Local communities and forest landscape restoration
Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) is the ongoing global effort to regain ecological functionality and enhancing human well-being across deforested or degraded forest landscapes. Given the global scale of the ambition – 350 million hectares as the target for restoration by 2030 – it is not possible to achieve desired targets without meaningful involvement of local communities as equal partners in restoration efforts. The objective of this research is to use remote sensing and geospatial data to identify regions that represent the best opportunities for restoration through such partnerships. Using satellite data over the last three decades, the project will identify areas where forests have been restored successfully and develop a model to predict restoration potential using other sets of geospatial data (population, nightlights, infrastructure and urbanization, land use matrix complexity, climate and biophysical variables, and protected areas). Finally, the project will generate a prioritization of sites for potential restoration based on its contribution to multiple social priorities – local livelihoods and income, wildlife habitat and connectivity, and carbon sequestration.
