Abstract
In many human-modified tropical landscapes, biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services require large-scale restoration initiatives. Such initiatives must be able to augment the amount and the quality of remaining natural habitats. There is thus a growing need for long-term, multi-stakeholder and multi-purpose initiatives that result in multiple ecological and socioeconomic benefits at the biome scale. The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP) is a coalition of 260+ stakeholders, including governmental agencies, private sector, NGOs and research institutions, aimed at restoring 15 million ha of degraded and deforested lands by 2050. By articulating, and then integrating common interests, this initiative has allowed different sectors of society to implement an ambitious vision and create a forum for public and private concerns regarding forest restoration. The AFRP adopts a set of governance tools so multiple actors can implement key processes to achieve long-term and visionary restoration goals. Having overcome some initial challenges, AFRP now has to incorporate underrepresented stakeholders and enhance its efforts to make forest restoration more economically viable, including cases where restoration could be less expensive and profitable. The AFRP experience has resulted in many lessons learned, which can be shared to foster similar initiatives across tropical regions.
Highlights
In many human-modified tropical landscapes, the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services require innovative, large-scale restoration initiatives, which should seek to augment the amount/quality of natural habitats via the inclusion of both remaining forest patches and those undergoing restoration [1]
Small-scale forest restoration initiatives have bloomed in the Atlantic Forest region since the 2000s as a result of the growing involvement of (1) environmental NGOs, which moved beyond a perspective of focusing solely on biodiversity conservation to include ecological restoration in their scope of activity; (2) farmers, forced by the Forest Code to restore portions of their lands; and (3) private companies, required to restore native ecosystems by biodiversity offsetting policies and, in some cases, to obtain environmental certification and market benefits [22]
The results of this monitoring will transform the coalition into a large-scale experiment and provide key findings that will inform the continuous evolution of forest restoration practice and science in the Atlantic Forest
Summary
In many human-modified tropical landscapes, the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services require innovative, large-scale restoration initiatives, which should seek to augment the amount/quality of natural habitats via the inclusion of both remaining forest patches and those undergoing restoration [1]. In the context of ecological restoration initiatives in developing countries, a bottom-up approach could create good opportunities to overcome some of the legal, technological, and economic challenges frequently experienced by these initiatives [3,4] In this context, the ambitious goal established by the Aichi Target 15 of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to restore 15% of all degraded ecosystems on Earth by 2020 (about 150 million ha), as well as by the Bonn Challenge, requires well-coordinated and articulated initiatives [5]. As only a few countries, such as South Africa, the United States of America, Ethiopia, China and Costa Rica [6,7,8], have already started to implement large-scale initiatives, little information is available concerning instruments of governance and the coordination of restoration initiatives. We highlight the major achievements of this restoration initiative and share the present and future challenges towards the implementation of this large-scale, multi-stakeholder forest restoration program with a view to inspiring and fostering similar initiatives across other tropical regions
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