IUCN WRI Unfolds Strategy to Restore Degraded Forests and Lands

Maama Akua Fabiah of Jema recalling life in the past when most of their water, food, medicines came from the forests

Once degraded, can forests ever be restored to again play their normal life supporting functions including the provision of food, medicines and water? Maame Akua Fabiah of Jema, capital of Kintampo South District in the Brong Ahafo Region thinks that once degraded, forests can never be restored to perform their vital functions again. She has lived to see the actual transition of the region’s vegetation from – lush grasslands, luxuriant forests, abundant wildlife and very clean water from the rivers – to severally depleted forests, degraded land, water scarcity and loss of livelihoods.  

 

Women of Jema fetching water "Kokwa," a vibrant flowing natural cascade now reduced to a sluggish stream that was surrounded by a dense forest now turn to bush due to farming and logging.

Benefits from Forests for Dependent Communities

In addition to produce from their farms, the forests served as reliable sources of food supplement providing – bushmeat, snails, wild yam, mushrooms and other assorted wild vegetables, legumes

as well as medicines among other things.  Jema also used to be a cocoa growing area that even had a cocoa shed.

Now in her old age, Maame admits that things have changed – “some for good, some for worse.”  “For example, electricity is good, we can now store meat and cooked food in our refrigerators, enjoy iced water and even watch TV,” she says.  Maame believes life will however never be the same again with the depletion of the forests.  “We no longer enjoy mushrooms, snails, wild yams, even “ase,” (a kind of wild legumes)  which we used to kill our hunger during the lean season, is now scarce,” adding, “so inspite of all the modern changes including the health centre, which we do appreciate, life is now very tough because our forests are gone forever.”

Nations are equally worried about the current status of forests worldwide and its negative impacts on the livelihoods of the people and development in general. So over the years individual and collective efforts have been made to restore degraded forests.  But in most instances, planted forests are unable to provide the same services that original forests provided. 

The ROAM Approach

However, there is optimism that this issue of restoring the integrity of degraded forests and lands can be resolved, thanks to a unique land restoration initiative developed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Resources Institute (WRI). Known as Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM), it will help countries understand how much of their land offers restoration opportunities, map where those opportunities are and determine which degraded landscapes offer the most value to society.

This means that the initiative, which is not a project, but rather a published hand book titled, “Assessing Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunities at the National Level,” will enable countries to undertake targeted and focused re-forestation, instead of the haphazard approach that often characterizes reforestation efforts. The handbook provides countries around the world with new guidance on assessing their national restoration potential. 

In other words, the handbook is an illustration for reforestation that goes beyond mere tree-planting exercises. It enables interested users to among other things, identify places where such activity may be the most socially, economically or ecologically feasible; and to estimate the associated costs as well as the numerous benefits restoration can provide at those sites – from improved livelihoods to cleaner water or conserved soils. ROAM is also expected to help provide preliminary information on how planners can go about restoration, including analysis of which type of restoration activities would be most suitable.

The ROAM handbook was recently launch in Gland, Switzerland, by the IUCN and the WRI to mark International Day of Forests, which fell on March 21^st  2014.  Addressing the launch ceremony, the Director-General of IUCN, Julia Marton-Lefèvre noted that there are over two billion hectares of deforested or degraded lands around the world where opportunities for restoration may be found. She however pointed out that “before restoration can begin, clear decisions must be made about where the priority landscapes are, what the best mix of restoration.

ROAM and the Bonn Challenge

The ROAM approach to forest land restoration also provides a boost to the global movement to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020 – known as the “Bonn Challenge.” It was established at a ministerial roundtable in September 2011 at the invitation of the German Government and IUCN.  

The “Bonn Challenge” is an implementation platform for existing international commitments. Specifically, it seeks to accelerate early action on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); speed up action towards achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Target 15 on restoration of at least 15 per cent of the world’s degraded ecosystems by 2020; and advance attainment of the international goals related to combating desertification and land degradation.

The importance of the “Bonn Challenge,” is reflected in the actual net benefit to both national and local economies. Touching on this point, Stewart Maginnis said, “restoring 150 million hectares over the next 10 years could potentially close the ‘emissions gap’ by 11-17% and inject more than US$ 80 billion per year into local and national economies.” 

Several governments, private sector companies and community groups have signalled their intent to align with and invest in achieving the Bonn Challenge. They are India, USA, Rwanda and the Brazilian Mata Atlantica Restoration Pact; and lately, Costa Rica and El Salvador.  

ROAM and the GPFLR

ROAM was further developed to promote the goals of the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR), which also supports the “Bonn Challenge.” The GPFLR is a worldwide network that unites restoration practitioners, policy-makers and supporters from government, international and nongovernmental organizations, businesses and individuals with a common cause. The GPFLR mobilizes expert support and increased capacity to implement forest landscape restoration, builds support for restoration with decision-makers at both the local and international level, and influences legal, political and institutional frameworks to support forest landscape restoration.

Essentially, both ROAM and the “Bonn Challenge” compliment each other and have been packaged to enhance not just the environment, but the social, cultural and economic well-being of the people. While the “Bonn Challenge” will ensure the commitment of degraded forest lands for reforestation,

ROAM will facilitate the regeneration of the ecological integrity of degraded forest lands, to enable them perform their natural life supporting functions.

Additionally, both initiatives are about forest landscape restoration, now widely recognized as an important means of not only restoring ecological integrity, but also generating in the long term additional local-to-global benefits by boosting livelihoods, economies, food and fuel production, water security and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Conclusion

Moreover, attaining the objectives of the two initiatives involve a process that is about “forests” because it involves increasing the number and/or health of trees in an area. It is about “landscapes” because it involves entire watersheds, administrative areas or even countries in which many land uses interact. It is about “restoration” because it involves bringing back the biological productivity of an area in order to achieve any number of benefits for people and the planet. It is “long-term” because it typically takes many decades for a forest landscape to recover a full suite of ecological functionalities and benefits to human well-being, although benefits such as jobs, income and carbon sequestration begin to flow right away.