Adapting land restoration to a changing climate: Embracing the knowns and unknowns
Adapting land restoration to a changing climate: Embracing the knowns and unknowns
22 April, 2019
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Key messages:
Land restoration will happen under climate change and different knowledge systems are needed to navigate uncertainties and plan adaptation.
The emergence of novel ecosystems presents a challenge for land restoration; they harbor unknown unknowns.
This brief presents key research linking land restoration and societal adaptation and an example of a practical framework for transformative adaptation.
It also proposes questions that can guide stakeholders in exploring different change narratives for adaptation and restoration planning.
Guiding principles for sustainable bamboo forest management planning: Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State (BGRS)
Guiding principles for sustainable bamboo forest management planning: Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State (BGRS)
10 April, 2019
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Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State (BGRS) is the region of Ethiopia with the greatest bamboo forest cover. The resource has, however, encountered heavy degradation in recent years due to fires for farming and for hunting, mass flowering, unsustainable harvest, and land conversion. Bamboo, if harvested correctly, can become a valuable resource and a source of income for the rural population of BGRS. In order to do so, a management plan is needed at the regional level to provide guidance for future planning at the district level. This document, based on a desk study, field survey, direct observation, and a participatory mapping workshop, intends to provide this guidance for a sustainable bamboo forest management plan. It also gives recommendations on how to sustainably harvest bamboo, how to develop nurseries for future bamboo plantations, how to link bamboo forests with the private sector and the market, and the role bamboo could play in degraded land restoration.
Catalyzing partnerships for reforestation of degraded land
Catalyzing partnerships for reforestation of degraded land
04 April, 2019
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Charlotte van Andel. Photo by FMO
In this second edition of the “Innovative finance for sustainable landscapes” interview series, we hear from two sustainable finance experts from the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO). Steven Duyverman is a manager in FMO’s Agribusiness, Food and Water department and Charlotte van Andel is a senior environmental and social officer in the same department.
Steven Duyverman. Photo by FMO
Working in inclusive and green finance, FMO is ramping up its investments in the forestry sector. Duyverman and Van Andel reflect on how to apply their experience at the landscape level.
“Investors are reluctant to invest in landscapes in developing countries, since it is a new sector, with long payback periods and of uncertain risks. Such risks can be reduced by clarifying tenure rights, early engagement of local stakeholders in project development, strengthening partnerships and strengthening local capacities to implement best practices. Investors need to consider these if they really want to have an impact.”
How do you define ‘inclusive finance’ and why is it important?
Making finance inclusive is about reaching the bottom of the pyramid, so to speak, directly or indirectly. It must also focus on those so often left behind – the vulnerable, women, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups. It is about increasing local employment, especially for the poorest, with decent and sustainable jobs that help improve local economies and reduce inequalities.
In forestry, outgrowers and employees, who are recruited locally to the largest extent possible, receive training. They are made aware of health and safety aspects, like using protective equipment when pruning or spraying. This equips them with skills and helps to ensure better livelihoods in the long term. Women are empowered and are often also seen as being more reliable and precise in certain tasks, such as in tree nurseries, allowing them to gain new knowledge and increase their own incomes.
With our forestry investments, we create 30–50 new jobs per 1,000 hectares of new plantations established. At the end of the day, FMO was established nearly 50 years ago not only to make money but, importantly, to create long-term development impact and to improve environmental and social conditions in the countries where it operates.
What are the underlying reasons for the underfinancing of agricultural and forest businesses in developing countries?
One reason for underfinancing in the forestry sector is the reluctance of many to invest in a new sector, with long payback periods and unknown risks, in developing countries. For energy projects, for example, revenue streams and returns only come two or three years after the investment has been made. But investing in forestry requires a different view on cash flows, because even on the shortest cycles, it takes eight, 10, 12 years to start generating income from selling a marketable product (i.e. construction wood, electricity poles or wood chips), and before investors start to be repaid.
In such new markets, the risk is inherently higher than in more well-known investments with much shorter payback times that are perceived as ‘safer’. This does not just concern financial risk, but also – and inherent in inclusive finance – social and environmental risk. Establishing timber plantations is also a high-impact investment, and one of the cheapest means to make significant changes in mitigating climate and improving local economies and communities. However, given the complexity of large landscape-level forestry projects, getting these approved and implemented takes time. But we are gaining more experience in the sector, so we trust that efficiency will improve.
Another key issue for foreign investors is that working with local smallholders is difficult, as for them formal titles over the land they farm or want to reforest are sometimes impossible to acquire, and of uncertain legality if they do exist. Local authorities and land users sometimes have quite different views on what is needed, indicating that more dialogue is needed to increase understanding among all groups involved.
What are we not doing right, or not doing well enough, or not doing at all?
There is no right or wrong, but it is very important that we strive for sustainable development. That also means that we must ensure that business models are sustainable. Viability of a project requires financial, environmental and social standards to be met. For example, we require all our forestry clients to be Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certified.
We see that with a structured approach, income is created, deforestation is reduced and biodiversity improved. As a consequence, people have new alternative sources of cash income rather than depending on illegal charcoal making or poaching. At the same time, having additional income also tends to enhance development and security in local communities.
Our strength lies in catalyzing other partners; hence we need partnerships, partnerships and more partnerships to more effectively progress in the reforestation of degraded land. But for alignment reasons, we also require the support of governments to politically back up plans for land reforestation and to aid where adjacent commercial plantation forestry can be developed as a future mitigation toward deforestation.
We need more cooperation and collaboration, between us as a development finance institution and the private sector, with UN organizations, with national governments and their departments, with NGOs and civil society. To successfully nurture opportunities for growth in the restoration economy, cooperation of technology startups, smallholder finance and timber companies open doors to inspiring venture capital, private equity and impact investors who may know little about such landscape restoration opportunities.
How is your organization addressing inclusive finance, and what are your experiences and key lessons?
At FMO, we provide ever more loans and equity to support projects with landscape-level objectives, and that have social and environmental benefits at their core. We have learned to include contextual risks. This triggers an early focus on risks outside the influence of our project, on how to better ensure indigenous peoples’ rights are respected, including land ownership and user rights, and using stakeholder engagement safeguards even more. We now also realize that it is not always possible to be able to do the right thing at the right time. Circumstances can be such that land issues cannot be fully resolved, or that human rights defenders are threatened, or that deforestation still takes place around the client’s activities. In such cases, we have developed ‘early warning systems’ and if seen to be so, we decide not to invest in unsustainable projects.
Companies that we invest in must have good and transparent relationships with local and legal authorities that have influence over forests and landscape. We also expect them to hear the voices of the people, of local communities, and to fully assess their needs. This means they must invest considerable time from an early stage, and talk to all involved, communities and traditional leaders, occasional users such as nomadic pastoralists, district and forestry authorities, NGOs or knowledge partners.
Going full circle, we also never forget local legislation, such as on forest protection, but also deal with the livelihood impacts of (illegal) users according to the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards. Squaring that circle is not always easy. But only then can we add value and have the impact we are looking for.
One key lesson is that we used to give a lower priority to stakeholder engagement when we focused on returns. But now, at the very start of every investment, we expect companies to start talking with communities to get them to really understand the expected and potential changes, and agree in advance on how benefits can be shared. These include local job opportunities, training in pruning, use of fertilizers and safe pesticide application, and building roads, which can also initiate a village market, access to healthcare and schooling.
What examples do you have of successful or promising ‘model’ approaches or innovations?
In Ghana and Sierra Leone, FMO is supporting a project that has reforested 10,000 hectares of formerly degraded land since 2013 and is working toward adding up to another 9,000 hectares of new plantations. In Laos, we are funding the expansion of a forestry plantation from 3,400 to 15,000 hectares, including investment to support the building of a new sawmill and wood-processing facilities. This is another example of how we are implementing an integrated, long-term investment strategy.
Helping to establish such large areas of forest plantations is also helping FMO achieve its aim of becoming carbon neutral, in line with the Paris Accord. For now, FMO has approved investment of around €40 million a year in new forest plantations. Innovative financial products are necessary, as repayments may only start after 5–7 years, so in the early years there will be no cash flow available to pay even the interest on the loans.
Furthermore, training is an important tool that builds knowledge, but also helps companies to ensure that environmental and social concerns are integrated into their processing system. So, we also provide financial support for analysis, studies, training and implementation, for instance for more efficient use of scarce water resources and for waste-water treatment.
What is your vision on how best to increase finance and investment in sustainable forestry and farming?
The most important single factor that would increase investment is to support systems for registering and securing land rights, so that smallholders and foreign investors alike have formal ownership titles for the land they farm or want to plant with trees. And, of course, this is not just a need for development banks – it is a basic need for all land holders, independent of any future investment. Without formal titles, smallholder options are limited in many ways.
We work for a future where international development finance is no longer needed, where sufficient capital is available nationally, to support the establishment and growth of sustainable businesses in all sectors. And we also hope to see that environmental and social standards widely implemented in developed markets are also fully accepted in emerging markets and developing countries.
In that future, we expect old and new forms of finance to blend seamlessly, also mixing traditional approaches with the use of new technologies, working toward a circular and inclusive economy. This is what we are striving for. But just as it takes time for trees to grow, it will also take time to find the most inclusive way of investing in this sector. We are already seeing shifts.
Tamanu trees making money in arid Wonogiri, new study shows
Tamanu trees making money in arid Wonogiri, new study shows
28 March, 2019
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Bees gather on organic honeycomb in West Kalimantan. Photo by L. McHugh/CIFOR
The tamanu tree (Calophyllum inophyllum) has been helping humans out since prehistoric times.
Tamanu is native to tropical Asia, and was carried by Austronesians on their migrations to Oceania and Madagascar: the tree was as valuable to these voyagers as oak was to their European counterparts. Also known as mastwood, tamanu has been used by shipbuilders for millennia because it grows tall and strong in sandy, rocky areas.
In Polynesia, indigenous groups affectionately refer to the tamanu tree as “beauty leaf,” as they use the oil from the fruit kernel as a moisturiser and healing balm. They also use it as a hair grease and painkiller. These days, tamanu oil is used internationally in a range of skin and hair-care products.
Now, the fragrant, deep brown oil may serve another purpose: bioenergy. A mature tamanu grove can yield up to 20 tons of crude oil per hectare each year. In Wonogiri district of Central Java, Indonesia, a new study shows that cultivating tamanu for bioenergy on degraded land can achieve multiple benefits for farmers while restoring the land, as well as helping to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Indonesia has pledged to increase its biodiesel and bioethanol consumption to 30 percent and 20 percent respectively, of total energy consumption by 2025. However current levels of biofuel production are far from meeting these targets, and boosting production at the scale required comes with its own environmental challenges.
So far, almost all of the biofuel produced in the country has come from oil palm. But land conversion from food cropping to oil palm for biodiesel has an impact on food security. In many cases oil palm plantations have encroached upon rainforests and peatlands, threatening biodiversity and releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
Fresh palm oil fruit piled up in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by N. Sujana/CIFOR
This is why researchers have begun exploring alternative bioenergy options, looking at species with multiple uses that can grow on degraded land on which other crops struggle. A recent study showed that there are around 3.5 million hectares of degraded land across Indonesia that would be suitable for growing at least one of five key biodiesel and biomass species, including tamanu. As well as bioenergy, these crops are capable of improving soil function and boosting biodiversity, thus playing an important role in restoring the land.
Planting trees on degraded lands is difficult, and the returns are slow. Farmers need other sources of income, too, if tamanu cultivation for biofuel is to be sustainable.
In Wonogiri, scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), whose work is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), together with the Center for Forest Biotechnology and Tree Improvement Research and Development (CFBTI) and the Korean National Institute of Forest Science (NIFOS) sought to find out if the figures add up in the farmers’ favor.
They collected data from 20 farmers who grow tamanu on degraded land (which locals call nyamplung). The farmers intercrop the tree with maize, rice and peanuts, and make use of it in honey production.
The researchers found that while the rice and peanuts were not profitable, and the maize was only marginally so, farmers grew them anyway to feed their families. The big money, however, lay in honey production, which was almost 300 times more profitable than maize, said CIFOR scientist Syed Rahman. “We were all surprised to see just how profitable it was,” he added.
The results suggest that tamanu can be grown sustainably as part of an agroforestry system that also utilises honey production and subsistence crops in the area. What is needed now, says CFBTI senior scientist and professor Budi Leksono, is for the market for biofuels to be developed further to create economies of scale.
“The market for nyamplung oil is not really developed yet,” said Leksono. “But we’re anticipating an energy crisis, and [by doing this work now] we are preparing for the plantations of the future.”
However, the policy around this needs to be designed extremely carefully, cautioned Rahman. “Because it’s potentially so profitable,” he explained, “the risk is that people will expand this system to forestland, too.” He added that careful constraints must be applied to ensure it is cultivated only on degraded and underutilized lands.
The implications are exciting. As CIFOR senior scientist Himlal Baral noted, while national and global interests and commitments for forest landscape restoration are increasing, success so far has been limited by a lack of solid business cases or financial viability. “In order for funding to flow into landscape restoration, it needs to be profitable,” he said.
Tamanu-based systems may well offer a compelling case for restoration that is worth everybody’s while.
Integrating bioenergy and food production on degraded landscapes in Indonesia for improved socioeconomic and environmental outcomes
Integrating bioenergy and food production on degraded landscapes in Indonesia for improved socioeconomic and environmental outcomes
20 March, 2019
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Growing bioenergy crops on degraded and underutilized land is a promising solution to meet the requirement for energy security, food security, and land restoration. This paper assesses the socioeconomic and environmental benefits of agroforestry systems based on nyamplung (tamanu) (Calophyllum inophyllum L.) in the Wonogiri district of Central Java, Indonesia. Data were collected through field observations and focus group discussions involving 20 farmers who intercrop nyamplung with maize, rice, and peanuts and utilize the species in honey production. Calculating each crop’s net present value (NPV) demonstrates that when grown as monocultures, staple crops rice and peanuts lead to negative profitability, while maize generates only a marginal profit; yet honey production utilizing nyamplung produces a NPV nearly 300 times greater than maize. However, when utilizing nyamplung, honey is also the commodity most sensitive to decreases in production, followed by nyamplung peanut and nyamplung rice combinations. While decreases in production have little effect on the NPVs of rice, peanuts, and maize, these annual crops can only be cultivated for a maximum of 6 years within the nyamplung’s 35-year cycle, due to canopy closure after this time. Nyamplung-based agroforestry systems can provide economic, social, and environmental gains on different scales. However, when considering the high profit potential of nyamplung combined with honey production, further research is needed to improve and develop bee husbandry practices so this becomes a viable option for local farmers.
Land restoration to enhance gender equality in Burkina Faso
Land restoration to enhance gender equality in Burkina Faso
07 March, 2019
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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.
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?”
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.
Contrasting land use systems influence soil seed bank composition and density in a rural landscape mosaic in West Africa
Contrasting land use systems influence soil seed bank composition and density in a rural landscape mosaic in West Africa
04 March, 2019
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Soil seed banks (SSBs) play a key role in the post-disturbance recruitment of many plant species. Seed bank diversity can be influenced by spatial and environmental variability and disturbance heterogeneity across the landscape. Understanding the recovery potential of native vegetation from SSBs is important for restoration and biodiversity conservation. Yet, in savanna-woodland, little is known about how SSBs vary in their germination, composition and density under different land uses, and how SSBs relate to aboveground vegetation (AGV). Using a sampling design based on the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework, we assessed the SSB and AGV in twelve 0.25?ha plots among sixteen in four contrasting land use systems of savanna-woodland in Burkina Faso: bushland, cultivated farmland, fallow and wetland. A total of 720 soil samples were taken from four stratified depths of 0–5?cm, >5–10?cm, >10–15?cm, and >15–20?cm. The SSB composition and richness was determined by the seedling emergence technique. Results showed that the SSB in all land uses was largely dominated by annual grasses with few perennial herbaceous and woody species. Seed density was highest in the fallow soil and highest in the upper soil layers for all land uses. A non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination of the SSB and AGV indicated that the SSBs were a poor reflection of the AGV. Based on these findings, spatial variations in landscape characteristics not only influence seed distribution and viability but also have the potential to influence population persistence. These results imply that successful restoration of fragmented ecosystems requires the addition of seeds and seedlings of target species.
Toward a tenure-responsive approach to forest landscape restoration: A proposed tenure diagnostic for assessing restoration opportunities
Toward a tenure-responsive approach to forest landscape restoration: A proposed tenure diagnostic for assessing restoration opportunities
13 February, 2019
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The Bonn Challenge, a voluntary global initiative launched in 2011, aims to bring up to 350 million hectares of degraded land into some level of restorative state by 2030. Pilot forest landscape restoration (FLR) efforts indicate that enhancing community and smallholder tenure rights is critical for achieving FLRs desired joint environmental and social well-being objectives. The Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM) is a decision support tool that has become widely used in national and subnational FLR planning. Although ROAM is structured so as to encourage inclusion of tenure rights and governance analyses, the extent to which ROAM reports actually incorporate tenure issues is undocumented. To address this gap, we report the results of an analysis of the currently publicly accessible ROAM reports from eight countries in Africa and Latin America. We found that the ROAM reports superficially covered tenure and governance considerations. We recommend design elements for a tenure diagnostic that should facilitate more robust tenure and land governance analyses to complement ROAM and other FLR planning approaches. We suggest the adoption of a rights-enhanced FLR approach so as to capitalize on the motivating force that strong and secure tenure rights provide for landholders to engage in forest restoration design and practice. Although developed in the context of FLR, the proposed tenure diagnostic should have broad utility for other land use initiatives where tenure rights and security are at stake.
Reshaping the terrain: Landscape restoration in Africa factsheets
Reshaping the terrain: Landscape restoration in Africa factsheets
07 January, 2019
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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.
Gender equality and forest landscape restoration infobriefs
Gender equality and forest landscape restoration infobriefs
12 October, 2018
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Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) aims to achieve ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded landscapes. Evidence shows that addressing gender equality and women’s rights is critical for addressing this dual objective. Against this backdrop, CIFOR and a number of partners hosted a Global Landscapes Forum workshop on FLR and gender equality in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2017. The objective of the workshop was to identify and discuss experiences, opportunities and challenges to advancing gender-responsive FLR in East African countries, as well as to join together various stakeholders working at the interface of gender and FLR as a community of practice. This brief set is a tangible outcome of this collaboration, featuring a number of useful lessons and recommendations rooted in the experience and expertise of partners in civil society, multilateral organizations, research community and private sector – all working in different ways to enhance the gender-responsiveness of restoration efforts.
Landscape Restoration in Kenya: Addressing gender equality
Landscape Restoration in Kenya: Addressing gender equality
08 October, 2018
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Unlocking the potential of forest landscape restoration (FLR) to achieve both social and environmental outcomes rests critically on the support, contributions and cooperation of a wide range of stakeholders at all levels, including women and men. In Kenya, the government has committed to restoring 5.1 million hectares of land by 2030. At the same time, Kenyas commitment to promoting gender equality and womens empowerment is enshrined in its Constitution, various national laws and policies as well as international conventions, including the Sustainable Development Goal framework. The purpose of this study was to provide empirically grounded lessons on opportunities and challenges for addressing gender in landscape restoration in Kenya, as well as to share recommendations for making sure Kenyas ambitious restoration efforts do not repeat the mistakes of past gender-blind restoration initiatives, but make sure both women and men are able to enjoy the opportunities and benefits generated through landscape restoration.
Bioenergy development in Central Kalimantan: Current research findings and potential areas for future study
Bioenergy development in Central Kalimantan: Current research findings and potential areas for future study
26 September, 2018
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Stable, robust policies and governmental support at both national and local levels, are needed to promote successful bioenergy research and its application, and avoid repeating past failures in developing bioenergy crops. The potential of local tree species should be considered in bioenergy project development; in particular, consideration should be given to the ability of each species to adapt to typical environments such as highly acidic peatlands, nutrient-poor soils and soils with high levels of organic matter.
The participation of local communities is of paramount importance, as well as the consideration of local preferences and context; by introducing community-relevant species, familiarity with such species and their potential uses is also increased.
Further study is necessary on local bioenergy species that are suitable for peatland restoration to answer the following questions: What concrete actions would allow a provincial government-driven working group to further develop sustainable bioenergy within Central Kalimantan? What would an appropriate business model for bioenergy production look like? and which agroforestry systems have the potential to combine bioenergy crops with other-purpose crops (e.g. food, aromatics and medicines).
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Robert Nasi, Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), gives welcoming remarks at the Global Landscapes Forum 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya, on Aug. 29.
Social inclusion, equity and rights in the context of restoration – lessons from the ground
Social inclusion, equity and rights in the context of restoration – lessons from the ground
10 September, 2018
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sub-title
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Restoration initiatives come in many sizes and shapes and take place in different environmental and socio-political landscapes. Evidence and experiences have shown that safeguarding the rights of local communities and promoting the voice and influence of their members in an equitable manner must be central in restoration to avoid perpetuating inequalities, to incentivize women and men to contribute to restoration efforts and to provide greater opportunities and enhanced wellbeing for women and men alike.
The objective of this interactive discussion forum is to extract, share and discuss concrete actions and conditions that have hindered or facilitated success in terms of rights, equality and wellbeing of local and indigenous women and men. The forum will feature three different restoration initiatives from East Africa, each presented by a restoration expert with practical experience from the field, followed by interaction with participants. The discussion will also sow the seeds for building an empirically grounded framework for understanding progress – or regression – in terms of equality and inclusion in the context of forest and landscape restoration, and provide guidance on how to integrate robust socioeconomic targets and indicators in national and global restoration efforts.
Restoration 
Plantations and tree crop commodities 
Enhanced nutrition and food security 
Biodiversity, safeguarding and conservation 
Nationally determined contributions 
Bioenergy and biomaterials 
Blue carbon and peatlands 
Climate change adaptation 
Landscape governance 
Gender 
Silvopastoral systems 
Market-based agroforestry-forestry 
Farm-forest policy interface 
Agroecology 
Livelihood trajectory modelling and assessment 
Inclusive finance and business models 
Innovating finance for sustainable landscapes 
Public and private commitments to zero deforestation 
Orphan tree crops 
Effectiveness of approaches to sustainable supply 
Quality of FTA research for development 
Sentinel landscapes 
Foresight 
Seeds and seedlings delivery systems 
Smallholder tree-crop commodities 
