期刊
LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT
卷 33, 期 7, 页码 1088-1100出版社
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/ldr.4238
关键词
agroecology; agroecosystems; ecological knowledge; forest restoration; participatory GIS
资金
- National Science Foundation [1852587]
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [523660-2018]
- German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
- Research Council of Norway
- ICER
- Directorate For Geosciences [1852587] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Deforestation drives climate change and food insecurity, and the restoration of forests should take into account local perceptions and challenges. Sustainable farming strategies and agroecology can potentially restore forests and improve livelihoods.
Deforestation drives climate change and reinforces food insecurity in forest-dependent communities. What drives deforestation varies by location and is shaped by livelihood systems. But how locals perceive restoration is crucial for developing restoration policies. Evidence suggests that applying sustainable farming strategies can potentially restore forests and sustain livelihoods. Applying a broad-based conceptualization of deforestation and restoration in policymaking, however, results in missed opportunities for addressing deforestation and restoration. Here, we explore the drivers of deforestation, the perceptions of restoration, and the challenges to restoration among smallholder farmers in northern Malawi and examine how agroecology can contribute to restoring degraded agroecosystems. Participants report agricultural land expansion, charcoal production, climate change, burnt brick production, and government subsidies as the major drivers of deforestation. We observed that although perceptions of forest restoration reflect farmers' traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to include reclamation of degraded farmlands, reconstruction of native tree species, and replacement of felled trees on farmlands, there are challenges including splitting families to gain access to more subsidized fertilizers and food aid, embedded cultural practices, growing demand for charcoal in cities, and weak ecosystem governance structures that hinder the effectiveness of restoration efforts. We, however, do find that agroecological intensification can increase yield from smaller farmlands and allow for larger and longer-lasting fallows of spare lands which regenerate forests. Key overarching implications of these findings include the need to integrate livelihoods more explicitly into restoration plans, accounting for TEK in restoration policies in forest-dependent communities and encouraging the adoption of agroecology.
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