“With some 10 million hectares of forest cut down every year and about a third of the world’s forested spaces already devastated, deforestation is a vice humanity just can’t seem to quit. Forest restoration can encompass a number of different activities. At its simplest, it’s planting trees on degraded land. Protecting or enhancing naturally regenerating forests – secondary forests – is even more ideal, as degraded forests are able to do a pretty good job of recovering much of their original biomass and biodiversity if they’re left alone (or properly helped). Growing tree plantations and mixing forests and trees with agriculture are also gaining favor, as they have a solid economic component to their benefits.
For Terry Sunderland, director of International Cooperation and Engagement at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry, what successful forest restoration looks like is highly dependent on the environment. “In context,” he says, “it would be a process of restoration or encouraging natural regeneration that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.”
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