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Minutes of Open Session
CIFOR, August 9, 2004

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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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