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Minutes of Open Session
CIFOR, August 9, 2004 |
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Full
English Report [177kb]
Intensive exploitation and related disturbances have depleted large
areas of forests in the tropics in the last decades, and resulted in
large and expanding areas of degraded forest ecosystems. In many
tropical countries, government agencies, international agencies, the
private sector and civil society have expended much effort and resources
in rehabilitation activities in response to deforestation and forest
degradation. How have the efforts played out in the different countries
given the different biophysical, political, and socio-economic
condition? How can we use the lessons to plan and guide future efforts
and ensure their sustainability?
To discuss these issues, the Center for International Forestry
Research (CIFOR) organised a one-day open session entitled: Review of
forest rehabilitation initiatives – Lessons from the past on August 9,
2004 at CIFOR, Bogor. The aim of the open session was to share the
interim findings from CIFOR’s ongoing research activity synthesizing,
reviewing, and deriving lessons from past and ongoing forest
rehabilitation projects. The experiences and lessons from six countries
– Brazil, China, Indonesia, Peru, Philippines, and Vietnam - were
presented by research partners from each country. The presentation were
followed by active discussions on similarities and differences in
approaches, scope for transferability, key issues to be addressed and
steps to move forward. There were 62 participants representing the study
partners, Indonesian government agencies, companies, NGOs, bilateral
projects, donors and research institutions.
Participants were welcomed by Dr. Markku Kanninen, the Director of
the Environmental Services Program of CIFOR. He stressed the growing
importance and need for rehabilitation in all continents. Rehabilitation
efforts can lead to a more diverse productive environment providing
important products, livelihood opportunities and multiple environmental
services. These efforts could also lead to fulfilling global objectives
with regard to biodiversity conservation, timber certification and
climate change. He also stated that rehabilitation was one of the 15
most important research areas of CIFOR. The work was multi-disciplinary
and a partnership approach was used, and CIFOR would like to continue
with this style of working with various countries and institutions.
The project team leader from CIFOR, Dr. Takeshi Toma then introduced
the study “Review of forest rehabilitation initiatives – Lessons from
the past”. The study was started in 2002 with Vietnam, Indonesia,
Philippines, China, Peru and Brazil chosen as pilot countries. The
review was carried out by national partners and the CIFOR research team,
using a common approach adapted to fit country situations. The aim of
the study was to draw strategic lessons from the numerous past
rehabilitation efforts to plan and guide future efforts and increase
their chances of success and long-term sustainability.
Dr. Toma then described what was considered forest rehabilitation in
this review: Deliberate activities (technical, institutional,
socio-economic) aimed at artificial planting and/or enhancing natural
regeneration of trees on formerly forested grass, brush, shrub or barren
lands (degraded land?) for the purpose of enhancing productivity,
livelihood and/or environmental benefits. The country research teams
first conducted a historical inventory and characterisation of
rehabilitation initiatives in each of the selected regions. This was
followed by a detailed review of selected case studies on the ground
looking at productivity, environmental and livelihood impacts as well as
longer term sustainability and adoption.
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In response to questions from the audience:
- The number of countries was limited to six because of restricted
resources and capacity. But we would be happy to share our methods
with other institutions interested in executing the study in other
countries.
- The same general methodology has been used in all countries but
modified to suit the different realities and needs. The CIFOR
research team in consultation with numerous experts developed the
preliminary methods. The country teams (CIFOR coordinator and
country partners) then modified and refined the methods for their
specific countries.
- Yes, there are many institutions working on rehabilitation/
reforestation issues but there is not much overlap in focus. It will
be useful to collaborate and share our methods and findings, and
feed into each others’ initiatives. We began this process at the
very start of the review study, consulting with the other
institutions and have been sharing our methods and preliminary
findings with them.
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