scholarly journals How Much Agroforestry Is Needed to Achieve Multifunctional Landscapes at the Forest Frontier?—Coupling Expert Opinion with Robust Goal Programming

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Reith ◽  
Elizabeth Gosling ◽  
Thomas Knoke ◽  
Carola Paul

Agroforestry has been promoted as a key forest landscape restoration (FLR) option to restore ecosystem services in degraded tropical landscapes. We investigated the share and type of agroforestry selected in an optimized landscape, accounting for a mosaic of alternative forest landscape restoration options (reforestation and natural succession) and forest and common agricultural land-uses. We extend previous studies on multi-objective robust optimization and the analytic hierarchy process by a systematic sensitivity analysis to assess the influence of incorporating agroforestry into a landscape. This approach accounts for multiple objectives concurrently, yet data and computational requirements are relatively low. Our results show that experts from different backgrounds perceive agroforestry (i.e., alley cropping and silvopasture) very positively. Inclusion of large shares of agroforestry (41% share of landscape) in the FLR mix enhanced simulated ecosystem service provision. Our results demonstrate that landscapes with high shares of agroforestry may also comprise of high shares of natural forest. However, landscapes dominated by single agroforestry systems showed lower landscape multifunctionality than heterogeneous landscapes. In the ongoing effort to create sustainable landscapes, our approach contributes to an understanding of interrelations between land-covers and uncertain provisions of ecosystem services in circumstances with scarce data.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ennia Bosshard ◽  
Merel Jansen ◽  
Sara Löfqvist ◽  
Chris J. Kettle

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is globally important to mitigate a wide range of social and environmental problems driven by landscape degradation and deforestation. Despite widespread recognition of the urgent need to restore biodiversity and ecological functioning across many forest landscapes, there is an apparent mismatch between political commitments and direct actions on the ground. Global markets and consumption patterns remain prominent drivers of land degradation. Alternatively, market forces could be transformed to have net positive rather than negative influence on land use change, offering innovative pathways to incentivise and finance FLR. Understanding current market mechanisms that finance FLR is essential for establishing best practices and effective policy. We reviewed 40 eco-marketing initiatives to provide an overview of the types of organizations involved in funding of FLR, and how they finance and enable FLR interventions. We identified three groups of initiatives: for-profit business, certified social enterprise, and non-profit organization. In total, 36 out of the reviewed initiatives collaborated with enabler-organizations to implement FLR activities. All initiatives promoted active tree planting, primarily in regenerative agroforestry systems. Only six analyzed initiatives included natural regeneration as a type of FLR intervention. This suggests that eco-marketing initiatives primarily focus on funding tree planting initiatives, possibly because tree planting is the easiest message to communicate to consumers. Strong safeguards and governance of FLR projects are necessary to ensure that tree planting projects do not overshadow other FLR interventions in areas where other approaches have more significant ecological, environmental, and social benefits.


Author(s):  
H. J. (Ilja) van Meerveld ◽  
Julia P. G. Jones ◽  
Chandra P. Ghimire ◽  
Bob W. Zwartendijk ◽  
Jaona Lahitiana ◽  
...  

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 245
Author(s):  
Nguyen Dang Cuong ◽  
Köhl Michael ◽  
Mues Volker

Forest landscape restoration is a widely accepted approach to sustainable forest management. In addition to revitalizing degraded sites, forest landscape restoration can increase the supply of sustainable timber and thereby reduce logging in natural forests. The current study presents a spatial land use optimization model and utilizes a linear programming algorithm that integrates timber production and timber processing chains to meet timber demand trade-offs and timber supply. The objective is to maximize yield and profit from forest plantations under volatile timber demands. The model was parameterized for a case study in Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam, where most forest plantations grow Acacia mangium (A. mangium). Data were obtained from field surveys on tree growth, as well as from questionnaires to collect social-economic information and determine the timber demand of local wood processing mills. The integration of land use and wood utilization approaches reduces the amount of land needed to maintain a sustainable timber supply and simultaneously leads to higher yields and profits from forest plantations. This forest management solution combines economic and timber yield aspects and promotes measures focused on economic sustainability and land resource efficiency.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 276
Author(s):  
Florent Noulèkoun ◽  
Sylvanus Mensah ◽  
Emiru Birhane ◽  
Yowhan Son ◽  
Asia Khamzina

The adverse impacts of ecosystem degradation have raised the need for forest landscape restoration (FLR) to be included in international sustainability agendas. However, the path towards successful FLR implementation faces numerous biophysical, socioeconomic and governance challenges because FLR operates within complex socioecological systems. In the present study, we review and discuss FLR challenges in the context of global environmental change. We propose a roadmap consisting of five interlinked steps to overcome these challenges: (1) advancing ecological knowledge supporting FLR, (2) adapting FLR management to environmental change through strengthening globally distributed experimental networks, (3) implementing modelling approaches, (4) improving socioeconomic and governance dimensions, and (5) developing evidence-based knowledge platforms. The roadmap offers an iterative and adaptive framework for the continuous evaluation and improvement of FLR strategies and outcomes.


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