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A joint stocktaking of CGIAR work on forest and landscape restoration by FTA, PIM and WLE


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Despite the high level of political engagement and the wide range of organizations involved in restoration projects from local to global levels, beyond some success stories, restoration is not happening at scale. Research is urgently needed to design, develop and upscale successful restoration approaches. As part of this effort, FTA, PIM and WLE publish a synthesis of a survey of CGIAR’s projects on restoration.

Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) have gained traction on the political agenda over the past decades with the multiplication of pledges and commitments on restoration such as  the Bonn Challenge (2011), the New York Declaration on Forests (2014) and other global or regional initiatives. On March 1st, 2019, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2021-2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (Resolution A/RES/73/284).

This UN Decade could offer unprecedented opportunities to address food security, job creation and climate change simultaneously. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) considers that restoring 350 million hectares (ha) of degraded land by 2030, as committed in the New York Declaration on Forests, could generate USD 9 trillion in various ecosystem services and remove about 13–26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

However, despite the high level of political engagement and the wide range of institutions (public, private or civil society; local to global) involved in restoration projects, and beyond some success stories, restoration is not happening at scale.

In 2018, starting with a joint workshop, three CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) – Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA); Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) – decided to strengthen their collaboration to address this issue by bringing together different research streams working on soil, water and forest restoration.

“There are huge opportunities in bringing the three CRPs together to work on land restoration. Each of these CRPs works on different aspects of land restoration. Pooling this evidence in a user-friendly and accessible manner holds great potential for scaling, and for delivering enhanced impact from our CGIAR research” said Vincent Gitz, Izabella Koziell and Frank Place, the three CRP directors.

The three CRPs agreed on a broad scope of restoration, focused on the restoration of “ecological functions”, with the following definitions:

Degradation: Loss of functionality of e.g. land or forests, usually from a specific human perspective, based on change in land cover with consequences for ecosystem services

Restoration: Efforts to halt ongoing and reverse past degradation, by aiming for increased functionality (not necessarily recovering past system states).

They also discussed theories of [induced] changes underlying landscape dynamics of degradation and restoration. The following questions helped structure the discussions:

  • Why? What are the final goals of restoration efforts, which sustainable development goals can they contribute to?
  • What? What are the drivers of degradation that need to be addressed? What are the ecological functions to be restored?
  • Who? Who cares? Who are the stakeholders responsible for or impacted by land degradation? How stakeholders are encouraged, empowered and organized to act for forest and landscape restoration?
  • How? How to design effective restoration interventions? What are the land use and land management options for change in different contexts, across countries and biomes?
  • Where and when? How to operationalize action recognizing the connectivity across different spatial and temporal scales in the restoration process, considering the landscape’s spatial configuration and temporal dynamics?

A joint stocktaking of CGIAR work on forest and landscape restoration
[Download the report in PDF]

As a first step of their collaboration, the 3 CRPs (FTA, PIM, WLE) conducted a broad survey of the CGIAR’s work on restoration, inviting contributions from other CRPs. The document published today is a synthesis of the survey results. The full database with full details on each initiative is available as an annex.

The survey reflects the implication of different CGIAR Centers (ICRAF, Bioversity, CIFOR, CIAT, IWMI, ILRI, ICRISAT, CIMMYT and IFPRI) in restoration projects across the tropics and sub-tropics, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Some countries, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Peru, or Indonesia concentrate many projects and provide strong opportunities for further collaboration among the three CRPs.

The survey shows the wide range of restoration activities undertaken by CGIAR CRPs and Centers, with their partners, from knowledge generation, methods, planning, modelling, assessment and evaluation, monitoring and mapping, to action on the ground. CGIAR restoration work can be divided into three broad categories: (1) case studies and projects; (2) tools for development; (3) approaches and conceptual frameworks.

The first category gathers case studies and projects comprising an element of field research. It comprises experimental plots, trials, local capacity building and implementation, on-the-ground assessments and surveys at different scales. It distinguishes: (i) “restoration-focused projects” where forest and land degradation is the main entry point and restoration is the main objective; from, (ii) “restoration-related projects” that can contribute to forest and landscape restoration while following other objectives (such as sustainable intensification or climate-smart agriculture). Half of the “restoration-focused” projects aim at assessing restoration practices with the view to upscale successful restoration experiences, such as the Ngitili fodder management system which contributed to the restoration of up to 270,000 ha over about 25 years in Shinyanga region, Tanzania. The others focus on climate change and climate-smart restoration, or on desertification and sand fixation. Six projects in this category focus on genetic diversity and on the performance and organization of the seed supply system, identified in this survey as a critical factor of success for restoration interventions. “Restoration-related projects” focus on various topics closely linked to restoration, including: sustainable land and water management; climate-smart agriculture; land tenure security and land governance reform; participatory governance and planning and collective farming.

The second category regroups: (i) tools, methods and guidelines, directed at decision makers or restoration practitioners at different levels, to support decision making; as well as, (ii) maps and models, measuring at different scales the intensity of degradation (i.e. efforts needed for restoration) or modeling the impacts of different land-use changes or land management practices. Models and maps often serve as the first layer for decision-making supporting tools. This category includes for instance two entries on the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), developed by ICRAF and applied, since 2005, in over 250 landscapes (100 km2 sites) across more than 30 countries. Using indicators such as vegetation cover, structure and floristic compositions, tree and shrub biodiversity, historic land use, visible signs of land degradation, and physical and chemical characteristics of soil (including soil organic carbon content and infiltration capacity), the LDSF, applicable to any landscape, provides a field protocol for assessing soil and ecosystem health to help decision makers to prioritize, monitor and track restoration interventions.

The third category, covering more theoretical work, includes: (i) evaluations, conceptual or theoretical frameworks around restoration and related issues; and (ii) systematic literature and/or project reviews, as well as meta-analyses on different topics linked to restoration. For instance a global survey on seed sourcing practices for restoration, was realized between 2015 and 2017 by Bioversity International, reviewing 136 restoration projects across 57 countries, and suggesting a typology of tree seed sourcing practices and their impact on restoration outcomes (Jalonen et al., 2018).

The survey describes projects operating at the landscape level or across multiple scales. This shows the importance of the landscape level to effectively combine integrated perspectives that allow synergies among different ecosystem components and functions with a deep knowledge of, and a fine adaptation to, local conditions. While many projects focus on the technical performance of restoration projects, relatively few investigate the economics, cost and benefits, of restoration and few examine their underlying power structures and power dynamics/games. This relative paucity of costs and benefit data has been noted by other organizations, an aspect that led to the launch of the FAO-led TEER initiative, to which FTA and several CGIAR centers contribute.

All the answers taken together provide useful insights for future restoration activities. In particular, they identify five critical factors of success for restoration interventions:

  1. secure tenure and use rights;
  2. access to markets (for inputs and outputs) and services;
  3. access to information, knowledge and know-how associated with sustainable and locally adapted land use and land management practices;
  4. awareness of the status of local ecosystem services, often used as a baseline to assess the level of degradation; and
  5. (v) high potential for restoration to contribute to global ecosystem services and attract international donors.

This synthesis will inform future work of FTA, PIM and WLE. It can also be used to support the design of restoration activities, programs and projects. Finally, it also illustrates with concrete examples the powerful contribution of forest and landscape restoration to the achievement of many, if not all of the 17 sustainable development goals. In particular, forest and landscape restoration, through the recovery of a range of ecological functions, can contribute to:

  • enhance food security through the improvement of the ecosystem services sustaining agriculture at landscape scale
  • improve natural resource use efficiency, thus reducing the pressure on the remaining natural habitats and addressing water scarcity;
  • favour social justice by securing a more equitable access to natural resources (e.g. land, water and genetic resources), and a wider participation in decision-making processes, in particular for women and marginalized people; and,
  • strengthen ecosystem, landscape and livelihoods resilience to economic shocks and natural disasters in a context of climate change.

The COVID 19 crisis has shown the importance of healthy ecosystems for healthy and resilient economies and societies. We hope that this document will contribute to integrate restoration as part of the efforts to “build back better” after the crisis.


This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.


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eDialogue – Scaling up innovative finance for sustainable landscapes


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Mau Forest and tea plantations. Photo by Patrick Shepherd/CIFOR
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Agriculture and forestry are central to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. Nearly 60% of food production is produced by smallholders. Small and medium-sized enterprises also play an important role along the value chain in facilitating the economic viability of smallholder agriculture and forestry activities. All of them need sophisticated financial mechanisms to shift towards more sustainable practices. Unfortunately, as of today, less than 3% of climate and conservation finance is assigned to agriculture and forestry, and only a small proportion of this actually reaches the smallholders. This is an issue and a growing concern, as they are by far the largest food producers of the world.

New forms of finance are creating opportunities for smallholder initiatives, but still struggle with considerable barriers. Investors find few viable projects while small businesses and associations often cannot access financial support. To help bridge this gap and mainstream inclusiveness and sustainability criteria in financial decision-making, two of the partners of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), Tropenbos International and CIFOR, started a dialogue to identify the main challenges and what has been done to overcome them.

The dialogue began this year with a series of research interviews, where diverse stakeholders had the opportunity to explain their experiences in trying to making finance more sustainable and inclusive for smallholder farmers, foresters, producer organizations and associated businesses. Participants to the interviews discussed the benefits that inclusiveness can bring, focusing on key areas including gender, shared values, and the social license to operate (for example ensuring that Free, Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) or similar procedures that have been implemented by investees).

Promising initiatives and financial instruments were discussed in a Digital Summit that followed shortly, which was complemented by a literature review. All these exercises identified specific barriers and discussed possible solutions to upscale innovative finance and render it more inclusive. The results of this ongoing dialogue were then summarized and developed into a draft document called: “Scaling of innovative finance for sustainable landscapes”. This document is now openly accessible on the GLFx platform – where a Community of Practice made up of experts and practitioners are taking part in an innovative eDialogue, sharing thoughts, case studies, references and replying to questions and issues raised by participants. The aim is to increase the shared knowledge, identifying gaps in the study, in order to enrich before publication and come to a more impactful document, one that can be useful to a wider range of stakeholders.

Anyone can join the debate and we encourage you to do so as well!

Sustainable and inclusive landscapes are those in which all stakeholders are engaged in the design, implementation and learning of/from actions that increase the sustainability of that landscape.

Key strategies highlighted so far by this long-term dialogue and study are the need to facilitate increased  collaboration between local groups (associations, NGOs, CSOs) and financial entities, and to create or strengthen local financial infrastructure ensuring good governance and equitable ownership. Successful examples include forest communities in Guatemala at a landscape scale and coffee producer organizations at national level in several Central American countries.

Taking the dialogue to Luxembourg

Join GLF Luxembourg!

 

In its fourth year as the world’s most innovative forum on sustainable land-use finance, on the 30th November 2019 the GLF Investment Case Symposium will bring the brightest minds together to move this form of finance from niche to mainstream.

 

 

FTA, Tropenbos and CIFOR have the privilege to organize a session at this Forum on “Innovating Finance to Overcome Current Barriers Towards Sustainable Landscapes”. Seven panelists representing different sections of the finance ‘value chain’ will discuss the strategies and the problems international funds have to reach smallholder farmers and why it is difficult to upscale these mechanisms. A debate on what steps are needed to bridge the funding gaps for scaling up inclusive and sustainable local agricultural and forestry operations.

The panel will capitalize on the electronic consultation and eDialogue now running on GLFx to discuss further how to upscale innovative finance. Success stories will be shared and the possibility of extending these paradigms to different landscapes will be a main output of the debate. The session will be live streamed, so if you cannot participate to the discussions directly in Luxembourg, you will be able to follow it and interact via chat and sli.do.

The outcomes from the session should help reach an agreement on which concrete steps can be proposed to financial institutions, fund managers, NGOs and civil society organizations in order to facilitate the access to climate- and SDG-related financial assets. The study will propose recommendations to be followed up with feasibility pilots, promoting full implementation across the value chain actors.

Innovation is key

Access it here!

Most of the funds currently flowing into landscapes actually respond to the needs and visions of large companies and, whereas a growing proportion of them now considers social or environmental issues, real reductions in deforestation, forest degradation, poverty, hunger and inequity still lag behind. However, new innovative financial mechanisms are demonstrating to be extremely effective in unlocking funds for investments in a sustainable and inclusive way. Our study concentrates on these innovative methods – these have also been summarized in a White Paper.

Here below a useful recap of the current main findings of the study.

More are being discussed in our eDialogue, where you can join to voice your knowledge, ideas and concerns.

Main financial instruments used globally

Primarily for financial returns (and impacts, if by a Development Finance Institution)

  • Debt based instruments, e.g. bonds and loans (short, medium, long term)
  • Result based instruments, e.g. for products, services or ecosystem services
  • Equity, e.g. a purchased stake in an enterprise

 Primarily but not exclusively for sustainable development impacts

  • Direct enabling investments, e.g. for land restoration, green infrastructure or market development
  • Input and export subsidies
  • Tax incentives (or disincentives)
  • Concessional loans
  • Grants
  • Risk sharing mechanisms, e.g. insurance (on production or investment), guarantees, public-private partnerships, off-take agreements

(Adapted from Shames et al. 2019)

Entry points to access finance

Seven main enabling factors were identified that can boost the uptake and impact of innovative finance for sustainable landscapes, and further seven influencing factors that can affect the extent to which investments achieve and maintain sustainability.

Enabling factors to stimulate access to financial services

  1. The nature of financial instruments, e.g. application processes, documentary needs, legitimacy, transparency, and coherence of investor objectives with stakeholder objectives.
  2. Adequate financial literacy of investees, e.g. understanding key financial concepts, and the ability to make decisions based on financial information provided adequately.
  3. Aggregation of recipients, e.g. improving cost effectiveness, reducing risks and increasing opportunities to produce results and impacts at scale.
  4. Appropriate policies and regulations, e.g. national policies, regulatory frameworks and other enabling conditions for monetary transactions.
  5. Access to technological innovation, e.g. the physical proximity to financial services and availability of mobile phones and required applications.
  6. Ability to provide a contribution, e.g. having at least some existing capital to be able to contribute to the total financial requirement of planned projects.
  7. Ability to ensure sustainability, e.g. of practices, including organization, risk management, effective use of knowledge and experience, and certification if desired.

Influencing factors to help achieve sustainability

  1. Operational organization, e.g. within and between different stakeholder groups along the value chain, producers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, etc.
  2. Risk management strategies, e.g. perceived risk is a major limitation for investors, that can be reduced through better communication and understanding, insurance, etc.
  3. Knowledge and experience, e.g. especially those related to market access, e.g. knowing where to go, what prices to expect, and how to negotiate.
  4. Certification and other frameworks, e.g. to guide and monitor investee practices and their impacts, including through third-party certified products or services.
  5. Security of land and resource tenure, e.g. financial institutions and their clients must respect existing legal and customary land rights to ensure sustainable practices.
  6. Access to markets and resources, e.g. considering physical aspects, human aspects (information, skills), and social aspects (legal and customary rights, and equity).
  7. Migration and urbanization, e.g. creating opportunities for sustainable livelihoods and applying due diligence to avoid added displacement linked to large scale farming.

Innovations in finance

Our study identified until now three innovative instruments that offer opportunities to unlock finance for SMEs, smallholders and communities while also addressing investors’ issues (e.g. rate of returns, risks, measurable impacts, etc.).

  1. Blended finance;
  2. Green bonds; and
  3. Crowdfunding.
Join the online eDialogue to access the document and the debate!

These mechanisms build on existing financial instruments, so the innovation is fundamentally in their capacity to identify and facilitate new objectives, rules and regulations. All these financial instruments can increase accessibility with more flexibility in expectations, thus liberating liquidity. However, they generally require an intermediary to facilitate fund acquisition, management and distribution. One-size-fits-all solutions are unlikely to work, nor will quick fixes. In the past, initiatives that have proven successful in integrating inclusive approaches were typically long term (>10 years) and initially supported by public funds, with commercial finance attracted later, so this needs to be taken into consideration when planning new projects with the identified sets of financial tools. Lessons learned from the past should be part of the strategic planning of today’s finance for sustainable landscapes.

 

Here below is a short summary of the innovative instruments currently in our draft paper.

Blended finance – The strategic use of public or philanthropic capital to mobilize finance for development-related investments. Mixing development and commercial finance into specific funds creates opportunities to address issues of aggregation, network strengthening and technological innovation. Impacts are increased when accompanied by grassroots technical support from NGOs and CSOs that address local issues.

Green bonds – A debt obligation that links funding to climate or environmentally friendly investments. Proceeds can be used for a range of ‘green’ actions, and if the initial investment is ‘patient capital’, repayment is only needed when bonds mature. Require strong local institutions or intermediates that can issue bonds and manage the proceeds according to international standards.

Crowdfunding – The pooling of small amounts of capital from a large number of interested individuals and institutions. Suited to local scales, but needs investors with an affinity to the issues, locations or intended activities. Opportunities increase when umbrella groups and platforms in target landscapes and linked with developed countries groups, ensuring compliance with agreed sustainability criteria.

Integrated approaches – Needed to scale up finance for sustainable and inclusive landscapes, including combinations of financial structures, mechanisms, instruments, conditions and capacity by strengthening the capacities of those that influence the impacts of financed practices. Overseas development assistance can also help to address some conditions such as policy and regulatory frameworks, building skills and knowledge, and the infrastructure needed for mobile finance.


By Nick Pasiecznik, Tropenbos International

From a draft study of: Bas Louman,i Eveline Trines,i Michael Brady,ii Nick Pasieczniki, Vincent Gitz,ii Alexandre Meybeckii, Gerhard Mulderi, Laurent Fremyii.

i Tropenbos International, Wageningen, The Netherlands; ii CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia

This work is supported by the Netherlands and by other CGIAR Trustfund donors.


This article was produced by Tropenbos International and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.


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Strengthening producer organizations is key to making finance inclusive and effective


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Biofuel plantations in the Miombo woodlands, Zambia. Photo by J. Walker/CIFOR
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Duncan Macqueen. ©Macqueen/IIED

As part of the “Innovative finance for sustainable landscapes” interview series, the International Institute for Environment and Development’s (IIED) Forest Team Leader Duncan Macqueen spoke with Tropenbos International’s Nick Pasiecznik on increasing finance and investment in sustainable forestry and farming for smallholders.

“The challenge is to build strong producer organizations and change the perceptions of risk, return and transaction costs,” Macqueen said. This highlights direct support for strengthening membership, management and business as a strategy to develop bankable businesses with investment returns that are attractive to potential financiers. This will, in turn, improve livelihoods and provide an incentive for sustainable forest management.

Among Macqueen’s most recent publications is Access to finance for forest and farm producer organisations (FFPOs).

How do you define ‘inclusive finance’ and why is it important?

Inclusive finance ensures that local forest and farm producers are collectively involved in generating incomes, saving and making investments that improve their livelihoods. Importantly, it is not primarily about individuals, but about producer organizations that include women, landless people and ethnic minorities.

In developing countries, microfinance is rarely at a scale that can lift people out of poverty. Microfinance does, however, help to build individual capacities to understand and manage larger finance. To be transformative for forests and livelihoods, producers must be organized. Producer organizations are essential. They increase the economic scale and technological efficiency of transactions, and the credibility with which investments to upgrade transactions can be managed.

International finance rarely reaches forest and farm producers because financial institutions perceive the risk-to-return ratios and transaction costs to be too high. The challenge is to build strong producer organizations and change the perceptions of all involved.

A training course for women enterprise groups in Belize: “something we should be doing more of”. ©Macqueen/IIED

What are the underlying reasons for the underfinancing of locally controlled agricultural and forest business?

Underfinancing comes down to a lack of a well-directed ‘enabling investment’, i.e. financial support that does not require a financial return. For small businesses to attract ‘asset investment’ which does require a financial return, enabling investments must secure tenure, develop technical production skills, enhance market access and business know-how, and strengthen producer organizations. Building up these four areas makes such businesses ‘bankable’.

There is also a finance gap between micro-finance and large-scale finance. Microfinance is often available. The sums are small, the periods short, the returns fairly predictable (with a high ratio of working-to-fixed capital), and interest rates can be raised to cover high transaction costs. But microfinance rarely stretches to mid-level investments allowing growth. Large-scale finance is also available, but commercial banks rarely address the small needs of producer organizations because of perceptions on returns, risks and costs.

Read more: Background note on FTA financial innovations for sustainable landscapes interviews

What are we not doing right, or not doing well enough, or not doing at all?

Producer organizations must be strengthened. This includes the leadership, management structure and staff skills required to manage savings transparently. Local producers need to organize safe ways of managing savings. Whether to invest in better technology or to repay loans for investment – saving is the key common need. Once saving patterns are established, producer organizations can build up capital, to invest, use as collateral, or to offer financial services for members.

Better forest business incubation is needed to build financial management capacities within organizations that are inclusive of marginal groups. This is already routine in business incubation, but many for-profit services struggle to cover costs in remote forest landscapes. Unless donors can subsidize such costs, their reach is unlikely to extend beyond urban centers. A more innovative solution is to develop business incubation services within umbrella (or ‘apex-level’) producer organizations to aggregate, process and market products and services from their members.

More financial de-risking is required for external investors. There are five immediate priorities: link producer groups with conventional finance through face-to-face meetings or social media technologies; form partnerships to develop loan appraisals for proposals to banks; find ways of developing collateral acceptable to banks (such as standing tree volume); offer guarantees based on social and environmental commitments to offset perceptions of risk; and help banks redesign financial products to meet producers’ capabilities.

Value chain analysis of elephant foot yam with an association of farmers in northeast Myanmar. ©Macqueen/IIED

How is your organization addressing inclusive finance, and what are your experiences and key lessons?

IIED is shaping more inclusive finance within its entire program. Its Natural Resources Group has helped FAO, IUCN and Agricord design a financing mechanism to support producer organizations through the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF). The first phase included 947 producer groups across 10 countries, with 262 businesses helped to add value or diversify products, and 158 examples of new access to finance.

Direct grants to producer organizations require gender equality and inclusion in membership, leadership and representation. Support includes market analysis and development training, learning exchanges, business fairs and trade shows, links to policy platforms, direct brokering of finance with value chain partners and banks, toolkits for risk management and forest business incubation.

FFF is also now reviewing how to improve access to finance and install forest business incubation capacity into apex-level organizations. We have learnt that direct support for strengthening membership, management and business is highly effective. Bankable businesses emerge with investment returns that are attractive to potential financiers, improving livelihoods and providing an incentive for sustainable forest management. This also creates a pipeline for investible businesses for financiers that will attract future investment. A focus on grants, concessional loans or patient equity for locally controlled forest cooperatives results in inclusive cooperatives, but a focus on debt finance for large corporates leads only to local people being treated as cheap labor.

Read also: Making landscape finance more inclusive

What examples do you have of successful or promising ‘model’ approaches or innovations?

Promising innovations come less from inclusive access to finance, but from inclusive distribution of finance. This is a question of business model design, often found in businesses with democratic decision-making where members who live with the consequences of their business decisions, balance economic, social and environmental trade-offs.

An IIED-led analysis of 50 case studies of democratic business models from 24 countries showed six clear innovations. Democratic oversight bodies governing environmental and cultural stewardship improve the natural environment. Negotiated benefit distribution and financial vigilance mechanisms improve material wealth. Networked links to markets and decision-making improve social connectedness. Processes for conflict resolution and justice improve peace and security. Processes of entrepreneurial training and empowerment for both men and women improve human capacity development. Branding that reinforces local visions of prosperity improves a sense of community purpose.

In Nicaragua for example, FFF-mediated finance for the Mayaring women’s cooperative led to the development of 15 new productss using ‘tuno’ (Castilla tunu) bark cloth for vegetables. This led to a 35 percent rise in household incomes and a forest landscape restoration project using the species.

What is your vision on how best to increase finance and investment in sustainable forestry and farming?

My vision is to tailor different financing approaches to different producer organization types. For example, finance could be directed to indigenous peoples’ organizations in natural forests for territorial delimitation and protection; community forest organizations at the forest edge for making sustainable forest management work in collectively controlled natural forests; forest and farm businesses in planted forest ‘mosaics’ for improved social organization alongside asset investments in production; and peri-urban and urban forest product-processing businesses to increase productivity. Financing could be primarily grant finance to indigenous peoples, grants and blended/concessional finance for community forest enterprises, a mix of leasing, trade chain finance and commercial debt finance and guarantees for producer organizations, and more conventional debt finance for peri-urban groups There is no simple rule – everything depends on the circumstances of the group.

Catalyzing multitiered organizations is part of this vision. This includes first-tier local producer organizations selling products and services; second-tier regional organizations aggregating products, adding value through processing, marketing and providing business incubation services to members; and third-tier national federations lobbying governments for more enabling policies. Evidence suggests that strengthening producer organizations is effective in poverty reduction, and improving governance, forest landscape restoration and delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals.

By Nick Pasiecznik, Tropenbos International.

This interview has also been published on the Tropenbos International website.


Duncan Macqueen is a principal researcher in IIED’s Natural Resources Group. IIED is a “policy and action research organization promoting sustainable development and linking local priorities to global challenges”. His research focuses on the success factors for locally controlled forest enterprises, and he has published widely on the subject. We invited Duncan to express his views on inclusive finance, based on his 25 years of experience of working with smallholder groups and communities to strengthen their capacities to run forest-based businesses and access markets and finance. He and his team have worked closely with FAO and the World Bank, among others. His publications include Prioritising Support for Locally Controlled Forest Enterprises and Financing forest-related enterprises: Lessons from the Forest Investment Program: IIED Briefing.

This article was produced by Tropenbos International and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.


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Strengthening producer organizations is key to making finance inclusive and effective


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Aerial view of a transition forest area in Bokito, Cameroon. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Duncan Macqueen. ©Macqueen/IIED

As part of the “Innovative finance for sustainable landscapes” interview series, the International Institute for Environment and Development’s (IIED) Forest Team Leader Duncan Macqueen spoke with Tropenbos International’s Nick Pasiecznik on increasing finance and investment in sustainable forestry and farming for smallholders.

“The challenge is to build strong producer organizations and change the perceptions of risk, return and transaction costs,” Macqueen said. This highlights direct support for strengthening membership, management and business as a strategy to develop bankable businesses with investment returns that are attractive to potential financiers. This will, in turn, improve livelihoods and provide an incentive for sustainable forest management.

Among Macqueen’s most recent publications is Access to finance for forest and farm producer organisations (FFPOs).

How do you define ‘inclusive finance’ and why is it important?

Inclusive finance ensures that local forest and farm producers are collectively involved in generating incomes, saving and making investments that improve their livelihoods. Importantly, it is not primarily about individuals, but about producer organizations that include women, landless people and ethnic minorities.

In developing countries, microfinance is rarely at a scale that can lift people out of poverty. Microfinance does, however, help to build individual capacities to understand and manage larger finance. To be transformative for forests and livelihoods, producers must be organized. Producer organizations are essential. They increase the economic scale and technological efficiency of transactions, and the credibility with which investments to upgrade transactions can be managed.

International finance rarely reaches forest and farm producers because financial institutions perceive the risk-to-return ratios and transaction costs to be too high. The challenge is to build strong producer organizations and change the perceptions of all involved.

A training course for women enterprise groups in Belize: “something we should be doing more of”. ©Macqueen/IIED

What are the underlying reasons for the underfinancing of locally controlled agricultural and forest business?

Underfinancing comes down to a lack of a well-directed ‘enabling investment’, i.e. financial support that does not require a financial return. For small businesses to attract ‘asset investment’ which does require a financial return, enabling investments must secure tenure, develop technical production skills, enhance market access and business know-how, and strengthen producer organizations. Building up these four areas makes such businesses ‘bankable’.

There is also a finance gap between micro-finance and large-scale finance. Microfinance is often available. The sums are small, the periods short, the returns fairly predictable (with a high ratio of working-to-fixed capital), and interest rates can be raised to cover high transaction costs. But microfinance rarely stretches to mid-level investments allowing growth. Large-scale finance is also available, but commercial banks rarely address the small needs of producer organizations because of perceptions on returns, risks and costs.

Read more: Background note on FTA financial innovations for sustainable landscapes interviews

What are we not doing right, or not doing well enough, or not doing at all?

Producer organizations must be strengthened. This includes the leadership, management structure and staff skills required to manage savings transparently. Local producers need to organize safe ways of managing savings. Whether to invest in better technology or to repay loans for investment – saving is the key common need. Once saving patterns are established, producer organizations can build up capital, to invest, use as collateral, or to offer financial services for members.

Better forest business incubation is needed to build financial management capacities within organizations that are inclusive of marginal groups. This is already routine in business incubation, but many for-profit services struggle to cover costs in remote forest landscapes. Unless donors can subsidize such costs, their reach is unlikely to extend beyond urban centers. A more innovative solution is to develop business incubation services within umbrella (or ‘apex-level’) producer organizations to aggregate, process and market products and services from their members.

More financial de-risking is required for external investors. There are five immediate priorities: link producer groups with conventional finance through face-to-face meetings or social media technologies; form partnerships to develop loan appraisals for proposals to banks; find ways of developing collateral acceptable to banks (such as standing tree volume); offer guarantees based on social and environmental commitments to offset perceptions of risk; and help banks redesign financial products to meet producers’ capabilities.

Value chain analysis of elephant foot yam with an association of farmers in northeast Myanmar. ©Macqueen/IIED

How is your organization addressing inclusive finance, and what are your experiences and key lessons?

IIED is shaping more inclusive finance within its entire program. Its Natural Resources Group has helped FAO, IUCN and Agricord design a financing mechanism to support producer organizations through the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF). The first phase included 947 producer groups across 10 countries, with 262 businesses helped to add value or diversify products, and 158 examples of new access to finance.

Direct grants to producer organizations require gender equality and inclusion in membership, leadership and representation. Support includes market analysis and development training, learning exchanges, business fairs and trade shows, links to policy platforms, direct brokering of finance with value chain partners and banks, toolkits for risk management and forest business incubation.

FFF is also now reviewing how to improve access to finance and install forest business incubation capacity into apex-level organizations. We have learnt that direct support for strengthening membership, management and business is highly effective. Bankable businesses emerge with investment returns that are attractive to potential financiers, improving livelihoods and providing an incentive for sustainable forest management. This also creates a pipeline for investible businesses for financiers that will attract future investment. A focus on grants, concessional loans or patient equity for locally controlled forest cooperatives results in inclusive cooperatives, but a focus on debt finance for large corporates leads only to local people being treated as cheap labor.

Read also: Making landscape finance more inclusive

What examples do you have of successful or promising ‘model’ approaches or innovations?

Promising innovations come less from inclusive access to finance, but from inclusive distribution of finance. This is a question of business model design, often found in businesses with democratic decision-making where members who live with the consequences of their business decisions, balance economic, social and environmental trade-offs.

An IIED-led analysis of 50 case studies of democratic business models from 24 countries showed six clear innovations. Democratic oversight bodies governing environmental and cultural stewardship improve the natural environment. Negotiated benefit distribution and financial vigilance mechanisms improve material wealth. Networked links to markets and decision-making improve social connectedness. Processes for conflict resolution and justice improve peace and security. Processes of entrepreneurial training and empowerment for both men and women improve human capacity development. Branding that reinforces local visions of prosperity improves a sense of community purpose.

In Nicaragua for example, FFF-mediated finance for the Mayaring women’s cooperative led to the development of 15 new productss using ‘tuno’ (Castilla tunu) bark cloth for vegetables. This led to a 35 percent rise in household incomes and a forest landscape restoration project using the species.

What is your vision on how best to increase finance and investment in sustainable forestry and farming?

My vision is to tailor different financing approaches to different producer organization types. For example, finance could be directed to indigenous peoples’ organizations in natural forests for territorial delimitation and protection; community forest organizations at the forest edge for making sustainable forest management work in collectively controlled natural forests; forest and farm businesses in planted forest ‘mosaics’ for improved social organization alongside asset investments in production; and peri-urban and urban forest product-processing businesses to increase productivity. Financing could be primarily grant finance to indigenous peoples, grants and blended/concessional finance for community forest enterprises, a mix of leasing, trade chain finance and commercial debt finance and guarantees for producer organizations, and more conventional debt finance for peri-urban groups There is no simple rule – everything depends on the circumstances of the group.

Catalyzing multitiered organizations is part of this vision. This includes first-tier local producer organizations selling products and services; second-tier regional organizations aggregating products, adding value through processing, marketing and providing business incubation services to members; and third-tier national federations lobbying governments for more enabling policies. Evidence suggests that strengthening producer organizations is effective in poverty reduction, and improving governance, forest landscape restoration and delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Read as PDF: Strengthening producer organizations is key to making finance inclusive and effective

By Nick Pasiecznik, Tropenbos International.


Duncan Macqueen is a principal researcher in IIED’s Natural Resources Group. IIED is a “policy and action research organization promoting sustainable development and linking local priorities to global challenges”. His research focuses on the success factors for locally controlled forest enterprises, and he has published widely on the subject. We invited Duncan to express his views on inclusive finance, based on his 25 years of experience of working with smallholder groups and communities to strengthen their capacities to run forest-based businesses and access markets and finance. He and his team have worked closely with FAO and the World Bank, among others. His publications include Prioritising Support for Locally Controlled Forest Enterprises and Financing forest-related enterprises: Lessons from the Forest Investment Program: IIED Briefing.

This article was produced by Tropenbos International and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.


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  • Land restoration to enhance gender equality in Burkina Faso

Land restoration to enhance gender equality in Burkina Faso


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Widows who are members of a women’s self-help group have been allocated collective land to improve their livelihoods. Photo by Marlène Elias/Bioversity International

Not all farmers are able to adopt or benefit from landscape restoration practices equally. A research initiative highlights how inclusive initiatives have the potential to improve both the environment and the lives of women and their communities.

Gender disparity in landscape restoration 

Amid degradation of their natural resources, farmers in Burkina Faso’s Oubritenga province, in the country’s central Plateau, are adopting various practices to restore their lands. Landscape restoration enhances soil fertility and facilitates the establishment of trees that can provide benefits for human well-being as well as the environment.

The techniques include the creation of stone barriers to slow water flow and prevent runoff, agroforestry techniques, assisted natural regeneration of valued trees in fields, and the creation of small zaï pits to retain water and soil nutrients for crop growth. The problem is that not all farmers are able to adopt or benefit from these practices equally.

New research conducted by Master’s students from the University of Ouagadougou cosupervised by Bioversity International and other partners from Burkina Faso considers the various barriers women face in restoring their lands and landscapes to support their equitable participation in restoration initiatives for the benefit of the entire community.

Entrenched gender norms make it difficult for women to obtain the same opportunities as men to implement restoration practices. Gender plays an important role in determining who does what, who makes decisions, and who has access to resources and other assets, including benefits from restoration initiatives. Gender, however, is not the sole factor that determines who will implement and potentially benefit from landscape restoration practices. Whether a woman is married, where her husband resides, whether her husband has allocated her plots that are large enough to adopt agroforestry practices, and even whether the woman has adult male children can all greatly influence the probability of a woman implementing restoration practices and gaining some of the benefits.

In the study sites, farmers need to vouch for each other and women tend not to be considered eligible participants. Yet, not all women face the same exclusions. Women farmers who have a male head present in their household may be considered eligible, and can obtain access to material and financial resources, as well as training to apply restoration practices. This means that, unless they have an adult son, widows and wives of migrated husbands are particularly disadvantaged.

Read more: Gender at the center of Bioversity International’s research

Zai pits are dug to improve soil fertility and water retention. Credit: Adidjata Ouédraogo/Université de Ouagadougou

Inclusive initiatives go beyond trees

By studying the approach of Association Tiipaalga – an NGO that has been supporting restoration in the country since 2006 – Master’s students from the University of Ouagadougou are identifying good practices from restoration initiatives trying to promote gender equality. The NGO is working to secure access to land for women’s self-help groups, composed primarily of widows and young women. It is helping these groups fence off their land to promote natural regeneration and plant certain species of trees and crops that can offer the women income-generating opportunities.

Moreover, it is organizing exposure visits for women and men farmers to visit villages in other parts of the country where restoration practices are being implemented, allowing farmers to learn from each other. The initiative is also supporting women in building improved cookstoves that require less fuelwood – saving women’s time collecting the fuelwood and reducing forest degradation – and to access microcredit to pursue income-generating activities such as trade, horticulture, and processing of non-timber forest products. Most importantly, collectively having access to land is enabling women to strengthen their social ties, cultivate vegetables and increase their incomes.

In addition to material gains, women have also built greater confidence and have become more vocal when it comes to accessing or managing natural resources in their village. During village meetings, for example, they are stating their opinions, and may even express ideas that contradict those of the men – which was something unheard of in the past. Women are also reporting having a greater say within their household on what to grow and what agricultural techniques to adopt in their fields as a result of their participation in restoration initiatives. Moreover, the provision of tools and equipment has freed up some of the energy and time, which the women can now invest in activities that foster their personal development. Many have chosen to learn to read, others are learning about family planning, sanitation and keeping their households healthy.

As one of the participants, Ms Kabore Minata puts it, “Thanks to these efforts, we women were able to have land, even if only on loan, and tools to cultivate crops. Were it not for these interventions, this would be only a dream because [as a woman having married into this village] I am considered a stranger here. Aside from a small parcel of land for growing condiments, what else could a woman like me have had otherwise?”

This article was originally published by Bioversity International


The University of Ouagadougou, Association Tiipaalga, and Burkina Faso’s National Tree Seed Center partnered with Bioversity International on this initiative.

This research was carried out by Adidjata Ouédraogo and Safietou Tiendrebeogo, Master’s students at Université de Ouagadougou, in the context of the project ‘Nutrition‐sensitive forest restoration to enhance adaptive capacity of rural communities in Burkina Faso’, led by Bioversity International. This research component has also received the support of Association Tiipaalga and the Centre National de Semences Forestières. The project is funded by the Austrian Development Agency.

This resesarch was conducted as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, and is supported by contributors to the CGIAR Trust Fund.


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  • Unrelenting games: Multiple negotiations and landscape transformations in the tropical peatlands of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

Unrelenting games: Multiple negotiations and landscape transformations in the tropical peatlands of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia


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Land use change is often a result of negotiation between different interests. Focusing on negotiation practices helps to provide a nuanced understanding of land use change processes over time. We examine negotiations within a concession model for land development in the southern tropical peatlands of Central Kalimantan province in Indonesia. This region can be described as a resource frontier, where historical landscape transformations from large development projects and oil palm plantations intersect with state models of forest conservation and recent Reducing Emissions from Degradation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) projects. The study drew on actor-network theory (ANT) and combined an ethnographic approach with document analysis for understanding how these landscape transformations and land allocation for large concessions has left a legacy of continuing uncertainty and conflict over land. There is considerable gaming between actors to achieve their desired outcome. Increased competition for land and contested legal arrangements mean that the negotiations are virtually never-ending. Winning at one stage of a negotiation may mean that those who feel they have lost will organise and use the system to challenge the outcomes. These findings show that attempts to implement pre-determined plans or apply global environmental goals at resource frontiers will become entangled in fluid and messy negotiations over land, rather than achieving any desired new status quo.


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  • Communities restoring landscapes: Stories of resilience and success

Communities restoring landscapes: Stories of resilience and success


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This collection of 12 stories from women and men in nine countries in different parts of Africa shines a light on the efforts of communities, some of them decades-long, in restoring degraded forests and landscapes. The stories are not generated through any rigorous scientific process, but are nonetheless illustrative of the opportunities communities create as they solve their own problems, and of the many entry points we have for supporting and accelerating community effort. The stories show that leadership, social capital and cooperation, clear property rights/tenure, and supportive governance are important for successful community-based restoration. From the perspectives of communities, “success” is not only about the number of trees planted and standing over a certain terrain: it is also about the ability to secure and enhance livelihoods; to strengthen existing community relationships and to build new ones with other actors; to develop a conservation ethic among younger generations; and, in some cases, to expand the rights of excluded individuals and groups. This collection is about amplifying the voices of local people in global policy debates.

Foreword. Communities restoring landscapes: Stories of resilience and success

Story 1. Holding back the desert: One farmer’s story of restoring degraded land in the Sahel region in Burkina Faso

Story 2. Women gaining ground through reforestation on the Cameroonian coast

Story 3. Building resilience to climate change through community forest restoration in Ghana

Story 4. Thinking in tomorrow: Women leading forest restoration in Mt Kenya and beyond

Story 5. Mikoko Pamoja: Carbon credits and community-based reforestation in Kenya’s mangroves

Story 6. Rights, responsibilities and collaboration: The Ogiek and tree growing in the Mau

Story 7. Restoring Madagascar’s mangroves: Community-led conservation makes for multiple benefits

Story 8. Flood recovery, livelihood protection and mangrove reforestation in the Limpopo River Estuary, Mozambique

Story 9. Regaining their lost paradise: Communities rehabilitating mangrove forests in the drought-affected Saloum Delta, Senegal

Story 10. From the grass roots to the corridors of power: Scaling up efforts for conservation and reforestation in Senegal

Story 11. Taming the rising tide: Keeping the ocean at bay through community reforestation on Kisiwa Panza island, Tanzania

Story 12. Shaking the tree: Challenging gender, tenure and leadership norms through collaborative reforestation in Central Uganda


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  • Reshaping the terrain: Landscape restoration in Africa factsheets

Reshaping the terrain: Landscape restoration in Africa factsheets


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The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) published a series of factsheets in August 2018 ahead of GLF Nairobi, focusing on Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon.

GLF is the world’s largest knowledge-led multisectoral platform for integrated land use, bringing together world leaders, scientists, private sector representatives, farmers and community leaders and civil society to accelerate action towards the creation of more resilient, equitable, profitable, and climate-friendly landscapes.

Brief 1: Reshaping the terrain: Forest and landscape restoration in Burkina Faso

Brief 2: Reshaping the terrain: Landscape restoration in Ethiopia

Brief 3: Reshaping the terrain: Forest landscape restoration efforts in Ghana

Brief 4: Reshaping the terrain: Landscape restoration in Tanzania

Brief 5: Reshaping the terrain: Forest and landscape restoration in Kenya

Brief 6: Reshaping the terrain: Forest landscape restoration in Uganda 

Brief 7: Reshaping the terrain: Forest and landscape restoration in Cameroon


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  • Use and perceived importance of forest ecosystem services in rural livelihoods of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh

Use and perceived importance of forest ecosystem services in rural livelihoods of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh


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This study examines the relative benefits (provisioning) and importance (regulating and cultural) of forest ecosystem services to households in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh. Our results from 300 household interviews in three rural locations stratified by wealth shows that wealth levels of the respondents play a key role in explaining variations in the perceptions and use of forest ecosystem services. Considering the direct benefits, the importance of provisioning ecosystem services (i.e. fuel wood, food, timber, bamboo, thatch grass and fodder) varies according to their relative use (i.e. subsistence and cash income) among households of different wealth groups. No significant difference was found in perceptions of indirect benefits of forest ecosystem services of water purification, regulating air quality, crop pollination, soil fertility, aesthetic and spiritual services. But the higher wealth groups perceived soil protection, soil fertility, pest and disease control as important for crop production as they have large landholdings for agricultural uses and tree cover. This study suggests local wealth conditions of the rural households characterise the demand of the use and perceived importance of forest ecosystem services. Differences in levels of wealth and ecosystem service provision imply careful consideration of social and economic factors in decision-making and making appropriate interventions for forest and tree management. The ecosystem services approach appears to be useful in capturing the broader diversity of benefits of forests and trees (i.e. material and non-material) as well as in supporting their integrated management at the landscape scale.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.11.009


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  • Seed diversity vital to achieve landscape restoration pledges

Seed diversity vital to achieve landscape restoration pledges


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A woman looks out over an FLR area in Ethiopia. Photo by Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR
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Optimally achieving forest landscape restoration – and its associated benefits for ecology and human wellbeing – requires high-quality planting material.

Restoration plays a key role in sustainable development. With countries making significant pledges under the Bonn Challenge to restore degraded land, achieving these objectives at scale requires integrated systems that provide diverse, adapted and high-quality native tree seeds and planting material.

However, there remains a gap in capacity, as studies have documented that the quality and quantity of tree germplasm is not always adequately addressed in restoration projects. Research is now generating solutions to help the global community move from pledges to impact when it comes to tree seeds and seedlings.

A discussion at the recent Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in Bonn, Germany, hosted by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) with Bioversity International, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) – Delivery of quality and diverse planting material is a major constraint for restoration – brought these issues to the fore.

Read more: Delivery of diverse and suitable seeds and planting material is a key barrier to sustainable land restoration at scale

In opening the discussion, Bioversity International’s leader of forest genetic resources and restoration Christopher Kettle, whose work also forms part of FTA, introduced how researchers can help to generate the volume of seeds needed to achieve development objectives.

In line with this, FTA Director Vincent Gitz highlighted that restoration is a priority for research programs such as FTA. In order to be successful, projects should integrate the availability of good tree planting materials from the outset to implementation, he suggested.

Giving a keynote, senior advisor on tropical trees and landscapes at the University of Copenhagen Lars Graudal, who is also coleader of tree productivity and diversity at ICRAF, echoed Kettle in asking whether the reproductive material of trees constituted a barrier for landscape restoration.

Referring to the Bonn Challenge – which aims to restore 150 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by 2020, and 350 million ha by 2030 – the largest restoration in history, which is backed by conventions and the sustainable development agenda, Graudal said it is one thing to have a plan, and another to implement it.

Despite shortfalls in investments, there is reason for optimism as public support for the plan has never been greater, he said. There is a “positive correlation with biodiversity and resilience, agricultural produce and dietary diversity,” he explained. The world faces challenges of mobilizing diversity before it disappears; focusing on dealing with numerous species rather than only a few; linking that work with conservation, breeding and delivery programs; and achieving efficient programs by empowering users.

Speakers of Discussion Forum 1 at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany. Photo by Pilar Valbuena/GLF

The discussion continued with a panel of speakers considering situations on the ground where restoration efforts are being implemented. Featuring Cameroon-based forest engineer Anicet Ngomin; Burkina Faso’s National Tree Seed Center director general Moussa Ouedraogo; Charles Karangwa of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Rwanda; biologist and youth representative Vania Olmos Lau; social entrepreneur Doreen Mashu; and FAO’s Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism coordinator Douglas McGuire, the panel looked at how the ability to deliver diverse and quality seed and planting material is impacting countries’ pledges.

Outlining some of the regional challenges in meeting restoration commitments, Ouedraogo said Burkina Faso has committed to planting 5 million hectares by 2030, but has experienced a 30-35 percent survival rate of trees after one year of planting. Native species remain threatened, he added.

Ngomin said Cameroon has committed to restoring 12 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030, with seeds forming an important part of reforestation programs.

Read more: FTA researchers set to highlight seeds, REDD+ and inclusive finance at landscapes forum

Tree seed diversity determines the extent and speed to which ambitious restoration targets can be achieved, said Karangwa. While widespread eucalyptus monoculture in Rwanda affects land productivity, restoration would bring multiple benefits to both people and landscapes. Although farmers know the importance of trees on farms, he added, they “feel like trees are competing with crops, because of the quality and the type of trees we are telling them to plant.” This shows that tree seed diversity is paramount, he said.

Lau emphasized that achieving the Bonn Challenge is also important to youth. She cited as examples a lack of knowledge and access to seeds in Paraguay, as well as bureaucratic hurdles in Mexico, as existing barriers to restoration.

Mashu, who is the founder of The Good Heritage in Zimbabwe – a wellness brand using non-timber forest resources to create products – underlined the need for a clear connection between restoration efforts and economic activity.

“Companies are thinking about doing good in additional to making financial returns,” she said. Thus, business can be a vehicle for restoration for both businesspeople and the scientists who support it, she explained.

McGuire addressed time-bound political commitments, and how to balance these with the time needed to understand the science and practical issues behind tree planting. There are new projects indicating huge momentum both politically and financially, he explained, but many stakeholders have yet to address the technicalities of planting material.

A woman looks out over an FLR area in Ethiopia. Photo by Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR

Building on Mashu’s comments, he also underlined the role of the private sector and embedding restoration into economic realities.

Following on with keynote speeches were scientist Marius Ekué, Bioversity International’s representative in Cameroon and a member of FTA, and ICRAF’s Ramni Jamnadass, who is the leader of FTA’s Flagship 1 on tree genetic resources.

Ekué introduced the Trees for Seeds initiative, which was launched at GLF Nairobi in August and aims to safeguard diversity. “Trees don’t have borders, so we work within a network,” he said, referring to networks that exist across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Read more: Hedging bets in resilient landscape restoration

In line with the initiative, researchers have developed decision support tools to help practitioners select the right tree species for the right places, such as RESTOOL. This can help to understand how seed systems work in different countries, including how they are harvested, produced and distributed. With this information, researchers can then assess how to deliver at scale using innovative technologies.

Similarly, Jamnadass covered the quality of restoration, and the right tree for the right place and the right purpose. She also highlighted other decision support tools such as Useful Tree Species for Africa and the Vegetation Map for Africa. Research needs to put food trees back into landscapes using the restoration agenda, she emphasized.

The panel then continued with a second phase of discussion, articulating concrete solutions for lifting barriers to scale – raising the need to invest in knowledge and science, greater collaboration between partners, harnessing local knowledge, strengthening delivery systems as a local level, bridging gaps between science and policy, and capacity building.

In closing, Erick Fernandes, an adviser on agriculture, forestry and climate change to the World Bank Group, reiterated that the desire to restore land is strong.

As stated by the Trees for Seeds project, using the right mix of native trees in forest restoration efforts is essential to deliver on multiple SDGs, including reducing poverty and food insecurity, and supporting biodiversity.

Planting a trillion trees, and ensuring that they are the right trees in the right place, offers a powerful development solution.

By Hannah Maddison-Harris, FTA Communications and Editorial Coordinator. 


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  • Integrating bioenergy and food production on degraded landscapes in Indonesia

Integrating bioenergy and food production on degraded landscapes in Indonesia


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Energy demand in Indonesia is increasing rapidly, by 43% between 2005 and 2016. Indonesia thus relies on imported fuel (27%). Around 16.8 mill ha of land in Indonesia is severely or highly severely degraded. Restoration is very costly, ranging from approximately US$250 to 3000/ha. Biofuel species such as nyamplung (Calophyllum inophyllum) could be used to restore around 5.7 million hectares, at a relatively low cost.


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  • Does the monitoring of local governance improve transparency? Lessons from three approaches in subnational jurisdictions

Does the monitoring of local governance improve transparency? Lessons from three approaches in subnational jurisdictions


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  • Subnational governments are key players in land and forest governance and are expected to meet demands for informed decision-making and transparency, particularly in the context of the emphasis on transparency in climate governance.
  • All three approaches reviewed are experiments in transparency, based on different understandings. The Sustainable Landscapes Rating Tool (SLRT) provides a comparative assessment of jurisdictions to be made publicly available; the Multilevel Governance Monitoring Process (MLGMP) aims to align interests and set targets around a landscape goal, through open, collective agreement; and the Participatory Governance Monitoring Process (PGMP) aims to provide collective reflection, creating transparency in opening male-dominated spaces to women’’s participation.
  • Monitoring governance can become a political tool through which to reflect on local priorities and open or strengthen spaces for discussion.
  • As both governance and transparency may be locally determined, monitoring tools and approaches should be developed with the participation of local stakeholders or be adaptable to their experiences and priorities.

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  • Nyamplung's biofuel potential could support landscape restoration in Indonesia

Nyamplung’s biofuel potential could support landscape restoration in Indonesia


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Nyamplung grows in a bioenergy trial in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Catriona Croft-Cusworth/CIFOR

Research is aiming to demonstrate methods of bioenergy production that do not compete with food production and environmental conservation, but contribute to them.

Scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Korean National Institute of Forest Science (NIFOS) and Indonesia’s University of Muhammadiyah Palangkaraya (UMP) are currently conducting research through a collaborative research project to identify the most promising and productive bioenergy crops suited to degraded and underutilized lands.

Biofuel plantations could be central to meeting landscape restoration targets in Indonesia, while also helping the country to meet growing energy demand.

The total area under scrutiny in the research project is a 7.2-million hectare tract of mostly degraded land in Central Kalimantan province, which has been largely devastated by forest fires and conversion to agricultural and mining activities. More than 40 percent of residents in the province do not have access to electricity and rely on woody biomass for cooking fuel.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, regional and local level governments jointly implement the Bioenergi Lestari (Sustainable Bioenergy) program to establish bioenergy plantations on 62,500 hectares of land.

“Overall, Indonesia aims to meet 23 percent of its growing energy demand from new and renewable energy sources by 2025 with a 10 percent share from bioenergy,” said Himlal Baral, a scientist with CIFOR’s climate change, energy and low carbon research team.

“We can now share preliminary but promising results, which have isolated specific trees and crops that can provide energy, food security while simultaneously restoring land.”

Scientists undertook their research in Buntoi village, Pulang Pisau district, where the population of 2,700 people was largely dependent on rubber plantations and subsistence agriculture until 2015 when fires swept through destroying forests and peatlands.

“The research plot is a flooded area in the rainy season and very dried out in the dry season, leading to fires,” said Siti Maimunah, dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry at UMP.

A community member plants on a trial bioenergy plot in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR

After planting tree trials, the scientists tentatively identified nyamplung (Calophyllum inophyllum) as the most adaptive bioenergy tree species for degraded peatlands in the area, their report states. The nyamplung grew best when it was planted in a mixed agroforestry setting, rather than monoculture.

“This is a win-win solution – growing biofuel using an agroforestry system can be a better land use strategy considering its potential to enhance farm production and income, biodiversity and support sustainable development,” Baral said. “Planting biofuel on degraded land can avoid compromising agricultural production and related negative environmental consequences.”

Planting trees for biofuel can help offset greenhouse gas emissions. In the case of the nyamplung only the seeds are collected to produce biodiesel and replace fossil fuels, which means the tree remains in the landscape providing other environmental services.

“Our objective is not intended only to restore burned peat land with a strictly biofuel production approach, but to enhance it with appropriate policies concerning environment and development goals,” said Syed Rahman, a researcher with CIFOR.

Biofuel production can help offset the high costs involved in meeting such land restoration goals as the Bonn Challenge, an international commitment made during UN Climate talks in 2014 to restore 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030.

Landscape restoration is at the forefront of national agendas as countries implement efforts to meet UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 on life on land, by 2030.

By Julie Mollins, originally published by CIFOR’s Forests News.

For more information on this topic, please contact Himlal Baral at h.baral@cgiar.org.


This research was supported by the National Institute of Forest Science (NIFOS) and the Republic of Korea.

This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, which is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.


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  • Landscape characteristics of Rejoso Watershed: land cover dynamics, farming systems and community strategies

Landscape characteristics of Rejoso Watershed: land cover dynamics, farming systems and community strategies


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The Rejoso watershed provides vital livelihoods for the Pasuruan communities. Farming of annual and perennial crops, including agroforestry, timber plantations and livestock is the most dominant source of income. In the last decade, stone mining has gradually become an alternative source of income for the communities in the midstream area of the Rejoso Watershed. In the upper stream of Rejoso watershed, adjacent to Mount Bromo, the tourism becomes an alternative local revenue. Population growth and economic pressure are causing dramatic changes in the Rejoso Watershed. Dominant anthropocentric development activities have been gradually affecting the environment’s quality, especially the watershed’s function of maintaining good quality and quantity of water resources. The most common environmental issues related to water resources are floods, droughts, erosions, and landslides. An initiative that simultaneously conserves and strengthens the local economy and livelihoods is urgently needed. The ‘Rejoso Kita’ initiative was designed to achieve these aspirations. As an initial step towards the implementation of such an initiative, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is leading a scoping study as basis for the ‘Rejoso Kita’ strategy implemented by a consortium coordinated by Social Investment Indonesia Foundation, CK-Net and partners supported by the Danone Ecosystem.


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  • Restoration initiatives must consider how gender relations shape control over land

Restoration initiatives must consider how gender relations shape control over land


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A woman applies manure to a field to restore soil fertility in Nepal. Photo by M. Elias/Bioversity International

Marking International Day of Rural Women, Giulia Micheletti and Marlène Elias of Bioversity International discuss a framework for understanding how forest landscape restoration can promote gender equality.

It does so by safeguarding and advancing women’s land rights, encouraging their meaningful participation, and recognizing their expertise and priorities in restoration activities.

For many rural women, fulfilling everyday responsibilities such as agricultural production and home gardening, as well as collection of fodder, fuelwood, water and forest products have become more difficult due to environmental degradation. This adds to women’s heavy labor burdens, for example as they have to venture farther from home to gather these products.

Read more: Gender matters in Forest Landscape Restoration: A framework for design and evaluation

Yet, while the need to restore degraded lands and landscapes is pressing and gaining global attention, restoration initiatives often overlook rural women. As rural men typically have more public authority than women and are considered heads of their households, interventions that work with rural communities tend to favor them when it comes to choosing the areas and species to restore. In fact, gender inequality is an important but under-appreciated factor hindering restoration and the fair distribution of benefits from the process.   

A new framework to promote socially just and equitable interventions in forest landscape restoration has been published by gender researchers from Bioversity International, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), and the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF). Developed within the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), the framework explains that restoration initiatives must consider how gender relations shape access to and control over land and its use, and how changes in land use that may result from restoration can disadvantage women if their rights to resources, priorities, and contributions of labour and knowledge are overlooked. 

Read also: What do gender norms, innovation and trees have to do with each other?

Forest landscape restoration

Forest landscape restoration aims to regain the ecological integrity of deforested and degraded lands while simultaneously improving the wellbeing of forest-dependent communities. A critical issue in forest landscape restoration is safeguarding communities’ rights and access to their lands. On the one hand, community members with informal or insecure land rights can lose access to lands claimed under restoration initiatives. Adequate safeguards, grievance mechanisms and fair compensation must be in place to mitigate against such risks. 

On the other hand, if carried out in an inclusive way, forest landscape restoration can be a vehicle for strengthening the rights of marginalized groups. In this way, it can help reduce inequalities based on gender or other factors of social differentiation.

A woman walks toward the village of Gangarampur, Khulna, Bangladesh. Photo by D. Chandrabalan/Bioversity International

Everyone’s needs count

Different members of communities inhabiting the areas to be restored often have different views on degradation, priorities for the type of vegetation or density to be restored, approaches used to restore them and the kinds of benefits they want to gain from the restored lands. For example, women and men from different socioeconomic, generational and ethnic groups may have distinct preferences for plants with medicinal or nutritional properties, or for those that provide mulch, food, fodder or income.

The local ecological knowledge and expertise of these different community members needs to be recognized, and their active participation in decisions fostered to ensure that they benefit equally from restoration initiatives.

Read also: Improving livelihoods, equity and forests through sustainable management of NTFPs

As women and men have different capacities (assets, time, knowledge and so on) to participate in these initiatives, different measures are needed to encourage their participation. For example, community meetings should be scheduled at times and in places that are easy for women to reach and allow them to complete their chores and take care of the children, and participate. Strengthening women’s capacities to voice their interests in public forums and challenging norms that limit their influence in community affairs are also required to foster their active participation.

Benefits from forest landscape restoration can range from income-generating opportunities, improved ecosystem services, enhanced knowledge and skills on farming or resource management techniques to security of tenure. Forest landscape restoration initiatives must recognize how gender differences affect the capacities of both women and men to access these benefits and place both genders on an equal playing field to improve the livelihoods of all. 

By Giulia Micheletti and Marlène Elias, originally published at Bioversity International


References

Basnett, B.S., Elias, M., Ihalainen, M. and Paez Valencia, A.M. 2017. Gender matters in Forest Landscape Restoration: A framework for design and evaluation, CIFOR Report, Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor.

Vira, B., Wildburger, C. and Mansourian, S. (Eds.) 2015. Forests, Trees and Landscapes for Food Security and Nutrition. A Global Assessment Report, IUFRO World Series 33, IUFRO, Vienna.


This work forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, which is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund. 


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