Identifying governance problems and solutions for forest landscape restoration in protected area landscapes

Abstract

Governance challenges – including ownership, decision-making, accountability, and sharing of costs and benefits – can impede forest landscape restoration in protected area landscapes. Understanding and addressing these challenges can improve the outcomes of forest landscape restoration. We tested the utility of applying an existing framework that focuses on three actions to understand governance – mapping stakeholders, contextualising and re-scaling. The framework was applied to large-scale restoration initiatives in New Caledonia’s dry forest, Canada’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park and a Community Resource Management Area in Ghana’s Western Region to identify governance challenges and solutions in forest landscape restoration implementation in different contexts. Application of the framework revealed four types of governance challenges: overlapping jurisdictions, inter-institutional relationships, tenure and property rights conflict, and stakeholder power dynamics, and five types of governance solutions: supportive national-level policies, clarifying tenure, convening structures, benefit sharing and compensation, and cultural incentives. Overall, we found that the framework helped interviewees to conceptualise governance challenges and identify ways to address them.