Promoting large-scale degraded forest landscape restoration in Yoko and Nanga-Eboko through assisted natural regeneration

GIZ Forests4Future-F4F Cameroon making the difference!

Tree planting is among the traditional landscape restoration practices in Cameroon. Though a common practice, this restoration method is costly, labour-intensive, and demands significant human, material, and financial resources. The GIZ Forests4Future project in Cameroon offers a transformative alternative: Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR). Instead of planting new trees, ANR accelerates the natural recovery of degraded forest landscapes by removing barriers that prevent vegetation from regrowing. This approach combines ecological wisdom with limited human interventions, making restoration more sustainable and affordable.

What does Assisted Natural Regeneration mean?

Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) is a restoration method that enhances natural processes to rehabilitate degraded lands; with limited human interventions to remove barriers and threats that hinder the growth of natural vegetation. Simply put, ANR is a cost-effective, nature-based solution for restoring extensive land surfaces through the elimination of barriers and threats that hinder the re-establishment of natural vegetation. ANR can also involve the selective planting of desired trees species if degradation has reached a state in which desired tree species become rare to re-colonize the degraded land naturally.

Implementing Assisted Natural Regeneration in Yoko and Nanga-Eboko

GIZ F4F implements ANR in the Yoko and Nanga-Eboko forest landscape according to the following steps:

Community sensitization: raising awareness among local populations about the concept and benefits of ANR.
Site identification and mapping: selecting and clearly demarcating areas suitable for ANR.
Barrier/threat analysis: identifying threats to natural regrowth such as bushfires and uncontrolled grazing.
Targeted interventions: establishing firebreaks and fencing with barbed wire to protect sites from bushfire invasion and cattle encroachment.
Securing community engagement and commitment: By signing collaborative management agreements with communities to ensure the long-term protection of the ANR sites.

These measures directly address the main obstacles to natural regrowth, ensuring that vegetation can recover without constant human intervention.

Tangible Results

The Project alongside its implementation partners: the Yoko and Nanga-Eboko councils as well as the Ministry of the Environment, the Protection of Nature and Sustainable Development (MINEPDED) has successfully secured the protection of about 1350 hectares of degraded land that is on track to natural reconstitution- demonstrating that ANR is not only cost-effective but also scalable.

Why this Matters:

Ecological functions: Large scale restoration of degraded forest lands enhances the re-establishment of ecological habitats for species to strive; provides food, medicine, and building materials to adjacent local populations; as well as optimizing the regulatory functions of forest ecosystems.
Economic efficiency: ANR reduces the need for expensive tree nurseries and planting campaigns.
Scalable: Large areas of degraded land are restored within a reasonably short period of time.
Community ownership: local populations are directly involved, fostering stewardship and ownership.

In conclusion, assisted natural regeneration is an important landscape restoration measure, owing to its cost effectiveness, the possibility of restoring extensive degraded areas within a relatively short period of time as well as its short and long-term benefits to the local populations. This notwithstanding, the success of ANR largely depends on the availability of efficient management and benefit sharing mechanisms that will guarantee the long-term commitment of communities to protect these sites. Finally, this restoration method can significantly contribute to the attainment of Cameroon’s commitment to the AFR100 Initiative to restore more than 12 million hectares of degraded land by the year 2030.