber plantations oftenimpose significant environmental and socialcosts, particularly when they are establishedthrough the conversion of natural forests, as hasoften been the case, for example, in Indonesiaand Chile. Indiscriminate forest clearing,uncontrolled burning, and disregard for therights and interests of local communities haveoften been associated with plantation estab-

lishment. Unless there are significant changes in policies and practices, in many regions the expansion of plantations will continue tothreaten forests of high conservation value,freshwater ecosystems, forest-dependent peo-ples, and habitats of endangered species.However, well-managed and appropriatelylocated plantations can play an important rolein healthy, diverse and multifunctional forestlandscapes, for instance, by providing a sustain-able source of timber and freeing up otherareas to be set aside as reserves. The plantationindustry can also, if properly managed, gener-ate valuable foreign exchange earnings andemployment opportunities for producer coun-tries. The principles of forest landscape restora-tion recognise that plantations can play a rolein a sustainable forest landscape, if they are wellmanaged and have the support of local com-munities and are well-sited within the land-scape (e.g., not in areas of high or potentiallyhigh biodiversity). Key elements of sustainabil-ity within the plantation forest industry are thefollowing:

• Maintenance of high conservation valueforests: plantations should not replace highconservation value forests. This will normallyrequire well-informed negotiations among awide range of stakeholders to integrate plan-tations with the mosaic of other land uses.

• Multifunctional forest landscapes: planta-tions should enhance environmental valuesby providing corridors between, and bufferzones around, natural forest areas and should

56Best Practice for IndustrialPlantationsNigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Forest plantations have been a major threatto forests and forest biodiversity because ofpoor management practices and little or noplanning for their location within landscapes.

Well-managed and appropriately locatedplantations, however, can sometimes play animportant role in healthy, diverse, and mul-tifunctional forest landscapes.

There is an urgent need for capacity build-ing with respect to good social and environ-mental management for plantations.

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56. Best Practice for Industrial Plantations 393

enhance social values by providing benefitsto local communities.

• Sound environmental management prac-tices: the industry should adopt managementpractices that minimise environmentalimpacts such as air and water pollution,forest fires, soil erosion, pest invasion, andbiodiversity loss.

• Respect for rights of local communities and indigenous peoples: the industry shouldrecognise legal and customary rights of localand indigenous communities to own, use, andmanage their lands, territories, and resources.

• Positive social impacts: the industry shouldmaintain or enhance the social and econo-mic well-being of plantation workers and communities.495

• Proficient regulatory frameworks: regulatoryframeworks should encourage best practices.At a minimum, the industry should respectall national laws. Responsible behaviour willoften require performance standards exceed-ing local and national laws, especially whereregulatory frameworks are underdevelopedor governance is weak.

• Transparency: the industry should adopt andmake public, policies, practices, and imple-mentation plans pertaining to their social andenvironmental performance. They shouldencourage independent, publicly availableperformance monitoring, involving localstakeholders in both development of stan-dards and performance monitoring.

2. Outline of Tools

Assuring that plantations play a positive ratherthan a negative role depends on two factors:locating plantations in places where they do notdestroy valuable natural habitat or underminepeople’s livelihood options, and managing themin ways that minimise detrimental impacts.

2.1. Locating Plantations

Many plantations are badly planned. Baselinesurveys and consultation with local communi-

ties can help to reduce problems. A number oftools exist:

• Initial cost-benefit analysis: draws on deskstudies, remote sensing, and initial sitesurveys to determine whether further invest-ment is justifiable, and covers governmentpolicies and regulations; tenure; social issuesrelating to local communities; geography(soil, climate, topography); existing land use;nearby protected areas; existing and plannedinfrastructure (roads, rivers, etc.); options forplantation species; and economics.

• Feasibility study: provides the informationneeded to make the decision about whetheror not to go ahead with the project, coveringtopography; vegetation/land cover; ecologyand biodiversity; soils; hydrology of majorwatercourses and ground water sources;land use and land rights; socioeconomics;interest in investment projects; field trials ofpossible plantation species if necessary; andeconomics.

• Principles for plantation establishment:several existing principles provide the basisfor site location and should include minimis-ing impact on important natural habitats and minimising detrimental impacts on localhuman communities.

2.2. Managing Plantations

Once a suitable site has been identified, careneeds to be taken to minimise the environ-mental and social costs of the plantation,with particular emphasis on groundwater con-tamination, soil erosion, and fire disturbance.Several codes of practice and detailed guide-lines exist496 and it is possible to apply for acredible third-party certification scheme. Anoutline guide to best practice is given in Table56.1, designed to be used as a site-level rapidassessment tool.497

495 Davis-Case, 1990.

496 Dykstra and Heinrich, 1996; FAO, 1977, 1978.497 In addition to the references given immediately aboveit also draws on Burrough and King, 1989; Hamilton, 1988;Hurst et al, 1991; Sedlack, 1988a,b.

394 N. Dudley

Table 56.1. Guide to helping plantation managers.

PLANNINGHas a feasibility study been carried out?Has an environmental impact assessment been carried out?Does a management plan exist?Does the management plan include biodiversity and environmental issues?Does the management plan include social concerns?SOCIAL VALUESProtecting peoples’ rightsHave stakeholders been consulted?Have efforts been made to include all relevant stakeholders?Have vulnerable human communities been included in the consultation?Has information about the plantation been distributed in the vicinity?Have efforts been made to find out opinions about the plantation?Are local people involved in management decisions?Rate level of involvement (check one)

Active consultationSeeking consensusNegotiatingSharing authorityTransferring authority

Benefits to the local communityIs there a local community liaison officer employed by the plantation?How many jobs does the plantation provide?

PermanentTemporary

What proportion of jobs goes to local people?PermanentTemporary

Are wage levels equivalent to national standards?Does the plantation provide the following benefits to the local community:Preferential access to its products?Improved roads and other infrastructure?Opportunities for community involvement in management?Recreational opportunities?Hydrological services (improved freshwater and fisheries downstream)?BIOLOGICAL VALUESProvision for biodiversityIs there a biodiversity conservation officer for the plantation?Is there a biodiversity plan for the plantation?Are workers instructed regarding biodiversity conservation?Is the plantation established in place of

Primary forest?Secondary forest?Scrub?Farmland?Deforested land?Unforested land?

Does the plantation contain adequate provision for the protection of the following habitats:Remaining natural or seminatural forest fragments?Protection forests, e.g., to protect degraded sites, slopes, and landscape values?Riparian woodland and other natural vegetation?Wetland areas, peat, and marshes?Individual trees in the landscape (e.g., for raptor nests)?Other microhabitats (corridors, nest sites, lairs, etc.)?Has there been restoration of natural forests within the plantation?Is biodiversity conservation adequate within the plantation?Rare or threatened species?

56. Best Practice for Industrial Plantations 395

Table 56.1. Continued

Protection of protected areasIs the plantation within a protected area?Does the plantation directly border onto a protected area?Has the plantation increased access to a protected area (e.g., for bush meat hunting or illegal logging)?Protection of cultural sites and aesthetic valuesIs there a staff member specifically responsible for protection of cultural and aesthetic values?Has an integrated management plan been developed that incorporates cultural values?Is provision made for protection of the following artefacts:Archaeological sites (e.g., earthwork fortifications)?Historical sites (e.g., buildings, pathways, etc.)?Spiritual sites (e.g., sacred groves, graves, etc.)?Burial sites?Readily identifiable cultural sites such as buildings?Cultivated areas (e.g., fruit gardens)?Areas of local distinctiveness and importance?Areas where vegetation management has important historical associations (e.g., ancient coppice)?ENVIRONMENTAL VALUESDoes the plantation have a detailed policy for minimising environmental damage during site preparation, planting,fertiliser use, thinning, and harvesting?Is there a staff member specifically responsible for environmental management?Site preparationDoes site preparation include some or all of the following:Steps to avoid sensitive soils?Soil erosion control measures?Contour ploughing on steep slopes?Elimination of heavy machinery in wetland areas?Provision of cut-off drains on steep slopes?Construction of settling pools in drainage systems?Steps to avoid using heavy machinery when soil moisture is high?Seepage buffer zones along the contour and alongside natural watercourse?PlantingAre the following areas avoided in planting:Cliff edges?Steep slopes?Caves and sinkholes?Buffer areas around watercourses and wetland areas?Sites of historical and cultural value?Fertiliser useAre the following steps taken to minimise damage from fertiliser run-off:Matching applications to the needs of sites and species?Use of slow-release fertilisers or slow-release application methods?Use of application methods that avoid broadcasting fertilisers over the whole area?Application at the period of maximum growth?Avoiding application in periods of low growth and/or heavy rainfall?Avoiding application next to watercourses or near groundwater sources?Monitoring losses including monitoring of algal blooms near the plantation?Including alternative methods such as use of tree residues, composts, mulches, and manures?Harvesting and extractionDoes the plantation take any of the following steps to avoid damage during harvesting:Avoiding times when soil conditions will encourage erosion?Planning of compartments and coupes?Planning extraction routes?Avoiding felling areas of biodiversity importance?Avoiding felling areas of cultural importance?Use of a range of extraction techniques depending on soil and climatic conditions?Liaison with local people to identify the least disruptive times for harvesting?Ensuring sufficient supply of safety equipment?

396 N. Dudley

Table 56.1. Continued

Road building and useDoes the plantation have a staff member especially responsible for road building and maintenance?Does the plantation take any of the following steps to minimise impacts of road building and use:Have a plan to minimise length, width and gradient of roads?Avoid building roads in high erosion risk areas?Compact roads after construction and ensure revegetation?Install bridges, ditches, and culverts as needed?Install cut-off drains, silt traps, and pools?Use and enforce speed limits?Limit the size and weight of vehicles using the roads?Close secondary roads when they are not needed?Close roads during the wet season or other unsuitable climatic conditions?Minimise pollution and noise for local communities?PEST AND WEED CONTROLReducing risks from invasive speciesDoes the plantation take any of the following steps to reduce invasive species:Avoid likely invasive species?Practice hygiene in seed and other imported material to avoid introducing pests and diseases?Planning roads to minimise the spread of invasive species?Training staff to recognise invasive species?Have a pest control programme?Controlling weedsDoes the plantation take any of the following steps to reduce weeds and impacts of weed control:Instructing all staff in the identification of the main weed species?Hand weeding?Flame weeding?Use of small-scale mechanical weeding equipment?Spot treatment with herbicides?Use general herbicides?Controlling pests and diseasesDoes the plantation take any of the following steps to reduce pests and diseases:Select trees that are resistant to pests and diseases?Use planting strategies to minimise pest attack (e.g., mosaic of different species and/or ages, including naturalforest)?Train workers to spot pest and disease attack and key pests?Use cultural and biological controls?Use pesticides?Use of pesticidesDoes the plantation take any of the following steps to reduce detrimental impacts from pesticides:Choosing the least toxic and least persistent pesticides?Ensure that workers are properly trained in safe use of pesticides?Ensure that safety equipment is available and is used?Take steps to avoid spray drift or contamination of watercourses?Store pesticides in secure places?Minimise the number of occasions on which pesticides are used?FIRE CONTROL AND MANAGEMENTDoes the plantation have a staff member especially responsible for fire management?Does the plantation take the following steps to avoid fire:Liaison with local people to ensure that there is minimal resentment toward the plantation?Have pubic educational material about fire hazards (e.g., posters or leaflets)?Planning to minimise fire risks through use of fire breaks, choice of tree species and use of?Build and staff watch towers?Appoint local fire prevention officers?Train and equip staff to combat fires?STAFF TRAININGDoes the plantation offer any of the following training opportunities:Relevant written information (translated into the local language if necessary)?Laminated cards for use in the field (e.g., pest identification charts, pictures of areas to avoid planting)?

56. Best Practice for Industrial Plantations 397

Table 56.1. Continued

Videos of health and environmental safety procedures?Training courses for permanent and temporary staff?Relevant training for contractors?Does the plantation provide information on the following topics:Social relations regarding the plantation?Biodiversity management?Care of the environment during operations?Pest, disease, and weed control?MONITORING AND EVALUATIONDoes a monitoring and evaluation programme exist for the plantation?Is the plantation independently certified (e.g., by a certifier affiliated with the Forest Stewardship Council)?

3. Future Needs

There is an urgent need for capacity buildingwith respect to good social and environmentalmanagement for plantations, which needs to go beyond the minority of companies thatembrace best practice through certification andinclude pressure on all companies, includingthrough the marketplace, to meet minimumbest practice standards. From a technical per-spective, better guidelines for site selection arerequired, as are tools to help plan the retentionof natural vegetation within plantations.

References

Burrough, E.R., Jr., and King, J.G. 1989. Reduction in soil erosion on forest roads. USDA ForestService, General Technical Report INT-264,Ogden, UT.

Davis-Case, D. 1990. The community’s toolbox:the idea, methods and tools for participatoryassessment, monitoring and evaluation in commu-nity forestry. Community Forestry Field Manual

No. 2. UN Food and Agriculture Organisation,Rome.

Dykstra, D.P., and Heinrich, R. 1996. FAO ModelGuide of Forestry Practice. Food and AgriculturalOrganisation of the United Nations, Rome.

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UnitedNations. 1977. Planning Forest Roads and Har-vesting Systems, FAO Paper No. 2, ForestryDepartment. FAO, Rome.

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UnitedNations. 1978. Establishment Techniques forForest Plantations. FAO Forestry Paper No. 8.FAO, Rome.

Hamilton, L.S. 1988. Minimising the adverse impactsof harvesting in humid tropical forests. In: Lugo,A., Clark, J.R., and Child, R.D., eds. EcologicalDevelopment in the Humid Tropics. WinrockInternational Institute for Agricultural Develop-ment, Morrilton, AR.

Hurst, P., Hay,A., and Dudley, N. 1991.The PesticidesManual. Journeyman Press: London and Concord,MA.

Sedlak, O. 1988a. Principles of Forest Road Nets.Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UnitedNations, Rome.

Sedlak, O. 1988b. Maintenance of Forest Roads, Foodand Agriculture Organisation of the UnitedNations, Rome.

Part ELessons Learned and the Way Forward

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

Although there has been a long history of indi-vidual forest restoration projects, until recentlyfew attempts have been made to integraterestoration into either broad-scale conserva-tion or wider sustainable development initia-tives. In 2000, WWF the global conservationorganisation set a target to run a number offorest landscape restoration initiatives aroundthe world—“at least ten forest landscaperestoration initiatives underway”—to test outideas and approaches to restoring multiple

forest functions over a landscape. The targetwas achieved, providing initial experience ofsuccesses and failures, and at the same timethose involved were actively learning from theactions of others involved in restoration:conservation and development organisations,governments, and research bodies. The experi-ences of WWF’s partner organisation, IUCN,the World Conservation Union, is particularlyrelevant here. This chapter summarises some ofthe main experience to date.

1.1. A Growing Recognition of Need

Until recently, the need for restoration has beenmore clearly recognised by the developmentcommunity than by conservation professionals.Many conservation biologists believed that protecting remaining natural or seminaturalhabitat was a far higher priority than restoringdegraded habitat, and that, in any case, restora-tion could seldom achieve anything of great significance from a conservation perspective.This means that restoration projects havetended to focus on human needs—fuelwood,fodder, windbreaks, etc.—rather than potentialconservation benefits. There was resistance to arestoration target even within WWF. Over the5-year period of the programme, and at least inpart as its result, many of these objections havedeclined or disappeared. Research showed theextent to which many high biodiversity ecosys-tems are already in need of restoration, eitherbecause natural habitat has declined below

57What Has WWF Learned AboutRestoration at an Ecoregional Scale?Nigel Dudley

Key Points to Retain

Forest landscape restoration is a process thatshould ideally be integrated with protectionand sustainable management of forests at alandscape scale.

A suite of different responses is required for successful restoration, depending on circumstances, ranging from policy changesthrough negotiation, stakeholder processes,research, capacity building, and practicalinterventions.

Monitoring and the associated evaluationare both critical but present real challengesin addressing forest restoration on a land-scape scale.

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402 N. Dudley

critical levels or because forest loss is causingwider problems such as siltation of freshwateror mangroves498. One implication has beenincreased support for restoration activitieswithin conservation programmes, including bythe Convention on Biological Diversity.

1.2. Restoration Needs to BeIntegrated with Protection and Management

Restoration is generally a time-limited process,albeit often a lengthy one, that will eventuallyresult in an ecosystem that either can functionby itself, perhaps in a protected area, orrequires some level of continual management.One important element in planning restorationis to decide how a restored forest will bemanaged in the long term, which itself helps todecide what type of restoration activities arerequired. The transition between “restoration”and “management” can sometimes be quitesubtle; for instance, removal of alien invasivespecies may involve a single operation or along-term management task. Restoration maysometimes be an intervention in a landscapethat is already protected or managed for someother purpose. For example, efforts to increasethe deadwood component in some Finnish protected areas involve artificially creatingdeadwood to help maintain a few endangeredsaproxylic species (see “Restoration of Dead-wood as a Critical Microhabitat in Forest Land-scapes”); it is assumed that in the future naturalprocesses will maintain this microhabitat.

1.3. Restoration Should BeRegarded as a Process

Restoration, being a time-limited intervention,is different from other forms of “permanent”management, including protection. Specificrestoration projects, therefore, need to identifyan end point.This raises philosophical and prac-tical questions about what such an end pointcould be; many conservation organisationsimplicitly assume that restoration should seekto re-create a “natural forest” such as might be

found in the absence of humans. But many ofthe world’s forests have only developed sinceHomo sapiens evolved and have never existedin a “pristine” prehuman state. More specifi-cally, the social goals of many restoration activities mean that some useful forests may be profoundly unnatural if they are primarilyaimed at, for instance, supplying food or energy.This is sometimes also the case from the perspective of biodiversity conservation, forinstance, when forests are suppressed by fire toprovide savannah habitat or conversely whereforests are already so small and fragmentedthat fire is artificially suppressed to protectremnant species. Setting end points for restora-tion remains a challenge in many cases and onethat involves asking larger questions about thelong-term aims of both conservation and devel-opment within a landscape.

1.4. A Suite of Responses is Required

Experience from WWF’s project portfolio andfrom other restoration initiatives suggests thatthe traditional focus of restoration projects onestablishing tree nurseries and tree planting isusually irrelevant in terms of creating majorchanges to forest cover or forest quality,although there are exceptions to this generalrule. Large-scale tree planting is also too costlyan option for most situations. The programmehas experimented with five different responses:

1. Policy changes that can increase the pro-portion of natural regeneration or near-naturalforest management on a major scale—forexample, work with the Vietnamese andChinese governments aiming at making strate-gic changes to policy initiatives like the Chinese“Grain for Green Programme” and Vietnam’s “5-million Hectare Programme”, which bothcurrently focus almost exclusively on planta-tions, to increase the proportion of naturalregeneration within these programmes (see“Perverse Policy Incentives” and case study“Monitoring Forest Landscape Restoration inVietnam”).

2. Stakeholder involvement and negotiationat a landscape or ecoregional scale to create498 Dudley and Mansourian, 2003.

57. What Has WWF Learned About Restoration? 403

conditions conducive to natural regeneration—for example, work with local organisations inNew Caledonia and Madagascar (see casestudy “Madagascar: Developing a Forest Land-scape Restoration Initiative in a Landscape inthe Moist Forest”) that aims to agree on prior-ities and actions that will benefit both humansociety and wildlife

3. Management interventions to change thenature of forest management and thus increaseforest quality—for example, initiatives beingundertaken by WWF’s European Forest Teamin terms of responses following major storms orpolicies toward management of dead timber insecondary forests (see “Restoring Forests AfterViolent Storms” and the chapter cited above ondeadwood.)

4. Use of specialist knowledge in the devel-opment and dissemination of technical expert-ise to facilitate restoration—for example, theguidance being developed in Portugal with theaim of helping improve use of European Uniongrants (see case study “The European UnionsAfforestation Policies and their Real Impact onForest Restoration”) or the use of economicanalysis to make the case for natural regenera-tion of endangered island forest ecosystems in the Danube (see “Practical Interventionsthat will support Restoration in Broad-scaleConservation”).

5. Small-scale strategic tree planting, linkedto identification of need through, geographicalinformation system (GIS) mapping and fieldsurveys—for example, to reconnect elephanthabitat through oil palm plantations along thebanks of the Kinabatangan River in Sabah,Malaysia, to allow natural movement of ele-phant herds, and to reduce other impacts offorest fragmentation (see “Restoring Quality inExisting Native Forest Landscapes”)

1.5. Policy Changes are Often theMost Urgent Challenge

A succession of national and international commitments, practical projects, and workshopshave demonstrated general support amongstgovernments, businesses, and communities tolook seriously at the question of restoration.However, most large-scale restoration projects

are currently still focussed on a very narrowband of options, including a predominantemphasis on large-scale exotic monocultures.While these may well have a role in the land-scape, they are only one fairly small part of whatmakes up a forest estate. Work with govern-ments in countries as diverse as Vietnam, China,Madagascar, Morocco, the United Kingdom,and Portugal has shown that there is also a will-ingness to look at new approaches. Progressingfrom words to actions, including changing well-funded schemes that have already developedsome momentum, is a considerable challenge,but is probably the way of making the largestimpact. However, policy work is seldom aspopular as practical projects with donor agen-cies or other bodies that might support restora-tion, as the latter provide instant results forreporting, whereas the impacts of changes inpolicy, whilst often more profound, are harderto report. Building support for long-term policywork on restoration is an urgent priority.

1.6. Success or Failure is Hard to Measure

Work on Integrated Conservation and Devel-opment Projects (ICDPs) suggests that a goodmonitoring and evaluation system is often thekey to success, giving project staff the informa-tion needed for the adaptive management thatis always needed in a complex project499. Devel-opment of a monitoring programme, therefore,was the first discrete piece of work undertakenby the WWF restoration programme and thishas been tested and applied but is still a longway from capturing all relevant data (see“Monitoring Forest Landscape Restoration inVietnam”). Many of the changes aimed for byrestoration programme are inevitably subtle,may be slow to emerge, and are not easy tocapture in simple statistics. Monitoring ofimpacts or outcomes is inevitably a long-termprocess. Yet these are precisely the kind of datathat many governments and funding agenciesrequire, and much work needs to be done onbetter monitoring systems.

499 McShane and Wells, 2004.

404 N. Dudley

1.7. Most Existing RestorationProjects Have Made Little Attempt to ReconcileEcological and Human Needs

Indeed, as mentioned above, most restorationprojects have focussed on human needs, and infact often on an outsider’s perception of whatthose needs might be, so that, for instance,numerous fuelwood projects have failedbecause their instigators did not understand theenergy needs of local communities, which mayhave been better served at least in the shortterm by burning dried dung or other materialsthan by giving valuable land to tree crops.500. Onthe other side, many conservation-basedrestoration projects have ignored what otherstakeholders might require from the landscapealtogether, with the result that the pressurescausing forest degradation remain and under-mine restoration efforts. The need to reconcilesocial and conservation needs, particularly inlandscapes where people are most directlyreliant on forest resources, is reinforced byanalysis of existing work.

1.8. Many Fundamental QuestionsRemain Unanswered

When WWF’s forest restoration programmebegan, we assumed that we would draw on alarge body of experience. In fact we found morequestions than answers. They include quitebasic issues relating to, for instance, wherenatural regeneration might work, the efficacy ofbiological corridors, how to carry out stake-holder assessments over wide landscapes, andthe sustainability of nontimber forest harvests.Many important restoration precepts are basedmore on assumption than on research, which inpart reflects funding difficulties. Restorationneeds the injection of research cash that wascreated for sustainable forest management.Organisations like the Society for EcologicalRestoration International can help to spread

information, but there is also an urgent need forbetter coordination between researchers andthose involved in practical restoration.

1.9. The Need for a Movement

Social change seldom comes from a single individual or organisation, however much theymight like to think so, but instead when impetusfor change builds to the extent that it can carryalong doubters and overcome opposition. Sofar, restoration, at least from the perspective ofits role as a major part of conservation strate-gies, has remained the enthusiasm of a minor-ity rather than a widely supported priority.The general lack of restoration programmeswithin large conservation organisations is anindication of this. The early experience nowneeds to gain momentum, more support, and, inparticular, far more widespread governmentcommitment.

1.10. Lots of Enthusiasm but Little Cash

It has proven surprisingly difficult to raisefunding for restoration, which remains outsidethe experience or the targets of most largedonor agencies and even governments. Thekind of mass movement for restoration that isnow required will also need realistic amountsof money. Building support amongst donoragencies, multilateral lending banks, and gov-ernment departments, therefore, is also anessential factor in future success.

References

Dudley, N., and Mansourian, S. 2003. Forest Land-scape Restoration and WWF’s Conservation Priorities. WWF International, Gland, Switzerland.

Leach, G., and Mearns, R. 1988. Beyond the Fuel-wood Crisis. Earthscan, London.

McShane, T.O., and Wells, M.P. 2004. Getting Biodi-versity Projects to Work: Towards more effectiveconservation and development. Columbia Univer-sity Press, New York.500 Leach and Mearns, 1988.

1. Background andExplanation of the Issue

In many tropical countries, government agen-cies, international agencies, the private sector,and civil society have expended much effortand resources in forest rehabilitation activities

to meet rising demands both for forest productsand environmental services.501 The projectshave differed in scale, objectives, backgroundconditions, and implementation strategies, andresults have been variable. It is critical to drawstrategic lessons from these experiences anduse them to plan and guide future efforts toincrease their chances of success and long-termsustainability. The key lessons and examples in this chapter are based on the preliminaryresults of the study Review of Forest Rehabili-tation Initiatives—Lessons from the Past,undertaken by CIFOR in collaboration withnational partners in six countries: Peru, Brazil,Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and China.The study involved a comparison of a full rangeof forest rehabilitation projects in each country,an assessment of the technical, ecological, andsocioeconomic outcomes of selected casestudies, and workshops to obtain the inputs ofconcerned stakeholders (http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/rehab/).

The review focussed on initiatives that aimedto establish trees on formerly forested land toenhance productivity, livelihoods, or environ-

58Local Participation, Livelihood Needs,and Institutional Arrangements: ThreeKeys to Sustainable Rehabilitation ofDegraded Tropical Forest LandsUnna Chokkalingam, Cesar Sabogal, Everaldo Almeida,Antonio P. Carandang, Tini Gumartini, Wil de Jong, Silvio Brienza, Jr.,Abel Meza Lopez, Murniati, Ani Adiwinata Nawir,Lukas Rumboko Wibowo, Takeshi Toma, Eva Wollenberg, and Zhou Zaizhi

Key Points to Retain

Three key lessons have emerged from aCentre for International Forestry Research(CIFOR)-led study on reforestation/rehabil-itation/restoration in six countries:

1. It is necessary to strengthen local organi-sation and participation in restorationprojects.

2. It is necessary to consider local socioeco-nomic needs in choices of approaches andoptions.

3. In the long run, it is necessary to ensurethat clear and appropriate institutionalsupport and arrangements are in place.

405

501 Sim et al, 2003; Sayer et al, 2004.

406 U. Chokkalingam et al

mental services through deliberate technical,socioeconomic, or institutional interventions.Integrated projects with forest rehabilitationcomponents were also included. The assess-ment looked at any rehabilitation methods thatinvolved trees, including agroforestry, planta-tions, and assisted natural regeneration.

Countries have chosen a variety ofapproaches and incentives to rehabilitatedegraded land driven by many different con-siderations. The four Asian countries in thestudy have a long history of forest rehabilita-tion, and the governments played a major rolein providing funds and implementing projects,particularly in early efforts. Internationaldonor–funded forest rehabilitation increased in importance in recent decades. The trend isnow toward more private sector, community-based, and local government rehabilitationefforts for production, livelihoods, or environ-mental benefits. In the Philippines and China,this translates into a diversity of tenurial andinstitutional arrangements with the involve-ment of multiple actors and a range of objec-tives. Project outcomes on the ground areunclear, but China and Vietnam report successin terms of increased forest cover. In Vietnam,China, the Philippines, and recently Indonesia,political motivations and policy changes have led to intermittent large-scale efforts.Planting trees, in particular fast-growing exoticspecies, has been the predominant method inAsia, although natural regeneration throughprotection is also important in China andVietnam.

In contrast to the larger role played by gov-ernment in Asia, small-scale farmer rehabilita-tion efforts appear more important in Braziland Peru, with colonist agriculture and live-stock production being the major land degra-dation factors.The government mainly providesincentives and schemes for farmers’ participa-tion. In Brazil, farmers’ associations play animportant role in project discussion andsupport. Rehabilitation efforts are also morerecent, since the 1990s, and fewer in number,although growing. Projects are small in size andinvolve agroforestry cash crops, fast-growingnative tree species, and integration with otherlivelihood activities like bee keeping or fishproduction.

1.1. Three Key Lessons Learnedfrom Past Rehabilitation Projects

Three lessons have been learned on sustainingrehabilitation efforts of degraded tropicalforest lands across the six countries reviewed:

1. Strengthen local organisation and partici-pation in projects. More attention should begiven to involve, work with, and strengthenlocal participation from project conceptualisa-tion to implementation and management.Active participation of the key actors takinginto account local knowledge and practices isessential for sustaining the effort. Agriculturaland forestry policies should aim to develop andstrengthen local organisations and promoteappropriate strategies for technology transfer.(Fig. 58.1) A well-organised group has higherpossibilities of succeeding, particularly duringthe phases of product harvesting, processing,and commercialisation. Numerous positive andnegative cases exemplifying this lesson existacross the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon, thePhilippines, and Indonesia.

2. Consider local socioeconomic needs inchoices of approaches and options. Livelihood-enhancing activities must be part of the plan,andprojects developed should address the needs ofpeople in the area in order to ensure their par-ticipation and interest in sustaining the project.In some instances, rehabilitation projects haveactually deprived people of their original liveli-hoods (such as agriculture on the lands to berehabilitated), while not providing viable alter-natives. Many cases were observed across thePhilippines and Vietnam where the project ben-eficiaries subsequently burned the project areaso that they could be reemployed in the processof replanting or rehabilitation. It is imperativeto carry out a socioeconomic analysis of prom-ising production systems and small-scale trialsbefore promoting them. It helps if local farmersand communities benefit directly from the reha-bilitated forests. Technologies to be promotedshould match the situation and capacity of theproducers. Tree-based production systems thatincorporate tree species with shorter harvestingcycles and good market prospects tend to bemore adoptable. Processing and commercialisa-

58. Local Participation, Livelihood Needs, and Institutional Arrangements 407

tion of products should be considered from thestart if rehabilitation aims at economic objec-tives. Integrated production systems (e.g., agro-forestry, livestock, and fish) can help increasefood security and overcome market instability.Positive and negative cases exemplifying thislesson exist in all six study countries.

3. Ensure clear and appropriate institutionalsupport and arrangements. Strong and appro-priate institutional support is critical for pro-moting investment and local participation inrehabilitation projects, and ensuring their sus-tainability. This includes clear and undisputedland-tenure status, a facilitating legal frame-work and policies, and good coordinationamong agencies at different levels. Also impor-tant are formalised institutional arrangementswith clear division of tasks, rights, costs, and benefits among multiple stakeholders as a resultof thorough and mutually acceptable negotia-tions. Clear and mutually accepted institutionalarrangements help to avoid conflicts, supportcoordinated project management and fulfil-ment of assigned tasks, and ensure agreed-uponbenefit flows to different stakeholders and theirstake in the long-term success of the project.Enforcement of agreements is an importantpart of such institutional arrangements. Positiveand negative cases exemplifying this lesson existin Vietnam, China, and Indonesia.

These three factors that contribute to suc-cessful forest rehabilitation are highly inter-

related and occurred across different projecttypes with different implementing actors,project scales, objectives, funding sources, andsocioeconomic conditions. Project types rangedfrom government-driven reforestation to com-munity-based forest management, joint man-agement, state or private company plantations,company–community partnerships, cooperativeor group activities, integrated livelihood proj-ects, and private tree farming or agroforestry.Each of the three lessons is illustrated belowwith cases from different countries. Some casesare illustrative of more than one of the speci-fied lessons, but have been placed under themajor lesson to which they relate.

2. Examples

2.1. Strengthen Local Organisationand Participation in Rehabilitation Projects

2.1.1. KMYLB (Farmers Associationfor Forest Land Inc.) Agroforestry DevelopmentCorporation, Brgy, Nugas, Alcoy,Cebu, Philippines

KMYLB is a community-based forest manage-ment (CBFM) project of the government of the Philippines’ Department of Environment

Figure 58.1. Social forestry pro-gramme by the Ministry of Forestrywith local farmer participation onprivate lands in East Kalimantan.The planted species, teak, wasselected by the farmers. (Photo ©Takeshi Toma.)

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and Natural Resources, located in a publicforest area in southern Cebu. The project areaof 1651 hectares was occupied by settlers earlyon and subject to a government-led socialforestry programme in the 1980s with manyfarmers granted the Certificate of StewardshipContract. This was followed by the issuance ofa reforestation contract in 1996 for people todevelop the remaining open areas. As part ofthe reforestation contract, there were com-munity organising activities that gave birth to KMYLB as a people’s organisation. Thepeople’s organisation was then given theCBFM agreement in 1999 by the government,consolidating the many stewardship contractareas, the plantations, and the remainingnatural forests in the area. Community organ-ising was one of the major activities thatenabled active community participation inforest development and protection. High levelsof cooperation and interest in CBFM activitieshave been observed among communitymembers. Each member is assured of continu-ous benefits from the forest through individualforest gardens and community plantations.Many organisational problems did occur, butthese were transitory and helped the organisa-tion mature and strengthen its internal policies.The strength of the people’s organisation andits successful development and protection ofthe CBFM area also makes it a magnet for supportive infrastructure and livelihood pro-

grammes from international nongovernmentalorganisations (NGOs) and others.

2.1.2. Agroforestry Development in theRio Cumbaza Basin, Peru

The San Martín region, with a land area of 1.9million hectares, is the most deforested area inthe Peruvian Amazon. Deforestation and landdegradation are mainly due to short-rotationslash-and-burn agriculture and the productionof illegal crops. The project Management, Con-servation, and Productive Development in theRio Cumbaza Basin (1997–2001) executed bythe NGO CEDISA (Centro de Desarrollo eInvestigación de la Selva Alta), promoted agro-forestry systems for rehabilitating and main-taining soil productivity (Fig. 58.2). Thesesystems were well received by farmers becausethey were based on species of economic impor-tance such as coffee, and incorporated promis-ing short-rotation forest tree species (such asSchizolobium amazonicum, Calycophyllumspruceanum, and Colubrina glandulosa) andother species (mainly fruits) traditionally usedfor subsistence and the local market. Familiesactively participated in the design and estab-lishment of the rehabilitation areas. The projectalso promoted the formation of organisedfarmers’ groups to strengthen their negotiationcapacity in local and regional markets and withdevelopment agencies. One of these is a

Figure 58.2. Agroforestry trial for rehabil-itating degraded lands and improvingfarmers’ livelihoods in Peru. (Photo ©Takeshi Toma.)

58. Local Participation, Livelihood Needs, and Institutional Arrangements 409

committee of ecological farmers who adoptedlow-impact production strategies (includingagroforestry and management of naturallyregrowing forests) in buffer zones of protectedareas. The project promoted communityinvolvement in conserving and managing theirnatural resources, in generating added value fortheir products, and in developing markets fornontraditional timber species.

2.2. Consider Local SocioeconomicNeeds in Choice of Approaches and Options

2.2.1. The Bai Bang Pulp and PaperMill, Vietnam502

The Bai Bang Pulp and Paper Mill Project inVietnam costing $360 million was implementedbetween 1974 and 1992. The project wasdesigned by the Vietnamese government andSwedish Development Assistance with littleconsideration of how sufficient wood supplycould be obtained from the surrounding region,where there was high pressure on the land fromsmall farmers who subsisted on low-technologyagriculture and grazing. As a result, the milloperated at less than full capacity for a longtime. The local population challenged themonopoly on the wood and forest land claimedby the forestry sector. Only a minor part of thewood and bamboo cut by forest enterprisescould be used in the mill, as some 50 percentwas diverted, for instance, to Hanoi as fuel-wood. Population pressure on the forest landsincreased with the construction of new roadsand loss of jobs in the forest enterprises.However, in recent years private farmers havebeen selling wood to the mill, thereby alteringthe supply situation dramatically, and the millis now producing at capacity. Some state forestenterprises are still in operation and producingwood for Bai Bang, but much of the currentsupply of mostly bamboo is grown and sold byfarmers. One important failure of the wholeprocess was inadequate project planning thatled to the adoption of inappropriate strategies.

The mill, however, provided a stable marketwhere people could sell wood products, andthey responded by starting to grow trees.

2.2.2. Rehabilitation of DegradedPasture Lands Project—Alternative Association ofProducers, Brazilian Amazon

The Alternative Association of Producers(APA) in the Municipality of Ouro PretoD’Oeste, Rondônia, Brazilian Amazon, wasfunded in 1992 by small-scale farmers in theregion with the objective of providing land-use alternatives to slash-and-burn agricultureand cattle ranching. With the support of government-sponsored programmes (Type A–Ministry of Environment, Brazilian Fund forBiodiversity) and NGOs (Movement LaiciLatin American, Group of Research and Exten-sion in Agroforestry Systems of Acre-Pesacre),APA focussed work on rehabilitating degraded pastures and secondary regrowth through integrated production systems involving theplanting of various fruit and forest tree speciesalong with aquaculture and bee keeping. Witharound 300 participating families, the associa-tion has improved the infrastructure for processing and commercialisation of thediverse products coming out from the rehabili-tated areas, which include fruit pulp and syrups,canned palm hearts, honey, guarana powder,medicinal oils, and furniture from woodresidue. Labour conditions and quality of life ofthe families have improved significantly, con-tributing to the sustainability of this project.

2.2.3. Project in Vila de Novo Paraíso,Municipality of São Geraldo do Araguaia, Pará State,Brazilian Amazon

AGROCANP (Associaçao dos Pequenos Productores do Grotão dos Caboclos de NovoParaíso), an association of small-scale farmersand residents of the community of NovoParaíso, started a project to rehabilitatedegraded areas in several farmers’ lands in1996. The project was supported by an NGO502 Ohlsson et al, 2004.

410 U. Chokkalingam et al

and funding from a government programme(Type A–Ministry of Environment). The activi-ties proposed by the project included the intro-duction of production systems based on theagroforestry practice known as “agriculture instages,” which consists of establishing herb,shrub, and woody species together with small,medium-sized, and large tree species in thesame area. This project experienced the sameproblems already found in various other proj-ects implemented in the Amazon in the 1970sand 1980s. Farmers did not participate directlyin the initial project proposal and even less inthe selection of species to be included in theagroforestry modules. There was no marketprospecting or planning for the products to begrown. Labour investment was too high, andthere was little security of production andincome. Given this situation, families aban-doned the agroforestry modules and returnedto their only income source, livestock rearingfor milk production, despite much criticism.

2.3. Ensure Clear and AppropriateInstitutional Support and Arrangements

2.3.1. Farm Forestry in Gunung Kidul,Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia

Gunung Kidul used to be a dry area withlimited water supply that made it a poor region.The local community started rehabilitating thedegraded land in the 1970s. The local govern-ment then supported community effortsthrough formal recognition of the communityinitiative, the provision of facilitating local reg-ulations, and funding support. The communityand the local forestry agency successfully rehabilitated the area using participatoryapproaches. The dry landscape of 11,072hectares has been afforested with mainly teakand some Acacia sp., and now provides bothwood and ecological benefits. Land productiv-ity, forest cover, and water availability in thearea have increased, sedimentation rates havedecreased, and the microclimate has improved.All of the above have in turn resulted inincreased supply of timber, fodder, and fuelwood. Community income and access to

education, health, and other services have alsoimproved.

What differentiates this case from numerousothers is that the effort was not a top-downapproach with the government forcing an ini-tiative on the community. Rather, the govern-ment acted appropriately in response to localneeds and provided strong institutional andfinancial support for the local initiative. Localinstitutions were recognised and empowered,technical support was provided, and the com-munity was allowed to sell timber and to continue its activities. The community itself washighly motivated to transform the area and itslivelihoods, and were also supported by strongleadership from within. Rights and responsibil-ities were clearly divided among the govern-ment, the forestry agency, and communitygroups in the implementation of this effort.

2.3.2. Diversified InstitutionalArrangements in Guangdong, China

The province of Guangdong in southern Chinahas had considerable experience in recent yearswith formalising institutional arrangements,and clarifying rights and roles of differentstakeholders to ensure the success and sustain-ability of its extensive rehabilitation efforts.With these efforts, Guangdong has increased itsforest cover from 27 to 57 percent of the landarea from 1985 to 2003. The province’s experi-ences with diverse institutional arrangementsare serving as models for the rehabilitation ofdegraded forest lands nationwide.503 Tenure stabilisation, institutional reform in the ruralareas, and opening up of wood markets helpedto stimulate the involvement of different stakeholders in rehabilitation. Diversified institutional arrangements among stakeholdersappeared, such as cooperative and jointafforestation by different levels of government,state forest farms with village committees, andvillage committees with private individuals;stock sharing; and private investment on leasedland. From 1999 to 2000, Guangdong issued aseries of favourable policies further encourag-

503 SFA (State Forestry Administration), 1999.

58. Local Participation, Livelihood Needs, and Institutional Arrangements 411

ing and facilitating the development of privatecommercial afforestation. There have been540,000 private entities (including private indi-viduals, and private, civil, and foreign enter-prises) that have invested in afforestation inGuangdong using a wide range of institutionalarrangements since 1993, and they have contributed to rehabilitation of 1.04 millionhectares of degraded lands with fast-growingand high-yielding plantation forests by 2003.504

The development of different types of man-agement options involving multiple institutionsin Guangdong was accompanied by a clear division of responsibilities, rights, and benefitsof the different stakeholders through formalcontracts. For example, in the 30-year jointafforestation projects of the Chikan and Xian-gang towns of Kaiping city, the state forestfarms offer funds and technology, the villagecommittees provide the degraded forest land,and the town forestry stations guarantee super-vision. Rights, responsibilities, and cost- andbenefit-sharing arrangements are first decidedby negotiation among the three stakeholdersand then spelt out in a contract. Net profitsfrom the fast-growing high-yielding timber andresin plantations within the 30-year contractperiod would be shared by these stakeholdersin agreed proportions—50 percent due to theinvesting party, 40 percent due to the land-owning party, and 10 percent to the man-agement party. The investing party hasdecision-making rights from project planning to implementation, and responsibilities forafforestation and plantation protection. Theland-owning and management parties haveconsulting rights from project planning toimplementation, and responsibility for protect-ing the plantations from man-made or naturaldisasters.The land is to be delivered back to thevillage committees within half a year after theproject’s expiration.

2.3.3. Three KfW-Funded AfforestationProjects, Northern Vietnam

Three afforestation projects funded by theGerman Development Bank (KfW) operated

in Bac Giang, Quang Ninh, and Lang Sonprovinces in northern Vietnam. Since their start(in 1995, 1999, and 2001, respectively), the projects have established some 23,000 hectaresof new forest through plantation and naturalregeneration and have established 17,000deposit accounts with a total savings of 2.5million Euros.505 The projects have had positiveresults because they effectively implementedearly on the national forest land allocation programme such that participant farmers hadclear rights over their land. The project workedin 80 communes (each with several villages)and established forest farm groups and com-pleted village land use planning in 75 of them.In addition, funds invested into the projectwere carefully directed to generate benefits forparticipating farmers, while strict responsibili-ties were agreed upon. This combination ofthree essential factors—clear tenure, benefitsfor participating farmers, and agreements onroles and responsibilities—explains the successof this project.

3. Outline of Tools

3.1. Strengthen Local Organisationand Participation in Projects

The literature is replete with tools to streng-then local participation and collaboration inresource management. Key volumes includeBorrini-Feyerabend506, the Food and Agricul-ture Organisation’s (FAO) series for commu-nity forest management, and training materialsfrom the Regional Community Forestry Train-ing Center for Asia and the Pacific, in Bangkok.These include participatory tools and processesfor social communication, information gather-ing and assessment, local organisational devel-opment, planning, implementation, consideringlocal knowledge, conflict management, andmonitoring and evaluation. CIFOR has devel-oped interactive tools (Co-learn507) for collabo-rative learning and creating shared visions and pathways to reach these visions. General

504 Deng Huizhen, 2003.

505 KfW Project in Brief, 2003.506 Borrini-Feyerabend, 1997.507 CIFOR, ACM Team, 2003.

412 U. Chokkalingam et al

criteria and indicators or guidelines are avail-able for community participation and organisa-tion, conflict management, and use of localknowledge in community managed land-scapes508, plantation landscapes509 and restora-tion of degraded landscapes.510 Tools have alsobeen designed to engage local forest dwellers incollaborative development of criteria and indi-cators for sustainable forest management usingtheir local knowledge.511 Many of these toolsare directly applicable or can be easily adaptedto strengthen participation in rehabilitationprojects.

3.2. Consider Local SocioeconomicNeeds in Choices of Approaches

DFID’s (the UK Department for InternationalDevelopment) sustainable livelihoods toolboxprovides numerous tools for using sustainablelivelihoods approaches at different stages of theproject cycle, from planning to implementation,monitoring, and evaluation. The FAO512 has amanual on selecting tree species based on community needs. Ames513 describes methodsfor comparing the economic value of producingcommercial forest products with other localincome earning opportunities. The ITTOrestoration guidelines514 provide numerous suggestions on livelihood-enhancing activities,including evaluating prospects for forest products and environmental service payments,evaluating different rehabilitation options andtrade-offs with other land uses, adding value torehabilitation products, and developing part-nerships for processing and marketing.

Various tools have been outlined andassessed for processing and commercialisationof forest products including business planning,the enterprise development approach, andmarket analysis and development.515 The latter

combines ecological sustainability and socialand financial objectives in small-scale, lowcapital, low-skills enterprises. Networking espe-cially between technicians working on forestproducts and potential producers and marketsis also mentioned as a possible approach.

Numerous sets of indicators have been devel-oped within CIFOR and elsewhere for assess-ing and evaluating socioeconomic impacts ofdifferent projects, processes, or policy changes.The current rehabilitation review study has aset of such indicators specifically tailored for assessing the impacts of rehabilitation initiatives.

3.3. Ensure Clear and AppropriateInstitutional Support and Arrangements

The FAO516 provides a rapid appraisal tool fortree and land tenure. Participatory mapping canbe used to develop and affirm agreementsamong stakeholders about tenure bound-aries.517 Other tools available to design andassess institutional arrangements and supportinclude group and key informant interviews,Venn diagrams, matrices, flow diagrams,cost-benefit analysis of different institutionaloptions, stakeholder analysis518, and the “4 Rs”approach, which attempts to define stakehold-ers by their respective rights, responsibilities,returns from a given resource, and relation-ships.519 The 4 Rs approach draws attention to tenure issues as crucial in shaping people’sdifferentiated concerns with and capacities tomanage land and trees. Relationships amongstakeholders comprise various facets: service,legal/contractual, market, information ex-change, and power. CIFOR has developedgeneral criteria and indicators for institutionalagreements, land tenure, and legal frameworksto ensure sustainability of community-managedand large-scale plantation landscapes.

508 Ritchie et al, 2000.509 Poulsen et al, 2001.510 ITTO, 2002.511 Haggith et al, 1999.512 FAO, 1995.513 Ames, 1998.514 ITTO, 2002.515 Lecup et al, 1998.

516 FAO, 1994.517 Wollenberg et al, 2002.518 Grimble and Chan, 1995.519 Vira et al, 1998.

58. Local Participation, Livelihood Needs, and Institutional Arrangements 413

4. Future Needs

Based on the results of this research project, thefollowing needs have emerged:

• Adapting available participatory approachesand tools for rehabilitation projects with different management objectives, socioeco-nomic and ecological conditions, and stake-holder groups.

• Simple technical guidelines for target groupson how to design, implement, and monitorrehabilitation efforts, incorporating partici-patory approaches and tools for differentrehabilitation objectives and site conditions.

• Participatory planning process to generatesimple validated management plans fordegraded forest landscapes. Such manage-ment plans include mapping; identifyingtenure arrangements; choosing appropriaterehabilitation and livelihood options; devel-oping a management strategy; establishing amonitoring framework; clearly assigningrights, responsibilities, costs, and benefits; andformal arrangements for coordination ofactivities and enforcement of agreements.

• Evaluating prospects for forest products andenvironmental service payments to commu-nities. This includes the feasibility of produc-ing high-value timber for industries; timber,fuelwood, and other forest products for localneeds and markets; and payments for biodi-versity, watershed, and carbon functions atthe local to international levels.

• Framework for assessing potential contribu-tion and impact of different rehabilitationapproaches to communities, in comparisonwith other local income-earning opportuni-ties and alternative land uses.

• Market research and viable marketing strategies adapted to the specific conditionsoffered by different types of degraded forestlands. By promoting local-level and value-added production and processing, and devel-oping partnerships to enhance processingand marketing efforts prospects for improv-ing local incomes can be improved.

• Boosting policy, donor, and implementersupport for genuine local participation andconsideration of local needs in rehabilitation

projects. It is important to integrate rehabil-itation activities with regional developmentstrategies and community developmentactivities based on local conditions and needs.

• Institutional and political instruments includ-ing incentives to support different rehabilita-tion objectives.

References

Ames, M. 1998. Assessing the profitability of forest-based enterprises. In: Wollenberg, E., and Ingles,A., eds. Incomes from the Forest: Methods for theDevelopment and Conservation of Forest Prod-ucts for Local Communities. CIFOR, Bogor,Indonesia, and IUCN.

Borrini-Feyerabend, G., ed. 1997. Beyond Fences:Seeking Social Sustainability in Conservation.IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.

CIFOR. ACM Team. 2003. Co-Learn: collaborativelearning. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia. CD ROM andmanual.

Deng Huizhen. 2003. To confidently development“non-public-system” forestry. GuangdongForestry 2003(1):8–9.

FAO. 1994. Tree and land tenure: rapid appraisaltools. Community Forestry Manual No. 4. FAO,Rome.

FAO. 1995. Selecting tree species on the basis of com-munity needs. Community Forestry Field ManualNo. 5. FAO, Rome.

Grimble, R., and Chan, M.K. 1995. Stakeholder analy-sis for natural resource management in devel-oping countries. Natural Resources Forum 19:113–124.

Haggith, M., Prabhu, R., Purnomo, H., et al. 1999.CIMAT: a knowledge-based system for developingcriteria and indicators for sustainable forest man-agement. In: Cortes, U., and Sanchez-Marre, M.,eds. Environmental Decision Support Systems andArtificial Intelligence: Papers from the AAAIWorkshop. Technical Report. No. WS-99-07CIFOR, lndonesia. pp. 82–89.

ITTO. 2002. ITTO guidelines for the restoration ofdegraded forests, the management of secondaryforests degraded and rehabilitation of degradedforest lands in tropical regions. ITTO, CIFOR,FAO, IUCN, WWF International, Yokohama,Japan. ITTO Policy Development Series. No.13.

KfW Project in Brief. 2003 KfW AfforestationProject Circular, Hanoi.

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Lecup, I., Nicholson, K., Purwandono, H., and Karki,S. 1998. Methods for assessing the feasibility of sustainable non-timber forest product-basedenterprises. In: Wollenberg, E., and Ingles, A., eds.Incomes from the Forest: Methods for the Devel-opment and Conservation of Forest Products forLocal Communities. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia,and IUCN.

Ohlsson, B., Sandewall, M., Sandewall, R.K., andPhon, N.H. 2004. Government plans and farmersintentions—a study on forest land use planning inVietnam. Ambio; in press.

Poulsen, J., Applegate, G., and Raymond, D. 2001.Linking C&I to a code of practice for industrialtropical tree plantations. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia.

Ritchie, B., McDougall, C., Haggith, M., and Burfordde Oliveira, N. 2000. Criteria and indicators of sus-tainability in community managed forest land-scapes: an introductory guide. CIFOR, Bogor,Indonesia.

Sayer, J., Chokkalingam, U., and Poulsen, J. 2004. Therestoration of forest biodiversity and ecologicalvalues. Forest Ecology and Management 201:3–11.

SFA (State Forestry Administration). 1999. Forestrydevelopment of China. Chinese Forestry Publish-ing House, Beijing.

Sim, H.C., Appanah, S., and Durst, P.B., eds. 2003.Bringing back the forests, Policies and Practicesfor degraded lands and forests. Proceedings of aninternational conference, 7–10 October 2002,Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, FAO Regional Office forAsia and Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand.

Vira, B., Dubois, O., Daniels, S.E., and Walker, G.B.1998. Institutional pluralism in forestry: consider-ations of analytical and operational tools.Unasylva 49(194):35–42.

Wollenberg, E., Anau, N., Iwan, R., van heist, M,Limberg, G., and Sudana M. 2002. Building agree-ments among stakeholders. ITTO Tropical ForestUpdate 12(2):1–7.

1. Context

The primary aim of this book has been togather knowledge and experience from anumber of practitioners around the world inorder to assist conservationists and others intheir efforts to restore forests. Restoration hasbeen presented here in the context of a land-scape approach, which we believe is a morepractical scale for making decisions aboutreturning healthy forest cover and functions toareas where they have been lost or degraded.We have been fortunate in persuading manyleading experts to help us in putting the booktogether, and some of the key lessons or currentstate of knowledge are summarised brieflybelow.

It has also become apparent during ourresearch that a large number of unknownsremain. Another emerging purpose of the bookis therefore to highlight areas for further devel-opment and to call on the conservation com-munity, and others, to address these needs. Oneimportant gap that has appeared in differentchapters is the need for a comprehensiveframework. Using the information gatheredthrough this extensive book, we have attemptedto sketch out a framework for the restorationof forests in landscapes. It is hoped that thisframework will serve as a guide for practition-ers, although it is not meant to be a rigid tem-plate. It will need to be used, tested, and refined.Many gaps and research needs have alsoemerged through this book and the most salient

of these are highlighted and summarised under the framework below. More specific eco-logical research needs can also be found inAppendix 1.

2. Lessons Learnt

As a starting point, we consider some of the keylessons emerging from this book:

1. A lot of experience exists on site-basedaspects of restoration; we need to harness it,learn from it, share it, and disseminate it.However, there is much less experience onlarger scale restoration interventions (see, forinstance, Chapters 19, 20, 27, 48, and 52)

2. Social, political, and economic elementsare fundamental to successful forest restora-tion, yet they are often not part of restorationinitiatives (see, for instance, Chapters 4, 6, 17and 57).

3. The underlying causes of forest loss anddegradation are often not addressed in restora-tion, and contribute to the failure of restorationattempts (see, for instance, Chapters 10 and 11).

4. Policy change can be a powerful lever forlarge-scale restoration that can yield muchmore significant results than a large number ofsmall-scale initiatives (see Chapters 17, 48, and50, for example).

5. There is still a tendency for a lack of com-munication between disciplines: economistsanalyse the costs of deforestation, while

59A Way Forward: Working TogetherToward a Vision for Restored Forest LandscapesStephanie Mansourian, Mark Aldrich, and Nigel Dudley

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416 S. Mansourian et al

foresters look at the potential for restoration,and development organisations promote sus-tainable agriculture (see, for instance, Chapters10, 13, 18, and 21).

6. Restoration is a moving target with noultimate end state; rather, the most preferableend state is for the landscape to be nudged intothe tracks of a natural trajectory. While refer-ence landscapes and forests are essential tohelp set a target for restoration, they are not theonly element to consider, as long-term humaninteraction with forests and the evolution ofcultural landscapes, and anticipation of futurechanges, such as climatic patterns, all need to befactored in when setting goals for restoration offorest landscapes (see Chapters 14 and 15).

7. Environmental, socioeconomic, and polit-ical circumstances evolve during the (lengthy)duration of a restoration initiative, thus addingcomplexity to the planning of a restoration ini-tiative. Climate change is another factor addingcomplexity and uncertainty to the process (see,for instance, Chapters 4, 5 and 9).

8. To achieve a restored landscape that cansatisfy different stakeholders’ needs, negotia-tion and trade-offs will be essential (see Chap-ters 8 and 18).

9. Incentives for maintaining and/or restor-ing forests are limited by insecure ownership toforest land or unclear access to forest products(see Chapter 12).

10. Restoration is implemented to reversenot only forest loss but also forest degradation.In response, the improvement of forest qualityrequires addressing forest composition,pattern, functioning, the process of renewal,resilience, and continuity (see Chapter 26).

11. Persistent challenges for forest landscaperestoration relate to planning at large scales, theintegration of social and ecological dimensions,and monitoring within large areas (see, forinstance, Chapters 9, 13, 20, and 21).

12. Restoration need not always be done inthe most direct or obvious manner; for instance,promoting alternative income generation prac-tices may help relieve pressure on land and thussupport natural regeneration (see Chapter 19).

13. Even with pure biodiversity conservationaims, forest protection is no longer sufficient,

and it would appear that for restoration tomake a difference, it usually needs to beplanned and implemented at the landscapescale in the context of forest protection andmanagement and other interrelated elements inthe landscape (see, for instance, Chapter 7).

14. Financing restoration is a challenge. Anumber of possible sources exist: the publicsector (through subsidies and incentives), theprivate sector (through payments for environ-mental services and ethical investments), andmultilateral and aid agencies (through grants).Through the Kyoto protocol there is potentialto finance restoration, although there remainssome uncertainty and concerns over these“carbon sink” projects as critics argue thatfunds and efforts should go toward reducingfossil fuel emissions at their sources rather than absorbing carbon (see Chapters 22, 23,and 24).

15. Agriculture and forests often competefor land. Restoring landscapes using agro-forestry systems can help manage trade-offsbetween the two (see Chapter 40).

16. For restoration purposes, it is importantto understand the role of fire presence in thelandscape. In some cases fire is an importantelement, while in others it is wholly unnatural(see Chapters 39 and 47).

17. Restoration after storms has often notbeen well managed. As storms are predicted to become more frequent because of climatechange, a challenge is to use the media atten-tion they create to lobby for better policies andimproved enforcement (see Chapter 48).

18. Well-managed industrial plantations mayhave a role to play in the restoration of forestlandscapes as one element in a landscapemosaic that provides a mix of production andenvironmental functions (see Chapters 54 and56).

19. Three key lessons that have emergedfrom a comprehensive study led by CIFOR ofpast afforestation/reforestation efforts in sixcountries show that there is need to strengthenlocal organisation and participation; there is aneed to consider local socioeconomic needs inchoices of approaches and options; and there isa need to ensure clear and appropriate institu-

59. A Way Forward 417

tional support and arrangements (see Chapter58).

3. An Emerging Frameworkfor Forest Landscape Restoration

As a result of compiling this book and the keylessons identified, it appears that there is anurgent need for a comprehensive frameworkthat will help managers make choices (provid-ing options) based on state of degradation,impact of forest loss/degradation, funding,available human resources, political and insti-tutional considerations, size of the area, aim ofthe restoration, etc.

This section outlines such a framework forrestoring forests in landscapes and includesunder each element the identified gaps incurrent knowledge, tools, and approaches.

Once refined and tested, this frameworkcould form a companion set of tools to existingconservation frameworks, such as WWF’secoregional methodology, the Nature Conser-vancy’s 5-S approach, or the systematic con-servation planning pioneered in New SouthWales. Many of the elements drawn from thisbook provide the basis for such a framework,although we are aware that much remains to bedeveloped over the next few years.

This framework would entail the following:

1. A systems approach, reflecting the com-plexity of the overall system (landscape) andthe relationship between its parts—both ecological and social. A landscape needing res-toration is a dysfunctional system where thecomponents are unable to fulfil all their poten-tial roles. Therefore, taking a systems approachallows a better understanding of the whole andhelps to ensure an integrated approach to therestoration of functions of the different parts.For instance, many restoration initiatives cur-rently focus solely on reestablishing tree cover,rather than on entire communities of plants and animals, or fail to address issues such asenvironmental services or original landscapepatterns.

2. An adaptive management approach: Giventhe long-term nature of restoration, and thelevel of uncertainty involved as well as chang-ing conditions, it is important to ensure thatthere is leeway in the system for adaptive management. It is also important to promote an experimental approach or a “learning bydoing” approach. This will be effective onlywith appropriate monitoring and tracking toolsin place.

3. An integrated approach: It is important to consider restoration not in isolation fromother conservation and development projects,but rather as an integral part of joint efforts toachieve a sustainable ecosystem or landscape.This implies better integration of restorationwithin current planning approaches, including,for instance, those related to protected areaselection or forest management, but also development-oriented projects, species conser-vation, freshwater projects, etc. It is also important to approach forest protection,management, and restoration as elements of aholistic approach to forests.

3.1. The Elements of the EmergingFramework for Forest Landscape Restoration

Thirteen elements are proposed for this frame-work, each of which is explained in furtherdetail below.

1. Assessment of impacts of forest loss and ofrestoration

2. Addressing underlying causes of forest lossand degradation

3. Supportive political environment4. Negotiation and prioritisation5. Setting multiple objectives for restoration

in the landscape6. Empowerment and engagement7. Multiple scales of implementation8. Implementation through multidisciplinary

teams9. Modelling and decision-support tools

10. Sustainable financing11. Measuring changes in landscape values

(monitoring and evaluation)

418 S. Mansourian et al

12. Capacity building/dissemination andexchange

13. A focussed programme of research

3.1.1. Assessment of Impacts of ForestLoss and of Restoration

Unless the impacts of forest loss and degrada-tion are truly understood, it will be difficult toengage the necessary stakeholders fully and tounderstand the likely evolution of a long-termrestoration programme. Often the beneficiariesof restoration are not those living near theforest but rather are downstream users of serv-ices; the distribution of costs and benefits ofrestoration, therefore, need to be carefully con-sidered. Not all costs and benefits can be quan-tified in monetary terms, however, and issues ofequity, including with future generations, alsoneed to be taken into account.

Outstanding needs include:

• More effective ways of measuring forestvalues in order to promote their restoration(through payment systems for instance)

• Ways of evaluating and describing the differ-ential importance of forest products andservices to different people and therefore the differential impacts of changes in forestquality and extent (see, for instance,Chapters 4 and 12).

3.1.2. Addressing Underlying Causes ofForest Loss and Degradation

Failures in past restoration projects can betraced back to inadequate consideration of theoriginal causes of the forest loss and degrada-tion. Careful allocation of resources is neededto ensure that relevant data are collected toadvance understanding of the causes of forestloss and degradation to help frame the planningof future restoration interventions.

Outstanding needs include:

• More effective integration of relevantthreats’ analyses in restoration programmes

• The gap between threats’ assessment, andimplementation of project activities, needs tobe more effectively breached (see Chapter10).

3.1.3. Supportive Political Environment

All too often those implementing restorationhave not taken into account the political andlegal environment in which they operate. Yet,policies have the power to either contribute tothe failure of restoration interventions or onthe other hand to become a major tool insupport of large-scale restoration efforts.

Outstanding needs include:

• To convince governments and decisionmakers of the necessity, importance, andurgency of ecologically and socially soundforest restoration (see, for instance, Chapters7 and 14)

• To encourage improvements in forest man-agement (that reduce the need for restora-tion), both in theory and in practice (see, forinstance, Chapters 48, 50, and 56)

• Development of an adequate and supportivelegal framework that emphasises forestrestoration (see, for instance, Chapters 52, 53,56 and 58)

• Major policy changes to improve restoration,including removal of perverse subsidies and introduction of positive incentives forresponsible restoration (see Chapters 11, 17,and 45, for example)

• The presence of representative, accountable,and competent local organisations and insti-tutions that can support integrated restora-tion programmes (see, for instance, Chapter58)

• Policies that encourage the development ofnatural, diverse forests

• Strengthening compliance with and increas-ing the respect for different key laws relatedto restoration (see, for example, Chapters 48and 53)

• Understanding better the complex issues of land rights and how they interact withvarious factors, such as incentives and policyenvironments.

3.1.4. Negotiation and Prioritisation

The move from site to landscape entails asimilar move from one stakeholder to many.And each stakeholder is likely to have differ-

59. A Way Forward 419

ent needs and expectations from the landscape.For this reason it becomes essential to negoti-ate restoration interventions and their out-comes as they will impact on many people.Questions to address include:

• How do those initiating a restoration projectagree with other stakeholders on priorityareas for restoration?

• More specifically, how do they determinecore areas, minimum viable areas, the type of forest to be restored, etc., within the con-straints of those living in the landscape?

• How can stakeholders reach agreement ontrade-offs between social, economic and ecological priorities?

Outstanding needs include:

• Identifying how the restoration of forestedlandscapes can be achieved in areas of inten-sive, competing land uses (see, for instance,Chapters 40 and 45)

• Processes to negotiate and manage trade-offsbetween multiple interests (including specif-ically agriculture and forest restoration) (seeChapters 8 and 40)

• More practical experience in negotiatingtrade-offs when looking at restoring forestfunctions in a landscape (see Chapters 8 and18).

3.1.5. Setting Multiple Objectives forRestoration in the Landscape

The tendency has been to limit restoration proj-ects to one or two objectives, yet the reality isthat in complex landscapes with different stake-holders, successful restoration will need to havea number of objectives. In practically all cir-cumstances it will be particularly important to achieve both ecological and socioeconomicgoals for restoration.

Outstanding needs include:

• Much better understanding of the likelyprocess of forest restoration itself, along with more accurate methods of measuringprogress (see, for instance, Chapters 9 and14)

• Improved knowledge about how to manageforests for multiple products and objectives

• Guidance on the evaluation of ecological andsocial aspects within the concept of high con-servation value forests and on the role ofrestoration techniques in addressing them.

3.1.6. Empowerment and Engagement

A necessary element of the framework will beto ensure that the right people have a say indecisions that will affect their future and theland they live on. Although there is a wealth of experience in participatory approaches toconservation and development, most of theseare implemented on a relatively small scale(village or community) and much still needs to be learned about effective participationacross a whole landscape.

Outstanding needs include:

• Tools to engage stakeholders in restorationefforts effectively across a wider landscape(see, for instance, Chapter 18)

• A better understanding of the role of forestsin both poverty prevention and povertyreduction (see Chapter 4).

3.1.7. Multiple Scales ofImplementation

As it appears that many factors beyond simplythe technicalities of, for example, seed propa-gation affect restoration, planning a restorationeffort needs to be done at large scales and atdifferent levels, with many different people.Nonetheless, ultimately that large-scale planwill need to translate into a series of site-basedefforts that contribute to the overall landscapeeffort.

Outstanding needs include:

• More experience about making the transitionfrom planning to execution within large-scalerestoration efforts (see, for instance, Chapter57)

3.1.8. Implementation ThroughMultidisciplinary Teams

To address social, economic, political, and in-stitutional aspects of restoring a landscape,

420 S. Mansourian et al

restoration efforts will need to involve moredisciplines than they have to date. The estab-lishment and systematic use of multidiscipli-nary teams will be critical to successfulrestoration in landscapes.

Outstanding needs include:

• Refined approaches for undertaking inte-grated and multidisciplinary analyses andproject implementation

• Improved cooperation at local and interna-tional levels between different agencies andnongovernmental organisations (NGOs)(see, for instance, Chapters 13 and 58).

3.1.9. Modelling and Decision-SupportTools

Improved modelling techniques can assist inthe formulation of a concerted and shared planfor restoring a landscape. Whilst sophisticatedmodelling approaches have been developed forother aspects of conservation, such as protectedarea selection, they remain poorly developedfor restoration decision making.

Outstanding needs include:

• Participatory GIS-based decision-supporttools to guide choices (of restoration inter-vention, of species’ mixes, of locations, etc.)related to restoration within landscapes (seeChapter 16).

3.1.10. Sustainable Financing

To promote restoration, we need argumentsthat can, where possible, also be described ineconomic terms. This can be achieved throughbetter valuation of the range of goods and services that forests provide.

Outstanding needs include:

• The development of strategies for decreasingoperating costs and increasing incentives forstimulating natural regeneration in applyingthe restoration methods developed at theexperimental scale to the restoration of largeareas. For example, it is important to considerthe increase in the production capacity of therestored area, compensation for opportunity

costs to landowners, payment for environ-mental services, and the implementation oftax incentives (see Chapters 36 and 40)

• New and innovative ways to fund forestrestoration including more alternativeoptions to make restoration financiallyattractive (see, for instance, Chapters 23, 24and 31)

• A better understanding of what mechanismsneed to be in place for different payment forenvironmental services’ (PES) systems towork; and also better understanding aboutthe impacts of PES schemes on poor peopleand how the poor can really benefit fromPES (see Chapter 23)

• Information on regrouping or “bundling”different ecosystem services

• Analyses of financial and environmentalcosts and benefits of restoration options andtheir effects on forest productivity, species’recovery, biodiversity, and carbon sequestra-tion (see Chapter 52).

3.1.11. Measuring Changes inLandscape Values (Monitoring and Evaluation)

A number of monitoring needs have beenrepeatedly identified throughout this book.Despite expertise in survey methods, there isstill much to be learnt about accurate ways ofmonitoring of both biodiversity and, more crit-ically, ecological integrity, but also the socioe-conomic dimension of forest restoration inlandscapes that will allow proper assessment ofrestoration outcomes over time. Monitoring isalso necessary to help guide the choice of thebest restoration method under different condi-tions. Lessons learnt from many past restora-tion efforts are still being gathered and theseare important to guide future interventions andreorientate current ones.

Outstanding needs include:

• Improvement in methodologies for monitor-ing and evaluating human well-being in thecontext of restoration (see Chapters 20 and21)

59. A Way Forward 421

• A unified procedure for monitoring restora-tion programmes

• Adequate funds to support long-term moni-toring, evaluation, and adaptive management

• Translating the results of both ecological and socioeconomic indicators effectively toinform a landscape-level restoration effort

• Best practices on how to design, implement,and learn from monitoring work thatinvolves multiple stakeholders.

3.1.12. Capacity Building/Dissemination and Exchange

There already exist a number of tools,approaches, instruments, and experiencesrelated to restoration and what is and is notworking. These need to be better used, shared,and widely disseminated as a matter of urgency.Existing organisations such as the Society forEcological Restoration International (SERI)are obvious repositories for such knowledge,although innovative vehicles such as the clear-ing house mechanism set up by the Conventionon Biological Diversity and the PALNETsystem of the World Commission on ProtectedAreas could broaden the coverage. Communityand traditional knowledge should not beignored; specifically, this issue has been raisedin this book when it comes to fire management (see Chapter 47) or traditional medicines (seeChapter 34) or nontimber forest products (seeChapter 31). Recognising and learning fromcommunity knowledge appears even moreimportant in the context of nations where gov-ernment structures and approaches are devel-oping and resources and support may belimiting.

Outstanding needs include:

• Substantially increased efforts to disseminatethe strategies, approaches, and techniquesmost appropriate for forest restoration (seeChapters 48 and 52, for example)

• Awareness-raising, training, and technicalassistance, as these are preconditions to theapplication of restoration in practice

• Capacity building for conflict managementand negotiation within conservation and

forestry organisations in terms of buildingthe ability to work across broad scales anddisciplines. Most of the tools and expertiseare known but have been applied in only avery limited way within the field of naturalresource management (see Chapter 18)

• Adaptation to different regional contexts ofscience-based management rules and tools(GIS, modelling) and ecological and eco-nomical expertise

• In addition, specific training programmes willbe necessary to disseminate current knowl-edge, tailored for different audiences, forexample:Farmers: Farmers may need encouragement

and training to adopt better farming tech-niques that contribute to the restoration ofwider benefits across the landscape (asexplained in Chapter 40).

Local forestry officers: Local forestry officersmay need to see beyond the strict forestryobjectives of replanting hectares of forests,for instance, without addressing qualityissues and without necessarily engaginglocal communities.

Plantation companies: Another identifiedtraining need is for plantation companiesto understand and implement minimumsocial and environmental managementstandards for plantations (see, for instance,Chapters 55 and 56).

Conservationists: Biologists and conserva-tionists involved directly in restorationprojects may require training in adaptiveand participatory research methods in thecontext of restoration.

3.1.13. A Focussed Programme of Research

This book has outlined a large amount of exist-ing knowledge on forest restoration, but it hasalso raised a large number of research needs. Itis hoped that through this publication, a sharperand more defined research programme in thefield of forest restoration can be initiated. Theappendix highlights the most important andurgent research priorities.

422 S. Mansourian et al

4. Working Together Toward a Vision

In the face of growing threats to the world’sforests, and more generally to the naturalresources that life depends on, we urgentlyneed to be restoring a greater area of forestecosystems and their functions with increasedefficiency. However, as we know from the expe-rience we do have, the process takes time, canbe costly, and there are still many unknowns.

Therefore, it is even more urgent and impor-tant to share existing knowledge related torestoration more effectively, and to integraterestoration more thoroughly into relevant con-servation and development work. The contentsof this book, and other available resources likeit, provide us with a good start. However, as this chapter has shown us, just disseminatingcurrent knowledge is not enough, as there isstill much that we need to understand.

For its part, in 2001 the Forests for Life Pro-gramme of WWF added a third focal theme offorest restoration within a landscape context—forest landscape restoration—to the longer-standing commitments to protected areas andimproved management of production forests,particularly certification.

This was done in direct response to requestsfrom some parts of the WWF network and their partners (particularly in South Asia, theMediterranean region, East Africa, and parts ofLatin America), who felt that in addition towork on protected areas and improved man-agement, there was an urgent need to developa programme of work on forest restoration inan effort to begin to counter the ongoingprocess of forest loss and degradation in manyparts of the world.

With an increasing focus on implementingforest conservation in landscapes, Forests forLife is now actively working to integrate theapproaches and efforts toward achieving itstargets—protected areas, improved forest man-agement and restoration—within priority land-scapes that have been identified within WWFGlobal 200 ecoregions.

Through the forest restoration component ofForests for Life, WWF is working with govern-

ments, international organisations, indigenouspeoples, and other communities, as well as theprivate sector on the following activities:

• Developing and implementing a portfolio of forest landscape restoration projects/pro-grammes (see http://www.panda.org/forests/restoration/) within priority landscapes

• Assisting others, and building local capacityto plan and implement forest restorationinterventions within the broader landscapecontext

• Developing suitable monitoring tools andtechniques to measure progress

• Promoting the use of a forest landscaperestoration approach through both local col-laboration and broader partnerships such asthe Global Partnership on Forest LandscapeRestoration (http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/restoration/globalpartnership/)

• Documenting, exchanging, and disseminatinglessons learnt and experiences

• Highlighting the ways in which governmentsand the private sector, including plantationcompanies, can make their contribution tothe restoration of forests and their full rangeof functions in degraded areas

• Working to eliminate/redirect economic,financial, and policy incentives that con-tribute to forest loss or degradation

• Identifying, researching, and catalysing poten-tial investments and funding mechanismsthat can support forest landscape restorationactivities, e.g., carbon knowledge projects,and payments for environmental services.

In addition, many others including IUCN, theU.K. Forestry Commission, CIFOR SERI, thegovernments of El Salvador, Finland, Italy,Japan, Kenya, South Africa, Switzerland, andthe United States, and restoration practitionersworldwide are committed to forest landscaperestoration, and are making their own signifi-cant contributions to ensuring that futurerestoration efforts are planned and imple-mented within a landscape context andenhance both ecological integrity and humanwell-being.

In this challenging context it is crucial that wework together, developing strategic partner-ships where required in order to ensure that we

59. A Way Forward 423

have more healthy forests that are able tosupport people and biodiversity into an uncer-tain future.

If we do this, and learn and adapt from thelessons and experiences along the way, then wecan realise this vision, and we will be able to

look back in 20 or 30 years and agree that thefirst decades of the 21st century really did markthe start of a global effort to successfullyrestore the world’s damaged and degradedforest areas for future generations of biodiver-sity and people.

1. Long-Term Impacts ofRestoration on Forest Ecosystems

• Understanding of the long-term dynamics ofdifferent ecosystems to help develop realisticrestoration targets

• Understanding the ability of different forestecosystems to recover quality over time andparticularly about the likely speed of recov-ery and the length of time after degradationwhen a forest can still recover (linked, forinstance, to survival time of buried seed populations), all of which are critical fordetermining whether natural regenerationwill suffice or more active efforts are required

• Measuring the sustainability of differentrestoration efforts, from ecological, social,and economic viewpoints

• Identifying the opportunities for manipulat-ing natural succession to favour desired outcomes

• Understanding what could enhance naturalsuccession after land abandonment

2. Climate Change andAdaptation

• Implementation of field projects to test andif appropriate develop restoration’s role inmitigating as well as in building resilience toclimate change

• Creative partnerships to analyse climateimpacts and proposed restoration activities

3. Knowledge of Species

• Understanding the role that individualspecies and microhabitats have in therestoration of ecosystem processes

• Clarifying the potential of indigenous speciesin restoration where planting is necessary,including information on genetics, propaga-tion techniques, the dynamics of ecologicalsuccession, the relationships between differ-ent species, the performance of indigenousspecies in plantation conditions, and the pro-duction of specific species in nurseries

• Disseminating information on where toobtain seed of indigenous species, how tostore the seeds, how to raise seedlings, andhow to establish these seedlings in the field

4. Plantations

• Developing user-friendly and location-specific silvicultural guidelines for plantationswith indigenous species to increase theiradoption by local farmers

• Gathering more information on the long-term dynamics of tree regeneration in plan-tations (to date, most studies have focussedon young plantations)

• Enhancing understanding of the role andlimitations of plantations in landscapes

Appendix 1Selection of Identified EcologicalResearch Needs Relating to Forest Restoration

424

Appendix 1 425

5. Linkages and Connectivity

• Understanding the role of corridors and eco-logical stepping stones and in particular howto make these most effective, conditions inwhich they will and will not work, challenges,problems to avoid, information about dis-tances species will disperse over unsuitablehabitat, use of corridors by invasive or pestspecies

• Developing greater experience on issuesrelated to connectivity of forests across land-scapes; for example, connectivity can be atleast obtained through the use of lines oreven isolated trees in the landscape, servingto buffer plantation areas, changing the“shape” of the plantation, etc.

6. Fires

• Increasing understanding of natural fireregimes including the forest structure neededto avoid high-intensity destructive fires andthe associated management implications

• Developing cost-effective fire control meas-ures with minimal biodiversity impacts

7. Invasive Species

• Improving methods for the control of inva-sive species

• Developing a comprehensive solution fordealing with invasive alien species as part offorest restoration

8. Artificial and NaturalDisturbance

• Drawing up codes of practice and perhapsprinciples for artificial disturbance

• Developing and disseminating methods ofenriching degraded or regrowth forests

• Developing enrichment planting guidelinesthat are species- and site-specific

9. Water and Forests

• Developing tools and methodologies for cal-culating net gains of different restoration andmanagement actions from the perspective ofwater supply

• Improving understanding of watershed-scaleprocesses

10. Links Between SiteConditions and Species

• Clarifying species-site relationships—there is often surprisingly little knowledge of thedistribution patterns and site requirements of most tropical tree species

• Quantifying better the influence of site con-ditions (precisely for each parameter) onspecies’ development and growth and oncommunities’ composition, and diversity,along with a better comprehension of thepotential trajectories of the communities(i.e., rupture thresholds, lag of time response).

modelling tools, 104reestablishment, 195, 247–248reservoirs, 360survey methods, 19–20

Biodiversity ConservationNetwork, 163

biological targets, 116–117biological values, in plantations,

394–395biomass, incorporation in soil, 351bird species, habitat restoration

for, 200Bitterroot National Park, USA,

336Borneo

forest regeneration, 137, 187,310

log landings rehabilitation, 364rubber, 276

BrazilAtlantic forest

forest loss, 19tree cover restoration, 252

commercial plantations,380–381

forest rehabilitation, 405, 406,409–410

Plantar project, 172–173restoration after mining, 292, 373

bridging substitutes, 206British Columbia, carbon

sequestration payments,168–169

buffer strips, 246buffer zones, 35–36, 309–310Bulgaria, forest policy change,

137–138burning, prescribed, 186–187, 272

Aabandoned land see land

abandonmentaccess controls, 211access rights, clarification, 235adaptive management approach,

417ADPM, 335advocacy, 124, 139afforestation, definition, 10agriculture, shifting, 274AGROCANP, 409agroforestry, 247, 274–279, 406,

407–409“agriculture in stages”, 410definition, 275future needs, 279overcoming impediments, 296techniques, 141tools, 278–279

Al Shouf Cedar Reserve,Lebanon, 187

Albatera, Spain, forestrestoration, 316–317

Algeria, reforestation, 317–318alley cropping, 275, 277–278Altai Sayan, Russia, 122Alternative Association of

Producers (APA), 409Amazon, coca in, 234amenity, emphasis on, 104Amur honeysuckle, 388ancient woodland, definition, 112Andresito, Argentina, 237, 253animal dispersal, 357anthropogenic disturbance

control, 251–252Appalachian region, 264

Index

427

Area de ConservaciónGuanacaste (ACG), CostaRica, 251–252

Argentina, Atlantic forest restoration, 75, 237–238, 253

“artificial negative selection”, 286Asian Development Bank

(ADB), 139Australia

exclusion zones, 211fire control, 272linkage corridors, 292mining reclamation, 372–373monoculture plantations,

292–293Tasmania, southern forests, 205

avalanche control, 104

BBai Bang Pulp and Paper Mill,

Vietnam, 409Bandipur National Park, India, 111barrier elimination, 254BATNA, 129bauxite mines, forest restoration,

292, 372–373beetles, saproxylic, 186, 203beneficial use laws, 79Bialowieza forest, Poland, 204bilateral donors, 139, 163biodiversity

conservationgoals, 42payments for, 167, 169–170plantation management in,382

in even-aged plantations seeeven-aged plantations

forest loss impact, 17–21

428 Index

CC-Plan, 119California, giant forest

restoration, 335campaigning, 139Canada

carbon sequestrationpayments, 168–169

eastern, deciduous hardwoodrestoration, 242–243

Pacific Northwest forests,205

capacity building, 127, 133, 421carbon knowledge projects,

171–175carbon market, 172, 174, 175carbon sequestration, 32, 382

estimation, 174payments for, 167, 168–169

carbon sinks, 171Carrifran, 9case studies, as policy change

stimulus, 124CATIE, 263, 264, 266Catskill State Park, USA, 230cattle grazing, 254CEAM Foundation, 154Cebu, Philippines, 407–408CEDISA, 408CELOS system, 362Central America

and Kyoto protocolmodification, 123

shade-grown coffee, 276–277Central Truong Son initiative,

Vietnam, 69, 153–154,157–158

Centre for International ForestryResearch (CIFOR), 405

Co-learn tools, 411institutional agreement

indicators, 412Review of Forest

Rehabilitation Initiatives,405

see also rehabilitation,sustainable

socioeconomic impactindicators, 412

Centre for Tropical ForestScience (CTFS), 111

change drivers, 103Chesapeake Bay watershed,

USA, 309–310Chiapas, Mexico, 358

Chile, temperate forestrestoration, 324–325

Chinaforest ownership policy, 86forest rehabilitation, 405, 406,

407, 410–411Grain-for-Green programme,

80mobile dune stabilisation,

352–353restoration benefits and

incentives, 87–88restoration drivers, 91slope stabilisation, 352

CIFOR see Centre forInternational ForestryResearch

Clean Development Mechanism(CDM), 172, 174

climate changeand invasive alien species, 349link to CO2 emissions, 171research needs, 424restoration in face of, 31–36threat to biodiversity, 31

Climate, Community, andBiodiversity (CCB)standards, 174

closures, 254cloud forest, 229, 303–305CO2Fix, 174coal mines, forest restoration,

373–374cocoa, 276codes of practice, 124coffee, shade-grown, 276–277Colombia, biodiversity

conservation payments, 169commercial plantations, in forest

landscape restoration,379–382

Common Agricultural Policy(CAP), forestry-relatedincentives, 80, 82–83

communicationsabout forest landscape

restoration, 176–180messages for specific

audiences, 177after storms, 343effective, 133–134proactive, 179rapid-response, 179–180tools, 139via Web sites, 180

communities, compensating, 141community-based cost-benefit

analysis, 28community-based fire

management (CBFiM), 337community-based forest

management (CBFM),407–408

company practices, changing, 139conceptual modelling, 76conflict management, 126–135

analytical tools, 132–133building blocks, 127capacity building, 127, 133, 421creative thinking, 134effective communications,

133–134examples, 130types of conflict, 126–127see also negotiation

connectivityin plantation biodiversity

restoration, 389research needs, 425strategy, 47see also fragmentation

consensus building workshops, 62conservation

by design, 55landscapes see landscape(s)

Conservation MeasuresPartnership (CMP), 147

conservationists, training, 422cork oak forests, 217–218Coronado National Forest,

Arizona, USA, 210Corrimony, Scotland, UK, 242cost-benefit analyses, 418

alluvial forests, 311–312community-based, 28extended, 62

Costa Ricaanthropogenic disturbance

control, 251–252, 259biodiversity conservation

payments, 169degraded pasture restoration,

264–265forest regeneration, 210, 287habitat linking, 54mixed plantations, 386–387thinning in teak plantations, 387watershed protection

payments, 168, 231Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa, 276

Index 429

critical thresholds, for species, 17cultural keystone species (CKS),

234cultural values, restoring

landscape for, 233–236

Ddams, 308Dana Nature Reserve, Jordan, 209deadwood

assessment, 205future needs, 206–207habitats provided by, 186, 204importance, 203restoration, 186, 199, 203–207

artificial, 201–202, 206zoning, 206

decision support tools, futureneeds, 57, 420

deforestationdefinition, 23see also forest loss and

degradationdegradation

causes, 257definition, 23removing cause of, 243vs. restoration, 101–102see also forest loss and

degradationDenmark, arable land

afforestation, 265designer landscapes, 103–104development trajectories, 103diagnostic sampling, 366direct planting, 367direct seeding, 244–245dispersers, management of, 254disturbance(s)

natural, 299patterns, influencing, 188research needs, 425using, 244

diversity nuclei/islands, 252, 254donor engagement, 177drivers of change, 103dry tropical forests see tropical

dry forestsDyfi estuary, Wales, UK, 186,

189–190

EEarth Conservation Toolbox, 55East Kalimantan, Indonesia,

334–335

ecolabelling, 167ecological attributes, vital, 153ecological integrity, 5

definition, 18ecological processes, 47ecological reconstruction,

245–246ecological restoration, definition, 9ecological succession see

successioneconomic analysis, 104, 124economic incentives, 124ecoregion(s)

definition, 4Global 200, 42, 51, 422terrestrial, 42, 43

ecoregion conservation (ERC),41–49

determining area to restore, 48goals, 42

restoration and, 44–48tools available, 49

ecoregional planning tools, 54–55ecosystem(s)

definition, 192long-term impacts of

restoration on, 425ecosystem consumption,

management, 258ecosystem fragmentation, 35, 292

see also connectivityecosystem processes, 192

restoration, 192–196ecosystem service payment

schemes, 28ecosystem values, evaluation, 359Ecuador

payment for watershedservices scheme, 162–163

water management, 229–230edge effects, 35egalitarianism, 87empowerment, 419endangered local species

saving, 263see also native species

engagement, 419Enhanced 5-S Project

Management Process, 147enrichment planting, 245, 260,

295–296, 364, 367environmental change, planning

for, 47–48environmental education

programmes, 255

environmental externalities,persistence, 79

environmental values, inplantations, 395

equityintergenerational, 86issues in community-owned

forests, 87ERDAS, 119erosion

control, 69, 299, 350–355, 375future needs, 355tools, 353–355

hill slope, 350in Iceland, 193, 194mass movement, 351–352models, 374–375wind, 351

ESRI, 119Ethiopia, user rights for forest

restoration, 88–89ethnobotanical surveys, 236European Union

afforestation policies, 80, 82–83forest reserves, 111grazing in woodlands, 123subsidies after storms, 342, 343

evaluation see monitoringeven-aged plantations, 384

biodiversity restoration in,384–390

factors influencing naturalregeneration, 388–389

future needs, 389–390planting to improve

microclimatic conditions, 388seed dispersal agent

attraction, 388factors altering biodiversity,

385–386evolutionary processes, 47exclusion zones, 211

FFagerön, Sweden, managed

forests, 186Fair-Trade Labelling

Organisation (FLO),certification, 220

fallow, improved, 277farmers

market information for, 296species preferences, 264, 390training, 421

FARSITE model, 271, 272

430 Index

fencing, 260financing, 161–165, 255, 404

domestic public sources, 163international systems of

payments, 164payment for goods and

services, 164private for-profit sources, 164private not-for-profit sources,

163–164sustainable, 420

Finlandboreal forest restoration,

327–328deadwood requirements, 199prescribed burning, 186–187,

327–328protected area interventions,

210southern region restoration

policy, 204–205species’ transfers, 200–201

fireas degradation factor, 334historical account, 331impacts, 332–333in the landscape, 331–332as natural disturbance, 333–334research needs, 425restoration after, 333–338

potential adverse impacts, 336tools, 336–337

as tool, 334fire-dependent specialist species,

199, 201fire management, 141, 201, 337,

396fire risk, 82

management strategies,269–270

firebreaks, 269–273widths, 270, 271

floodplain forestscharacteristics, 306–307restoration, 306–312

assessment, 310bedload transport, 307–308examples of measures,

308–309forest structure, 308future needs, 311–312hydrological connections,

307integrated river basin

management, 310–311

monitoring, 310scales, 307

focal species, 45focus groups, 61fodder harvest, 223FONAFIFO, 168Fontainebleau Forest, 204, 210,

340–341forcefield analyses, 132forest authenticity, 18

assessment of levels, 187, 188Forest Biodiversity Indicators

Project, 148forest certification, 389

NTFPs and, 220forest dependence

degree of, 85poverty and, 22, 26

forest dynamics plots, 111forest fires, mimicking see fire

managementforest fragments, 113, 205, 301forest landscape restoration

(FLR), 8active vs. passive, 95after fire see fire, restoration

afterbackground, 3–4balancing needs, 6, 404broader approach, 4–6capacity, 97challenges based on

experience to date, 94–98commercial plantations in,

379–382communications about see

communicationsdefinition, 5, 10–11end point, 96framework, 417–422funding see financinggoals, 94–95, 101–105, 109, 419growing recognition of need,

401–402guidelines, 12integration with protection

and management, 402key elements, 11lessons learnt, 415–417planning see restoration

planningpractical interventions see

tactical interventionsas a process, 402process of, 53

reasons for landscape scale, 6, 52as resilience/adaptation

strategy, 35–36resources, 96social impact, guiding

questions, 26–27suite of responses required,

402–403support needed, 404trade-offs in see trade-offsvaluation of goods and services,

95–96, 139–140, 170forest loss and degradation

addressing underlying causes,418

impact assessment, 418impact on biodiversity, 17–21impact on human well-being,

22–29examples, 25, 27–28

forest ownershipcommunal, 86–87definitions, 84–85and forest restoration, 84–92

future needs, 91–92tools to address issues, 90–91

and goods and services rights,86

stability, 86forest plantations, definition, 379,

384forest quality

assessment, 20, 187, 188restoration, 185–189

Forest Stewardship Council(FSC), 164

certification, 220–221forestry officers, training, 421Forests for Life Programme, 422Forests of the Lower Mekong

ecoregion, Indochina, 44“founder effect”, 244fragmentation, 35, 292

see also connectivity“framework species” approach,

245, 252–253, 289France

badlands restoration, 152–153,265

deadwood, 204floodplain forest restoration,

309forest management, 177–178Japanese knotweed invasion,

210

Index 431

lack of ecological monitoring,69

restoration after storm,341–342

storm disturbance data,340–341

frontier forestanalysis, 20definition, 112

fuel management, 271vs. fire suppression, 272

fuelwood, 223forest restoration for, 223–226plantation eras, 224–226

Fundación Vida SilvestreArgentina (FVSA), 75,237

Ggap analysis, 57, 113gap planting, 364gene flow, 47genetic diversity, maintenance, 36genetic selection, 263, 265–266geographic information system

(GIS) tools, 119in conservation/restoration

planning, 49, 325, 374in fire risk analysis, 271in suitability modelling,

117–118in threat assessment, 76–77

Ghana, collaborative forestmanagement, 27

Gifts to the Earth tool, 139Glen Affric, Scotland, UK,

323–324Global 200 ecoregions, 42, 51,

422global change issues, and

invasive alien species,349

Global Environmental Facility(GEF), 164

Global Invasive SpeciesProgramme (GISP), 347

Global Partnership on ForestLandscape Restoration,422

global warming, 32, 287see also climate change

goods and servicespayment for, 164valuation, 95–96, 139–140, 170

government incentives, 78–81

government policieschanging, 138and erosion control, 355

grazing management, 353–354green markets, facilitating access

to, 29Greenhouse Emissions

Reduction Trading(GERT), 169

GTZproperty legislation principles,

91Sustainable Forest

Management Project,334

Guanacaste National Park,Costa Rica, 210, 259,287

Guangdong, China, 410–411Guatemala, montane forest

restoration, 299–300Guinea, forest restoration, 53–54Gunung Kidal, Indonesia, 410

Hhabitat

loss, 386modelling, 116provided by deadwood, 186,

204reconnection, 46, 54

Hawaiialien grass control, 346–347native forests, 195, 205

hedgerow intercropping, 275,277–278

“hidden forest harvest”, 219high conservation value forests

(HCVF), 20, 235high conservation values

(HCVs), 235Hmong people, and land rights,

88home gardens, 235

multistorey, 276homogeneous monocultures,

restoration, 201human well-being

definition, 11, 23forest loss impact, 22–29

examples, 25, 27–28Hungary, mine site regeneration,

259hurricanes, 299hydrological models, 374–375

IIceland, substrate stability, 193,

194IDRISI, 118, 119IFOAM, certification, 220–221impact, definition, 23India

joint forest management, 27Nilgiri Biosphere, 111sacred forests, 234

indigenous species see nativeforests; native species

Indonesiacloud forest conservation,

303–305enrichment planting, 364forest rehabilitation, 405, 406,

407, 410plantation development

incentives, 79protection forests, 89–90pulp plantations, 380, 381rainforest rehabilitation,

334–335Indonesian deer, 347industrial plantations

best practice guide, 394–397era of, 225

inoculation, 264, 289, 294institutional arrangements, for

rehabilitation projects,407, 410–411

integrated approach, 417Integrated Conservation and

Development Projects(ICDPs), 403

intergenerational equity, 86International Erosion Control

Association, 355International Institute of

Rural Reconstruction,advice on land tenureissues, 91, 92

International Plant ProtectionConvention (1951), 347

International Tropical TimberOrganisation (ITTO)

planted forest guidelines,381–382

restoration guidelines, 90, 382,412

invasive (alien) species (IASs),345–346

control/removal, 346–349,387–388

432 Index

invasive (alien) species (IASs)(cont.)

by planting native species,253

future needs, 347–349methods, 187, 189, 260research, 140, 348tools, 347

impact, 195introduced intentionally, 346,

347introduced unintentionally, 346research needs, 425

JJari plantations, Brazil, 380–381Jarrah forest, Australia, 372–373Jordan, forest regeneration, 209

KKenya

improved fallow, 277montane forest restoration,

299quarry restoration, 9, 123water supply protection, 230

keystone species, 195, 198cultural (CKS), 234

Kinabatangan River, Malaysia,137, 187, 310

Kings Canyon National Park,USA, 335

KMYLB, 407–408knowledge, dissemination and

exchange, 421Kyoto protocol, 123, 168–169, 172

LLa Selva Biological Station,

Costa Rica, 264–265Lafarge, quarry rehabilitation,

123–124land abandonment, 356

forest restoration after,356–360

active, 358–359passive, 358socioeconomic tools, 359

land care, 104land mapping, 90, 117land ownership see forest

ownershipland tenure see tenureland-use scenarios, 67land value, mapping, 117

landscape(s)multifunctional, 6, 60, 216

promotion, 95see also forest landscape

restorationlandscape architecture, 104landscape beauty, payment for,

167landslides, 298–299Latvia, forestry regulations, 122learning by doing, 105Lebanon, forest management,

187liberation thinning, 366line planting, 364livelihood(s)

analysis, 28–29, 278definition, 23needs, in rehabilitation

projects, 406–407, 409–410,412

lobbying, following storms, 340,343

local participation, inrehabilitation projects,406, 407–409, 411–412

log landings rehabilitation, 364logging

biodiversity impacts, 362monocyclic, 362polycyclic, 362reduced-impact (RIL), 363see also overlogged forests

Lombok, Indonesia, 303–305LULUCF, 174

MMadagascar

choosing priority landscape, 97forest restoration, 74–75,

107–108, 288microenterprise development

programmes, 141plantation projects, 10seed dispersal problems, 357

Malaysiaforest reconnection, 187, 310log landings rehabilitation, 364native species silviculture, 293priority species identification,

98restoration methods research,

137Mandena Conservation Zone,

Madagascar, 74

mangrove restoration, 32–34,47–48

mappingexamples, 118–119future needs, 119in long-term modelling, 118of opportunities, 117–118to meet or set targets, 116–117

market pressure, 139market research, 140, 413marketing, of forest landscape

restoration, 176–177Mediterranean region

forest degradation, 313–314forest restoration

activities, 314–315after fires, 335–336examples, 315–318future needs, 319programme evaluation, 154tools, 318–319

land tenure, 314NTFPs in, 217–218plantation management,

357–358reference forests, 111wildfires, 314

Meket district, Ethiopia, 88METSO, 205Mexico

active restoration research, 358natural forest regeneration,

358pilot forest plan based on

NTFPs, 220Scolel Té project, 173–174shade-grown coffee, 277

microenterprise development,141

migration, 47mine site regeneration, 259

see also open-cast miningreclamation

mixed species plantations, 247,266–267, 389

Model Code of ForestHarvesting Practices, 363

modelling tools, 420Mombasa, Kenya, disused quarry

rehabilitation, 9, 123monitoring, 150–155, 420–421

in adaptive managementcontext, 145–148

common mistakes, 147framework for, 152

Index 433

future needs, 155, 420–421indicator selection, 151–152as key to success, 403long-term, 96, 118as management tool, 103of plantations, 397pressures, 288tools, 154–155vital attributes, 153

monoculture plantations, 246,292–293

monocultures, mosaics of, 246Morocco, forest restoration, 318Mount Kenya national park, 299mountain gorillas, 19Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary,

India, 111multicriteria evaluation (MCE),

62, 115, 117–118multidisciplinary teams, 420multifunctionality, 6, 60, 216

promotion, 95multilateral donors, 139, 163multipurpose tree, 275mycorrhizae inoculation, 264,

289, 294

NNairobi, Kenya, water supply, 230national level surveys, 19–20native forests

definition, 112restoration, 186, 190–191, 195

native speciesendangered, saving, 263issues related to use, 263–264planting, 253silviculture, 293

natural communitiesrepresentation, 44–45seral stages, 45

natural regeneration stimulation,250–255, 367

anthropogenic disturbancecontrol, 251–252

diversity nuclei use, 252“framework species” method,

252–253future needs, 254–255invasive species elimination,

253limiting factors, 251tools, 254vegetation as regeneration

facilitators, 253

natural succession see succession,natural

naturalnessassessment, 210–211components, 185–186

Neem tree, 235negotiation

alternative to, 129cultural considerations, 130need for, 418phases, 132principles, 128, 131process, 130–132skills, 131of trade-offs, 61–62, 279

Nepal, community forestry, 27New Caledonia

forest loss, 18invasive species control, 347tropical dry forests

programme, 68–69, 97–98,140, 287–288

New York City, water supply, 230New York State, salvage logging

ban, 341Nicaragua, biodiversity

conservation payments,169

Niger, watershed restoration, 353nontimber forest products

(NTFPs)community-based income-

generating systems basedon, 220

definition, 215environmental values, 216and forest certification, 220impact of loss of, 26legal frameworks for, 221in national forestry curricula,

221as response to poverty,

216–217restoration guidelines, 219socioeconomic benefits, 215, 216valuing in rural development,

219Novo Paraíso, Brazil, 409–410nurseries

design, 141seed availability in, 264

OOaxaca, Mexico, 358obstructions, above-ground, 354

old-growth, definition, 112open-cast mining reclamation,

9–10, 264, 292, 370–375conceptual framework, 371future needs, 375laws, 375planning, 371problems of mine soils, 372tools, 374–375

opportunity costs, 86, 104Oregon, USA, H.J. Andrews

Experimental Forest,110–111

organic matter addition, 195original forests, definitions, 112outgrower schemes, 162overland flow, 350overlogged forests

definition, 361restoration, 363–367

area protection, 365future needs, 367logging practice

improvements, 363planning, 365–366reasons, 363silvicultural interventions,

366–367overseas development assistance

(ODA), 162, 163overstorey removal, 366ownership, forest see forest

ownership

PPALNET system, 421Paluarco river, Ecuador,

162–163Panama, reforestation in

catchments, 230participatory appraisal, 132participatory rural appraisal

(PRA), 90–91, 278PASOLAC, 27payment for environmental

services (PES), 162,166–170, 231

valuation tools, 170people first era, 225–226Peru

Croton restoration, 218–219forest rehabilitation, 405, 406,

408–409pests, 346

control, 396

434 Index

Philippines, forest rehabilitation,405, 406, 407–408

Plan Vivo system, 174plant ecology, 266Plantar project, 172–173plantation companies, training,

396–397, 421plantation trees, as nurse plants,

259plantations

best practice guide, 394–397commercial, in forest

landscape restoration,379–382

even-aged see even-agedplantations

locating, 393managing, 393–397mixed species, 247, 266–267, 389monoculture, 246, 292–293monospecific, 384research needs, 424rubber, 379sustainability elements,

392–393tree species selection, 262–267

future needs, 267goals, 263issues related to native

species use, 263–264tools, 265–267

Poland, Bialowieza forest, 204policy changes, 402, 403policy incentives

perverse, 78–81redirection of, 81

policy interventions, 121–125tools, 124

political environment,supportive, 418–419

pollen analysis, 113polyacrylamides (PAMs), 355population viability analysis

(PVA), 45–46Portugal, restoration after fires,

335–336poverty

avoidance/mitigation, 26degrees of, 24elimination, 26and forest dependence, 22, 26mapping and assessment, 104NTFPs as response to, 216–217

predator–prey dynamics, 47pressures, monitoring, 288

Prestige oil spill, 178primary woodland, definition, 112prioritisation, 418

tools, future needs, 57priority landscapes, 42

identification, 67implementing conservation in,

55problem trees, 132process management, 128, 129PROCYMAF project, 28property

definition, 84–85rights, problems, 79types, 85

protect–manage–restoreapproach, 44, 52–53, 55

stages, 56–57protected areas

categories, 211restoration in, 208–212threats, 208zoning, 211

Puerto Ricorestoration via natural

succession, 292substrate stability, 193–194tree plantations, 259, 386

Qquality, forest see forest qualityQuintana Roo, Mexico, pilot

forest plan, 220Quito, Ecuador, water supply,

229

Rracks, installation of, 254Rainforest Alliance, Smartwood

Programme, 221range maps, 117Rapid Ecological Assessment

methodology, 20rapid rural appraisal (RRA),

90–91, 278rattan, 218REACTION programme, 154, 319reclamation see open-cast mining

reclamationreduced-impact logging (RIL),

363reference forests/landscapes, 55,

103, 109–113, 258tools, 112–113

reforestation, definition, 10

“regeneration nuclei”, 251rehabilitation

definition, 9sustainable, 405–413

future needs, 413institutional arrangements,

407, 410–411lessons from past projects,

406–407local participation, 406,

407–409, 411–412socioeconomic needs,

406–407, 409–410, 412tools, 411–412

relics, 366representation, natural

community, 44–45resilience-building, and forest

restoration andprotection, 33

restoration databases, 155restoration planning

framework, 66–68future needs, 70goals and targets, 94–95,

101–105, 109, 419multiple scales, 419need for, 65–66tools, 69–70

restoration trajectoriesidentification, 68reappraisal, 68

Rhone River, 309rills, 350Rinjani National Park,

Indonesia, 303–305Rio Cumbaza Basin, Peru,

408–409RISEMP, 169risk, sources of, 26river basin management,

integrated, 310–311rubber, 276

plantations, 379runoff control, 375Rural Development Regulation

(RDR), 82RUSLE model, 375Russia, woodland certification,

122

SSabah, Malaysia

forest regeneration, 137, 187,310

Index 435

log landings rehabilitation, 364sacred groves/forests/gardens,

234safety net, forests as, 24Saignon, 152salvage logging, 342

banning, 341SAPARD, 80, 82Saracá-Taquera National Forest,

Brazil, 373scattered tree plantings, 245scenarios, 62, 102–103

modelling tools, 102Scolel Té project, Mexico,

173–174Scotland

commercial plantations, 380,381

natural regeneration withgrazing, 242

pine forest restoration,323–324

SEAGA, 91secondary forests, 246, 276

restoration potential,321–322

seedavailability, 264collection, 141, 294dispersal, 357, 388

seeding, direct, 244–245Sequoia National Park, USA, 335Shaanxi Province, China, 352–353shifting agriculture, 274Sichuan Province, China, 352Sierra de las Minas, Guatemala,

299–300Sierra Espuña, Spain,

reforestation, 315–316SilvaVoc, 12silvopastoral systems, 169SIMILE, 102site-level restoration, 241–248

approach determination,241–242

degrading influence reduction,243

future needs, 248management considerations,

247–248reforestation for productivity

and biodiversity, 246–247tree cover initiation/

improvement, 244–246site-scale survey methods, 20

SITES/Marxan, 119skid trails rehabilitation, 364Slovakia, Tatra National Park,

341Smartwood Programme, 221social values, 394

see also cultural values;socioeconomic needs

Society for EcologicalRestoration International(SERI), 421

Socio-economic and GenderAnalysis (SEAGA), 91

socioeconomic needs, inrehabilitation projects,406–407, 409–410, 412

socioeconomic research, 140socioeconomic targets, 117Soil Association, Woodmark

Programme, 221soil conditioners, 355soil microcarbon analysis, 113soil nutrient reduction, 195soil protection, 351, 354soil remediation, 372, 375soil stabilisation, 266, 351soil surface manipulations, 351,

354Song Thanh Nature Reserve,

Vietnam, 75, 122, 293SOS Sahel, 89South Africa

outgrower schemes, 162toxic conditions amelioration,

194South Wales coalfield, 374Southeast Asia, rattan

production, 218Spain

firebreaks, 271–272mining reclamation, 373–374natural regeneration

stimulation, 253Prestige oil spill, 178reforestation, 314–316

spatial modelling, 325species

knowledge of, research needs,424

transfers of, 200–201species-based targets, 117species-site relationships, 295,

425Sri Lanka, silvicultural treatment

guidelines, 390

staff training, in plantations,396–397, 421

stakeholder(s)external, 60primary, 60in scenario development, 102secondary, 60

stakeholder analysis, 91, 132STEEP, 132STELLA, 102, 303Stockholm, Sweden, water

supply, 230storm disturbance

forest restoration after,339–343

key ideas, 340–341Stradbroke Island, Queensland,

Australia, 211subsidies, government, 79substrate fertility, 194substrate stability, 193, 194–195succession, 192

direction/manipulation, 194,195, 244, 257–260

tools, 259–260dynamics of, 254–255minimal intervention design,

258–259natural

causes halting, 257stimulation, 244understanding, 257–258

suitability modelling, 115,117–118

Sumatra, Indonesia, pulpplantations, 381

surveys, stakeholder, 61–62sustainability analysis, 132Sustainable Forest Market

Transformation Initiative(SFMTI), 163

sustainable rehabilitation seerehabilitation, sustainable

Swedendeadwood microhabitat re-

creation, 186water quality protection, 230

Switzerland, continuous coverforestry, 53

SWOT, 132systems approach, 417

Ttactical interventions, 136–142Tanzania, agroforestry, 243

436 Index

target speciescategories, 197–198as indicators of successful

restoration, 198–199restoration for, 197–202

future needs, 202planning, 200–201stand-level restoration

methods, 201–202targets

biological, 116–117socioeconomic, 117

Tasmania, southern forests, 205Tatra National Park, Slovakia, 341Tebang Pilih system, 362temperate forests

characteristics, 320–321ecological attributes, 321, 322restoration, 320–325

future needs, 325issues, 321–323tools, 325

tenureclarification, 235customary, 84, 85mapping, 117rights of, 29security of, 86

Terai Arc, Nepal, 46, 47Thailand

“framework species”approach, 252–253

land rights, 88thinning, 260, 292, 387, 389

liberation, 366threat(s)

direct, 73–74examples, 138indirect, 73, 74potential, 73–74removal of, 138

threat assessmentfuture needs, 77information needed, 73tools, 76–77

threat mapping, 76threat matrices, 76threshold barriers, 257–258tigers, 46timber, production objectives,

104timber stand improvement (TSI),

366Tonda de Tamajón woodland,

Spain, 253

toxic conditions amelioration,194, 195

tracking tools, for landscapes, 105trade-offs, 59–62, 248

negotiation, 61–62, 279types, 60–61win–win situations, 59

trainingin restoration techniques,

140–141tailored, 421–422

transects, 90, 278tree crops, 104

and forest restoration, 276–277Trombetas, Brazil, 9, 373tropical dry forests (TDF)

attractiveness to people, 286characteristics, 285–286restoration

active, 289Guanacaste National Park,

Costa Rica, 210, 259, 287monitoring pressures, 288New Caledonia, 68–69,

97–98, 140, 287–288passive, 288–289reasons for, 286–287

soil fertility, 289tropical moist forests

restoration, 291–296choice of method, 293–294choice of species, 294fostering animal diversity,

295future needs, 295–296obtaining seed, 294production-biodiversity

trade-off, 295raising seedlings, 294

tropical montane forestscharacteristics, 298overcoming natural succession

barriers, 300restoration, 298–301

choice of species, 300–301in face of natural

disturbance, 299remnant forest role, 301socioeconomic rationale,

298–299Tunisia, access to NTFPs, 220

UUganda, forest loss, 19umbrella species, 198

underplanting see enrichmentplanting

understorey developmentencouragement, 247

United Kingdomplantations, 54, 381see also Scotland; Wales

United Statesalien grass control, 346–347buffer zone restoration,

309–310fire control, 272giant forest restoration, 335Hawaiian forests, 195, 205H.J. Andrews Experimental

Forest, 110–111honeysuckle control, 388longleaf pine ecosystems,

146–147mine spoil restoration, 264salvage logging ban, 341water supply protection, 230wilderness values restoration,

210wildfires, 336

urban/forest interface, fire risk,270–271

urban frontier, proximity to, 48Utrillas coalfield, Spain, 373–374

VValdivian ecoregion, Chile, 324vegetation, as regeneration

facilitators, 253VENSIM, 102viable populations, of species,

45–47Vietnam

forest rehabilitation, 405, 406,407, 409, 411

integrated restorationapproach, 69

land rights, 88mangrove restoration, 34participatory monitoring

system, 153–154, 157–158pressures on remaining forests,

97reforestation programme,

122–123, 293three-dimensional model of

threats, 75–76vision(s)

development, 102–103fine-tuning tools, 104

Index 437

working together toward,422–423

voice, development of, 28vulnerability

household, 23–24to climate change, 34–35

WWales

commercial plantations, 381mining reclamation, 374native forest restoration, 186,

190–191Walomerah protection forest,

Indonesia, 89water

quality and quantity, 228–231research needs, 425scarcity, 228

Water Framework Directive, 311

watershed protection, paymentsfor, 167, 168, 231

watershed values, 231weed control, 396well-being see human well-beingWestern Europe, forest loss,

18–19wetland, restoration, 189–190wilderness

assessment, 210–211re-creation, 209

wildfiresin Mediterranean region, 314in United States, 336

wildwood, definition, 112wind

erosion by, 351resistance to, 340–341

windbreaks, 301wood harvesting methods, 354

woodlot era, 225Woodmark Programme, 221WWF

challenges based onexperience to date,94–98

and forest management inFrance, 178

Forests for Life Programme,422

lessons from experience todate, 401–404

Yyerba mate, 253Ynyshir bird reserve, Wales, UK,

186

ZZambia, improved fallow, 277