For islands like the Philippines and Fiji, forests play an important role in providing valuable ecosystem services. Moreover, the maintenance of forested landscapes can reduce some of the probable impacts of climate change.

Having been authorized by national governments, field restoration activities have started in Fiji and are about to start in the Philippines. In these two countries, with the support of the International Climate Initiative (IKI), a significant area of land will be under integrated planning and restored.

In Fiji, the Yasawa and the Mamanuca islands have been chosen as pilot sites in collaboration with the Ministry of Forests. As they are remote areas and not easily accessible, they often do not benefit from restoration activities as much as other parts of the Fiji territory. FAO is collaborating with the Vinaka Fiji organization in Yasawa, and the Mamanuca Environmental Society in Mamanuca, to plan and implement restoration. Participatory land-use planning will be carried out in selected villages to identify opportunities for restoration. To ensure comprehensive planning, representatives of the ministries in charge of forestry, agriculture, fisheries and the iTauki people (the major indigenous people of the Fiji islands) will be involved, as well as local communities, the private sector and other stakeholders as needed. Once the plans are finalized, a total of 400 hectares of degraded land identified in the Integrated Village Development Plans will be restored. In order to ensure that the restoration is sustainable in the long term, socio-economic activities such as bee-keeping, wood and handicraft and floriculture training (orchids and flowers) linked to restored land will be developped. This will also improve the resilience of island communities to climate change and other threats. Indeed, the key economic activity of these islands is tourism, but due to the COVID 19 crisis, tourism services have closed down, and people have returned to their villages to start agricultural or other economic activities. Therefore, it is important to plan appropriately to ensure that new agricultural and other economic activities do not jeopardize existing natural resources, and to strenghten them instead for further success.

In the Philippines, the project will be supporting restoration activities in two islands: the Bataan area in the Luzon island and the Carood Watershed Model Forest in the Bohol island. In Bohol, FAO will continue its successful collaboration with the Carood Watershed Model Forest Management Council Incorporated, since during the previous collaboration they exceeded their restoration target. The aim is to promote firebreaks and assisted natural regeneration over 400 hectares of land. In Bataan, FAO will collaborate with the Society of Filipino Foresters to restore 600 hectares. The restoration activities are always linked to the development of socio-economic activities to ensure sustainability. In the case of Bohol, communities will be planting crops in the firebreak lines. This action will both ensure the maintenance of the firebreaks and provide additional finance to over 80 families in the landscape.

These planned field activities will be supported by national activities to improve the monitoring of the forest cover and to produce better data for forest and landscape restoration planning.

For more information contact us at: [email protected].

Christophe Besacier (FAO) and Mathilde Iweins (FAO)