Research Highlights: The global Forest Landscape Restoration ambitions could be impaired by projects that ignore key principles such as the engagement of local communities in decision making and implementation, equitable benefit sharing, and monitoring for adaptive management. This entails the danger of continued degradation, disappointed local stakeholders, and ultimately, project failure. Other projects face technical problems related to tree establishment and nursery production. Background and Objectives: There are high hopes for Forest and Landscape Restoration to regain ecosystem integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested and degraded areas. We highlight various problems and success factors experienced during project implementation on a global scale. Materials and Methods: We use data from a global online survey to identify common obstacles and success factors for the implementation of forest restoration. Results: While the majority of respondents reported successful projects, others indicate drastic problems and failed projects. Major obstacles to forest restoration experienced by survey respondents were a lack of local stakeholder involvement and a mismatch between goals of local communities and restoration managers, as well as environmental, anthropogenic, and technical barriers to tree regeneration. Conclusions: When local communities, their goals, and needs are disregarded in project planning and implementation, as reported from various cases in our survey and the limited available literature, there is a risk of project failure. Failed projects and disappointed stakeholders, as well as discouraged funders and policy-makers, could lessen the momentum of global forest restoration ambitions. Adhering to key principles of Forest and Landscape Restoration can promote much-needed community support, with the potential to overcome barriers to forest regeneration and enable communities for the protection, management, and monitoring of the restored forests beyond the limited project and funding periods. Research is needed to gain a better understanding of the perception of local communities towards restoration activities. Further studies on the implementation of forest restoration at the intersection of environmental factors, socioeconomic conditions, forest regeneration/silviculture, and nursery production are needed.
Land use transformation at the farm level is attributed to household decision-making, reflected by the behavior and activities of smallholder farmers. Unfortunately, household decision-making in local communities and its determinants are site-specific and hardly understood. This study uses multistage purposive selection of households as a unit for the analysis to investigate the transformation from pure agriculture to farm forest mosaics, especially through woodlot establishment. We use key informants, household surveys, and observations to obtain data on decision-making amongst 84 farm households in Nyantonzi parish, Masindi district, Uganda, as an example. Specifically, the study addresses four research questions. Firstly, what is the current status of gender-based decision-making at the household level? Secondly, is decision making within farm households individualistic or collective? Thirdly, which factors are considered to select annual, perennial and tree-crop farm management regimes? Fourthly, what determinants influence the decision-making process and the likelihood of woodlot establishment? A multilevel analysis comprising parametric statistical models and binary logistic regression is applied to assess difference in household natural, physical, human, and social capital, highlight gender roles, and obtain factors associated to selection of crops and determinants of woodlot establishment at the farm level, respectively. Results reveal that gender based decision-making is clearly disaggregated on the basis of husbands and wives and it is individualistic, mostly dominated by husbands with lower participation by wives and other family members. Households consider various factors before making any decisions, e.g., market prices for both annual and perennial crops, food consumption for annual crops, ease of management, and yields from the previous season for the tree-crop management regimes. The likelihood for woodlot establishment is positively influenced by the willingness and intention of households to establish woodlots and relative age of household head. However, knowledge of land use Policies, Laws, and Regulations (PLRs) in relation to tree planting and harvesting and access to non-farm income reduce the likelihood of woodlot establishment. Here, we recommend that current and future forest land restoration initiatives focus on reducing the gender gap and increase women’s participation in decision making, provide market information platforms on wood products, and include woodlot farmers in social organization. Current PLRs on tree tenure should be improved and clearly communicated by using the existing communication assets and social gatherings as channels of change and influence for decision-making.
Agroforestry is often seen as a panacea that offers multiple environmental, economic, and social benefits. However, the validity of generalized statements on agroforestry outcomes is doubtful because the evidence base is unclear. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses exist on the topic in addition to many case studies that address specific outcomes of individual agroforestry practices at different sites. However, the overall picture of available scientific evidence on agroforestry outcomes remains opaque due to the wide diversity of existing agroforestry practices, outcome indicators, and spatial locations. To clarify whether and in which areas the research landscape allows conclusions to be drawn about the potential benefits or drawbacks of agroforestry compared to other land uses, an evidence review map was created for the purpose of this study. Based on a systematic literature search and screening, 64 systematic review articles were finally identified that summarize ecological, economic, or social outcomes of at least one agroforestry practice compared to another land use as control. The thematic and spatial coverage of the systematic reviews on agroforestry outcomes is mapped to identify density and research gaps in the evidence base. Moreover, the comprehensibility of the study selection for each identified systematic review is critically assessed. The resulting evidence review map discloses a solid evidence base for environmental outcomes and productivity aspects of individual agrisilvicultural practices, as well as for agroforestry systems when considering an aggregate level. However, the outcomes of individual silvopastoral and agrosilvopastoral practices have been less studied in the literature. A global coverage at the level of individual agroforestry practices is only available for impacts on climate change mitigation. Major research gaps were identified for systematic analysis of social outcomes of all agroforestry types. The results of the evidence mapping highlight further research needs, but also urge for caution in making generalized statements about the benefits of agroforestry.
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