The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) joined forces in 2019, leveraging a combined 65 years’ experience in research on the role of forests and trees in solving critical global challenges.
Evidence is needed on increasing the scale of proven and cost-effective land-management practices that restore degraded land.
Desertification affects nearly 45% of Africa and is increasing. There is an urgent need for action to reverse the trend.
Land-restoration programs, such as the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative and the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel, aim to restore 100 million hectares, contributing to the Bonn Challenge, Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
Despite these efforts, the evidence remains scarce on how increasing scale can be successfully done while contributing to social and economic benefits. Technologies and expertise do exist but there is a lack of evidence demonstrating mechanisms that can sustainably transform large landscapes and millions of people’s livelihoods.
Michael Cherlet of the European Commission stressed the importance of land restoration and sustainable development for Africa’s development. Sustainable land management, he said, is, therefore, a natural priority of the European Union and other development partners.
Cherlet was speaking at an event hosted by World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and Economics of Land Degradation Initiative at the Fourteenth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, held 2–13 September in New Delhi, India.
The participants discussed desertification in Africa and programs that were already underway to find ways to halt it, such as the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel, that aim to restore 100 million hectares, contributing to the Bonn Challenge, Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
Despite these efforts, the evidence remains scarce on how increasing the scale of restoration can be carried out successfully while contributing to social and economic benefits. Technologies and expertise do exist but there is a lack of evidence demonstrating mechanisms that can sustainably transform large landscapes and millions of people’s livelihoods.
The event showcased the work of the Regreening Africa project, jointly implemented by ICRAF and ELD Initiative and other partners, to examine successful techniques and the need to increase their scale. Regreening Africa aims to improve livelihoods, food security and resilience to climate change by restoring ecosystem services in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Somalia. The project is co-financed by the European Union and by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
According to the speakers at the event, for land restoration to succeed a participatory selection is required with farmers of a wide set of practices suited to their contexts. Farmer-managed natural regeneration or tree planting is not sufficient by themselves; tree diversity is also key: a combination of tree species that meets the economic and social needs of farmers and, at the same time, provides ecosystem services.
Julianne Wiesenheutter of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit drew a link between soil management and meeting biodiversity goals, adaptation to climate change and achieving food security. She added that holistic approaches tailored to farmers’ contexts are necessary and that there is not one single solution to reversing land degradation. What is required is a range of technical options, an enabling environment and capacity development.
‘By embedding research in development, we can influence the way development actors engage with farmers to accelerate impact on the ground’, said Susan Chomba, manager of Regreening Africa. ‘Some of the restoration techniques we use include ‘zai’ pits for soil and water conservation; farmer-managed natural regeneration and grazing land management in arid and semi-arid areas where pastoralism is predominant; and planting of high-value fruit trees. We are also identifying and strengthening key commodity value chains to provide economic incentives for scaling’.
Yet, despite past and continuing efforts to restore degraded lands to meet the Bonn and AFR100 challenges, there is no comprehensive evidence on the benefits and costs of ecosystem restoration, including returns on investments through agroforestry and other activities. These are gaps that need to be urgently filled as restoration gets underway.
‘Our role with Regreening Africa is to enhance the ability of countries to assess the economic costs of land degradation’, said Mark Schauer of the ELD Initiative, ‘and their awareness of the economic benefits of investing in sustainable land management. A multi-stakeholder approach is important in this process’.
ICRAF equips countries in Regreening Africa with surveillance and analytical tools on the dynamics of land degradation that support strategic decision-making and monitoring increases in the scale of restoration.
‘We monitor land restoration using systematic field surveys, crowdsourcing and remote sensing’, said Leigh Winowiecki, a soils systems scientist at ICRAF. ‘Applying the research-in-development approach in monitoring land degradation can contribute to reaching restoration goals and achieve land degradation neutrality targets, such as vegetation cover and soil organic carbon’.
At the science–policy interface, there are challenges in bringing land and soil issues into policy. These include lack of knowledge of how to deal with concepts like land degradation neutrality at national levels and lack of knowledge, tools and data.
‘Land and soil are truly cross-cutting, across diverse sectors’, said Lindsay C. Stringer of the University of Leeds. ‘Many different groups have an interest in land but their interests are not always mutually supportive. Numerous political and institutional, capacity and resourcing, social and cultural, and legal and regulatory barriers exist to getting land degradation issues into policy’.
Panellists Lucy Nganga of Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Bakundukize Dismas of Rwanda’s Natural Resources Authority highlighted challenges faced with implementing restoration. Policy makers need data to support decision-making processes for long-term issues such as land restoration. In Rwanda, restoration is often not included in performance contracts as it cannot be achieved in the short term. Lack of land rights also hampers restoration.
The participants called for the adoption of agroforestry and farmer-managed natural regeneration as low-cost solutions to reversing land degradation. If these were integrated into national plans and their scale increased, they could swiftly and cheaply contribute to international commitments and national sustainable land management.
Also read
- Collaborating with farmers is the key to restoring degraded land
- COP14 Day 1 – Setting the tone to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality targets
- Scientists: ‘Partnering with farmers crucial for saving degraded lands’
- UNCCD CoP 14: Report on Soil Organic Carbon released
- Research can play a crucial role in combatting desertification: Experts
- Pathways to resilient food systems - approaches from sub-Saharan Africa
- World Agroforestry at UNCCD COP14
Regreening Africa is an ambitious five-year project that seeks to reverse land degradation among 500,000 households across 1 million hectares in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. By incorporating trees into croplands, communal lands and pastoral areas, regreening efforts make it possible to reclaim Africa’s degraded landscapes.
This story was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Regreening Africa and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is a centre of scientific and development excellence that harnesses the benefits of trees for people and the environment. Knowledge produced by ICRAF enables governments, development agencies and farmers to utilize the power of trees to make farming and livelihoods more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable at multiple scales. ICRAF is one of the 15 members of the CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. We thank all donors who support research in development through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.