Authors - presentors: Abdo Nassar (3), Joseph Bechara (1), Mireille Jazi (5), Sophie Mansour (4), Joelle Salameh (2)

Keywords: Stakeholder engagement; Gender Integration, Female Empowerment, Local Communities, Bio-Corridors, Forest Management, Reforestation, Community engagement, Fire Patrol, Firewise, Fireshed, Agroforestry, Sustainable Ecotourism and Youth Engagement.
Introduction

Knowing the value of people-centered approach for integrated ecosystem and landscape restoration, the proposed workshop will introduce various methodologies and initial findings from Lebanon, where an approach on developing a Social and Environmental Corridor (SEC) strategy will be introduced, highlighting the involvement of local communities with a focus on empowering women and youth in the sector. With ecological corridors connecting different species, fauna and flora, favoring the conservation and/or re-establishment of species in disturbed landscapes, the Lebanon Reforestation Initiative, through its scientific approach to restoration, will describe step by step the concept of the Social and Environmental Corridor strategy, where local communities are integrated in the center establishing successfully and sustainably corridor strategies. Moreover, the importance of an integrated and sustainable forest management planning approach that aligns national strategies with local initiatives will be shared and a case study on forest management will be presented, covering the planning, implementation phase with reflections on cost and ecosystem services. Detailed examples of successful activities that were planned and implemented under the SEC strategy will be introduced, specifically 1) the Fireshed and Firewise approach that has demonstrated to be efficient for improved fire risk management; 2) the creation of Eco Parks that plays a major role in engaging youth in conserving the restored lands and managing the natural resources; 3) the reforestation sector in Lebanon covering a research study for producing species suitability maps and adopted reforestation practices while engaging communities; 4) Agroforestry approach as a way to improve land use while engaging the private sector and 5) Role of international entities such USFS in empowering local environmental initiatives and creating network for knowledge exchange.
 

To Buy Or Not To Buy - That is the Question !

Gondwana Link (https://gondwanalink.org/) is an ambitious landscape scale conservation program across 1000km of southwestern WA, a global biodiversity hotspot.

Many properties have been bought for conservation and restoration  focussing around the iconic Stirling Ranges. Outstanding progress has been made but the challenges are big

This  participatory workshop is for celebrating achievements, learning about what works and sharing tips.

We want to hear from you !

Basil Schur ( Green Skills), Alex Hams (Bush Heritage Australia ) and Louise-Marlna Tarrier (Carbon Positive Australia) will provide brief introductions to the workshop topic.

This  participatory workshop aims to explore the challenges and benefits of private acquisition of high conservation value properties as part of landscape scale projects.  It will also highlight the major difficulties and opportunities associated with acquision in  Gondwana Link  and what has worked well.  We will illustrate this with reference to various properties acquired for Gondwana Link including the Tootanellup  bought by Green Skills for eco restoration  ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhR9VjVLV_c ) and Ediegarrup  by Bush Heritage Australia

Urban restoration is a topic of increasing interest globally because of the growing challenges of urban living, and the benefits that come from nature thriving in urban centres. This workshop follows on from the ‘Urban Restoration’ symposium to facilitate deeper drilling into the future of urban restoration, and paths forward toward sustainable city living. SER 2023 represents a unique opportunity to harness the collective power of a global network of restoration researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. In this workshop we will work together to generate cross-sectional understanding of knowledge gaps, future perspectives, opportunities, and challenges of urban restoration.

Help us out with some pre-workshop background info by filling in this form: https://forms.gle/1QTgbiPYXVAACYDu7.

The workshop will begin with an introduction by Martin Breed (Flinders University). We will then break into four discussion groups based on four themes:

1. Biodiversity – with Stephen Hartley and Bruce Clarkson
2. Human health – with Craig Liddicoat and Martin Breed
3. Indigenous-led restoration – with Erana Walker, Sera Gibson and Wiremu Puke
4. Designing biodiverse urban areas – with Yolanda van Heezik and Kiri Wallace

The group discussions will focus on challenges and opportunities for urban research, exploring what we know now, What we would like to know, and any key examples or case studies that relate. We will then take a short break, before resuming to combine the findings of each of the discussion groups and collect feedback.

The aim of the workshop is to produce a publication highlighting cross-sectional understanding of opportunities and challenges of urban restoration from a global audience, as well as a horizon scan forward of opportunities and challenges for restoration in urban environments. If you are interested in being part of the writing process for this publication, please contact our Programme Manager, Rachel Nepia at peoplecitiesnature@gmail.com.

Are restorationists historians, futurists, or a bit of both? This workshop will make the case for considering ecological restoration as a design futuring activity. In the workshop, restorationists will learn two useful methods from design research and futures studies that can help manage the delicate socio-technical-ecological complexity of their work.

Through a group activity, we will link together one analytical method from futures and foresight studies: the Causal Layered Analysis (1), and one generative method from design research: New Metaphors (2).

Participants will quickly learn and then apply CLA to identify the systemic factors, core metaphors and fundamental stories at the heart of restoration work, including the limitations of these “old metaphors”. We will then try to re-imagine these “old metaphors” through using the creative process toolkit known as New Metaphors.  By identifying, critiquing and reframing the core metaphors that may be enabling or hindering ecological restoration work, restorationists will gain a new method in their toolbox for approaching complexity and ecological change.

This workshop will introduce just two of the many methods and frameworks from design research and futures studies that can be applied to ecological restoration challenges. Practitioners will leave with two new analytical and creative methods relevant to some aspect of their restoration work. The workshop will also aim to seed curiosity in the restoration community for greater engagement with design research and practice.

Restor is a new science-based open data platform to bring online the global restoration movement. Our goal is to enable and accelerate nature restoration and conservation around the world. Connecting everyone on one digital platform helps facilitate the exchange of resources within the network such as funding, monitoring tools or restoration knowledge. The objectives of this workshop are

(1) to assist the audience in setting themselves up on Restor

(2) to make the audience familiar with the benefits and use cases of Restor so that they understand how and which restoration challenges Restor can help solve;

(3) to gather input and feedback that will inform the future development of the platform. We will start with an impulse presentation by Restor, and a few active Restor users to showcase real user profiles and Restor benefits.

In the next part, we will guide the audience in setting up their profiles and explain how they can present their profiles publicly in the best possible way. This will lead into an interactive session where we discuss in an interactive way what challenges restoration groups can solve by using Restor. This includes monitoring progress on the ground, improving the quality of implementation, or fundraising. At the end of the session, the audience will be familiar with Restor and knowledgeable about how to leverage the platform to solve their restoration challenges. We will wrap up with some time for open questions.

The aim of this session is to share experiences and lessons learned both from theperspective of putting in place the necessary enabling environment for forest andlandscape restoration and actual implementation on the ground.
Participants will be able to engage with country representatives who will present examplesof the varied technical tools and approaches provided by the International Climate Initiative(IKI) project to plan, implement, upscale and monitor restoration in conjunction with localknowledge that is enabling the transformation from restoration ambition into results.

16:00-16:05 Welcome address - Christophe Besacier, FAO
16:05-16:15 Overview of the Pacific Islands component of the project funded by the International Climate Initiative (BMUV) - Christophe Besacier, FAO
16:15-17:00 Country presentations on FLR implementation - Country representatives and FLR national focal points
17:00-17:05 Video on Vanuatu and Questions & Answers facilitated by Christophe Besacier, FAO
17:05-17:40 Panel discussion on enabling environment & financing for FLR facilitated by Benjamin De Ridder, FAO
17:40-17:55 Questions & Answers facilitated by Benjamin De Ridder, FAO
17:55-18:00 Next steps and closing remarks - Benjamin De Ridder, FAO

Symposium Flyer

To improve the success rate of ecological restoration projects, this 60-120 min workshop invites contributors from diverse backgrounds and sectors to discuss the social, scientific and institutional barriers to learning from failure. 

This workshop may result in the initiation of a co-authored publication with interested workshop participants.

Restoration professionals need to know what works and what doesn’t when planning, implementing, analyzing and adapting restoration projects. As a relatively new discipline and practice, ecological restoration is rife with knowledge gaps. In a way, ecological restoration is like a “start-up tech company” in which failing fast and early could be rapidly advancing knowledge and building evidence. Other sectors such as the military, aviation and engineering have long embraced failure to advance learning and adapting, however, restoration has been slower to adopt a “failing forward” mindset. In 2009, the journal Restoration Ecology created a “setbacks and surprises” section to provide authors with the opportunity to present results from projects and studies that ostensibly failed. The journal’s editors recognized that failure is integral to the adaptive management and learning process, that silence does not equal science. Although “failing forward” webinars and sessions at conferences are well attended, a safe to fail cultural shift within institutions and between organizations and funders has yet to occur. Failure remains stigmatized and positive outcomes are still published far more often than negative, equivocal, or unexpected outcomes. The purpose of this workshop is to understand how failure is socialized and communicated and the social, scientific and institutional barriers to learning from failure.

ecological restoration is CULTURAL restoration.. we are all part of ecology.

bushtekniq shares the ways of the holistic regenerator:

ways to relearn, regenerate, reconnect.

regen is for everyone!

Seed mix calculator spreadsheets available here:  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lEhHTlniMRAkWRLA-TL9uOR8EOU4NYEe?usp=drive_link