摘要:Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) involves the ecological restoration of degraded forest landscapes, with theaim of benefiting both biodiversity and human well-being. We first identify four fundamental principles of FLR, based onprevious definitions. We then critically evaluate the application of these principles in practice, based on the experience gainedduring an international, collaborative research project conducted in six dry forest landscapes of Latin America. Researchhighlighted the potential for FLR; tree species of high socioeconomic value were identified in all study areas, and strongdependence of local communities on forest resources was widely encountered, particularly for fuelwood. We demonstrated thatFLR can be achieved through both passive and active restoration approaches, and can be cost-effective if the increased provisionof ecosystem services is taken into account. These results therefore highlight the potential for FLR, and the positive contributionthat it could make to sustainable development. However, we also encountered a number of challenges to FLR implementation,including the difficulty of achieving strong engagement in FLR activities among local stakeholders, lack of capacity forcommunity-led initiatives, and the lack of an appropriate institutional and regulatory environment to support restoration activities.Successful implementation of FLR will require new collaborative alliances among stakeholders, empowerment and capacitybuilding of local communities to enable them to fully engage with restoration activities, and an enabling public policy contextto enable local people to be active participants in the decision making process
关键词:biodiversity; conservation; dryland; ecological restoration; forest landscape; Latin America; reforestation;rehabilitation