Workshop helps develop guidelines on restoring forest landscapes in the tropics
14 June 2019, Lüderenalp, Switzerland
Workshop participants discuss aspects of the Swiss experience in restoring degraded forest landscapes in the Emmental region as part of their deliberations on draft guidelines on tropical forest landscape restoration. Photo: H.O. Ma/ITTO
An expert workshop held in early June provided crucial inputs to the development of guidelines on tropical forest landscape restoration (FLR). About 25 FLR specialists met in Lüderenalp, Switzerland, over three days of intensive debate and constructive dialogue.
FLR can be defined as an ongoing process of regaining ecological functionality and enhancing human wellbeing across degraded and deforested forest landscapes. Its overall rationale is to restore degraded forests and forestlands and thereby enable the sustainable management of forested landscapes over time.
The focus of the guidelines will be on restoring functional tropical forest ecosystems within landscapes so that forests can co-exist with other land uses in landscape mosaics. The aim is to provide both high-level and practical assistance to stakeholders involved in—or considering—FLR in the restoration of degraded forests and forestlands in tropical forest biomes.
Workshop participants, who included experts from government agencies and the member organizations of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration, reviewed an early draft of the guidelines and made a large number of recommendations on its structure and content.
A second draft of the guidelines will be presented at the 55th Session of the International Tropical Timber Council, which will be held in Lome, Togo, in early December 2019.
ITTO, the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, provided financial support for the workshop, whith the Bern University of Applied Sciences providing logistical support.