Building on previous finance-focused Global Landscapes Forum events held in London in 2015 and 2016, the GLF 2018 Investment Case Symposium continued the multi-stakeholder conversation around sustainable financial solutions at landscape level.

The third GLF Investment Case was held on May 30, 2018 at the International Finance Corporation in Washington DC.

En este ensayo se analiza la compleja y contradictoria dinámica socio-geográfica de la Amazonía, con especial atención en sus múltiples territorialidades de las que emanan diferentes potencialidades para el futuro de la región.

There are numerous global, regional, national and even subnational targets for increasing forest area and forest restoration. In light of these global targets and emerging ambitious national commitments, it is imperative to develop low-cost strategies and techniques for landscape restoration. The most widely used restoration strategies involving planting of tree seedlings are often costly and their application for restoring vast expanses of degraded forest lands in the region may be limited.

En los últimos años, la frontera agrícola en el Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia se ha expandido considerablemente. Debido al cambio climático, se espera una reducción del rendimiento de los cultivos, lo que producirá una nueva expansión en dicha frontera. Por este motivo, es necesario desarrollar una agricultura más eficiente, que incluya medidas de adaptación vinculadas a políticas macroeconómicas de protección de los recursos naturales.

Most of the world’s remaining tropical forests lie in areas that are customarily managed and/or legally owned by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. In the context of climate change and global efforts to protect and enhance the capacity of forests to capture and store greenhouse gas emissions, the question of who owns the trees and the carbon stored therein is paramount. Clarifying this question is crucial, both for the future of the planet, and for up to 1.7 billion people worldwide who rely on forests for their livelihoods.

An assessment of management effectiveness was carried out for all the protected areas in the Kingdom of Bhutan. During 2014-2016 the Royal Government of Bhutan developed a custom-made tool for assessing management effectiveness: the Bhutan Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool Plus (Bhutan METT +). This was implemented in Bhutan’s 10 protected areas and one botanical park, and the results were verified through field trips and expert reviews.

A pilot project in Chile explores how to ensure that farmers are properly rewarded for managing their land and livestock in ways that safeguard supplies of clean drinking water to users further downstream.*

Restoration in Niger and neighbouring countries has helped to “re-green” vast areas of rural West Africa with impressive results for agriculture and livelihoods – and at very low cost.*

Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration involves restoring degraded lands at large scale by harnessing the self-interest of smallholder farmers themselves. It involves the systematic regrowth and management of trees and shrubs from felled tree stumps, sprouting root systems or seeds.

Five years of afforestation and restoration in Turkey have dramatically extended tree cover, reduced the land’s vulnerability to erosion, helped combat global warming and greened thousands of public spaces.*

Turkey faces a high level of land degradation and erosion due to topography, climate change and improper agricultural practices, over-destruction of range and forest lands and the sensitivity of many areas to erosion. Frequent flooding has claimed lives and property. Run-off in some of the watersheds is irregular and water quality is low in degraded landscapes.

Teaching and helping farmers to integrate trees into their lands is integral to a restoration project in a district of Rwanda that supplies most of the water used in the capital city*

Building on years of experience with sustainable land and agro-ecosystem management activities in Rulindo district, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations provided support to 276 farmers.

Pig-rearing, essential oils, fruit trees and beekeeping: establishing additional sources of income has been key to a restoration project on the biodiversity-rich island of Madagascar.*

Forest loss and degradation have plagued Madagascar’s unique biological diversity. Direct causes include slash-and-burn agriculture for subsistence crops. As a result, the island’s evergreen forest is severely fragmented. While tree planting had occurred in the past, it centred on exotic species with limited social and ecological benefits.

A private company is restoring degraded forest reserves in Ghana with commercial as well as native tree species, applying a business model that also brings strong community and environmental benefits.*

The company, Form Ghana, has leased about 20,000 hectares in three forest reserves in the West Africa country in order to establish and manage sustainable forest plantations. These areas were once productive semi-deciduous forest ecosystems. However, decades of overexploitation, bush fires and conversion to agricultural land left them severely degraded.