Practitioner's Guidelines for Scaling EverGreening Restoration.

Abstract

Widespread and intensifying land degradation and climate crisis require the massive spread of nature-based solutions. The Global EverGreening Alliance has launched the Evergreening the Earth Global Campaign to promote carbon drawdown in landscapes alongside livelihood benefits for rural populations. All over the world small areas of successful land restoration, or evergreen agriculture, can be found which improved soil and vegetative carbon and livelihoods of some forest dwellers, farmer households and pastoralists. So far most of these cases of effective carbon and land restoration are limited in extent and impact – minor dents on degradation and global warming. These local successes are powerful demonstrations of the potential benefits of surrounding and similar land use systems. As the climate crisis intensifies and rural poverty deepens, it is a matter of great urgency to massively scale, quickly, these existing local successes. The transition from the slow business-as-usual project-based local restoration efforts to rapid and massive scaling of land and carbon restoration to substantially impact global warming and poverty is held back by the lack of practical up-to-date guidelines which explain effective operational and practices for field practitioners. These working Guidelines emphasise ownership of the restoration process by local communities, holistic land use system transformation and effective multi-stakeholder partnerships, governance and policies.

These Guidelines are organised into three thrusts. Horizontal scaling supports the spread from restored villages to similar landscapes and socioeconomic settings. As horizontal scaling and deepening gathers pace, there are often policy and institutional changes that can further accelerate scaling – known as vertical scaling. Deeper scaling focuses on local diversification of regreening practices required for transformation of land use systems and communities where restoration is in the process. Examples are, soil and water conservation techniques, adding more farm trees to generate income from forage or fruits, diversifying cropping and livestock management and strengthening value chains. All three thrusts apply a dozen important operation principles, such as participatory methods to better understand farmers’ assets, potentials and incentives for land use systems change. The contents include a list of key documents for further reading and suggestions for managers of land restoration initiatives. Land restoration practices continue to improve, therefore, this Guideline is a “living document” which will be updated periodically drawing on feedback from field experience around the world.