How to be a friend to forests

Someone asked me what I would do if I had a little fund to work on conserving our local forests and wildlife. This post is my attempt to understand what forest conservation and restoration means.

The first thing I learned is that it is impossible to restore a primary or old growth forest. A primary forests are those that have formed naturally over thousands of years as opposed to those that are planted and managed by humans. So it is imperative that we prevent any further deforestation or degradation. The main threats to forests are industrial agriculture, mining, logging and infrastructure projects.

Second, forest restoration is very specific to the local ecology and entails the recovery of the natural processes like interaction of water with soil that maintain a forest. This means one has to understand what has gone wrong and help address that.

Third, a forest cannot be sustainably restored if the efforts don’t take into account the people who depend on it. If local human needs are not addressed and local communities are not part of the restoration, human activity is bound to disturb the balance.

Finally the core elements of forest restoration usually involve a combination of the following: planting trees, improving soil through addition of organic matter, ensuring that wildlife have safe corridors for movement, and working with local farmers on agroforestry and other mechanisms that enable sustainable land use.