David Lamb and Don Gilmour, IUCN/WWF, Gland, Switzerland, 2003. ISBN 2-8327-0668-8. Reviewed by Mandy Haggith
This slim volume is an introduction to forest landscape restoration, and it provides an effective summary of many of the key issues involved. It distinguishes between restoration, which is focused on achieving ecological integrity, rehabilitation, which may not do as much to restore biodiversity and may be more economically oriented, and reclamation, which most of us would call conversion to agriculture or tree-farming. It gives brief outlines of some of the theory of both site and landscape restoration and how different scales interact, and raises challenges such as how to integrate local-level restoration efforts to get effective results at the landscape level.
A major criticism of the book is its omission of the boreal forests and of Europe, focusing as it does instead on the tropics, subtropics and temperate regions of Australasia and North America, thereby ignoring almost half of the world’s forests and some of the most threatened and profoundly degraded. However, many of the ecological and socio-economic principles apply to the taiga, such as the need for security of land tenure to enable local communities to be able take a long-term perspective on the forest. Many of the dilemmas apply too, particularly the difficult decision of where to put limited resources: should restoration efforts focus on intensive and expensive work on the most degraded land, or try to get faster and more efficient results by reversing less severe degradation?
The book outlines a range of different approaches to forest landscape restoration, from intensive mixed tree planting to passive approaches of natural regeneration, and these are all well illustrated with case studies. It posits a set of general propositions about restoration, including the following.
• The more species remain, the faster ecological succession processes happen.
• Restoration does not need to mimic succession by being limited to pioneer species, but can move straight to restoration of ‘climax’ species.
• It is important to identify key ‘structure’ species that accelerate succession, for example by fixing nitrogen or providing perches for seed-dispersing birds.
• Restoration should take overall landscape functions into account, such as corridor effects.
• Land tenure security and socio-economic issues are key to the success of restoration projects.
• It is vital to build on existing institutional arrangements wherever possible.
Overall the book is a useful and well-written, if rather dry, guide to this vital issue, which will be the focus of the UN Convention on Biodiversity’s 2006 conference. It is a good sign that conservation organisations are beginning to look beyond protected areas and towards saving and restoring the many non-pristine forests around the world, using practical methods that take local people’s needs into account. |
