Forest landscape restoration “could stabilize the world’s climate and save much of its biodiversity, while providing benefits to millions of the world’s poorest citizens,” writes Tim Christophersen, Senior Programme Officer, Forests and Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Thomson Reuters ‘Sustainability’ website.
Forest landscape restoration aims to boost biodiversity, productivity and the resilience of landscapes through agroforestry, afforestation and reforestation, and through natural or assisted regeneration of habitats.
Christophersen gives the example of the Shinyanga region in Tanzania where this has been successful. In less than 20 years, 300,000 hectares of native woodlands have been restored, and through the establishment of agroforestry systems on 1.5 million hectares, over a million villagers now have higher and stable levels of income.
In Côte d’Ivoire, where most natural forests have disappeared, the Government is starting to restore productive landscapes for a once-more booming cocoa sector. Similar initiatives are also underway in Brazil and Rwanda.
Through investments in ecosystem restoration, the payoffs are threefold, says Christophersen, with benefits for climate change mitigation, food and water security, and sustainable rural development.
This approach, he says, is not new and has “helped the world to avert humanitarian and economic crises before.” For example, in the 17th and 18th centuries much of Central Europe was heavily deforested and overgrazed, leading to droughts and crop failures. Similarly, the Great Dust Bowl experience of the United States in the 1920s led to soil conservation measures and a massive tree planting effort.
During the upcoming UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, several countries are expected to make additional pledges to the Bonn Challenge of restoring 150 million hectares of degraded forest landscapes by 2020. UN agencies, through the UN-REDD Programme are also pledging to scale up forest landscape restoration by making the knowledge and experience gained over the past 10 years available to the 55 UN-REDD partner countries.
Read the full story: EXECUTIVE PERSPECTIVE: Help save the climate and alleviate poverty? Plant trees!
