‘Sowing and harvesting water’: revisiting forest restoration in the Peruvian Andes through a multi-stakeholder analysis

Efforts to restore Peru’s megadiverse Andean Forests are rapidly growing.
While ecological determinants for restoration success are well known,
knowledge on the socio-economic and governance conditions that allow for
success of ecological restoration using native species are scarce. Using a
multi-stakeholder approach this paper analyses the motivations,
preferences, success factors and governance models for effective
ecological restoration of Andean Forests, through 75 semi-structured
interviews with local community members, NGOs, and government actors in 11
restoration sites in Peru. We find that across sites and stakeholder
groups, the primary motivations for Andean Forest restoration were tied to
restoring and improving hydrological resources. Stakeholders valued Andean
Forests mostly for their provisioning ecosystem services - with water
provision valued by all stakeholders and firewood provision predominantly
by communities - followed by regulating services (water retention and
climate regulation). Restoration success – the degree of perceived
achievement of projects objectives - was high at all sites and scored
between 2.4-3 out of 3. Enabling factors for the restoration success were
mostly social and institutional. There was no ‘silver bullet’ to
successful restoration; rather, enabling factors included high resource
dependence of communities, support from NGOs, participatory management and
governance, and creation of communal conservation agreements. Communities
emphasized primarily social and institutional limiting factors, while
government stakeholders emphasized technical challenges. We further
identified three typologies of how projects engage and compensate
communities: a ‘payment model’, a ‘capacity model’ and a ‘mixed model’
which differ in their rentability, longevity, and socio-economic benefits
provided. All stakeholder groups favoured active forest restoration and
community members identified desirable native plant species with local use
and hydrological value. Interviewees also highlighted that restoration
needs to go beyond forests, and combine native tree planting,
agroforestry, restoration of mountain grasslands and peatlands to
holistically improve water resources and long-term economic benefits at a
landscape scale. Synthesis and applications: Andean Forest restoration
projects need to consider hydrological ecosystem services in all key
restoration stages. Communities need to be involved through participatory
processes and receive long-lasting benefits – both ecosystem services and
livelihood incentives - to guarantee long-term project success.