Topic Introduction

Halting and reversing the expansion of degraded forests is a complex and challenging task that will be played out in a wide range of human cultures, environmental settings and with varying political interest and financial inputs. There is a broad recognition of the huge areas of forest that have been degraded by human activities and agreement that restoration is required for direct conservation benefits and to help improve peoples’ livelihoods. However, the decision to restore degraded areas with forest involves allocation of scarce resources and prioritization of land-use. Resolving trade-offs in land-use among food production, conservation and timber production presents a challenging task. In a well-designed landscape all of these aims can be achieved but patterns of land-ownership require both top-down and bottom-up planning to achieve restoration aims. Although much forest has been cleared to grow food, much of this clearing has been unnecessary, providing opportunities for forest restoration and plantation development. The practice of forest restoration in different parts of the world is explored in the context of three common trade-offs: (1) forest restoration OR food security?, (2) timber production OR ecosystem services?, and (3) top-down planning OR bottom-up planning?

Video Lecture

Lecture Video & Powerpoint

 Topic 4.2 Lecture:  Forest Restoration

[4.2 Lecture ppt to be embedded here.]

Supplementary Readings

Textbooks

Gustavson, J., Cderberg, C., van Otterdijk, R., & Meybeck, A. (2011). Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, causes and prevention. Rome, Italy: FAO.

Lamb, D. (2011). Regreening the bare hills: Tropical forest restoration in the Asia-Pacific region. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer.

Articles in Journals

McShane, T.O., et al. (2011). Hard choices: Making trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Biological Conservation, 144, 966-972.

Schmitz, C., et al. (2014). Land-use change trajectories up to 2050: Insights from a global agro-economic model comparison. Agricultural Economics, 45, 1-16.

Kinzig, A.P., et al. (2011). Paying for Ecosystem Services—Promise and Peril. Science, 334, 603-604.

Topic Quiz

Topic Quiz 4.2

The topic quiz is designed to check your understanding of important learning concepts for this topic. The quiz contains 10 multiple choice questions. When you are ready, start the quiz at Topic Quiz 4.2.

Online Discussion

Online Discussion 4

For this week's online discussion activity,

1. Instructor will post a discussion question based on this week’s learning on Monday.
2. You are expected to response to the posted discussion question with a paragraph not exceeding 150 words in corresponding discussion forum on course Canvas site not later than Friday of the week.
3. You are also required to critically comment on at least 2 peer’s responses not exceeding 100 words (each comment) by day 7 of each week.

Please see Course Schedule for details on due dates and check out the specific requirements and grading criteria on the Online Discussions page.

Assignments

No other assignments for the week.

Topic Self-review

Reflection Questions 4.2

Please use the self-reflection questions below as a study guide to conduct self-review for the topic.

1. What forest ecosystem processes can we quantify that give us a measure of the properties of degraded forests?
2. Restoring degraded forest usually involves establishing forests for production purposes or establishing forests for conservation and ecosystem services. Describe the characteristics of forests (type, area, location, management inputs) that address each of these aims and comment on whether they are mutually exclusive or not.