Integrating Tenure And Governance Into Assessments Of Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunities

Many countries have adopted the Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM) to guide the development of national and subnational restoration strategies. This study analyzes ROAM reports for eight countries to determine the extent to which tenure and related governance considerations were incorporated. Although all of the reports found that lack of rights or weak rights impeded efforts to scale up forest landscape restoration (FLR), none provided robust descriptions of the rights and responsibilities of individuals or communities to trees, forests or land under statutory or customary law. We propose a rights actualization framework as a diagnostic that can provide a solid foundation to identify policy reforms needed to address rights-related barriers to FLR implementation. FLR initiatives informed by a robust tenure rights assessment will enhance the likelihood of achieving their twin goals of improving ecological functionality and human well-being.

Gender relations shape women’s and men’s identities, norms, rules, and responsibilities. They influence people’s access to, use, and management of land and other natural resources, including ownership, tenure, and user rights to land and forests. A substantial body of research on these issues comes from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), through its Flagship 5 research theme. Flagship 5 focused on gender and social inclusion in relation to land and natural resource tenure and to landscape governance, and analyzed how tenure security affects sustainable management of land, water, fish stocks, and forests. This Food Policy Report reviews the scientific contributions from Flagship 5 to the broader wealth of related literature, including key lessons about gender from these studies with respect to outcomes and impacts on natural resource management, food security, and poverty alleviation.

Restoration ecology, as a scientific discipline, developed from practitioners’ efforts to restore degraded land, with interest also coming from applied ecologists attracted by the potential for restoration projects to apply and/or test developing theories on ecosystem development. Since then, forest landscape restoration (FLR) has emerged as a practical approach to forest restoration particularly in developing countries, where an approach which is both large-scale and focuses on meeting human needs is required. Yet despite increased investigation into both the biological and social aspects of FLR, there has so far been little success in systematically integrating these two complementary strands. Bringing experts in landscape studies, natural resource management and forest restoration, together with those experienced in conflict management, environmental economics and urban studies, this book bridges that gap to define the nature and potential of FLR as a truly multidisciplinary approach to a global environmental problem. The book will provide a valuable reference to graduate students and researchers interested in ecological restoration, forest ecology and management, as well as to professionals in environmental restoration, natural resource management, conservation, and environmental policy.

The purpose of this review is to assess the extent to which the research outputs of Flagship 5 of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM5) have been used to inform decisions and behaviors of representatives of government organizations, development agencies, researchers, donors, private firms, nongovernment organizations, and other users. The review addresses seven questions: 1. Who uses the outputs of PIM5, including general publications, journal articles, briefs, and other products? 2. Who uses the tools and games created and disseminated by the Flagship researchers? 3. Who attends the outreach events and capacity-building workshops organized by researchers involved in the Flagship? 4. How are the research outputs being used? What policies, programs, and strategies have been informed, and how? 5. For selected cases, what is the research-to-uptake process and how we can learn from it? 6. What are the key cases and impact pathways identified, and what can we learn from them? What are the promising pathways that we should explore further in the final 18 months of the program? 7. What are the gaps and missed opportunities for impact that we should explore in the final months of the program, or that should be considered in the One CGIAR? To address these questions, the review relied on bibliographic references; document download data; personal interviews; focus group discussions; and three different online surveys targeting researchers and their partners, as well as different types of end users. We used both quantitative and qualitative techniques to analyze these data. In this summary, we selectively discuss the review’s most important findings and recommendations.

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is a planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human wellbeing in deforested or degraded landscapes. The aim of this book is to explore options to better integrate the diverse dimensions - spatial, disciplinary, sectoral, and scientific - of implementing FLR. It demonstrates the value of an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to help implement FLR focusing specifically on four issues: understanding the drivers of forest loss and degradation in the context of interdisciplinary responses for FLR; learning from related integrated approaches; governance issues related to FLR as an integrated process; and the management, creation and use of different sources of knowledge in FLR implementation. The emphasis is on recognising the need to take human and institutional factors into consideration, as well as the more obvious biophysical factors. A key aim is to advance and accelerate the practice of FLR, given its importance, particularly in a world facing increasing environmental challenges, notably from climate change. The first section of the book presents the issue from an analytical and problem-orientated viewpoint, while later sections focus on solutions. It will interest researchers and professionals in forestry, ecology, geography, environmental governance and landscape studies.

What are the drivers and consequences of tenure insecurity? PIM research under Flagship 5 addressed drivers and consequences of tenure insecurity from three angles: women’s rights, individual or household rights, and collective rights (where ownership or long-term use and/or management rights have been recognized or devolved to communities to some extent). Individual and household rights focus on agricultural land; collective rights on forests, rangelands, and water; and women’s rights consider the full range of resources.

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) requires a long-term commitment from a range of stakeholders to plan the restoration initiative collaboratively and see it through successfully. This is only possible when the people involved – whether they are landholde