Forest restoration is appropriate where the recovery of biodiversity is one of the main objectives of reforestation, such as wildlife conservation, environmental protection, ecotourism or the provision of a wide variety of forest products to local communities.[10] Forests can be restored in a wide range of circumstances, but degraded sites within protected areas are of high priority, especially where some climax forest remains as a seed source within the landscape. Even in protected areas, there are often large deforested sites: logged areas or sites previously cleared for agriculture. If protected areas are to act as the Earth's last wildlife refuges, restoration of such areas will be necessary.[3]​[4]​.

Many restoration projects are now being implemented under the umbrella of "forest landscape restoration" (FLR).[11]​ defined as a "planned process to restore ecological integrity and improve human well-being in deforested or degraded landscapes." FLR recognizes that forest restoration has social and economic functions. It aims to achieve the best possible compromise between meeting conservation objectives and the needs of rural communities.[12] As human pressure on landscapes increases, forest restoration will more commonly be practiced within a mosaic of other forms of forest management, to meet the economic needs of local people.

A recent focal area for forest restoration efforts is within the urban context, where both people and biodiversity will benefit; However, this context presents unique challenges.[13]​.

Contenido

La plantación de árboles no siempre es esencial para restaurar los ecosistemas forestales. Se puede lograr mucho estudiando cómo se regeneran los bosques de forma natural, identificando los factores que limitan la regeneración e ideando métodos para superarlos. Estos pueden incluir el deshierbe y la adición de fertilizantes alrededor de las plántulas de árboles naturales, la prevención de incendios, la eliminación del ganado, etc. Se trata de una regeneración natural "acelerada" o "asistida".[14]​ Es simple y rentable, pero solo puede operar en árboles que ya están presentes, en su mayoría especies pioneras amantes de la luz. Tales especies de árboles no suelen ser las que componen los bosques clímax, pero pueden fomentar la recolonización del sitio por especies de árboles de bosques clímax tolerantes a la sombra, a través de la dispersión natural de semillas del bosque remanente. Debido a que este es un proceso lento, la recuperación de la biodiversidad generalmente se puede acelerar plantando algunas especies de árboles forestales clímax, especialmente especies de semillas grandes y escasamente dispersas. No es factible plantar todas las especies de árboles que pueden haber crecido anteriormente en el bosque primario original y, por lo general, no es necesario hacerlo si se puede utilizar el método de especies marco.[15]​.

En algunos casos excepcionales, particularmente en algunos bosques boreales de Alaska, la recuperación a largo plazo de los incendios forestales podría compensar el carbono emitido durante los incendios debido a un cambio en las especies de árboles si los árboles persisten, se vuelven parte de biomas resilientes y son tan numerosos como los antiguos bosques'.[16]​[17]​.

Protect regeneration areas from browsing animals

Restoring forests face many challenges, such as seed and nutrient availability, but are notably susceptible to browsing animals. While browsing animals are necessary to maintain the forest understory, they can easily knock down a newly replanted strip of forest, where young specimens are easily accessible. Overgrazing is particularly problematic in this case, as specimens and other young plants can be damaged beyond the point of recovery, resulting in decreased biodiversity. Care should be taken to use "deer fencing" to protect the regeneration area, or where not financially possible, to plant trees that prioritize structural growth and recovery.[18]​.

In much of the world, wildfires take a heavy toll on forests. This may be due to deforestation caused to replace forests with crop areas, or in dry areas, due to forest fires that occur naturally or intentionally. An entire section of forest landscape restoration is related to this particular problem, since in many cases, the net loss of ecosystem value is very high and can open the door to further accelerated degradation of soil conditions through erosion and desertification. In fact, this has dire consequences both on the quality of the habitats and on the related fauna. However, in some specific cases, forest fires do allow the biodiversity index of the burned area to increase, in which case Forest Restoration Strategies tend to seek another use of the land.[19]​[20]​.

Un estudio encuentra que casi 300 millones de personas viven en tierras de oportunidad para la restauración de bosques tropicales en el Sur Global, lo que constituye una gran parte de las poblaciones de los países de bajos ingresos, y aboga por la inclusión prioritaria de "comunidades locales" en los proyectos de restauración forestal.[21]​[22]​[23]​ Project Drawdown enumera la restauración de los bosques tropicales como una de las soluciones más importantes para la mitigación del cambio climático debido a su extraordinario potencial para secuestrar carbono y recomienda que "las comunidades locales deben tener un interés en lo que está creciendo, si se quiere que la restauración se mantenga".[24]​.

Ashland Forest Resiliency Management Project

Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project (AFR) is a decade-long science-based project launched in 2010 with the intention of reducing the risk of severe wildfires, but also protecting water quality, old-growth forests, wildlife, people, property and the broader environment. quality of life within the Ashland watershed.[25]​ The primary stakeholders in this cooperative restoration effort are the U.S. Forest Service, the City of Ashland, the Lomaktsi Restoration Project, and the Nature Conservancy.[26]​ The project was launched with initial funding from the Economic Recovery stimulus and, more recently, received funding from the Forest Service's Hazardous Fuels program and the Restoration Partnerships program. of Joint Chiefs of Landscape to support the project until 2016.

Located in the dry forests of southern Oregon, the threat of wildfire is a reality for land managers and landowners alike. Ashland's city limits intersect the surrounding forest at what is known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI).[27] Historically, the forests in this region experienced a relatively frequent fire return interval, which prevented the buildup of heavy fuel loads.[28] A century of fire exclusion and suppression on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest has led to greater forest density and fuel loads and, therefore, a more persistent threat of devastating forest fires.[29]​.

The AFR project has implemented restoration techniques and prescriptions that aim to replicate the ecological succession process in dry mixed coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest. The approach involves a combination of fuel reduction, thinning small diameter trees, and conducting prescribed burning. Priority is given to maintaining ecological function and complexity by retaining the largest and oldest trees, preserving wildlife habitat and riparian areas, and protecting erodible soils and maintaining slope stability.

Since its inception in 2010, the AFR project has completed restoration work on 4,000 of the 7,600 acres slated for the project. The project has provided educational experience to more than 2,000 students and has benefited the local community through job creation and workforce training. Currently, helicopter logging operations are reducing 1,100 acres of the watershed while prescribed burning operations are conducted as air quality conditions allow.[30]​.

Accelerate forest regeneration with Agricultural Waste

In 1998, Costa Rican initiatives were established to regenerate deforested areas, previously used as cattle pastures. This land became compacted and the soil was depleted, making natural regeneration difficult. In association with agricultural waste landfills, approximately 12,000 Mg of orange peel and pulp were applied to a 3-hectare segment of the former pasture. This addition of biomass to the soil allowed for a 176% increase in woody plant growth, increased species richness, a threefold increase in tree evenness (measured via the Shannon Index), and significantly elevated soil nutrient levels, measured 2 and 16 years after application (Truer et al. 2018).[31] A significant increase in canopy closure was also observed using hemispheric topography, further suggesting that agricultural waste can play a more important role in future forest restoration.

La restauración del paisaje forestal (FLR) se define como “un proceso planificado para recuperar la integridad ecológica y mejorar el bienestar humano en paisajes deforestados o degradados”.[32]​ Comprende herramientas y procedimientos para integrar acciones de restauración forestal a nivel de sitio con objetivos deseables a nivel de paisaje, que se deciden a través de varios mecanismos participativos entre las partes interesadas. El concepto ha surgido de la colaboración entre algunas de las principales organizaciones internacionales de conservación del mundo, incluida la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN), el Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza (WWF), el Instituto de Recursos Mundiales y la Organización Internacional de las Maderas Tropicales (OIMT).

Goals

The FLR concept was conceived to create trade-offs between meeting the needs of humans and wildlife by restoring a variety of forest functions at the landscape level. It includes actions to strengthen the resilience and ecological integrity of landscapes and therefore keep future management options open. The participation of local communities is fundamental to the concept, because they play a fundamental role in shaping the landscape and derive significant benefits from the restored forest resources. Therefore, RPF activities are inclusive and participatory.[33]​.

Desirable results

Desirable outcomes of an FLR program generally comprise a combination of the following, depending on local needs and aspirations:.

• - identification of the root causes of forest degradation and prevention of further deforestation.

• - positive participation of people in forest restoration planning, conflict resolution over land use and agreements on benefit-sharing systems.

• - commitments on the advantages and disadvantages of land use that are acceptable to the majority of interested parties.

• - a repository of biological diversity of both local and global value.

• - delivering a range of utilitarian benefits to local communities, including:

• a reliable supply of clean water,

• environmental protection, in particular watershed services (e.g. reduction of soil erosion, reduced risk of landslides, flood/drought mitigation, etc.),

• a sustainable supply of a wide range of forest products, including food, medicine, firewood, etc.,

• monetary income from various sources, e.g. ecotourism, carbon trading through the REDD+ mechanism and payments for other environmental services (PES)[34]​.

Activities

FLR combines several existing natural resource development, conservation and management principles and techniques, such as landscape character assessment, participatory rural assessment, adaptive management, etc., within a clear and coherent assessment and learning framework. An FLR program may comprise several forestry practices at different sites within the landscape, depending on local environmental and socioeconomic factors. These may include the protection and management of degraded secondary and primary forests, standard forest restoration techniques such as "assisted" or "accelerated" natural regeneration (ANR) and the planting of framework tree species to restore degraded areas, as well as conventional tree plantations and agroforestry systems to meet more immediate monetary needs.[35][36][37]​.

IUCN hosts the Global Alliance on Forest Landscape Restoration, which coordinates the development of the concept around the world.[38]​.

In 2014, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations established the Forest and Landscape Restoration Facility.[39]​ The Facility supports countries to implement FLR as a contribution to achieving the Bonn Challenge[40]​ – the restoration of 150 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by 2020 – and the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Targets for Biodiversity[41]​ - related to the conservation and restoration of ecosystems.

In collaboration with the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, FAO published two discussion papers on sustainable FLR financing in 2015. Sustainable Financing for Forest and Landscape Restoration: The Role of Policymakers provides recommendations and examples of FLR financing for countries.[42] Sustainable Financing for Forest and Landscape Restoration: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward provides an overview of funding sources. and the financial instruments available for RPF activities.[43]​.

Forest restoration is appropriate where the recovery of biodiversity is one of the main objectives of reforestation, such as wildlife conservation, environmental protection, ecotourism or the provision of a wide variety of forest products to local communities.[10] Forests can be restored in a wide range of circumstances, but degraded sites within protected areas are of high priority, especially where some climax forest remains as a seed source within the landscape. Even in protected areas, there are often large deforested sites: logged areas or sites previously cleared for agriculture. If protected areas are to act as the Earth's last wildlife refuges, restoration of such areas will be necessary.[3]​[4]​.

Many restoration projects are now being implemented under the umbrella of "forest landscape restoration" (FLR).[11]​ defined as a "planned process to restore ecological integrity and improve human well-being in deforested or degraded landscapes." FLR recognizes that forest restoration has social and economic functions. It aims to achieve the best possible compromise between meeting conservation objectives and the needs of rural communities.[12] As human pressure on landscapes increases, forest restoration will more commonly be practiced within a mosaic of other forms of forest management, to meet the economic needs of local people.

A recent focal area for forest restoration efforts is within the urban context, where both people and biodiversity will benefit; However, this context presents unique challenges.[13]​.

Contenido

La plantación de árboles no siempre es esencial para restaurar los ecosistemas forestales. Se puede lograr mucho estudiando cómo se regeneran los bosques de forma natural, identificando los factores que limitan la regeneración e ideando métodos para superarlos. Estos pueden incluir el deshierbe y la adición de fertilizantes alrededor de las plántulas de árboles naturales, la prevención de incendios, la eliminación del ganado, etc. Se trata de una regeneración natural "acelerada" o "asistida".[14]​ Es simple y rentable, pero solo puede operar en árboles que ya están presentes, en su mayoría especies pioneras amantes de la luz. Tales especies de árboles no suelen ser las que componen los bosques clímax, pero pueden fomentar la recolonización del sitio por especies de árboles de bosques clímax tolerantes a la sombra, a través de la dispersión natural de semillas del bosque remanente. Debido a que este es un proceso lento, la recuperación de la biodiversidad generalmente se puede acelerar plantando algunas especies de árboles forestales clímax, especialmente especies de semillas grandes y escasamente dispersas. No es factible plantar todas las especies de árboles que pueden haber crecido anteriormente en el bosque primario original y, por lo general, no es necesario hacerlo si se puede utilizar el método de especies marco.[15]​.

En algunos casos excepcionales, particularmente en algunos bosques boreales de Alaska, la recuperación a largo plazo de los incendios forestales podría compensar el carbono emitido durante los incendios debido a un cambio en las especies de árboles si los árboles persisten, se vuelven parte de biomas resilientes y son tan numerosos como los antiguos bosques'.[16]​[17]​.

Protect regeneration areas from browsing animals

Restoring forests face many challenges, such as seed and nutrient availability, but are notably susceptible to browsing animals. While browsing animals are necessary to maintain the forest understory, they can easily knock down a newly replanted strip of forest, where young specimens are easily accessible. Overgrazing is particularly problematic in this case, as specimens and other young plants can be damaged beyond the point of recovery, resulting in decreased biodiversity. Care should be taken to use "deer fencing" to protect the regeneration area, or where not financially possible, to plant trees that prioritize structural growth and recovery.[18]​.

In much of the world, wildfires take a heavy toll on forests. This may be due to deforestation caused to replace forests with crop areas, or in dry areas, due to forest fires that occur naturally or intentionally. An entire section of forest landscape restoration is related to this particular problem, since in many cases, the net loss of ecosystem value is very high and can open the door to further accelerated degradation of soil conditions through erosion and desertification. In fact, this has dire consequences both on the quality of the habitats and on the related fauna. However, in some specific cases, forest fires do allow the biodiversity index of the burned area to increase, in which case Forest Restoration Strategies tend to seek another use of the land.[19]​[20]​.

Un estudio encuentra que casi 300 millones de personas viven en tierras de oportunidad para la restauración de bosques tropicales en el Sur Global, lo que constituye una gran parte de las poblaciones de los países de bajos ingresos, y aboga por la inclusión prioritaria de "comunidades locales" en los proyectos de restauración forestal.[21]​[22]​[23]​ Project Drawdown enumera la restauración de los bosques tropicales como una de las soluciones más importantes para la mitigación del cambio climático debido a su extraordinario potencial para secuestrar carbono y recomienda que "las comunidades locales deben tener un interés en lo que está creciendo, si se quiere que la restauración se mantenga".[24]​.

Ashland Forest Resiliency Management Project

Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project (AFR) is a decade-long science-based project launched in 2010 with the intention of reducing the risk of severe wildfires, but also protecting water quality, old-growth forests, wildlife, people, property and the broader environment. quality of life within the Ashland watershed.[25]​ The primary stakeholders in this cooperative restoration effort are the U.S. Forest Service, the City of Ashland, the Lomaktsi Restoration Project, and the Nature Conservancy.[26]​ The project was launched with initial funding from the Economic Recovery stimulus and, more recently, received funding from the Forest Service's Hazardous Fuels program and the Restoration Partnerships program. of Joint Chiefs of Landscape to support the project until 2016.

Located in the dry forests of southern Oregon, the threat of wildfire is a reality for land managers and landowners alike. Ashland's city limits intersect the surrounding forest at what is known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI).[27] Historically, the forests in this region experienced a relatively frequent fire return interval, which prevented the buildup of heavy fuel loads.[28] A century of fire exclusion and suppression on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest has led to greater forest density and fuel loads and, therefore, a more persistent threat of devastating forest fires.[29]​.

The AFR project has implemented restoration techniques and prescriptions that aim to replicate the ecological succession process in dry mixed coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest. The approach involves a combination of fuel reduction, thinning small diameter trees, and conducting prescribed burning. Priority is given to maintaining ecological function and complexity by retaining the largest and oldest trees, preserving wildlife habitat and riparian areas, and protecting erodible soils and maintaining slope stability.

Since its inception in 2010, the AFR project has completed restoration work on 4,000 of the 7,600 acres slated for the project. The project has provided educational experience to more than 2,000 students and has benefited the local community through job creation and workforce training. Currently, helicopter logging operations are reducing 1,100 acres of the watershed while prescribed burning operations are conducted as air quality conditions allow.[30]​.

Accelerate forest regeneration with Agricultural Waste

In 1998, Costa Rican initiatives were established to regenerate deforested areas, previously used as cattle pastures. This land became compacted and the soil was depleted, making natural regeneration difficult. In association with agricultural waste landfills, approximately 12,000 Mg of orange peel and pulp were applied to a 3-hectare segment of the former pasture. This addition of biomass to the soil allowed for a 176% increase in woody plant growth, increased species richness, a threefold increase in tree evenness (measured via the Shannon Index), and significantly elevated soil nutrient levels, measured 2 and 16 years after application (Truer et al. 2018).[31] A significant increase in canopy closure was also observed using hemispheric topography, further suggesting that agricultural waste can play a more important role in future forest restoration.

La restauración del paisaje forestal (FLR) se define como “un proceso planificado para recuperar la integridad ecológica y mejorar el bienestar humano en paisajes deforestados o degradados”.[32]​ Comprende herramientas y procedimientos para integrar acciones de restauración forestal a nivel de sitio con objetivos deseables a nivel de paisaje, que se deciden a través de varios mecanismos participativos entre las partes interesadas. El concepto ha surgido de la colaboración entre algunas de las principales organizaciones internacionales de conservación del mundo, incluida la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN), el Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza (WWF), el Instituto de Recursos Mundiales y la Organización Internacional de las Maderas Tropicales (OIMT).

Goals

The FLR concept was conceived to create trade-offs between meeting the needs of humans and wildlife by restoring a variety of forest functions at the landscape level. It includes actions to strengthen the resilience and ecological integrity of landscapes and therefore keep future management options open. The participation of local communities is fundamental to the concept, because they play a fundamental role in shaping the landscape and derive significant benefits from the restored forest resources. Therefore, RPF activities are inclusive and participatory.[33]​.

Desirable results

Desirable outcomes of an FLR program generally comprise a combination of the following, depending on local needs and aspirations:.

• - identification of the root causes of forest degradation and prevention of further deforestation.

• - positive participation of people in forest restoration planning, conflict resolution over land use and agreements on benefit-sharing systems.

• - commitments on the advantages and disadvantages of land use that are acceptable to the majority of interested parties.

• - a repository of biological diversity of both local and global value.

• - delivering a range of utilitarian benefits to local communities, including:

• a reliable supply of clean water,

• environmental protection, in particular watershed services (e.g. reduction of soil erosion, reduced risk of landslides, flood/drought mitigation, etc.),

• a sustainable supply of a wide range of forest products, including food, medicine, firewood, etc.,

• monetary income from various sources, e.g. ecotourism, carbon trading through the REDD+ mechanism and payments for other environmental services (PES)[34]​.

Activities

FLR combines several existing natural resource development, conservation and management principles and techniques, such as landscape character assessment, participatory rural assessment, adaptive management, etc., within a clear and coherent assessment and learning framework. An FLR program may comprise several forestry practices at different sites within the landscape, depending on local environmental and socioeconomic factors. These may include the protection and management of degraded secondary and primary forests, standard forest restoration techniques such as "assisted" or "accelerated" natural regeneration (ANR) and the planting of framework tree species to restore degraded areas, as well as conventional tree plantations and agroforestry systems to meet more immediate monetary needs.[35][36][37]​.

IUCN hosts the Global Alliance on Forest Landscape Restoration, which coordinates the development of the concept around the world.[38]​.

In 2014, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations established the Forest and Landscape Restoration Facility.[39]​ The Facility supports countries to implement FLR as a contribution to achieving the Bonn Challenge[40]​ – the restoration of 150 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by 2020 – and the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Targets for Biodiversity[41]​ - related to the conservation and restoration of ecosystems.

In collaboration with the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, FAO published two discussion papers on sustainable FLR financing in 2015. Sustainable Financing for Forest and Landscape Restoration: The Role of Policymakers provides recommendations and examples of FLR financing for countries.[42] Sustainable Financing for Forest and Landscape Restoration: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward provides an overview of funding sources. and the financial instruments available for RPF activities.[43]​.