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The HASHI project helped tens of thousands of smallholders to restore degraded land, and in doing so to significantly improve their incomes. One of the project’s great achievements was to revive a traditional system of land management which increases the supply of livestock fodder for use during the dry season. When the project began, there were just 600 ha of documented ngitili – enclosed fodder reserves – in the region. There are now thought to be over 500,000 ha of such reserves. The HASHI project was deeply rooted in the administrative structures of Tanzania’s central and local governments, and this helps to explain why it has been such a success. Throughout the 20-year project, staff from the Forestry and Beekeeping Division in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism worked closely with local government staff, researchers from the World Agroforestry Centre and the region’s entire farming population. The project encouraged village governments and traditional institutions to work together to restore and manage the ngitili. The experiences here, we believe, hold lessons that could be a basis for models to help transform lives and landscapes in many other areas in Tanzania and beyond which have suffered from serious environmental degradation.

This book is one of the outputs of the programme of work undertaken in the 2005-08 inter-sessional period by the IUCN's Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM). In selecting the case studies, it was CEM's view that the Ecosystem Approach, to be properly tested, had to be applied in multiple-use landscapes where Protected Areas formed no part, or only one among several parts, of the whole ecosystem. The approach also needed to be seen to be applicable in a variety of different kinds of biome. This cases make it clear that the 12 principles of the Ecosystem Approach as they stand contain two major weaknesses. First, they do not address in any way the institutions through which ecosystem management stands or falls. Second, the impact on ecosystems of markets and other economic forces is under-recognised by the 12 principles.

The idea for this book came from the ongoing discussion at both the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) on the relationship between the Ecosystem Approach and Sustainable Forest Management. This book demonstrates that these are neither alternative methods of forest management nor are they simply complicated ways of saying the same thing. They are both emerging concepts for more integrated and holistic ways of managing forests within larger landscapes in ways that optimize benefits to all stakeholders. The best bet for the sustainable and equitable management of the world’s forests will be locally adapted solutions that are inspired by the latest thinking on both the Ecosystem Approach and Sustainable Forest Management. Ultimately, every forest situation is different and we need a plurality of solutions, each grounded in local realities. International processes do seem to be contributing to a more enabling environment in which successful local solutions can emerge.

Assisted Natural Regeneration of Trees (ANR, or RNA in French) is an approach to agroforestry which relies on local knowledge as well as natural regeneration properties. It is an approach to reduce forest destruction and maintain biodiversity. It can be used to support sustainable livelihood and for projects that aim to reclaim over-exploited land.

The objective of this study is twofold: (i) To broaden the understanding of how including a landscape-based approach to forest, forest-based products supply chains, and downstream industries into a broadened REDD+ architecture could help mitigate climate change mitigation outcomes; and (ii) to develop a private sector engagement strategy for enhanced private sector investment in REDD+ sustainable forest value chain and landscape restoration efforts. The study examines six countries in detail: Ethiopia, Columbia, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru and Vietnam.