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Is there a need for a forest restoration certification scheme?

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Title Is there a need for a forest restoration certification scheme?
 
Creator Loo, J.A.
Jalonen, R.
Thomas, E.
Bozzano, M.
 
Subject forests
ecosystems
forest rehabilitation
forest certification
 
Description We propose the development of a certification scheme for forest ecosystem restoration that aims for
the adoption of protocols and guidelines to ensure the sustained ecological and social value of restored
ecosystems. Despite an accumulation of experience on ecosystem restoration over the past decades, it
is still common to measure the success of restoration mainly in terms of number of seedlings planted
or their survival in the short term. A strong focus on planting targets may divert attention from the
actual objectives: establish self-sustaining forested ecosystems that provide livelihood or other
ecosystem service benefits to local people. Two important determinants of short and long term
success, which often do not receive sufficient attention, are matching the right seed source to the
planting site conditions and ensuring that restored populations of trees have sufficient genetic
variability to be self-sustaining. Because of the enormous scale of land degradation and the funds being pledged to tackle it, standardized measures of success are of increasing importance. Restoration success needs to be evaluated in a holistic way by restoration practitioners, government institutions, civil society
organizations, private sector and, importantly, funding agencies. Much is known about how to restore ecosystems in different regions and under different conditions, however currently there is no consensus on what success looks like or what the minimum criteria should be for monitoring and documenting success. Success can be achieved by following well defined practices and protocols (eg by ensuring high diversity both at species and genes levels, number of mother trees for the collection of reproductive material, provenance, etc) during the various phases of the restoration process. We make a case for the development of a certification system to support long term value of restored populations for global application.
 
Date 2015
2016-02-26T08:18:21Z
2016-02-26T08:18:21Z
 
Type Conference Paper
 
Identifier Loo, J.A.; Jalonen, R.; Thomas, E.; Bozzano, M. (2015) Is there a need for a forest restoration certification scheme? In: XIV World Forestry Congress, Durban, South Africa, 7-11 September 2015. FAO.
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/71218
http://foris.fao.org/wfc2015/api/file/55476753e52d79267e89a5d1/contents/eeca602c-8a58-4e99-9e9a-5f0d34df54e2.pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights Open Access
 
Format application/pdf
 
Publisher Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations