‘Sowing and harvesting water’: revisiting forest restoration in the Peruvian Andes through a multi‐stakeholder analysis

Abstract

Efforts to restore Peru's megadiverse Andean Forests are rapidly growing. While ecological determinants for restoration success are well known, knowledge on the socio-economic and governance conditions that allow for the success of ecological restoration using native species is scarce.

Using a multi-stakeholder approach, this paper analyses the motivations, preferences, success factors and governance models for effective ecological restoration of Andean Forests, through 75 semi-structured interviews with local community members, NGOs and government actors in 11 restoration sites in Peru.

We find that across sites and stakeholder groups, the primary motivations for Andean Forest restoration were tied to restoring and improving hydrological resources. Stakeholders valued Andean Forests mostly for their provisioning ecosystem services—with water provision valued by all stakeholders and firewood provision predominantly by communities—followed by regulating services (water retention and climate regulation).

Restoration success—the degree of perceived achievement of project objectives—was high at all sites and scored between 2.4 and 3 out of 3. Enabling factors for the restoration success were mostly social and institutional. There was no ‘silver bullet’ to successful restoration; rather, enabling factors included high resource dependence of communities, support from NGOs, participatory management and governance, and the creation of communal conservation agreements. Communities emphasized primarily social and institutional limiting factors, while government stakeholders emphasized technical challenges. We further identified three typologies of how projects engage and compensate communities: a ‘payment model’, a ‘capacity model’ and a ‘mixed model’ which differ in their rentability, longevity and socio-economic benefits provided.

All stakeholder groups favoured active forest restoration and community members identified desirable native plant species with local use and hydrological value. Interviewees also highlighted that restoration needs to go beyond forests, and combine native tree planting, agroforestry, restoration of mountain grasslands and peatlands to holistically improve water resources and long-term economic benefits at a landscape scale.

Synthesis and applications. Andean Forest restoration projects need to consider hydrological ecosystem services in all key restoration stages. Communities need to be involved through participatory processes and receive long-lasting benefits—both ecosystem services and livelihood incentives—to guarantee long-term project success.

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ORCID for Tina Christmann: orcid.org/0000-0003-2203-4757

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