Forest landscape restoration SKS Focali meeting, Jönköping 11 jan 2013 Anders Malmer Theme leader at SLU Global for Restoration of degraded rural landscapes Theme leader for Focali for Climate assessed sustainable forest management Professor of Tropical Forest Ecology and Management specifically soil science With contributions from Lars Laestadius, WRI; Mats Sandewall, SLU; Meine van Moordwijk, ICRAF
SLU Global Research Capacity building Agricultural Sciences for Global Development SLU s contribution Provision of expertise
Two Goals of Our Time 1. Achieving Food Security 2 billion more people by 2050 Overall food production to increase 70% by 2050 Adaptation to Climate Change critical 2. Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change 2 degree goal requires major emission cuts Agriculture and Land use = 30% of emissions....and needs to be part of the solution 4 crusial products from agriculture and forestry Food Fibre Fuel - Fodder
Today it is the forest landscapes in the tropical and near-tropical zone that is changing in peoples strive for development FAO Forest Resource Assessment 2010
Crystal ball thinking... (1) What is REDD+ good for? Storing C from the atmosphere Conserving biodiversity Generating income for poor Sustainable production of fibre & fuel Avoiding land degeneration etc. Winwinwinwinwinwinwinwinwin...
Crystal ball thinking... (2) But, readyness for REDD+ is low and it s complicated to do...? What will happen with the forests without REDD+? Land grabbing to produce food fibre and fuel More forests lost to other land use More forests with poor biodiversity Weak REDD+ or its absence what driving forces will be strongest in growing (?) economies. Or what will best motivate poor people to initiate or participate in SFM as part of rural livelyhoods?
Crystal ball thinking... (3) 1. Conservation can only be made if concered people have alterative income 2. Extensively managed or poorly conserved land tend to burn, degrade and be devoid of biodiversity, carbon and productivity 3. Land with high productivity bind more C and create wealth (Forest Landscape Restoration is 2 + 3 win-win)
So... Would it not be easier to make things happen trough orderly market-systems with real products? (wood and energy) In this what is the role and place for restoration?
Global Agreements Call for Restoration UN Millennium Development Goals Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger, ensure environmental sustainability REDD-Plus Slow, halt, and reverse forest cover and carbon loss Convention on Biological Diversity Restore 15 percent of degraded ecosystems by 2020
Restoration efforts in themselves is gaining increasing attention. The green wall of Africa Senegal is one of 11 countries in the Sahel region of Africa looking towards the same solution to the desertification problem: The Great Green Wall. The goal of the project is to plant a wall of trees, 4,300 miles long and 9 miles wide, across the African continent, from Senegal to Djibouti. African leaders hope the trees will trap the sands of the Sahara and halt the advance of the desert.
The Bonn Challenge Restore 150 million hectares of lost forests and degraded lands by 2020 Thereby delivering on global commitments www.ideastransformlandscapes.org
The Baseline: Potential Forest Extent Where forests and woodlands would be if climate and soils decided
Today s Forest Where forests and woodlands are today
Lands Where Forests Can Grow Current Status A quarter has been deforested, another quarter has been degraded Intact Fragmented Degraded Deforested
Lands That Have Been Degraded or Deforested Some of these lands can be restored PLACEHOLDER FOR SLIDE COMING FROM SUSAN Intact Fragmented Degraded Deforested
Agricultural Lands Not for Restoration Croplands are not included in the restoration opportunity map However, protective restoration may be an opportunity in the agricultural landscape. Trees can help prevent soil erosion, protect waterways, absorb storm water, increase soil fertility, and enhance soil moisture capacity.
Lands of Opportunity
Different Landscapes Different Approaches Each landscape calls for its own kind of restoration Protected Primary Forest Wide-scale restoration Plantations Degraded Primary Forest Secondary forest Secondary forest Degraded Forest Lands Mosaic type restoration Permanent pasture Permanent pasture Intensive agriculture land Permanent pasture
There are Opportunities Everywhere The total opportunity area is 2 billion hectares
What is agriculture and what is forestry?
The foresters view of the world: more or less canopy cover
The agronomists view of the world: land with agricultural crops
The integrated view of the world Global tree cover inside and outside forest, according to the Global Land Cover 2000 dataset, the FAO spatial data on farms versus forest, and the analysis by Zomer et al. (2009)
Tree cover in agricultural land 50 % of agricultural land has > 10 % tree cover In SE Asia and C America 50 % of agricultural land has > 30 % tree cover.
In Africa, there are 350 million ha of open and fragmented forests and 514 million ha of other wooded lands (including savannah, agroforests etc.) That is considerably more than the area under closed forest (277) and plantations (8).
The forest transition curve With increasing urbanisation and less subsistence/more intensive agriculture land is released for: spontanious secondary forests or a window for small scale forestry.
When farmers plant trees (experiences Vietnam-Ethiopia): Tenure security Sustainable market opportunities Financial and political stability Households with capacity to invest Policy that favors investments Institutions and organisation in place Sufficient infrastructure Good examples Access to new knowledge and technology
Study setting: Trees, carbon and water: trade-offs or co-benefits? Multidisiplinary research project in Burkina Faso Linking biophysical and socioeconomic processes in the landscape scale
Parkland Large parts of Sahelian West Africa Not forest (REDD/FAO) but typically 20% tree cover
Landscape storage Carbon /Groundwater Trees, carbon and water: Present vs alternative paradigm Carbon Groundwater
Rainbow water, previously mythical but now emerging science?
% of rainfall derived from short cycle terrestrial origins (recalculated from Basilovich et al.) Ellison D, Futter MN, Bishop K, 2011.On the forest cover water yield debate: from demand- to supply-side thinking. Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02589.x For example, 2) Mississippi river basin - 58%, 3) The Amazon basin 40 %, 4) West Afica - 41%, 5) The Baltic - 30%...
P from transpiration / Ptot van der Ent RJ, Savenije HHG, Schaefli B, Steele Dunne SC, 2010. Origin and fate of atmospheric moisture over continents. Water Resources Research 46
Why the chinese should invest in draining the Sudd and increase ET in Egypt. And why W. Africans might oppose it... And why forest restoration in East Africa may benefit W. Africa
Some conclusions for forest landscape restoraton in the topics... Arguments and cases are strong Mosaic landscape restoration dominating Be aware about co-benefits and trade-offs Can be part of socioeconomic development...but many prerequisites for that. Much remains (research and trials) for understanding mosaic landscapes for ecological services functions of trees in general and species in specific
What is the theme Restoration of degraded rural landscapes at SLU? More than 13 groups trough out SLU Active in > 11 regions in the tropics With many partners Policy Tenure and governance Livelihoods and markets Technical restoration & afforestation Ecosystem services (C, H2O, biodiv etc) These groups are all sucessful but the combined multidiciplinary potential is underutilized
What has Focali contributed? Some years of several networks has formed a real research community in forest/agriculture/development Broader policy discussion Governement Agencies Academy? What can Focali do ahead? Continued critical think tank on REDD+? Theme 3 (SFM) refocusing towards restoration (competition for water and land multi-functionallity)? Jointly work with SLU Global, SLU-REDD, Agri4D, Luxus, etc. on restoration? Where can SKS come in?
Restoration is possible! Heathlands in Southern Sweden 100 years ago Today Restaurering en Svensk profilfråga? Source: Hanson, C. et al. 2010. Southern Forests for the Future. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute
Defining degraded and restoration (SLU Global workshop october) Restoration and development of ecosystem primary productivity as can be interpreted by biomass production and by productivity of soils Restoration and development of capability of rural landscapes to sustain or improve livelihoods, including aspects of tenure, governance and policy 1 and 2 to include sustainable intensification in a broad sense including socioeconomic development as well as delivery of ecosystem services like water, NTFP s, biodiversity, carbon storage etc. and adaptation to climate change. in relation to points 1 3 above one can see a degraded landscape as having lost potential for delivery of services for points 1 3 by unsustainable land use.
Land-use needs to move towards higher productivity and Carbon storage optimization... But what about water? increasingly limiting?