Thirty years of forest-cover change in Western Rwanda during periods of wars and environmental policy shifts

Arakwiye, Bernadette; Rogan, John; Eastman, J. Ronald

doi:10.1007/s10113-020-01744-0

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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Section: Three Key Challenges For Long-term Successful Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the aftermath of the civil war, fast-growing non-native plantation forests were established throughout Rwanda 96 , 98 , 99 . These early restoration efforts focused on establishing woodlots or adopting agroforestry practices due to land scarcity 98 . While these activities provide short-term benefits for local communities such as fuelwood, they have resulted in patchy forests with relatively low biodiversity 98 and degrading soils 99 .…”

Section: Three Key Challenges For Long-term Successful Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These early restoration efforts focused on establishing woodlots or adopting agroforestry practices due to land scarcity 98 . While these activities provide short-term benefits for local communities such as fuelwood, they have resulted in patchy forests with relatively low biodiversity 98 and degrading soils 99 . It also remains unclear how the many non-native monocultures will perform under a changing climate.…”

Section: Three Key Challenges For Long-term Successful Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Future-proofing ecosystem restoration through enhancing adaptive capacity

et al. 2023

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Social-ecological ecosystem restoration involves interacting challenges, including climate change, resource overexploitation and political instability. To prepare for these and other emerging threats, we synthesized key restoration and social-ecological systems literature and derived three guiding themes that can help to enhance the adaptive capacity of restoration sites: (i) work with the existing system, (ii) create self-sustaining, adaptive systems, and (iii) foster diversity and participation. We propose a two-step approach and provide an example from Rwanda detailing the application of these principles. While site-specific activities have to be designed and implemented by local practitioners, our synthesis can guide forward-thinking restoration practice.

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Section: Three Key Challenges For Long-term Successful Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Three Key Challenges For Long-term Successful Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Three Key Challenges For Long-term Successful Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Future-proofing ecosystem restoration through enhancing adaptive capacity

et al. 2023

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“…Over the past decades, hundreds of individual sites were restored across the country in the form of woodlots, agroforestry patches, wetlands, and protective plantings (Nash et al 2020). However, most restored sites exhibit low levels of biodiversity (Arakwiye et al 2021) and are dominated by exotic species (Nash et al 2020), with monoculture plantings being widespread (Ministry of Natural Resources Rwanda 2014). In addition, access to resources needed for restoration such as financial support and seedlings is limited in Rwanda (Buckingham et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relevance of international restoration principles for ecosystem restoration practice in Rwanda

Frietsch,

Fischer,

Kaplin

et al. 2024

Restoration Ecology

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The restoration of degraded ecosystems is considered a key strategy to contribute to ecological integrity and human well‐being. To support restoration practice, 10 “Principles to guide the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030” were conceived through a consultative process and put forward by a group of leading international restoration actors. The extent to which these principles can inform successful restoration activities on the ground, however, remains largely unknown. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, we probed 32 stakeholders who plan, manage, and implement restoration in Rwanda to elicit which factors they perceive as most important for successful restoration based on the UN Decade principles. Using the Q‐methodology, we discovered that participants overall agreed that the UN Decade principles are relevant to inform successful ecosystem restoration in the study area. Further, the Q‐study revealed three distinct groups of stakeholders with different priorities in terms of opinions on restoration aims, stakeholder involvement, and relevant spatial scales. Based on semi‐structured interviews, we identified four considerations for successful restoration that require special attention in future restoration interventions in the study area: (1) restoring historical conditions, (2) collecting baseline data, (3) increasing local communities' sense of ownership, and (4) pursuing a long‐term vision for restoration activities. To address these considerations and thereby harvest the potential of ecosystem restoration to benefit both people and nature in the long run, diverse stakeholders with different priorities for restoration need to come together to discuss possible differences in their perceived priorities, perspectives, and approaches.

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“…Forest and savanna ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa are characterized by significant changes in land cover and vegetation composition due to agro-pastoral activities and impacts from various other land-use practices (Arakwiye et al, 2021 ; Dendoncker et al, 2020 ; Ellis, 2006 ). In many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), charcoal production plays an important role as a driver in environmental change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using an unmanned aerial system to analyse environmental impacts of charcoal production on tropical savanna ecosystems in northwestern Kenya

Petersen

Nüsser

2022

Environ Monit Assess

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In many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, charcoal plays an important role as energy source but is widely perceived as a major driver of deforestation and forest degradation. This narrative, however, is mostly based on research within primary production regions. Though space-borne remote sensing applications can be useful in monitoring such large-scale production modes, environmental effects of household-level production are less easy to assess. Therefore, the present study employs an unmanned aerial system (UAS) to assess the impact of small-scale charcoal production on the vegetation density in the immediate vicinity of production sites. The UAS data was complemented by field measurements and very high-resolution WordView-2 satellite imagery. This approach revealed only small differences between charcoal production sites and reference plots which were usually evened out after 20–25-m distance to the plot centre using a concentric ring analysis. Results further show that a distinction between different land-use practices is difficult, even with the high spatial resolution provided by a UAS. Thus, more research and new approaches are needed to evaluate the role of small-scale charcoal production in deforestation and forest degradation processes against the background of other human activities. However, to exploit the full potential of UAS for monitoring environmental effects in charcoal producing areas, official regulations need to be clearer and more reliable.

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Thirty years of forest-cover change in Western Rwanda during periods of wars and environmental policy shifts

Cited by 12 publications

References 104 publications

Future-proofing ecosystem restoration through enhancing adaptive capacity

Future-proofing ecosystem restoration through enhancing adaptive capacity

The relevance of international restoration principles for ecosystem restoration practice in Rwanda

Using an unmanned aerial system to analyse environmental impacts of charcoal production on tropical savanna ecosystems in northwestern Kenya

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