Definition of Forest Landscape Restoration
Forest Landscape Restoration brings people together to identify and put in place a mix of land use practices that will help restore the functions of forests across a whole landscape, such as a water catchment. The aim of this approach is to benefit both communities and the natural world.
Forest Landscape Restoration seeks to strengthen the relationship between rural development, forestry and other natural resource management and conservation approaches. It shifts the emphasis away from simply maximising tree cover on individual forest sites to optimising the supply of forest benefits such as clean water, timber production and nature conservation within the broader landscape. It does not try to re-establish the pristine forests of the past.
Forest Landscape Restoration is a collaborative venture. If it is to succeed, it must involve everyone with a stake in the forests, from local farmers to charcoal makers, from game hunters to logging companies. Between them, they must identify the various goods and services that matter most and work out how best to restore them.
At the same time, the conditions that foster successful forest landscape restoration must be put in place. This might involve strengthening the capacity of different institutions to collaborate in support of forest landscape restoration, or it might mean that government remove incentives that encourage environmentally destructive practices and undermine the ability of the rural poor to make a living.
