Restoring Landscapes

Global Landscapes Forum

Communities restoring landscapes

Stories of resilience and success Contents

i. Communities restoring landscapes: Stories of resilience and success 1. Holding back the desert: One farmer’s story of restoring degraded land in the Sahel region in Burkina Faso 2. Women gaining ground through reforestation on the Cameroonian coast 3. Building resilience to climate change through community forest restoration in Ghana 4. Thinking in tomorrow: Women leading forest restoration in Mt Kenya and beyond 5. Mikoko Pamoja: Carbon credits and community-based reforestation in Kenya’s mangroves 6. Rights, responsibilities and collaboration: The Ogiek and tree growing in the Mau 7. Restoring Madagascar’s mangroves: Community-led conservation makes for multiple benefits 8. Flood recovery, livelihood protection and mangrove reforestation in the Limpopo River Estuary, Mozambique 9. Regaining their lost paradise: Communities rehabilitating mangrove forests in the drought-affected Saloum Delta, Senegal 10. From the grass roots to the corridors of power: Scaling up efforts for conservation and reforestation in Senegal 11. Taming the rising tide: Keeping the ocean at bay through community reforestation on Kisiwa Panza island, Tanzania 12. Shaking the tree: Challenging gender, tenure and leadership norms through collaborative reforestation in Central Uganda

Stories were developed by Esther Mwangi (CIFOR) and Monica Evans

The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is the world’s largest knowledge-led multi-sectoral platform for integrated land use, bringing together world leaders, scientists, private sector representatives, farmers and community leaders, global media and civil society to accelerate action towards the creation of more resilient, equitable, profitable, and climate-friendly landscapes. The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), UN Environment, and The World Bank launched the forum in Warsaw in 2013, alongside the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP). With core funding provided by the German Global Landscapes government, the GLF is entering its next five-year phase to a launch a movement of 1 billion people towards the creation Forum of sustainable landscapes.

For more information on how to participate, please contact: Visit the GLobal Landscapes Forum at: Kamal C. Prawiranegara, GLF Global Coordinator www.globallandscapesforum.org [email protected] globallandscapesforum.org | news.globallandscapesforum.org cifor.org | forestsnews.cifor.org There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, “are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.”

– Elinor Ostrom

This collection of 12 stories from women and men in nine for successful community-based restoration. From the countries in different parts of Africa shines a light on the perspectives of communities, “success” is not only about efforts of communities, some of them decades-long, in the number of trees planted and standing over a certain restoring degraded forests and landscapes. The stories terrain: it is also about the ability to secure and enhance are not generated through any rigorous scientific process, livelihoods; to strengthen existing community relationships but are nonetheless illustrative of the opportunities and to build new ones with other actors; to develop a communities create as they solve their own problems, conservation ethic among younger generations; and, in and of the many entry points we have for supporting and some cases, to expand the rights of excluded individuals accelerating community effort. The stories show that and groups. This collection is about amplifying the voices leadership, social capital and cooperation, clear property of local people in global policy debates…. “Listen!” rights/tenure, and supportive governance are important

Photos: Cover, Patrick Shepherd/CIFOR; Back cover, John Baptist Wandera/CIFOR

The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, ICRAF, INBAR and TBI. FTA is supported by the CGIAR Fund Donors: on.cgiar.org/CGIARFundDonors

globallandscapesforum.org | news.globallandscapesforum.org cifor.org | forestsnews.cifor.org

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) CIFOR advances human well-being, equity and environmental integrity by conducting innovative research, developing partners’ capacity, and actively engaging in dialogue with all stakeholders to inform policies and practices that affect forests and people. CIFOR is a CGIAR Research Center, and leads the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). Our headquarters are in Bogor, Indonesia, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Yaounde, Cameroon and Lima, Peru.