Integrating forest restoration into land-use planning at large spatial scales

Forest restoration is being scaled up globally, carrying major expectations of environmental and societal benefits. Current discussions on ensuring the effectiveness of forest restoration are predominantly focused on the land under restoration per se. But this focus neglects the critical issue that land use and its drivers at larger spatial scales have strong implications for forest restoration outcomes, through the influence of landscape context and, importantly, potential off-site impacts of forest restoration that must be accounted for in measuring its effectiveness. To ensure intended restoration outcomes, it is crucial to integrate forest restoration into land-use planning at spatial scales large enough to account for - and address - these larger-scale influences, including the protection of existing native ecosystems. In this review, we highlight this thus-far neglected issue in conceptualizing forest restoration for the delivery of multiple desirable benefits regarding biodiversity and ecosystem services. We first make the case for the need to integrate forest restoration into large-scale land-use planning, by reviewing current evidence on the landscape-level influences and off-site impacts pertaining to forest restoration. We then discuss how science can guide the integration of forest restoration into large-scale land-use planning, by laying out key features of methodological frameworks required, reviewing the extent to which existing frameworks carry these features, and identifying methodological innovations needed to bridge the potential shortfall. Finally, we critically review the status of existing methods and data to identify future research efforts needed to advance these methodological innovations and, more broadly, the effective integration of forest restoration design into large-scale land-use planning.

Moving from ecological impacts to social vulnerability in data-scarce places

Managers need to trace social impacts and vulnerability caused by environmental change all the way to its driving forces to target key system components for intervention. However, most available scientific evidence deals with either the ecological impacts of direct drivers or the value of ecosystem benefits to people. Our matrix-based tool combines these types of evidence to make environmental management problems traceable through a structured yet flexible procedure. The tool consists of a series of matrices that sequentially link direct drivers of environmental change, landscapes, ecological conditions, benefits to people, and stakeholder types. Qualitative matrices result from the integration and synthesis of available evidence from literature reviews, and where data is scarce, these are used to elicit quantitative scores from expert opinion. Expert scoring of links and multiplication of matrices allow for estimating the impacts of each driver of environmental change on each stakeholder type and using this information as input to assess stakeholders' vulnerability through impact-influence diagrams. Applying the tool to the Argentine Gran Chaco, a globally threatened ecoregion, yielded a transparent and reliable picture of this data-scarce place, with important management implications. Tracing stakeholder impacts back to direct drivers confirmed that further encroachment of cleared areas around indigenous lands will increase the vulnerability of this social group. Also, assessing confidence levels for every social-ecological link suggested that incentivizing peasant farmers to restore natural forage supply represents a management opportunity to reverse degradation. Our tool makes interdisciplinary frameworks of linked ecological and social systems operational so managers can use the best available knowledge of a place and account for uncertainty to make environmental management decisions.

Silvopastoral management for lowering trade-offs between beef production and carbon storage in tropical dry woodlands

Tropical dry woodlands and savannas harbour high levels of biodiversity and carbon, but are also important regions for agricultural production. This generates trade-offs between agriculture and the environment, as agricultural expansion and intensification typically involve the removal of natural woody vegetation. Cattle ranching is an expanding land use in many of these regions, but how different forms of ranching mediate the production/environment trade-off remains weakly understood. Here, we focus on the Argentine Chaco, to evaluate trade-offs between beef production and carbon storage in grazing systems with different levels of woody cover (n = 27). We measured beef productivity and carbon storage during 2018/19 and used a regression framework to quantify the trade-off between both, and to analyze which agroclimatic and management variables explain the observed trade-off. Our main finding was that silvopastures had the lowest trade-off between beef production and carbon storage, as management in these systems seeks to increase herbaceous forage by removing shrubs, while maintaining most of the bigger trees that contain most above-ground carbon. The most important variable explaining the beef production/carbon storage trade-off was pasture management, specifically the number of shrub encroachment control interventions, with a lower trade-off for higher numbers of interventions. Unfortunately, more interventions can also result in woody cover degradation over time, and shrub encroachment management must therefore be improved to become sustainable. Overall, our study highlights the strong environmental trade-offs associated with beef production in dry woodlands and savanna, but also the key role of good management practices in lowering this trade-off. Specifically, silvopastoral systems can increase beef production as much as converting woodlands to tree-less pastures, but silvopastures retain much more carbon in aboveground vegetation. Silvopastoral systems thus represent a promising land-use option to lower production/environment trade-offs in the Dry Chaco and likely many other tropical dry woodlands and savannas.

Preference, perceived change, and professed relationship among ecosystem services in the Himalayas

The demand side of ecosystem service (ES), especially preference and perception of supply and interactions among ES, is an important yet underexplored research area for landscape planning and management in human-dominated landscapes. Taking a case of multifunctional landscape in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region, we carried out a social survey of ES, focusing on preference, perceived change, and observed relationship among six major ES from the local people's perspective. Using a semi-structured questionnaire, data collection was done from 300 households from 10 categories of human settlements, based on watershed and land cover types. Garrett mean score (GMS), ordinal logistic regression estimates, and Chi-square test were performed for quantitative data, while an inductive approach was adopted for qualitative data analysis. The results show that at the landscape level, local people preferred water yield (GMS = 70) and crop production (GMS = 66) as the most preferred ES, whereas habitat quality (GMS = 37) and carbon sequestration (GMS = 35) were among the least preferred ES. More than 70% of the respondents believed that the supply of crop production has decreased over the last two decades; however, the supply of other provisioning and non-provisioning ES has increased as observed by majority of the respondents. Among the 15 pairs of ES, local people believe that co-occurrence of ES is possible. Majority of the respondents said that there exist synergistic relationship among 13 pairs of ES, except crop production which is negatively related with timber production and carbon sequestration. Among the identified trade-offs in ES, majority of local people believed that direct trade-offs (i.e., linear inverse relationship) is dominant as observed in 8 pairs of ES, followed by concave and convex trade-offs. Based on our analysis, we argue that the preference and perceived change of ES is more dependent on spatial heterogeneity of communities (i.e., watershed type, municipal category, and land cover type of residence) than socio-economic determinants. Further, we have discussed and suggested few policy and management measures including place-based spatial assessment of the social demand and preference, embracing agroforestry practices in ecosystem management programs, mainstreaming non-local ES in local decision making by incentives, and optimizing the supply of desired ES though integrated biophysical and socio-economic assessment of the landscape.

Transforming agroforestry in contested landscapes: A win-win solution to trade-offs in ecosystem services in Nepal

Trade-offs in ecosystem services (ES) is increasingly becoming a pressing issue in sustainability science, to deal with supply constraints of landscape and divergence in demand from local and global stakeholders. Agroforestry is a well acknowledged and established management practice to minimize the trade-offs, and to sustainably manage the contested landscapes while satisfying the growing demands of both local and global ecosystem beneficiaries. However, various facets of agroforestry, its management modality, institutional arrangements, and implementation outcomes are inadequately understood. This paper aims to scrutinize major agroforestry practices through the methods of systematic review of literature, government policies, and project reports. Taking a case of Nepal, this paper presents agroforestry transition from forest-based agroforestry (i.e., shifting cultivation) to farm-based integrated approach to agroforestry in Nepal. This paper reveals that integrated agro-forestry approach is crucial in creating win-win scenarios among various stakeholders by minimizing trade-offs and maximizing synergies among ES, especially food, fibre, and other ES (i.e., biodiversity, soil functioning, water, and climate regulation). Analysing socio-economic, ecological, and institutional factors that are affecting agroforestry for the last fifty years, we further suggest an integrated model of agroforestry which is replicable in other countries with similar socio-economic status, practicing subsistence farming system. The findings of the paper are crucial in awakening scholars, policy makers and landscape managers for up-scaling and out-scaling of integrated approach to agroforestry for ecosystem management and attainment of various sustainable development goals such as, no poverty (#1), zero hunger (#2), climate action (#13), and life on land (#15).

Spatial Tools for Integrated and Inclusive Landscape Governance: Toward a New Research Agenda

Participatory spatial tools-community mapping, PGIS, and others-find increasing resonance among research and non-governmental organizations to make stakeholder claims and community perspectives explicit for more inclusive landscape governance. In this paper, we situate the use of participatory spatial tools in debates on integrated landscape approaches and inclusive development. We show that using such spatial tools is not new but argue that their application for inclusive landscape governance requires a new research agenda that focuses on expanding the scope of application of the tools, improving the inclusivity of the processes, and developing new technologies.