Applying the Ecosystem Approach to Select Priority Areas for Forest Landscape Restoration in the Yungas, Northwestern Argentina

Abstract

This paper proposes a method to select forest restoration priority areas consistently with the key principles of the Ecosystem Approach (EA) and the Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) framework. The methodology is based on the principles shared by the two approaches: acting at ecosystem scale, involving stakeholders, and evaluating alternatives. It proposes the involvement of social actors which have a stake in forest management through multicriteria analysis sessions aimed at identifying the most suitable forest restoration intervention. The method was applied to a study area in the native forests of Northern Argentina (the Yungas). Stakeholders were asked to identify alternative restoration actions, i.e. potential areas implementing FLR. Ten alternative fincas—estates derived from the Spanish land tenure system—differing in relation to ownership, management, land use, land tenure, and size were evaluated. Twenty criteria were selected and classified into four groups: biophysical, social, economic and political. Finca Ledesma was the closest to the economic, social, environmental and political goals, according to the values and views of the actors involved in the decision. This study represented the first attempt to apply EA principles to forest restoration at landscape scale in the Yungas region. The benefits obtained by the application of the method were twofold: on one hand, researchers and local actors were forced to conceive the Yungas as a complex net of rights rather than as a sum of personal interests. On the other hand, the participatory multicriteria approach provided a structured process for collective decision-making in an area where it has never been implemented.

Appendices

Annex 1

Forest Landscape Restoration principles, as described by Mansourian and others (2005) are synthesized hereafter:

• I. It is implemented at a landscape scale. Planning for forest restoration is done in the context of other elements: social, economic, and biological in the landscape.

• II. It has a socioeconomic dimension. It is argued that people who have a stake in the state of the landscape are more likely to engage positively in its restoration.

• III. It addresses the root causes of forest loss and degradation.

• IV. It opts for a package of solutions, including improving the quality of existing forests.

• V. It involves a range of stakeholders in planning and decision making to achieve a solution that is acceptable.

• VI. It involves identifying and negotiating trade-offs.

• VII. It places the emphasis not only on forest quantity but also on forest quality.

• VIII. It aims to restore a range of forest goods, services, and processes, rather than forest cover per se.

Annex 2

The EA principles:

• Principle 1: The objectives of management of land, water and living resources are a matter of societal choice.

• Principle 2: Management should be decentralized to the lowest appropriate level.

• Principle 3: Ecosystem managers should consider the effects (actual or potential) of their activities on adjacent and other ecosystems.

• Principle 4: Recognizing potential gains from management, there is usually a need to understand and manage the ecosystem in an economic context. Any such ecosystem-management programme should:

  • (a) Reduce those market distortions that adversely affect biological diversity;

  • (b) Align incentives to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use;

  • (c) Internalize costs and benefits in the given ecosystem to the extent feasible.

   

• Principle 5: Conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should be a priority target of the EA.

• Principle 6: Ecosystems must be managed within the limits of their functioning.

• Principle 7: The ecosystem approach should be undertaken at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales.

• Principle 8: Recognizing the varying temporal scales and lag-effects that characterize ecosystem processes, objectives for ecosystem management should be set for the long term.

• Principle 9: Management must recognize that change is inevitable.

• Principle 10: The ecosystem approach should seek the appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation and use of biological diversity.

• Principle 11: The ecosystem approach should consider all forms of relevant information, including scientific and indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices.

• Principle 12: The ecosystem approach should involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines.