Impacts of Large-Scale Forest Restoration on Socioeconomic Status and Local Livelihoods: What We Know and Do Not Know
Background
This literature review focuses on the practice of Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR), which has been proposed as an approach to forest restoration that takes local livelihoods into account. The review addresses a lack of understanding of how FLR impacts local livelihoods on a large scale, delivers a conceptual framework for evaluating the effects of large-scale restoration on local livelihoods, and then use this framework to conduct a literature review.
research goals & methods
The review used 46 articles spanning the years 2000 to 2015 and focused on forest restoration while filtering for articles that explicitly mentioned livelihoods.
Conclusions & Takeaways
The review finds that income is a primary theme for a majority of papers, and many linked governance systems to socioeconomic outcomes. The literature found a variable linkage between restoration or reforestation projects and livelihood improvement, and that other factors, such as land tenure or markets, often played a role. Finally, the authors call for longer-term monitoring of restoration projects with improved indicators of livelihood outcomes.
Reference:
Impacts of large-scale forest restoration on socioeconomic status and local livelihoods: what we know and do not know. Biotropica. 2016;48:731–744. doi:10.1111/btp.12385.
.Affiliation:
- School of Arts Sciences and Humanities (EACH) and Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE), University of São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil
- Department of Anthropology and The Ostrom Workshop, University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN, USA
- STR Consultancy, São Paulo, Brazil
- Global Forest and Climate Change Programme, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Washington, DC, USA