Rights enforcement must be strengthened for forest landscape restoration efforts to succeed, said Steven Lawry during a webinar presentation hosted by the global forest team at GIZ, Germany’s development agency in 2019.
Lawry, a principal scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), presented findings on the role of tenure security in the adoption of forest landscape restoration practices.
“A focus on community rights gives people agency to choose and manage forests and other land uses,” he said. “Where rights are absent, the scope for sustained uptake of forest landscape restoration are probably low.”
Lawry found that lack of tenure security for smallholders and populations dependent on natural forests for their livelihoods and weak enforcement of forest laws were among constraints identified to scaling up restoration in Madagascar.
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) is collaborating with GIZ-Madagascar and ESSA-Forêts, the forestry program at the country’s University of Antananarivo to improve understanding of the relationship between tenure security and forest-landscape investment at local and regional levels in Madagascar.
with such sound findings it would be a good thing for other African countries to take consideration on tenure rights to foster forest land restoration for improved socio-economic development and forest environment quality.
