Rehabilitation and Restoration Of Degraded Forests (PDF) - IUCN

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4.1 Ecological reasons Chapter 4: Why undertake forest landscape restoration? If a network of protected areas exists, why is it necessary to be concerned about restoration or rehabilitation? Why not use degraded lands solely for production (i.e. use only the approach referred to earlier as reclamation)? This approach has been widely utilized and can be financially successful, although it can have unintended negative consequences (Table 2). Table 2. Advantages and consequences of reforestation using monocultures of exotic species Advantages Potential negative consequences • potentially good supply of • reduction in range, quality and high-quality seed (sometimes quantity of goods and services genetically improved meaning supplied to local people by new tree form is good) plantation • Known nursery technology for • reduction in ecosystem services, raising seedlings especially for water regulation, • known site and environmental nutrient cycling and wildlife habitat requirements • increased susceptibility to climate • known silvicultural systems for and other environmental changes managing plantations • limited opportunities for • potentially high productivity collaborative management • tree timber properties well-known • loss of biodiversity and of • can choose species tolerant of opportunities to restore it extremely poor soils or degraded • more frequent outbreaks of pests sites and diseases • problems with alien species becoming invasive After Ingles and Jackson 2001 There are several reasons to undertake forest landscape restoration. One is to provide the goods and help re-establish those ecological services or functions no longer being provided by the new forms of land-use. Industrial monoculture plantations produce wood but do not provide a variety of timbers or the forest products such as fruits, nuts or medicinal plants used by many rural communities. Plantations may be effective in sequestering carbon or helping restore hydrological cycles to overcome salinity, but they are not always as effective in preventing erosion on the slopes of hills above agricultural areas, protecting riparian strips or restoring soil fertility. A second reason for undertaking forest landscape restoration is to restore some degree of biodiversity to degraded landscapes (Elliott et al. 19 Chapter 4 Why undertake forest landscape restoration?
REHABILITATION AND RESTORATION OF DEGRADED FORESTS 2000). It is unlikely that any network of protected areas will be able to protect all existing biodiversity. Such reserves represent a small proportion of most landscapes and in many countries there is limited capacity to increase the number or size of them. Meanwhile the remaining undisturbed areas outside these reserves are being increasingly fragmented and homogenized as large-scale agriculture and industrial timber plantations spread across the landscape. Restoration offers a means of counteracting these trends towards landscape simplification. It can also ensure that species and ecosystems — across a large area — are more resilient and adaptable to change. At a regional scale, forest landscape restoration is often likely to be needed to achieve more sustainable forms of land use. Many large areas of land became degraded because previous agricultural practices were unsustainable. Production was lost as fertility declined, salinity developed or weeds, diseases or pests became established. New agricultural systems are needed to replace these unproductive areas; more diverse landscapes are likely to be a necessary component of such systems (Hobbs and Morton 1999, Lefroy et al. 1999). The decision about which approach to use at a particular site — restoration or rehabilitation — is always complicated. As noted earlier, restoration may only be possible in recently disturbed landscapes where most of the original biota remains (although even then it may be problematic; see Box 4). In landscapes that have been heavily used for a long time it may be unrealistic to aim at restoration because some original species will have been lost and other exotic species will have been naturalised. The extent of disturbance is also important: the choices available in a patchy landscape containing many forest remnants will probably be different than those in a landscape where extensive clearing has taken place and industrial-scale agriculture is practised. 20
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