Manila Declaration on Forest and Landscape Restoration: Making It Happen

Abstract

Globally, Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) is gaining widespread recognition from governments and policymakers for its potential to restore key ecosystem services and to improve human wellbeing. We organized an international conference on FLR, titled—Forest and Landscape Restoration: Making it Happen, between 25–27 February 2019 in Manila, the Philippines with 139 participants from 22 countries. The Forest and Landscape Restoration Standards (FLoRES) task force also met prior to the conference, which included a field visit to a pilot community-based forest reforestation site in Biliran Island, the Philippines. Based on the three-day conference, case study presentations, and FLoRES task force meeting, we prepared the Manila Declaration on Forest and Landscape Restoration to highlight the need to support quality of FLR efforts and outcomes in the tropics. Here we provide a synthesis of the main messages of the conference, with key outcomes including the Manila Declaration on Forest and Landscape Restoration, and ways forward to make quality FLR happen on the ground.

Local Perception in Forest Landscape Restoration Planning: A Case Study From the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

“…People depend on natural resources for food, shelter, and other ecosystem services (ES), and the quality of those resources affects human's well-being in several ways (MEA, 2005;Dave et al, 2017). FLR should therefore be implemented to satisfy not only conservation purposes but also socioeconomic needs and values (Wehi and Lord, 2017;Chazdon et al, 2020;Melo et al, 2020). To incorporate social perspectives into FLR it is paramount to understand local stakeholders' motivations, their relationship with the landscape and its natural resources, and their obstacles regarding sustainable land use (Alves-Pinto et al, 2017;Latawiec et al, 2017), particularly in the beginning of project planning (Bennett, 2016).…”

“…However, the definition of strategies guided by locals' perceptions provides effective insights to improve understanding and communication between stakeholders, supporting the construction of engaging narratives (Ecker, 2016;Tisovec-Dufner et al, 2019), that are especially important when planning activities to incentivize stakeholders to adopt sustainable land management practices. Consulting local stakeholders should, therefore, be a priority in the planning process aiming at identifying bottlenecks, its drivers, and feasible solutions (Chazdon et al, 2020;Ota et al, 2020), particularly in highly human-influenced landscapes (Cebrián-Piqueras et al, 2020), like the Atlantic Forest.…”

Strategic Pathways to Scale Up Forest and Landscape Restoration: Insights From Nepal’s Terai

“…The decadal analysis and review of policy and practice reveal that the forest land of effects to forest restoration outcomes [19,45]. This pathway thus has to be linked with other pathways for effective restoration results [14].…”

“…At the provincial and local level, coordination and cooperation mechanisms can be set up by involving relevant stakeholders including local people and the private sector. This coordination mechanism may not only augments the coordination environment between the stakeholders while undertaking forest restoration activities, but it also enhances uniform understanding and concerted efforts to resolve restoration jurisdiction related issues, thereby enhance shared ownership [14].…”

“…Several countries, including Nepal, have made various global commitments for forest restoration, and have become the part of global conventions such as Aichi Biodiversity Targets 15 of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity [9], and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15 which elucidates "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss" [10][11][12][13]. The latest United Nations Decade of Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, also highlighted the need for greatly increased global cooperation to restore degraded and destroyed ecosystems, including forests [14]. These conventions and commitments have prioritized forest restoration as a key measure to fight against climate change, avoid species loss, and support rural livelihood [15,16].…”