Forest & Landscape Restoration (FLR) Flashcards
__ billion hectares of land degraded across globe
2.2 billion hectares of land degraded across globe
Land degredation is expected to displace how many people by when?
Displace 135 million people by 2045
What is the Bonn challenge?
A global goal to restore 350 million ha of degraded land by 2030
Neocolonialism?
Key goals of FLR
- Making local stakeholders actively involved
- To restore the whole landscape - not just one part
- Reduce tradeoff between conflicting interests
- Complement and enhance food production
- Limit conversion of natural forests to plantations
What are the key components of FLR?
- Encourage natural forest recovery
- Meet human needs e.g carbon sequestration
- Multiple species systems
- Plantations (e.g timber, pulpwood, firewood) but NOT replace natural forests
Give an example of how FLR impacts biodiversity
- In Colombian Andes
- Primary forests vs. pasture land: Lost ½ dung beetle species and ⅓ bird specie
- Rare birds: 71 % sp loss from primary to pasture, 83% recovery in secondary
- Secondary (regen) forests: gain back no. of species, but not always same community structure (can take decades)
Describe the Grain for Green programme
- China, largest reforestation programme
- Aimed to restore forests on marginal cropland (steep slopes) while allowing farmers to use flat lands for agricuture
Outcome:
- 28 million ha restored over 14 yrs
- Cost $50 billion
What are the goals for restoration via tree plantations?
- Timber, tree fruits, and cash crops (e.g., eucalyptus, bamboo).
- Often monoculture / mixed plantations include 2-5 sp
- Reduce landslides, erosion, and flooding by stabilizing soil.
- Biodiversity is not an explicit goal
What are the impacts of mixed tree plantations on biodiversity
- Bird richness improved with mixed plantations.
- Bees did not improve in mixed plantations, but cropland pollinators thrived.
- More specialist birds were found in mixed plantations, but bees did not show the same benefit.
= Adding more species could slightly benefit biodiversity and is economically viable, suggesting a shift away from monoculture plantations
Compare natural regeneration to tree plantations
Carbon sequestration is neutral
Regeneration
- Better for water yield and biodiversity
- When not wanting timber- this is the best approach
Plantation
- If you want timber you need plantation
- Big tradeoffs with biodiversity and soil
Has FLR been sucessful?
What are 2 things needed for it to be?
- Success: 2001-2010 36 million ha restored
- Works best if locals willing to abandon land for reforestation
- Gov investment may be required to restore forests in more productive areas
E.g GRG, REDD+
What are the challenges in promoting FLR and how can it be made financially viable?
- Challenge: must produce eco services that outvalue the benefits of degrading activities
- Market incentives: gov charging for carbon use e.g flights. Focus on big pic benefits
- Need to be large scale to be effective in issues like erosion revention and functional landscape connectivity
- New policies incentivize landowners by offering rewards for giving up land for FLR
- But, this could increase inequality so policies must ensure equitable benefits
What are the negatives of relying on market-based approaches for FLR?
- Market focueses on reforestation, but need to adress both stopping deforestationa aswell
- Gov guidance needed to determine where programs should happen (stop mistakes e.g reforesting savannas)
- Market can undermine local people
- some benefits (e.g erosion prevention) are more $ valuable than others (e.g biodiversity, carbon storage) skewing restoration efforts
