Narratives Across Scales on Barriers and Strategies for Upscaling Forest Restoration: A Brazilian Case Study

Green infrastructure for coastal flood protection: The longitudinal impacts of green infrastructure patterns on flood damage

The importance of implementing green infrastructure (GI) for flood protection is supported by multiple substantial cross-sectional analyses. Yet, limited longitudinal research has been conducted which addresses how to maintain and improve the configuration of GI in order to minimize the cost of losses resulting from flooding. Structural damage from devastating storm events has repeatedly imposed substantial financial burdens on local governments in coastal regions. This study longitudinally examines the impacts of changes in GI patterns on flood damage cost in coastal Texas areas. Major flood events in the 36 Texan coastal watershed counties along the Gulf of Mexico were monitored from 2000 to 2017. Along with non-spatially weighted panel data models, we developed an advanced statistical model controlling for spatially correlated errors in flood loss and predicting flood loss with a set of time-series socioeconomic and environmental control variables. The results of the spatial panel data model reveal that long-term maintenance of larger, more irregular, more dispersed, less fragmented, and less connected patterns of GI will help to reduce county-level flood damage costs per capita over time. Most importantly, protecting larger patches within a closer proximity was found to be of the utmost importance for retaining the flood regulation services provided by GI. These findings suggest that planners and natural resource managers should enhance supportive land use policies to preserve existing GI and strategically locate new implementations in order to achieve long-term flood protection.

Post-fire forest restoration in the humid tropics: A synthesis of available strategies and knowledge gaps for effective restoration

Humid tropical forests are increasingly exposed to devastating wildfires. Major efforts are needed to prevent fire-related tipping points and to enable the effective recovery of fire-affected areas. Here, we provide a synthesis of the most common forest restoration strategies, thereby focusing on post-fire forest dynamics in the humid tropics. A variety of restoration strategies can be adopted in restoring humid tropical forests, including natural regeneration, assisted natural regeneration (i.e. fire breaks, weed control, erosion control, topsoil replacement, peatland rewetting), enrichment planting (i.e. planting nursery-raised seedlings, direct seeding) and commercial restoration (i.e. plantation forests, agroforestry). Our analysis shows that while natural regeneration can be effective under favourable ecological conditions, humid tropical forests are often ill-adapted to fire, and therefore less likely to recover unassisted after a wildfire event. Active restoration practices may be more effective, but can be costly and challenging to implement. We also identify gaps in knowledge needed for effective restoration of humid tropical forests after fire, hereby taking into account the ecosystems and socio-economic conditions in which these fires occur. We suggest to incorporate fire severity in future studies, to better understand and predict post-fire ecosystem responses. In addition, as fire poses a recurring and intensifying threat throughout the recovery process, more emphasis should be placed on post-restoration management and the prevention of fire throughout the different phases of the restoration process. Furthermore, as tropical wildfires are increasing in scale, establishing collaborative capacity and setting priorities for efficient resource allocation should become a major priority for restoration practitioners in the humid tropics. Finally, as global fire regimes are changing and expected to intensify in the context of climate change, land use and land cover change, we suggest to put continuous effort into fire monitoring and modelling to inform the development of effective restoration strategies in the long-run.

Perceptions from non-governmental actors on forest and landscape restoration, challenges and strategies for successful implementation across Asia, Africa and Latin America

Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) has been defined as a planned process that aims to regain ecological functionality and enhance human well-being in degraded landscapes. Several governments and organizations worldwide rose to the challenge of halting degradation and restoring landscapes. Commitments are ambitious, thus a synthesis of current experiences with and strategies for implementation is important to inform future actions. To guide successful implementation, the Global Partnership on FLR put forward six principles, namely, the conservation and enhancement of ecosystems at landscape scales, the restoration of multiple functions, the engagement of multiple stakeholders, with allowances for context dependency and adaptive management. Non-governmental organizations, acting globally, regionally and (or) at national and local scales, play a fundamental role in supporting governments fulfill their commitments. Therefore, we gathered the perceptions of actors within non-governmental organizations engaged in FLR across countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America about what FLR is and their perceived challenges and strategies for implementation. We employed the six principles of FLR to organize and evaluate the responses. Results show that the principles of landscape scale, ecosystem conservation and enhancement, and multi stakeholder engagement are all considered by interviewees as core components of an FLR program. Yet several restoration projects shared by interviewees still required further evidence of a landscape vision, and the integration of actors beyond local communities and the environmental government sectors. Context dependency was evident in the clear incorporation of local natural resource governance norms, such as tribal and community management in project structure, yet few projects appeared to be designed by local actors. The principle of "adaptive management" was mostly missing from the responses, perhaps because most projects had not had sufficient time to learn from intervention outcomes. Key financial challenges for FLR implementation were the short duration and availability of funding, high-up front costs and few short-term returns. To overcome these challenges, promising strategies relate to the development of tangible economic returns for local actors engaged in productive restorative actions that are planned alongside conservation and ecological restoration actions in the landscape. The challenges of negotiating actions with a multitude of actors and the lack of supportive policies highlighted in the interviews require organizations to focus efforts on leveraging the enactment and enforcement of legislations that look beyond jurisdictional boundaries and support landscape management with clear, long term incentive mechanisms and cross-sectoral collaboration. In addition, implementation can be further supported with the scientifically robust sharing of results on how different FLR projects move forward in meeting the social and environmental objectives of a successful, integrative restoration of degraded landscapes.

Forest landscape restoration: state of play

Tree planting has been widely touted as an inexpensive way to meet multiple international environmental goals for mitigating climate change, reversing landscape degradation and restoring biodiversity restoration. The Bonn Challenge and New York Declaration on Forests, motivated by widespread deforestation and forest degradation, call for restoring 350 million ha by 2030 by relying on forest landscape restoration (FLR) processes. Because the 173 million ha commitments made by 63 nations, regions and companies are not legally binding, expectations of what FLR means lacks consensus. The frequent disconnect between top-level aspirations and on-the-ground implementation results in limited data on FLR activities. Additionally, some countries have made landscape-scale restoration outside of the Bonn Challenge. We compared and contrasted the theory and practice of FLR and compiled information from databases of projects and initiatives and case studies. We present the main FLR initiatives happening across regional groups; in many regions, the potential need/opportunity for forest restoration exceeds the FLR activities underway. Multiple objectives can be met by manipulating vegetation (increasing structural complexity, changing species composition and restoring natural disturbances). Livelihood interventions are context-specific but include collecting or raising non-timber forest products, employment and community forests; other interventions address tenure and governance.