on the way to restore guatemala s degraded lands creating governance conditions

This situation prompted the Government to set a target to restore 1.2 million ha of degraded land by 2045 and approved in 2015 a National Strategy for Forest Landscape Restoration.. Find

Case report

On the way to restore Guatemala’s degraded lands: Creating governance conditions Ebal Salesa, Ogden Rodasb, Oscar Valenzuelab, Anique Hillbrandc,⇑, César Sabogalc

a

Instituto Nacional de Bosques (INAB), 7 Avenida 12-90 Zona 13, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala

b Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 7a Avenida 6-80, Zona 13, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala

c

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 21 October 2016

Revised 7 November 2016

Accepted 11 November 2016

Available online 3 January 2017

a b s t r a c t

Guatemala is a megadiverse country but its ecosystems have been constantly threatened by stress fac-tors During the 1991–2001 period, the country experienced a forest loss of 93,127 ha/year This situation prompted the Government to set a target to restore 1.2 million ha of degraded land by 2045 and approved

in 2015 a National Strategy for Forest Landscape Restoration Findings show that the combination of a platform for dialogue and a legal framework (PROBOSQUE Law) to support restoration work on the ground has proved to be very important for the implementation of the National Strategy Another key fac-tor was the three-level approach that combined implementation activities at national, regional and local levels

Ó 2016 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

1 Introduction

The Republic of Guatemala has an area of 10.8 million hectares

It is home to a rich diversity of 8681 plant species, of which 13.5

percent are endemic According to 2012 estimates, land cover in

Guatemala is: a) agriculture (37.6%); b) forests (34.07%); c) shrubs

and / or herbaceous vegetation (23.5%); d) water bodies (1.6%); e)

human settlements (1.3%); f) wetlands (0.9%); g) areas without

information available (0.4%) and h) areas with little or no

vegeta-tion (0.3%) (GIMBOT, 2014)

The country has one of the highest rates of deforestation in

Latin America Forest loss increased from 93,127 ha/year in

1991–2001 to 132,138 ha/year in 2006–2010 Net deforestation

for this last period was estimated at about 44,000 ha with a net

annual loss rate of 1.0% forest coverage Deforestation is mainly

due to anthropogenic disturbances such as conversion of forests

into agricultural land In the last 15 years, this process has been

mainly driven by export-oriented agriculture commodities (palm

oil, sugar and banana), ranching, urban growth and forest fires

Another cause of deforestation is wood fuel consumption, as about

70% of the population depends on this resource for energy Indirect

drivers include unclear land tenure, weak institutional capacity,

population growth, drug trafficking and a weak forest sector economy

To address the increasing degradation of natural resources, Guatemala’s government has made an international commitment

by pledging to restore 1.2 million hectares of degraded lands under the Bonn Challenge and the Latin America 20 20 Initiative This case study describes the key governance innovations that have made it possible to create the basis for restoration of degraded lands at country level, offering some lessons for countries that are currently developing their national restoration plans or programs

2 The Roundtable on Forest Landscape Restoration With the launch of the Bonn Challenge in 2011, the National Forest Institute (INAB), as a leading national institution in the for-estry sector, promoted the creation of the Roundtable of Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR Roundtable), with support from inter-national cooperation This platform for inter-national dialogue and insti-tutional articulation currently includes around 50 instiinsti-tutional members, representing a wide range of stakeholders (government, community organizations, indigenous peoples’ organizations, the private sector, NGOs, academia, municipalities as well as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Uni-ted States Forest Service (USFS)) The Institutional Coordination Group (GCI), an inter sectoral, high political instance consisting

of INAB, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAGA), the http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2016.11.010

2452-2929/Ó 2016 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd.

⇑Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: ebal.sales@inab.gob.gt (E Sales), Ogden.Rodas@fao.org (O.

Rodas), Oscar.ValenzuelaPos@fao.org (O Valenzuela), anique.hillbrand@web.de (A.

Hillbrand), Cesar.Sabogal@fao.org (C Sabogal).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

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j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w e l s e v i e r c o m / l o c a t e / w d p

National Commission on Protected Areas (CONAP) and the Ministry

of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN), presides over the

national platform and also plays a supportive role in resource

mobilization and the forging of strategic alliances (Mesa de

Restauración del Paisaje Forestal de Guatemala, 2015)

3 The National Strategy for Forest Landscape Restoration

Between 2014 and 2015, the work of the FLR Roundtable made

it possible to develop and get official approval of the National

Strategy for Forest Landscape Restoration of Guatemala – ENRPF

restore 1.2 million ha of degraded land by 2045 and its goal is to

link different actors, establish instruments of public policy and

promote capacity building The FLR Roundtable plays a key role

in its implementation, monitoring and evaluation Some of the

expected key contributions of the National Strategy will be

increased forest cover, higher income generation and improved

livelihoods of forest dependent communities and indigenous

peo-ple, strengthening institutional capacities on restoration,

conserva-tion of biodiversity and ecosystems, and adaptaconserva-tion to climate

change

The initial step in the development of the National Strategy was

the generation of a map of potential areas for restoration in

Gua-temala, currently estimated at approximately 3.9 million ha

Fol-lowing a set of criteria, priority areas for forest landscape

restoration were identified in eight categories: riparian forest,

mangrove, protected forest, commercial forest, agroforestry with

permanent crops, agroforestry with annual crops, silvopastoral

systems and protected areas The ENRPF includes ecological

aspects such as the use of indigenous tree species for restoration

in agroforestry systems and a focus on conserving endemic species

in protected areas With regards to economic parameters, the

strategy states that based on the restored land, small holder

farm-er’s income will be diversified and forest based value chains will

be developed

The ENRPF itself was formulated based on a diagnosis of the

current status of FLR in the country, including the analysis of the

policy and regulatory framework and the identification of 18 legal

instruments that can support restoration Three of the existing

legal instruments are 1) the law on decreasing vulnerability

through adaption and mitigation of climate change, 2) the National

Forest Policy and 3) the National Biological Diversity Policy (PNDB)

Participants in the Roundtable also documented ten restoration

experiences identified in different regions and mapped existing

national restoration initiatives

4 The PROBOSQUE Law as a tool to support forest landscape

restoration

A political dialogue on the development of a new program of

forestry incentives based on a former Forestry Incentives Program

(active from 1997 to 2016), took place prior to the definition of the

National Strategy As a result, the PROBOSQUE Law, which

sup-ports several actions included in the ENRPF was approved at the

end of 2015 The technical and legal design of this law is based

on a specific typology of restoration projects in degraded forest

lands

INAB, the FAO and IUCN supported the development of the

PRO-BOSQUE Law and practical guidelines for forest landscape

restora-tion in Guatemala were prepared as part of this joint effort Priority

has been given to the restoration of riparian forests, protected

for-ests in upper watersheds, mangrove and secondary (degraded)

forests

5 Progress in the implementation of the National Strategy

So far, the actions towards the implementation of the Strategy, organized through or promoted by the FLR Roundtable, have included the strengthening of institutional capacity in restoration,

as well as the establishment of restoration sites and research on relevant topics (for instance, the production of natural forest germplasm)

The implementation of the PROBOSQUE Law will serve to underpin national efforts identified through the FLR Roundtable Also, a portfolio of projects aimed for global/regional funding mechanisms or initiatives such as the Green Climate Fund, the Glo-bal Environment Facility (GEF), the 20 20 Initiative, REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation),

is under preparation using the Strategy as a reference The imple-mentation of the ENRPF will promote REDD+ activities through incentives and financial mechanisms for increasing carbon stocks through reforestation and agroforestry systems, and enhance pro-gress towards national implementation of the Aichi Targets and the Sustainable Development Goals

Since the end of 2015 FAO’s Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM) is providing support to the development of various outreach materials on FLR practices for INAB’s Department

of Extension, with the expectation that they will be integrated in the MAGA’s Rural Extension System

At the sub-national (regional, departmental) level, the national platform is fostering dialogue and providing guidance and institu-tional support to existing platforms Examples include the Inter-sectoral Committee of Land and Environment in the South East of Petén and the Coordinator of Natural Resources and Environment

of San Marcos, which are currently developing regional work plans for the promotion of actions included in the National Strategy

At a more local (municipal, micro-catchment and community) level, the FLR Roundtable has organized exchange visits between men and women from selected communities to share experi-ences on particular restoration practices In South East Petén, for example, agroforestry is being used to restore degraded lands through the production of crops such as cocoa, cardamom and spices (achiote, cinnamon, vanilla) using a system that allows the integration of timber trees (such as mahogany, cedar and santa maría (Calophyllum brasiliense) People practicing this agro-forestry system had the opportunity to visit other communities

in the zone dominated by the ‘‘Q’eqchí” culture and learn about

an improved agroforestry system using the ramón tree (Brosi-mum alicastrum)

Demonstration sites are an important component for dissemi-nating and upscaling good practices To date, 15 demonstration sites have been selected, mostly in the highlands of the department

of San Marcos and in South East Petén The plan is to set up a net-work of these demonstration sites through the implementation of the PROBOSQUE Law and various technical cooperation projects and to take stock of the experiences and lessons from promising restoration interventions in a coordinated manner, as well as to value local traditional knowledge and innovation

6 Lessons learned and challenges ahead Summarizing what has been presented so far, we can argue that the combination of a platform for dialogue and decision (FLR Roundtable) and a legal framework (PROBOSQUE Law) have been important measures to support the implementation of the National Strategy Another key factor was the three level approach combin-ing implementation activities at national, regional and local levels

In terms of lessons from this experience, the following can be highlighted:

 The establishment of the FLR Roundtable played a key role in

supporting inter-sectoral and consensual work between

differ-ent actors and stakeholders, including represdiffer-entatives from

the regional level

 A national restoration project needs a sound legal basis for

developing a strategy and for its effective implementation

 Demonstration sites and pilot projects are important

compo-nents of a bottom-up approach, supporting interaction with

local actors, showing the benefits that can be obtained by

recov-ering the productive capacity of degraded lands and providing

evidence and feedback on the process at the (sub) national level

Among the challenges for the effective implementation of the

National Strategy, we can mention:

 Upscaling pilot projects remains a challenge, as it requires, inter

alia, adequate technical and financial support so that the

country can move forward in achieving its national goals While

Guatemala has two forest incentive programs, one of which

includes forest restoration, the country needs additional

resources to meet the needs of advocacy, training, and research

It also needs administrative, technical and financial support, as

well as investment funds for the establishment of productive

enterprises (seed production of native forest species, nurseries,

forestry and agribusiness)

 Funding for the new law also needs to be secured The Central

Government and the Ministry of Finance should allocate the

necessary resources to the forestry incentive programs

 Funds from municipalities and councils of urban and rural

development need to be secured for the establishment of forest

nurseries, production of native species and provision of land titles for admission to forestry incentive programs

 Producer organizations need to be strengthened and the value chains for scaling up practices and systems of forest restoration need to be developed through appropriate business models For example, systems that associate crops and commercially used high value trees should be promoted

References

Grupo Interinstitucional de Monitoreo de Bosques y Uso de la Tierra (GIMBOT).

2014 Mapa de bosques y uso de la tierra 2012 y Mapa de cambios en uso de la tierra 2001- 2010 para estimación de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero Informe técnico, GIMBOT Guatemala Available online: < http://www thepurposeconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Mapas-2012.pdf >, Last seen 07.11.16.

Mesa de Restauración del Paisaje Forestal de Guatemala (2015) Estrategia de Restauración del Paisaje Forestal: Mecanismo para el Desarrollo Rural Sostenible de Guatemala Guatemala Online: < http://www.inab.gob.gt/ Documentos/Banner/Estrategia_nacional_de_restauraci%C3%B3n_

del_paisaje_forestal.pdf > Last seen 07.11.16.

Further reading

Bonn Challenge < http://www.bonnchallenge.org/content/guatemala >.

Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism of the FAO < http://www.fao.org/in-action/forest-landscape-restoration-mechanism/en/ >.

National Forest Institute of Guatemala (Instituto Nacional de Bosques) < http:// inab.gob.gt/ >.

Global Landscapes Forum < http://www.landscapes.org/publication/removing-barriersinvesting-forest-landscape-restoration-works/ >.