Governing and Delivering a Biome-Wide Restoration Initiative: The Case of Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact in Brazil

Abstract

Abstract:In many human-modified tropical landscapes, biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services require large-scale restoration initiatives. Such initiatives must be able to augment the amount and the quality of remaining natural habitats. There is thus a growing need for long-term, multi-stakeholder and multi-purpose initiatives that result in multiple ecological and socioeconomic benefits at the biome scale. The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP) is a coalition of 260+ stakeholders, including governmental agencies, private sector, NGOs and research institutions, aimed at restoring 15 million ha of degraded and deforested lands by 2050. By articulating, and then integrating common interests, this initiative has allowed different sectors of society to implement an ambitious vision and create a forum for public and private concerns regarding forest restoration. The AFRP adopts a set of governance tools so multiple actors can implement key processes to achieve long-term and visionary restoration goals. Having overcome some initial challenges, AFRP now has to incorporate underrepresented stakeholders and enhance its efforts to make forest restoration more economically viable, including cases where restoration could be less expensive and profitable. The AFRP experience has resulted in many lessons learned, which can be shared to foster similar initiatives across tropical regions.

Planes actuales de restauración ecológica en Latinoamérica: Avances y omisiones

“…La evaluación y monitoreo espacio-temporal de variables biofísicas y sociales, y de carácter económico es fundamental para: (i) determinar si se lograron los objetivos planteados, (ii) generar las adecuaciones necesarias para adaptarse ante amenazas imprevistas o resultados inesperados, y (iii) aprender del proceso (Murcia et al, 2015). Además de conocer si los objetivos socioeconómicos, biológicos o ecológicos fueron alcanzados (Pinto et al, 2014), la elaboración de protocolos de monitoreo permitiría diseñar estrategias para asegurar la persistencia en el tiempo y el espacio de los ecosistemas restaurados con capacidad de adaptarse a los cambios climáticos y ecológicos futuros. La incorporación de un plan de monitoreo integral y participativo debería ser un elemento fundamental de cualquier plan de restauración a gran escala.…”

Current Challenges and Perspectives for Governing Forest Restoration

“…The issue of collaborative governance to overcome institutional fragmentation is further discussed at the local level in the paper by Pinto et al [21]. Although in many countries, particularly across the tropics, government-led reforestation and restoration programs are the norm, the authors make the case against top down approaches and the lack of positive incentives in the practice of forest restoration by presenting the governance structure of the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP) in Brazil.…”

Tropical forest degradation and recovery in fragmented landscapes — Simulating changes in tree community, forest hydrology and carbon balance

“…Another reason for including the small fragment plots in the analysis is that their 12 tree community may represent a very significant portion of the BNAF, since 92% of its total remaining forest is located at less 13 than 300 m from the closest edge (Dantas de Paula et al, 2011). Forest fragments smaller than 400 ha (depending on shape) 14 are considered to be significantly influenced by edge habitats, and so our samples are representative of such a landscape 15 (Laurance et al, 1998). Tree communities, however, vary greatly between small fragments and also in our samples, therefore 16 our reference scenario can be considered only as an ''average small fragment tree community''.…”

“…13 14 In order to reproduce the transitions with the FORMIND model, we changed the seedling ingrowth and mortality 15 parameters for each habitat. For the degradation transitions (core of large fragment to edge of large fragment, and core of large 16 fragment to small fragment) we initialized the model with core of large fragment field samples, but executed it with edge of 17 large fragment or small fragment parameters, simulating the sudden change in core conditions during a degradation process 18 caused by edge effects.…”