Odds and ends of rehabilitating (restoring)
degraded landscapes
Lalisa A. Duguma
World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) &
ASB Partnership for Tropical Forest Margins
Email: l.duguma@cgiar.org

Outline
 Some background
 The big questions in restoration/
rehabilitation
◦ What do we want to achieve?
◦ How do we reach at the goal?
◦ Why do we do it?
◦ Whose voice and choice is crucial?
 Case study
 Summary
1

The rise of the restoration
agenda
 Natural resource depletion (and degradation) in
multiple fronts (e.g. forests, water, land, etc.) is a
growing threat.
 Close to 60% of the ecosystems services widely
used by humans are degraded or being used
unsustainably (MEA 2005).
 Replenishing the potential of the ecosystem to
provide the necessary ecosystem services through
restoration/ rehabilitation is gaining promising
momentum.
2

Restoration opportunities
3
1.5 billion ha of mosaic restoration – forests
and trees combined in other land uses such as
agroforestry, smallholder farms and settlement
areas.
About 0.5 billion ha of wide scale
restoration of closed forest
About 200 million ha of unpopulated
remote forests e.g. in boreal areas that
could be restored.

The Commitments (e.g. Bonn
Challenge-FLR)
 Ethiopia and USA – 15 million ha each
 DR Congo – 8 million ha
 Uganda – 2.5 million ha
 Rwanda – 2 million ha
 Guatemala – 1.2 million ha
 Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica – 1 million ha
each
 Pakistan – 0.38 million ha
 Initiative 20x20 (Latin America and Caribbean
countries) – 20 million degraded land (inclusive of 11.5
million ha degraded forest)
4

Very promising commitments indeed!!
In implementing such commitments, it is
necessary to take into account a
number of issues so that the initiative
could be successful and sustainable.
5

Restoration vs. Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation
- the reparation of ecosystem
processes, productivity and
services… but..
- does not necessarily mean a
return to pre-existing biotic
conditions.
Restoration
- the process of assisting the
recovery of an ecosystem that has
been degraded, damaged, or
destroyed.
- attempts to return an ecosystem
to its historic trajectory.
Source: Society for Ecological Restoration International Science & Policy Working Group.
2004. The SER International Primer on Ecological Restoration. www.ser.org &Tucson:
Society for Ecological Restoration International.
6

What are we intending to restore/
rehabilitate - Cover or Quality??
 Cover is more about the form i.e. species
composition, land use configurations, etc.
◦ Do we just want any type of forest where forest was lost?
◦ Or is the cover guided by the priority functions?
 Quality (function) could be influenced by form.
 Is quality about multiple functions?
7

What is the landscape we want
to have?
 History: How did we come to where
we are? [What lead to the
degradation?]
 Context: What is the context within
which the restoration or rehabilitation
is going to take place?
 Risks and drivers of change: What
are the risks and drivers of change
that we need to take into account?
8

Which pathway or trajectory is
appropriate?
 How do we want to go
where we planned to be in
restoring or rehabilitating
the landscapes?
 Each trajectory can have
its own distinct practices,
investment portfolio,
stakeholders, …
A
B
9

From whose perspective?
 Who makes the decision on
what has to be achieved?
 Did we capture the voice of all
relevant stakeholders?
 Whose vision is it?
 What is the voice of the people
on..
◦ Choice of practices
◦ Choice of tree species
◦ The nature of benefits generated
from the initiatives
Delta Electronics Group
10

11
The Shinyanga case study,
Tanzania

The Process
12
1930 1986
Sustainable agropastoral
livelihood system
Ngitili (fodder bank
system)
Indigenous Miombo
and acacia woodlands
Tse tse fly eradication
(clearing of woodlands)
Cash crops expansion
Overstocking
Increasing wood
demand
Deforestation for
villagization
Ngitili
Onfarm tree
conservation
Improved fallows
Rotational woodlots
The reference state The degradation phase The restoration phase
Community
empowerment
Long-term investment
from NORAD and ICRAF
Insecure
tenure rights
ICRAF was the key technical partner from the
beginning of the programme

The Change
13
611 ha of managed
Ngitili in 1986
378,000 ha Ngitili-
based landscape
rehabilitation in
2005

Degraded grazing land
Restored area using Ngitili

The Values (Multiple functions):
Social, environmental, livelihood
benefits
Carbon sequestration
1986 - 611 ha (27,428 t
C)
2005 - 377,756 ha
(17 M t C)
Biodiversity conservation
Bird species reemerged : 22-65
Mammal species reemerged : 10
Plant species in restored
Ngitili:152
Economic values (Monela et al. 2005)
Per capita economic value : 168 USD
/year
Rural per capita expenditure : 102 USD
/year
Other ES benefits
Hydrological functions:
Dam construction and
water management
(“Water markets”)
Soil management:
Erosion control
SOM build-up
Social and
Intrinsic values
- Social
cohesion
- ‘Social security’
REDD+ piloting is
already ongoing!!

The Values….
16

Multi-actor processes
17

Success factors
 Multi-stakeholder engagement and institutional
collaborations that leverage resources and
knowledge and improve overall efficiency of the
actions
 Long-term investments by financing agencies and
long-term commitment by actors
 Favorable and supportive national and local policy
processes
 Use of local practices and knowledge in the
implementation scheme
 Empowerment of the community to own the
process
18

Summary
To achieve the goal of
restoration/ rehabilitation in
landscapes, it is crucial to
articulate:
 What we want to achieve,
what processes are in it,
what resources are required.
 How we want to do it
 Who should be engaged
 Why we do it
 …..
19

Thank You!