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A Generic Global Guide

Between 2009 and 2012 FORRU-CMU is working with Kate Hardwick from the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and David Blakesly from Wildlife Landscapes, to complile a Global Guide to Restoring Tropical Forests. This manual aims to provide a starting point for all tropical restoration projects throughout the world. It will combine the experience and techniques recomended by FORRU-CMU with case studies from the Harapan project in Indonesia, the QMM project in Madagascar, the Rio Tinto project in Corumbá, Brazil and the ANCO project in Cameroon.

This proposal will significantly strengthen the long term impact and legacy of two previous Darwin projects (162/11/23 and 14-010) in which FORRU has been invlovled, by enabling the outputs of those projects (i.e. two manuals on tropical forest restoration for biodiversity recovery – designed for use in Indochina) to be adapted and enhanced for wider use throughout the tropics. See the Publications page for the books "How to Plant a Forest" and "Research for Restoring Tropical Forest Ecosystems".

In recent years, there has been a surge in interest in the restoration of tropical forest ecosystems both for biodiversity recovery and for carbon storage. Whilst the policy and socio-economic issues of forest restoration are being adequately addressed, the same cannot be said of scientific and technical aspects. Kew recognizes that forest restoration practices should be based on the best science available. Some well-established aspects of restoration science can be immediately applied to improve implementation of tropical forest restoration around the world, whilst others require capacity building amongst local ecologists in research protocols to develop appropriate techniques and species choices for each of the various tropical forest ecosystem types.

Many tropical forest restoration projects are being hurriedly put together around the world in anticipation of various schemes to mitigate global warming. Such projects could also contribute significantly to biodiversity recovery if they are well designed, but at the moment there is very little consideration of biodiversity in tropical reforestation programs.

Work carried out by FORRU-CMU has generated two kinds of outputs i) scientifically proven techniques to restore seasonal tropical forest ecosystems in Thailand (presented in the Darwin-funded manual “How to Plant a Forest”) as well as tropical rain forest in S. Thailand and ii) effective research protocols – based on the Framework Species Method – that could be used to develop effective restoration techniques for other tropical forest ecosystems in SE Asia (published in the Darwin-funded manual “Research for Restoring Tropical Forests”). The two Darwin projects funded the translation of these books into Thai, Khmer, Laotian and Chinese. Here we propose that this material is adapted, revised and reworked into a third Darwin volume, augmented with case studies from around the world to produce a standard global generic text that will make a major contribution to the efforts of many countries to restore their native forests, and hence improve their ability to meet their obligations under the CBD.

Demand for the previously produced Darwin manuals has been very high. “How to Plant a Forest” has also been published in Vietnamese and Indonesian and further requests have also been received for permission to produce a Portuguese edition (for Brazil); and to use the book in Africa (for the “Plant a Billion Trees Project” of Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai). However, both “How to Plant a Forest” and “Research for Restoring Tropical Forest Ecosystems” were written specifically for ecological and socio-economic conditions of Indochina.

To significantly strengthen the long term impact and legacy of these Darwin projects, FORRU has teamed up with Kew, to propose to Darwin the production of a user-friendly, and globally relevant practical guide. This global manual will serve as a generic guide to restoring forests throughout the tropics, based on the concepts and innovative techniques developed by FORRU and adapted according to the lessons learned from the two previous Darwin projects. We anticipate a large global demand for such a book from projects ranging from biodiversity recovery, and watershed rehabilitation to carbon offset and environmental education. We believe that such a book could result in substantial improvements in existing forest restoration projects and provide a key resource to enable new ones.

The proposed guide will present three aspects of the restoration of tropical forest ecosystems for biodiversity recovery and environmental protection:-

• General concepts of tropical forest dynamics and regeneration that are relevant to the practice of effective tropical forest restoration;

• Proven restoration techniques (e.g. Framework Species Method) and case studies of their successful application in Asia and Australia and their potential application in projects chosen from Africa and the Americas.;

• Research methods to refine such techniques and adapt them to local ecological and socio-economic conditions.

Adaptation and enhancement of material from the two previous manuals will be carried out jointly by the original authors – Drs Elliott and Suttathorn in Thailand and Dr Blakesley in the UK – in collaboration with Dr Hardwick and her colleagues at Kew. FORRU staff will carry out fieldwork to gather data on projects currently using the manual’s methods, while Kew botanists will gather and analyse information on the adaptation of the methodologies to new situations, particularly in Africa and the Americas, as a basis for the book’s case-studies. The new guide will be produced in the major international languages of tropical Africa, America and Asia (English, French, Spanish) and published and distributed by Kew. It will serve as a practical guide to enable staff of Kew to disseminate effective restoration principles and practices to project partners around the world and thus raise Kew’s capacity to become more effectively involved in tropical forest restoration projects.

The proposed guide will be primarily aimed at practitioners and researchers– to enable them to develop appropriate techniques to restore tropical forest ecosystems (and their associated high biodiversity) that are suited to local ecological and socio-economic conditions. It will also be useful for policy makers – to raise awareness of alternative ecologically based options that are available for the restoration of degraded tropical forest land.

Although this project will benefit all tropical countries where the restoration of tropical forests is a priority, it will also benefit the host country, as FORRU will be able to refine and improve its reforestation methods, based on web-facilitated feedback from users around the world. FORRU is likely to become an ambassador for the Framework Species Method, offering training courses for participants and providing advice, benefiting from the material worked up for the global guide. It will also facilitate FORRU staff development by enabling them to gain valuable experience from visiting restoration projects in Indonesia and Australia and from working with the botanists and ecologists at Kew.