Land restoration to combat desertification: Innovative approaches, quality control and project evaluation

Many drylands in the world suffer problems of land degradation and desertification derived from human activities and exacerbated by drought. Too often these degradation processes have been endured by the ecosystems for a long time, and, according to forecasts of climate change, are likely to worsen in the future. Ecological restoration combined with adaptive management can be effective tools in response to this environmental and socioeconomic problem. Reforestation and afforestation are restoration actions traditionally used to recover degraded lands for production and to alleviate on-going degradation processes. In some cases barren land has yielded magnificent forests, and in other cases the impacts are less clear. Despite the long-standing experience among scientists and land managers in reforesting degraded lands worldwide, in general, assessments of the results of land restoration projects are limited either in terms of data or breadth of perspective, and therefore little of real use can be drawn from this work. The lack of available scientific and technical information on restoration actions hampers the dissemination of technology within and among countries and regions, and the sharing and more comprehensive application of the best technology and approaches available.