INVESTING IN TREES AND LANDSCAPE ... - PROFOR

The approach can involve the use of a wide range of restoration options that may include active
promotion of natural regeneration as well as different types of tree planting and agricultural and
sustainable land management strategies. The expectation is that these approaches would not lead to
the conversion of natural forests or other ecologically important landscape features into plantations
or ecologically degrading farming systems.
WHY INVEST IN LANDSCAPE RESTORATION?
Reforestation measures for degraded lands, strategies for the sustainable management of forest
resources, and agroforestry practices that incorporate trees into farming systems are increasingly
demonstrating their promise for producing commercialized tree products. While the level of
investment so far has been modest, the challenge is to find ways to scale up investments in a way
that will have a clear effect at the landscape level. These types of investments can help achieve
climate-smart agriculture’s “triple wins” of increasing rural incomes, making yields more resilient in
the face of climate extremes, and making agriculture a solution to the climate change problem rather
than part of the problem.
At the same time, changing global markets and prices for key commodities are making scaled-up
investments like these increasingly viable and attractive:
• New technologies and management practices are more productive and profitable, and can
generate high co-benefits for local partners.
• Governments are increasingly supporting policy measures that enable private agricultural
investment and are improving the overall framework for forest governance.
• New markets for forest and tree products are creating incentives for tree and forest planting and
management.
• Landscape-level measures are helping target priority areas for private agroforestry and forest
investments.
• New sources of finance are becoming available; for example, from private investment funds,
pension funds, and environmental services markets for socially responsible investors.
• New tools are available to identify where the potential for investment in landscape restoration
is greatest.
• Participatory approaches are being used to negotiate agreementss with local rights-holders.
WHO ARE THE INVESTORS?
Investors in trees and landscape restoration fall into multiple categories. At the household level, of
course, individual farmers make carefully considered decisions about the use of their land, labor,
and capital; in some areas, these decisions have resulted in the very extensive use of agricultural
land for planting trees. Agribusinesses and other commercial interests have also expressed growing
enthusiasm for incorporating trees into their investment decisions, whether for the production of
timber and other tree products or as part of integrated land use strategies that seek to develop
local partnerships with communities and individual farmers. Some investors are interested in more
INTRODUCTION 13