Support for Restoration of degraded land with sustainable management of native plant species for conservationn, sustainable livelihoods and emissions reduction

This project is one of a dozen nascent projects under the umbrella of The Restoration Initiative funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and with the overall objective of contributing to the Bonn Challenge, the New York Declaration on Forests, and the AFR100 initiative in land restoration in Cameroon.

The specific objectives of the project are:

-to improve the political engagement of the Cameroonian government with regards to the restoration of forest lands and sustainable land management;

-to evaluate the potential of land restoration in Cameroon using the native bamboo species Bambusa spp and other indigenous non-timber forest product species such as Irvinga spp and Ricinodendron heudelotii and promote the development of value chains for these species to support biodiversity conservation, sustainable livelihoods and greenhouse gas emissions reduction;

-to reinforce institutional capacity and financing mechanisms for large-scale land restoration of forest landscapes in project sites across Cameroon; and

– to improve knowledge of best practice in land restoration and follow-up evaluation among the project participants.

Fundamentally, this project will evaluate the potential for use of indigenous non-timber forest products such as bamboo to restore degraded land in Cameroon. Therefore, it envisages the use bamboo and other species to 1) restore agricultural productivity in degraded landscapes whilst conserving biodiversity; 2) generate revenue for rural communities via the development and enhancement of value chains for bamboo and other non-timber forest products; 3) sequester carbon from the atmosphere to fight climate change; and 4) evaluate the extent to which bamboo can raise the groundwater table across degraded landscapes in Cameroon.