Forest landscape restoration: state of play

Abstract

Tree planting has been widely touted as an inexpensive way to meet multiple international environmental goals for mitigating climate change, reversing landscape degradation and restoring biodiversity restoration. The Bonn Challenge and New York Declaration on Forests, motivated by widespread deforestation and forest degradation, call for restoring 350 million ha by 2030 by relying on forest landscape restoration (FLR) processes. Because the 173 million ha commitments made by 63 nations, regions and companies are not legally binding, expectations of what FLR means lacks consensus. The frequent disconnect between top-level aspirations and on-the-ground implementation results in limited data on FLR activities. Additionally, some countries have made landscape-scale restoration outside of the Bonn Challenge. We compared and contrasted the theory and practice of FLR and compiled information from databases of projects and initiatives and case studies. We present the main FLR initiatives happening across regional groups; in many regions, the potential need/opportunity for forest restoration exceeds the FLR activities underway. Multiple objectives can be met by manipulating vegetation (increasing structural complexity, changing species composition and restoring natural disturbances). Livelihood interventions are context-specific but include collecting or raising non-timber forest products, employment and community forests; other interventions address tenure and governance.

Transformative governance for linking forest and landscape restoration to human well-being in Latin America

“…Despite this, their progressive inclusion will undoubtedly contribute to better outcomes of FLR implementation in LA. Although our article has its focus in LA, other regions of the Global South have a similar social-ecological context and challenges for the successful implementation of FLR (Chazdon et al 2020, Stanturf andMansourian 2020). Therefore, the instruments and approaches we present may be useful for FLR initiatives in other regions of the Global South.…”

“…Beyond legal frameworks, weak implementation capacities, insufficient funding, sectorial and social conflicts, political instability, and lack of transparency are critical impediments for effective policy implementation (Schweizer et al 2019a;Stanturf and Mansourian 2020). Such levels of institutional fragility are not generally present in countries of the Global North (Levitsky and Murillo 2009) where FLR frameworks emerged (Mansourian and Parrotta 2019).…”

“…Promoting FLR in many regions of the Global South, such as Latin America (hereafter LA), is still challenging (Meli et al 2017;Coppus et al 2019;Romijn et al 2019;César et al 2020;Stanturf and Mansourian 2020;Chazdon et al 2020b). Moreover, the promotion and effective implementation of FLR could learn from the limitations of other approaches that seek to restore forests.…”

Forest and Landscape Restoration

“…Yet some challenges remain. For example, ten years after the launch of the Bonn Challenge, FLR projects and programs across the globe almost uniformly suffer from insufficient, non-inclusive monitoring and reporting schemes, thus hampering social learning and adapting to change over the long term (Ota et al 2020;Höhl et al 2020;Schweitzer et al 2021b;Stanturf and Mansourian 2020). The necessity of investing in a long-term vision from an institutional, technical and socioeconomic dimension needs no further emphasis, as clearly stated in Principle 6 of FLR on adaptive management (Table 1).…”

Forest landscape restoration: building on the past for future success

“…The Bonn Challenge (BC) relies on the FLR process but FLR is not an end, rather a means to achieve sustainable land uses that are beneficial to nature and society. Even so, the BC is not the whole story of FLR; significant FLR‐type efforts are underway or have been conducted in many countries that have not committed to the BC (Stanturf & Mansourian 2020). Tools, processes, and experiences with tree‐related restoration are available—but scaling up and anchoring these amended land uses within economic reality must recognize the local context of FLR (Höhl et al 2020; Stanturf et al 2020).…”