National Forest Landscape Restoration (NFLR) Strategy.

This National Forest Landscape Restoration Strategy is a nationwide sectoral document aiming at (i) addressing the challenges that the country faces from unpredictable climate shifts and landscape degradation; (ii) developing a process of regaining ecological functionality and enhancing human well-being through reforestation and restoration of degraded forest landscapes; (iii) assist the country to achieve several national environment and development goals included in other related policies such as the National Forest Policy, the National Climate Change Management Policy, and the National Agriculture Policy; and, in general, (iv) creating enabling conditions that incentive and reward the sustainable use of natural resources. The Strategy builds on the results of a participatory National Forest Landscape Restoration Assessment (NFLRA) which was carried out throughout the country. Main involved stakeholders are (i) farmers, rural communities, and traditional authorities; (ii) Government; and (iii) NOGs and private sector. Main interventions regard (i) agricultural technologies; (ii) community forests and woodlots; (iii) forest management; (iv) soil and water conservation; and (v) river-bank and stream-bank restoration.
To help eliminate hunger and food insecurity, main FLR contributions aim to (i) increase the production of timber, fuel-wood, fodder, honey, mushrooms, and other non-timber forest products that directly or indirectly contribute to the food security of rural communities; (ii) stabilize the soil and improve soil fertility through trees on croplands, with the added benefit of providing fodder for grazing animals; (iii) improve households’ ability to access food during times of drought or low yields through soil and water conservation intervention; and (iv) technical restoration including interventions to address the challenges associated with unsustainable land use, increase access to non-timber forest products, and reduce the lack of livestock.
To make agriculture and forestry more productive and sustainable, the Strategy proposals are (i) increase tree cover on degraded, low-yielding cropland and pastures in agricultural landscapes through farmer-managed and assisted natural regeneration; (ii) direct seeding, and planting of agro-forestry trees and shrubs; (iii) restoration of forest cover on degraded customary land and non-arable land; (v) forest management restoration intervention that includes three types of activities (1) protection of existing forest; (2) natural forest management to encourage regrowth of natural forest; and (3) improved forest plantation management for sustainability, profitability, and efficiency; (iv) development of climate-smart agriculture techniques; and (v) improvement of management of village forest areas and woodlots through demarcation, strengthened agreements for protection against uncontrolled cutting, grazing, and fire.
To reduce rural poverty through FLR it is necessary (i) enhance sustainable management of forest resources to contribution to the national economy, particularly in rural areas; (ii) strengthen linkages between agriculture, forestry, and other sectors to ensure resilient socioeconomic growth; and, in general, (iii) prioritize for intervention areas that are the most food insecure, highest in poverty, and prone to drought to maximize the benefits of agricultural technologies to increase crop yields, diversity incomes, and increase the climate resiliency of croplands.
In order to enhance more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems, the Government has to encourage (i) the development of farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) the enhancement of the productivity of agricultural land by managing and cultivating the natural regrowth of trees on their farms instead of eliminating them; (ii) enhancement of community forests and woodlots, to provide a regular, local supply of products for household consumption or for sale; (iii) assistance to local communities in the formal demarcation of community forests and in the development of forest management plans; (iv) the development of forest landscape restoration enterprise opportunities that build and support rural economies, production, and markets; and () support for community organization and engagement in forest co-management, participatory monitoring, and expansion of sustainable forest production and management systems.
To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the NFLR calls for (i) implementing climate-smart agriculture techniques; (ii) restoring forest cover and improve management in deforested and degraded forests, including forest reserves, natural forests outside reserves, and plantations; (iii) stabilization of soils and increasing infiltration in areas with high rates of rainfall runoff, erosion and source areas for downstream sedimentation by constructing check dams, gully plugs, infiltration ditches, and other rainwater harvesting and soil and water conservation techniques; and (iv) increasing tree cover in denuded buffer zones of rivers and streams through natural regeneration and tree planting;
As for the Governance, the Strategy indicates strategic priorities to be implemented in order to make policies and institutions facilitate sustainable development in support of forest landscape restoration, mainly (i) include Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) as a national priority in policies and laws; (ii) build on supportive cultural aspects that have a bearing on forest use; (iii) engage and formalize responsibility of Traditional Authorities in land use; (iv) align parallel initiatives within ministries and among stakeholders on the issue.