International organisations and representatives from across the Mediterranean basin met in Tunisia to discuss management practices for the restoration of degraded Mediterranean forest landscapes.
From 14 to 17 March, the city of Hammamet hosted a capacity building workshop in the framework of the project “The Paris Agreement in Action: Scaling up forest and landscape restoration to achieve the Nationally Determined Contributions”, which is funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI), the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the Directorate General of Forestry of Tunisia.
The main objective of this workshop was to share knowledge related to the restoration of degraded Mediterranean forest landscapes with a focus on how to assess and plan restoration, which interventions should be chosen, assisted natural regeneration (ANR), and the role of forest genetic resources: what is ANR, when is ANR appropriate, factors to consider in setting up ANR, basic procedures to put in place, post-fire restoration strategies, recovery and improvement of biodiversity, financial resources available for ANR and restoration.
The following tools and resources were presented during the workshop and are freely available:
| Title | Type | Description | Languages |
| Restoring forest landscapes through assisted natural regeneration (ANR)- A practical manual | Handbook | This manual describes procedures from almost 20 years of FAO experience with ANR in the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Lao. In each of these countries, the method was applied for different objectives and convincingly validated ANR’s cost-effectiveness. | English |
| IUCN Global Standard for Nature-Based Solutions (1st ed.) | Standard and guidelines | A user-friendly framework for the verification, design and scaling up of Nature-Based-Solutions. | Albanian Chinese English French Japanese Macedonian Serbian Spanish |
| A guide to the Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM) | Handbook | A methodology that facilitates the identification and the location of forest landscape restoration opportunities at the national or sub-national levels. | Chinese English French Indonesian Portuguese Russian Serbian Spanish |
| Handbook of good practices in post-wildfire management (2nd ed.) | Handbook | A practical guide for forest managers and forest workers with recommendations for mitigating or avoiding the negative impacts of post-fire salvage logging in Mediterranean forests. | Catalan English Spanish |
| Diversity for Restoration Tool (D4R) | Decision support system (DSS) | A decision support system for the selection of appropriate tree species and seed sources for tree-based restoration or other tree planting activities (currently available for Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Lebanon). | English French Spanish |
| AURORA | Decision support system (DSS) | This tool aims to help stakeholders develop a monitoring system tailored to their needs by identifying indicators and metrics to monitor progress toward their set goals. | English French Portuguese Spanish |
| FOREMATIS | Database | The Forest Reproductive Material Information System of the European Commission. | English |
| FAOLEX Database and EUR-Lex | Legislation | Council Directive 1999/105/EC on the marketing of forest reproductive material, and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1597/2002 of 6 September 2002 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Directive 1999/105/EC as regards the format of national lists of the basic material of forest reproductive material. | Several European languages |
| The OECD Forest Seed and Plant Scheme | Certification | An international label for certification of reproductive material covering 402 tree species from 29 countries. | English |
| Sustainable financing of Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) | E-learning course | An FAO certified on-line course (2 h 15 min) to improve the awareness and capacities of practitioners and policy makers to analyse FLR financial needs and opportunities, so that they are more effective at securing and coordinating funding for FLR interventions. | English French |
| Local financing mechanisms for forest and landscape restoration: A review of local-level investment mechanisms | Working paper | A publication that examines the pathways available to financing restoration for a positive local level impact. It provides an in-depth study of how financial mechanisms can be coordinated to maximise the leverage of finance and the adoption of practices at scale across the landscape. | English French |
| FAO support to finance forest landscape and restoration | Leaflet | A range of diverse financial mechanisms that leverage financial support for the implementation of restoration activities. | English |
| United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 | Hub | A hub for everyone interested in restoration to find projects, partners, funding and the knowledge they need to make their restoration efforts a success. | Arabic Chinese English French Portuguese Russian Spanish |
The teams and organisations involved in this regional workshop were:
- The FAO Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM)
- FAO Committee on Mediterranean Forestry Questions – Silva Mediterranea
- The FAO national office in Tunisia
- The General Directorate of Forests of Tunisia
- The International Association for Mediterranean Forests (AIFM)
- Alliance of Bioversity International (CIAT)
- Union for the Mediterranean (UfM)
- Mediterranean Facility of the European Forest Institute (EFI)
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
