What is out there? a typology of land restoration projects in Latin America and the Caribbean

Land degradation is a growing global problem resulting in annual losses between 6.2 and 10.3 trillion US dollars (ELD 2015) and affecting at least 1.6 billion people worldwide (Bai et al 2008). Restoring degraded lands is urgently needed to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services, and to halt and reverse land degradation (IPBES 2018), and is high on the international agenda, e.g. Aichi Biodiversity Target 15 (CBD 2011), Bonn Challenge (IUCN 2011), the New York Declaration on Forests (UN 2014) and Sustainable Development Goal 15 (UN 2015).

At the ecosystem level the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER) distinguishes three groups of restorative activities (McDonald et al 2016): Ecological restoration aims at the complete recovery of the ecological functions and processes, and the biotic community structure of the original ecosystem. Rehabilitation strives to repair key ecosystem functions, processes and services not necessarily leading to a complete recovery of the original ecosystem and reclamation is limited to repairing only minimal functions of the land. When restoration is applied at the landscape scale it is referred to as forest landscape restoration (FLR) which is a holistic approach that aims to regain ecological functionality and enhance human well-being across deforested or degraded landscapes (Sabogal et al 2015, GPFLR 2018). FLR may include all three types of restorative activities abovementioned as they are applied to different ecosystems within a landscape. Even though the focus of FLR is human wellbeing, a sustainable FLR project requires a balance between natural and productive systems, because productive systems and humans depend on the natural ecosystems as well. Therefore, in a FLR project, one could be restoring natural ecosystems in some areas, and ensuring they have a full complement of native species, rehabilitating land for agricultural productivity in other areas, and reclaiming areas where e.g. only mineral soil remains. In essence, FLR is a deliberate intervention where a suite of different land uses, varying from natural forest cover to commercial plantations, natural and assisted regeneration, and agroforestry and silvo-pastoral systems, coexist within a 'multifunctional landscape' (Laestadius et al 2015, Aronson et al 2017). In this paper, we will use the term restoration in a broad sense, referring to both ecological restoration and FLR.

The stiff competition between land used for agriculture and demands for conservation of biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services is evident in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) (Harvey et al 2008, Estrada-Carmona et al 2014). The LAC region not only contains seven of the 25 biodiversity hotspots worldwide (Myers et al 2000) but also one of the four main global AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses) emission hotspots (de Sy et al 2015, Roman-Cuesta et al 2016). Restoration is likely to increase biodiversity (Rey Benayas et al 2009) and has great potential for carbon sequestration (Chazdon et al 2016). Furthermore, restoring degraded agricultural lands to increase agricultural production can contribute to meeting growing global food demands, diminishing pressure on undisturbed ecosystems by agricultural expansion, and improving rural livelihoods (Lamb et al 2005, Sayer et al 2013).

The multiple benefits of restoration and the growing awareness that sectoral approaches are not suitable for complex and interconnected socio-economic and environmental issues (Reed et al 2016) have led to a significant increase in both the design and implementation of projects and initiatives worldwide. As a response to the Bonn Challenge, seventeen national governments, three subnational government and three non-governmental organizations in LAC have committed, to date, to restore about 53 million hectares of land under Initiative 20 × 20 while other programs that target climate change mitigation such as the Forest Investment Program (FIP) or the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) have similarly adopted restoration as an entry point to sustainably manage natural resources (GEF 2018).

Given the multiple objectives of restoration to satisfy environmental and socioeconomic goals and the millions of hectares of land committed to undergo restoration so far, a typology of restoration projects may help to discern broad patterns and identify gaps in project implementation in LAC. Although others have carried out assessments of ecological restoration projects at the national level (Murcia and Guariguata 2014, Cerrón et al 2017, Méndez-Toribio et al 2018) and of integrated landscape initiatives at the regional level (Estrada-Carmona et al 2014), a multidimensional assessment is lacking. That said, we developed a typology of restoration projects in LAC as a function of socio-environmental settings, planning, timeframe, finances, implementation, monitoring and potential impact, using multivariate techniques. The typology enables a comparative analysis to provide insights on what is happening on the ground.

Restoration projects are complex. Their successful implementation requires careful project planning to minimize conflicts of interests and strike a balance among the multiple functions of a landscape and all relevant stakeholders (Sayer et al 2013, Meli et al 2016, Murcia et al 2016). Also, clarity about land tenure and rights (Duchelle et al 2014, Ceccon et al 2015), and understanding and addressing the drivers of degradation are essential for the long-term sustainability of interventions (Crouzeilles et al 2016, Brancalion et al 2016). Finally, an objective-based monitoring plan grounded on a baseline assessment is required to provide evidence on the socio-economic and environmental benefits (Hobbs and Norton 1996, Chazdon 2008, Evans et al 2018). Monitoring also allows for improving best practices (Holl and Aide 2011, Suding 2011), adaptive management (IUCN and WRI 2014), long-term evaluation of different approaches (Chazdon and Guariguata 2016, Meli et al 2017) and measuring the socio-economic and environmental impact of the project (Adams et al 2016, Aronson et al 2010).

In this paper we focus on recently finished, ongoing and pledged restoration projects in LAC and we aim to provide a coherent overview of how these projects are, in practice, contributing to satisfying multiple goals. This knowledge is urgently needed to guide and improve efforts to up- and outscale restoration practices (Estrada-Carmona et al 2014, Murcia et al 2016). Accordingly, our first objective is to define a typology of restoration activities based on the variables related to socio-environmental settings, planning, timeframe, finances, implementation, monitoring and potential impact. The second objective is to evaluate gaps in each restoration type through comparative analysis.

2.1. Selection of projects and variables

2.2. Multivariate analysis

3.1. Characterization of restoration projects

The projects included in the analysis were distributed over 15 countries in LAC and 11 biomes according to Olson et al (2001; figure 1). Half of the restoration projects covered areas smaller than 1,000 ha and 20% were larger than 100,000 ha (figure 2(a)). Pasture (67%) and agriculture (79%) were the most frequent types of land use reported at the onset of the restoration intervention. Secondary forest appeared in 47% of the projects and in 29% patches of the original ecosystem were still present (figure 2(b)). Objectives related to nature conservation guided nearly all projects (97%). Economic objectives (improvement of local employment and eco-tourism) and objectives related to alternative agricultural production systems (agro-forestry and silvo-pastoral systems) were mentioned for 60% and 63% of projects, respectively (figure 2(c)). Half of the projects were financed by national governments (52%) followed by international donors (46%) and impact investors (27%; figure 2(d)). In 31% of the cases the amount of funding received were less than 500,000 US$ while 30% of the projects received funding of more than 10,000,000 US$ (figure 2(e)). In 16% of the projects the funding amounts were not mentioned. Natural regeneration of vegetation (53%) and assisted regeneration (36%) were the two most commonly used approaches (figure 2(f)). Twenty seven percent of the projects used mixed tree plantations.

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3.2. Typology of restoration projects

On the basis of the MCA (figure 3), three clusters representing the restoration types, emerged from the HCPC. Type 1 (33 projects, 34%) is defined by funding by international donors, large project areas (>100,000 ha) and large amount of funding (>10,000,000 US$; figure 3 and table S1). The objectives of these projects included recovery of biodiversity, improvement of ecological processes, generation of local employment and the capture and storage of carbon. Areas with secondary forest and patches of the original ecosystem occurred within the project boundaries, and natural and assisted regeneration of vegetation were part of the implementation approaches (tables S1 and 2). All projects determined the causes and the degree of degradation, and undertook actions to address these drivers. The monitoring plans included a base line study and the variables monitored related to the objectives. Implementation and monitoring was mainly carried out by public institutions (figure 3). Projects were largely aimed at improving livelihoods, capacitation of local communities, regulating hydrologic processes and ensuring water availability, and addressing climate change by increasing C stocks in biomass and/or soils.

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Table 2.  Categories that characterize the restoration type, categories in italics also appear in table S1. Mod/Cla is the % of projects per restoration type, Cla/Mod is the % of projects in the restoration type per overall occurrence of the category level (see section 2.2.).

Cluster	Category	Level	Mod/Cla (%)	Cla/Mod (%)
1	Address climate change	Yes	100	75
	Improve livelihood community	Yes	100	70
	Degree of degradation determined	Yes	100	54
	Causes of degradation addressed	Yes	100	45
	Capacity building of community	Yes	100	42
	Causes degradation determined	Yes	100	39
	Funding by International donors	Yes	97	71
	Monitoring plan	Yes	97	46
	Natural regeneration	Yes	94	61
	Objective recovery biodiversity	Yes	94	46
	Objective capture and storage of carbon	Yes	91	70
	Baseline included	Yes	91	57
	Objective recovery of ecological processes	Yes	88	45
	Amount of funding_6	>10,000,000 USD	85	93
	Generation of local employment	Yes	85	52
	Relation monitoring-objectives	Yes	85	47
	Management of hydrology	Yes	82	43
2	Natural regeneration	No	86	41
	Timber products	Yes	77	53
	Funding by investor	Yes	73	62
	Monitoring plan	No	73	57
	Degree of degradation determined	No	73	44
	Plantation with mixed trees	Yes	55	46
	Funding by company or private owner	Yes	32	78
3	Funding by investor	No	100	59
	Incentive Carbon Sequestration	No	95	49
	Objective carbon sequestration	No	93	72
	Assisted regeneration	No	90	61
	Promote agro forestry	No	81	64
	Exotic species	No	81	51
	Funding by pubic institute	Yes	69	58
	Intervention exclusion of grazers	Yes	62	55
	Objective recovery of ecological processes	Yes	55	36
	Project area	50–99 (ha)	29	86
	Project area	<50 (ha)	26	85

Financing by impact investors and timber products as economic revenue were the main determinants of type 2 (22 projects, 23%, figure 3 and table S1) and 78% of all projects financed by companies or private land owners were grouped in this cluster (table 2). The degree of degradation in the project areas was often not determined and many projects did not have a monitoring plan and did not carry out a baseline assessment. In general, the restoration approaches did not explicitly consider natural forest regeneration. Fifty-five percent of type 2 projects focused on mixed tree plantations (table 2).

Funding by national governments and relatively low costs (less than 500,000 US$) defined type 3 (42 projects, 43%, figure 3 and table S1). Most projects covering areas smaller than 100 ha belonged to this cluster (table 2). Sixty-two percent of the projects excluded grazers and 55% tried to improve ecological processes. Agroforestry production systems were not promoted and exotic species were generally not preferred in this type of restoration (table 2). Capture and storage of carbon was not an objective, carbon sequestration was not used as an economic incentive and neither addressing climate change nor improvement of livelihoods of communities had priority (tables S1 and 2). Also active community involvement defined type 3 projects to a certain degree, although this association was less clear than for the other variables (figure 3).

Community monitoring, and the omission of determining and addressing the causes of degradation were not related to any specific type (figure 3 and table S1).

3.3. Comparative analysis of restoration types

The 97 projects analyzed for LAC fit into three general restoration types, which can be discerned based on four main variables: (1) project area under restoration, (2) amount of funding received, (3) source of funding and (4) monitoring efforts (table 4).

Our results show that projects of restoration type 1 follow country-level agendas and are aligned with international agreements such as the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the Sustainable Development Goals. Projects allocated in type 2 operate at the local level and focus on the primary interests of impact investors and companies, i.e. making profit, with nature conservation as secondary objective. Restoration activities of type 3 focus on improving local environmental conditions and do not appear to be strongly linked with national policies to meet international commitments.

The results suggest that many restoration projects take a top—down approach, not necessarily considering the interests of communities. Apart from the international donors funded projects, few aimed at generating local employment and improving livelihoods. In addition, communities were often not consulted in the planning phase and their participation was mostly limited to the implementation phase. Rarely were local communities involved in monitoring or acting as main responsible. This is in line with the national restoration inventories of Colombia (Murcia and Guariguata 2014), Peru (Cerrón et al 2017) and Mexico (Méndez-Toribio et al 2018), and a regional assessment of integrated landscape initiatives in LAC (Estrada-Carmona et al 2014), which reported low active community involvement and showed that poverty alleviation efforts are not a priority in many projects.

Many projects financed by project investors were associated with Initiative 20 × 20 but the relation between national restoration projects and the initiative was less clear. Although the 20 × 20 projects seem to be disconnected from the national restoration agendas, it is very likely they will be used to demonstrate the countries efforts to meet their national restoration pledges. Projects that are dominantly financed with either private (type 2) or public funds (type 3) are complementary in the sense that they focus on economic and environmental benefits, respectively, and both operate at the local level. Combining both types of projects could create synergies if they are embedded in public-private-civic partnerships that adopt a landscape approach. Such partnerships are increasingly being promoted to meet commitments like the Bonn Challenge, the Aichi biodiversity targets, the New York Declaration on Forests, Initiative 20 × 20 and the Sustainable Development Goals (Pistorius and Freiberg 2014, Scherr et al 2017).

National and local governments should play a more active role in convening multi-stakeholder partnerships needed for out- and upscaling. However, large scale restoration programs cannot solely rely on top—down approaches as they often focus on short-time results and do not stimulate better practices, resulting in low involvement of the participating stakeholders, especially in regions with poor governance and weak legal enforcement (McConnachie et al 2013, Pinto et al 2014). Hence, appropriate legal instruments that encourage and foster bottom-up grassroots initiatives must be developed at the same time (Pinto et al 2014, Murcia et al 2016).

Despite repeated calls that decision makers and land managers need evidence-based assessments to evaluate the success of restoration efforts (e.g. Palmer and Filoso 2009, Menz et al 2013), in many projects monitoring is still being regarded as an extra cost rather than a necessary investment. Monitoring as an integral part of the restoration activity was only common in projects funded by international donors. Monitoring in projects financed with public funds often only included a limited number of biological indicators related to plant survival, growth and health (Murcia and Guariguata 2014, Cerrón et al 2017, Méndez-Toribio et al 2018). To improve monitoring, capacity strengthening of communities, which was a recurring component of most restoration projects, should be used for organizing participatory workshops to discuss with local stakeholders which indicators to monitor in a cost-effective way. Participatory monitoring would greatly increase active community involvement and strengthen collective ownership of the restoration activity (Danielsen et al 2011, Evens et al 2018).

Monospecific plantations make up only a small proportion of the applied restoration approaches in all types. Barlow et al (2007) and Lamb (2014) pointed out that monospecific plantations are not very likely to deliver multiple benefits such as sustainable livelihoods and improvement of ecosystem services, and it seems that this message has been internalized by international donors, impact investors and national governments. Moreover, in all restoration types preference was given to native species although in privately financed projects exotic species were used as well.

PES schemes were not frequently incorporated in restoration activities in LAC. This is probably due to uncertainties in the long-term sustainability of projects (Bullock et al 2011) and the limited effectiveness of PES in promoting forest restoration (Pirard et al 2014). Also, PES schemes tend to be more efficient when a single, clearly defined ecosystem service is targeted (Wunder et al 2008) which is often not the case, given the multi-functional character of most projects.

Many projects claimed to have identified the drivers of degradation and actions to address them were proposed in their designs. However, most focused on the biophysical aspects of unsustainable land use only, whereas the socio-economic aspect remained underexposed in the majority of restoration projects. If the underlying causes like inequitable access to resources and political economy factors are to be understood, economic and institutional conditions must be studied (Pacheco and Poccard-Chapuis 2012). To tackle the underlying drivers, national governments should start developing intersectoral legal frameworks, including economic development, forestry and environmental policies, and remove perverse incentives that encourage degradation of forests and deforestation. These contextual factors need to be addressed as we move from large-scale restoration commitments to successful large-scale implementation.

This typology does not pretend to be complete. Although our database covered projects from twelve biomes across LAC using a wide range of restoration approaches, the level of detail captured in the database was a compromise between completeness of project data and the easiness of access to information sources. The typology could probably be further improved through the inclusion of additional variables. For example, variables related to economic and financial factors such as return on investment could serve as a useful indicator for financial gains, particularly for impact investors, but was only mentioned in a few project descriptions. Cost-benefit analyses are also needed to allocate the available financial resources efficiently and to facilitate prioritization (Rey Benayas et al 2009, Menz et al 2013) but the economic assessment of natural capital is still in its infancy (Bullock et al 2011).

Moreover, it is well known that uncertain or insecure land tenure negatively affect motivation and capacities to invest capital or labor to improve land, and thus are a major limitation to the sustainability of restoration projects (Lamb et al 2005, Duchelle et al 2014). Unfortunately, explicit information on land tenure issues was not provided in many projects. However, and in spite of the information limitations, our analysis outlines a general picture of how restoration projects are being implemented in LAC.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of USAID - Global Climate Change Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. Thanks also due to Hugo Andres Dorado Betancourt for helping with the statistical analyses.