From Target to Implementation: Perspectives for the International Governance of Forest Landscape Restoration

Abstract

Continuing depletion of forest resources, particularly in tropical developing countries, has turned vast areas of intact ecosystems into urbanized and agricultural lands. The degree of degradation varies, but in most cases, the ecosystem functions and the ability to provide a variety of ecosystem services are severely impaired. In addition to many other challenges, successful forest restoration of these lands requires considerable resources and funding, but the ecological, economic and social benefits have the potential to outweigh the investment. As a consequence, at the international policy level, restoration is seen as a field of land use activities that provides significant contributions to simultaneously achieving different environmental and social policy objectives. Accordingly, different policy processes at the international policy level have made ecological landscape restoration a global priority, in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity with the Aichi Target 15 agreed upon in 2010, which aims at restoring 15% of all degraded land areas by 2020. While such ambitious policy targets are important for recognizing and agreeing upon solutions for environmental problems, they are unlikely to be further substantiated or governed. The objective of this paper is thus to develop a complementary governance approach to the top-down implementation of the Aichi target. Drawing on collaborative and network governance theories, we discuss the potential of a collaborative networked governance approach and perspectives for overcoming the inherent challenges facing a rapid large-scale restoration of degraded lands. OPEN ACCESSForests 2014, 5 483

Current Challenges and Perspectives for Governing Forest Restoration

“…In particular, at the 2010 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, two ambitious proposals (Aichi Targets 14 and 15) were adopted with the aim of restoring degraded land at a global scale. The article by Pistorius and Freiberg [20] focuses on the international restoration policy arena and discusses the major challenges facing the mobilization of billions of US dollars that may be needed to reach these targets. It is estimated that 20 million ha of terrestrial degraded land will have to be restored per year until 2020.…”

Discourses across Scales on Forest Landscape Restoration

“…Principally, it allows countries to simultaneously: (i) mitigate and (ii) adapt to climate change in a way that enhances (iii) local livelihoods and contributes to sustainable development, while at the same time (iv) halting the loss of and conserving biodiversity [4][5][6][7][8][9]. FLR thus provides an opportunity for countries to fulfill multiple commitments to different international agreements, including e.g., the CBD, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the New York Declaration on Forests [3].…”

“…FLR thus provides an opportunity for countries to fulfill multiple commitments to different international agreements, including e.g., the CBD, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the New York Declaration on Forests [3]. Given a gigantic restoration potential of 2 billion hectares globally [2,10], FLR may help to achieve higher ambitions as declared under the Paris Agreement towards 1.5 • C, so long as restored landscapes continue to be used sustainably [6].…”

Implementing Forest Landscape Restoration in Ethiopia

“…A milestone was in 2011 when the German government and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) invited global leaders already engaged in the Global Partnership for Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) to participate in the first Bonn Challenge [1,2]. The objective of this network is to foster implementation of internationally agreed policy objectives for the land use sector, in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Aichi target 15 and REDD+ (A mitigation approach for the land use sector negotiated in the context of the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; REDD+ stands for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conservation of existing forest carbon stocks, sustainable forest management, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.).…”

“…On this basis, the Bonn Challenge was initiated as an informal high-level policy dialogue that sought to foster large-scale implementation on the ground. For this purpose, the participants declared at the first meeting the ambitious target of restoring 150 million ha of degraded forest landscapes by 2020 [1] (as of November 2016 app. 124 M ha have been pledged [3]).…”