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Exchanging forest rehabilitation experiences
CIFOR News No. 37, December 2004
With 12 million hectares of the world's rainforests disappearing
each year - an area approximately the size of Greece - considerable
international attention is now placed on rehabilitation activities. Efforts to
rehabilitate degraded forest lands have been undertaken in Indonesia and around
the world for several decades.
In August, CIFOR hosted an international seminar titled "Review of
forest rehabilitation initiatives - Lessons from the past" at its
headquarters in Bogor, Indonesia. The opening day was attended by more
than 60 participants representing research institutions, government
departments, donor agencies, academia, the private sector and NGOs. The
seminar provided CIFOR with an opportunity to present the interim
findings of its research in synthesizing, reviewing and deriving lessons
from past and ongoing forest rehabilitation projects. "Although many
people in forestry circles are aware of the existence of rehabilitation
projects, there is little information on their success or impacts. CIFOR
is trying to fill in this gap in knowledge by collaborating with
well-known experts in a number of countries to gather important data and
exchange ideas," said the task manager of the CIFOR-Japan rehabilitation
research project, Takeshi Toma.
CIFOR's overseas research partners from Brazil, China, Indonesia, Peru,
Philippines and Vietnam shared and discussed the experiences and lessons
learned from their countries. According to Murniati and Lukas Rumboko
from the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, rehabilitation initiatives in
Indonesia would benefit from being more site-specific; taking into
consideration local needs, site conditions and institutional
arrangements in the area.
Similar issues apply to the Philippines. Antonio Carandang of the
University of the Philippines in Los Banos, said it is important to look
into the livelihood components within rehabilitation programs to ensure
local participation and sustainability of the efforts.
According to Do Dinh Sam and Pham Ngoc Mau from Viet Nam's
Forest Science Institute, Viet Nam's government-lead programs have
rehabilitated 450,000 hectares. They point out, however, that more
private sector involvement is needed to ensure greater financial
stability.
Private sector initiatives are gaining ground in Guangdong, China. Zhou Zaizhi from the Research Institute of Tropical Forestry stated that such
initiatives benefited from clear and explicit agreements on
responsibilities, rights, liabilities, and benefits accruing to
different stakeholders.
In many Latin American countries, grass-roots initiatives are a key
component of forest rehabilitation schemes. According to Silvio Brienza and Everaldo Almeida from Brazil and Abel Meza from Peru, small farmers
are actively engaged in rehabilitation efforts. Their efforts could be
enhanced by strengthening local farmer organizations and offering
technology that is appropriate to their situation and local capacity.
One of the key issues raised at the seminar was what is meant by the
term "rehabilitation". Tim Nolan, Director of the Forest Liaison Bureau
of the European Union, triggered the debate by suggesting participants
should be careful about mixing very different issues - agroforestry,
reforestation, scattered tree planting - and comparing apples to
oranges.
CIFOR's Unna Chokkalingam said that different countries
and communities have chosen a variety of approaches to
rehabilitate their degraded forest lands depending on the
socio-economic and political environment. The CIFOR team agreed
the name per se did not matter as long as the focus was to put
trees back on formerly forested land. Comparing and contrasting
the different approaches used and outcomes in different
countries is extremely worthwhile, even if the situations are
not always the same. This can help generate lessons on
appropriate approaches for sustainable rehabilitation under
different conditions.
Similar issues surrounded the discussion of what defines a
successful rehabilitation project and how it is measured, with
some participants asking how it is possible to compare success
between countries with different governmental structures,
culture, or geography. "Success or failure cannot be
generalized. It would need to be assessed from the perspectives
of different stakeholders who have different criteria," CIFOR's
Ani Adiwinata Nawir said. Some partners suggested that success
could also be compartmentalized into different aspects such as
social, economic and biophysical. Besides, the level of
achievement of project objectives could be a core element for
evaluating project outputs. Following a suggestion from CIFOR's
Cesar Sabogal, it was agreed the best way to systematize and
contrast research findings across countries was by using the
land tenure system and institutional arrangements as the basis
for comparison, followed by the rehabilitation objectives and
technical options used.
In the closing session, Toma emphasized that the workshop was a
means for sharing the information and not an end in itself.
Continued active participation and valuable inputs into the
review research were expected and would be appreciated. The project will disseminate the most promising rehabilitation
approaches and incentives under different ecological and
socio-economic scenarios. Specific outputs will include
databases and publications characterizing past rehabilitation
efforts and lessons learnt within and across the countries. To
make the most of this study, the partners have agreed to
translate the publications into their national languages, as
this is crucial in influencing policy-makers in non-English
language speaking countries. This research is funded by the Official
Development Assistance, Government of Japan
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of CIFOR News 37 (684kb)
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