According to a 2021 FAO report titled ‘Review of Forest and Landscape Restoration in Africa’, “up to 65% of productive land in Africa is degraded, while desertification affects 45% of the continents land area.” Although “the overall trend is reducing, net loss of forests is still increasing, with three million hectares of forest disappearing annually.”[1]

Writing the foreword for the report, Dr. Ibrahim Assane Chief Executive of African Union Development Agency-NEPAD indicated that “the African continent is endowed with diverse forest ecosystems that offer a wide range of benefits to its people. Home to the second largest rainforest on the planet – the Congo Basin – Africa hosts 17 percent of the world’s forests and 31 percent of woodlands across the Sahel and other regions. These landscapes deliver numerous products and services, including food, fuel, shelter and freshwater, protects against hazards and provide habitats for wild life.” The annual loss of forests on the continent leads to a “3 percent loss of GDP associated with soil and nutrient depletion”

He continues with a worrying trend that the continents natural assets are going through “structural changes due to degradation and fragmentation as the result of both natural processes and human (anthropogenic) activities” leading to almost 3 million hectares of forests lost across Africa yearly.

Because degraded forests are crop lands, “the continent spends more than $35 billion on food imports annually, rural smallholder farmers and households bearing the brunt of land degradation.”

Above: Degraded Pastoral Land in Bauchi State Nigeria

Since 2007, African leaders have signed up to a number of initiatives starting with the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and Sahel pledging to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land; the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) launched in 2015 to restore 100 million hectares by 2030 among others.

Furthermore in 2019, “the United Nations General Assembly declared 2021 – 2030 the UN decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Although Africa presents the largest restoration opportunity among all continents – with more than 700 million hectares of degraded landscapes that can be restored” on the continent, “progress has been slow.”

Tony Rinaudo, an award winning Australian agronomist believes that degraded lands can be restored quickly and cheaper, having a potential resource bank of stumps and seeds that require nurturing to thrive. While working fruitlessly at a reforestation project in Niger Republic, he was almost giving up when he had a ‘eureka’ moment in 1983, leading him to propose and test his Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) technique, a community-led approach to naturally restoring degraded landscapes and ecosystems.  Today he is credited with reforesting many millions of hectares of degraded land, globally. Part of this report is culled from his interview with Erik Hoffner of Mongabay published August 2022 [2].

Though the FMNR technique has been practiced by different people and at various times in history before Tony stumbled on it, Tony Rinaudo is the best known and most vocal proponent of this technique, successfully reforesting an estimated six million hectares of degraded land and ecosystems in Niger Republic alone.

There is credible evidence that when scaled up, this cost-effective technique may be the best approach that African leaders can adopt to address the perennial degradation of croplands and loss of natural forests and ecosystems on the continent. Nurturing degraded forests to regrow makes agro-ecological sense for a number of reasons; improving soil health and water levels. This improves the livelihood of the millions of people and critters that depend on these ecosystems.

What is the FMNR technique? “It is a simple approach to re-greening degraded lands from tree stumps and seed stocks still alive in degraded soils, which only require a farmer’s encouragement to sprout and regrow”. The cost-effectiveness of the technique is in its simplicity.

According to Tony, who is now the Principal Climate Action Advisor for the NGO World Vision Australia, “FMNR is a community-led approach to naturally regenerating degraded landscapes and ecosystems. It is a sustainable land management approach that seeks to engage and empower land users to prevent and reverse land degradation through re-growing trees. The principles of FMNR can be applied on cropping, grazing, forested and even in so-called ‘wastelands.”

The approach is simple, scalable and requires no external inputs or equipment to implement. Thus, FMNR is both a technical practice and community development approach for mobilizing and empowering local communities to restore their natural environment.

Above: How FMNR Works Culled from Mongabay

Tony managed a reforestation project in his early years in Niger planting about 6,000 trees yearly with very high losses due to death of trees. So, he consulted experts, read papers, experimented with new techniques of tree planting, yet nothing worked in a sustainable and cost-effective way. Most farmers were neither interested nor impressed. They simply wanted to grow food and cash crops on their smallholder farm lands.

One day while driving with another load of tree seedlings, all he could see across the landscape was barrenness and devastation. Tony wondered how much resources and time it will take to really make a difference, concluding that nothing can be done with conventional methods to end land degradation on a massive scale sustainably. All he could do at this point was to “pray to God for inspiration.”

Then a small bush caught his attention. After taking a closer look, Tony realized it wasn’t a bush at all, but a cut down tree stump re-sprouting. This ‘eureka’ moment changed everything for Tony. He realized many things immediately. The battle was not with the Sahara Desert; the question was not about funding; the need was not for a miracle tree species; everything he needed was already in a bank underground.

Over the past 20 years, FMNR spread from person to person in Niger to cover over five million hectares, lifting tree density from four trees per hectare to over 40, restoring some 200 million trees into a formerly barren landscape. More recently, Gray Tappan did a partial Niger survey and found in excess of six million hectares.

Since Niger, Tony has introduced FMNR in 27 countries across the World Vision Partnership. In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a study across seven West African countries including Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Nigeria and found approximately 15 million hectares of FMNR. Another study in Malawi reported about 3.2 million hectares of FMNR with no ties to government or nongovernment support. This is evidence of at least 18.2 million hectares of FMNR globally, growing as a social movement without government funding.  

According to Tony: “If we take the Niger context as an example, what I encountered was increasing frequency and severity of drought, 70 kilometer per hour winds which buried and sandblasted crops, 60° C soil surface temperatures which desiccated the bare soil and crops. In the absence of biodiversity, all manner of insect pests plagued farmers’ crops. The women were spending hours collecting fuel wood, and when there was none, straw and manure were collected for fuel. Children were often not in school because of poverty and their labor was needed to help collect fuel and help with farming.”

Above: Results of FMNR in Luhundwa, Tanzania, 2019 – 2022 Culled from Mongabay

“But there are multiple benefits from regenerating trees. Locals now have access to more fuel wood, building poles, fodder for livestock, wild foods and traditional medicines. Trees increase soil fertility and some even bio-irrigate nearby crops (through hydraulic lift of subsoil water to the surface). Trees reduce/buffer against climatic extremes, thus reducing the likelihood of flooding and the impact of drought. Trees reduce temperatures, wind speeds and evaporation. Thus, restoring tree cover helps communities to adapt to climate change.”

“Trees sequester carbon dioxide, thus contributing to mitigation of climate change. Increased biodiversity and improved microclimate means that farmers can diversify their income streams, giving resilience against climatic shocks. For example, instead of relying on a single, annual grain crop, farmers can now consume and sell firewood and building poles, wild foods including honey, traditional medicines, dyes and much more. Benefit to the environment includes restoration of ecosystem services (soil fertility, biodiversity, restored water cycle), food sources and habitat for wildlife.”

“I realized that, even more than a story of environmental restoration, even in seemingly hopeless situations, this was a story of hope – a currency badly needed as a pandemic of fear over climate change, species loss, deforestation, land degradation, hunger, conflict and mass migration spreads around the world. Even in the most hopeless situations, there is hope and amazing things can happen when you step out in faith to be – and make – the change you want to see. I saw how working together to restore nature and life can be such a fulfilling and rewarding – even joyful – experience for all, with plenty to go round for everybody. I saw that even the most unlikely individuals from humble beginnings can make very significant and beneficial contributions. And, on a personal note, I saw how God silently guides, strengthens and gives wisdom to all who seek him to do good on earth.”

“There are around three billion hectares of degraded land worldwide. My rule of thumb is, if there was a forest there in the past, even the distant past, theoretically it is possible to restore a forest there today. I do not have an area estimate of where FMNR is possible, but I have no doubt – based on observation and extensive travel – that it runs in the hundreds of millions of hectares. Keep in mind that the ultimate form of the ‘forest’ will depend on the objectives of those living in each context, the species mix that will regenerate, and the land use type – in some settings it will be a form of agroforestry (mixed crops and trees), in others silvopasture (pasture and trees) and in others, more or less natural forests will be restored.”

Above Image: Results of FMNR after three years in Talensi District of Ghana. Culled from Mongabay

“Two factors in the success of FMNR give me confidence that this approach to land restoration can make very significant contributions towards these international restoration initiatives. Both are currently highly under-appreciated and underutilized.”

“The first is nature’s innate ability to self-heal when given a chance. More attention is needed on influencing human behavior that suppress nature’s self-healing ability (the way we farm, harvest woody biomass, manage livestock and fire), than ‘doing something’ towards restoration (planting trees, use of technology and engineering). I am not saying that tree planting is bad. It is not. I am saying that it might not be the first/best choice of actions to take.”

“The second is the enormous pool of human resources that exists in the human populations utilizing vast areas of land for their livelihoods. About 50% of the earth’s habitable land (51 million km²) is under agriculture. Of the world’s 570 million farms, 84% are smallholdings. Thus, there are at least 478 million farmers and farm families with the potential to restore their land. Of course, larger, perhaps more mechanized farms equally have the potential to operate along more ecologically sound lines.”

“The enormous potential of individual actions of millions of farmers is largely unrecognized or utilized.” Africa has degraded lands as well as hundreds of millions of farmers. The FMNR technique which has worked in Africa is the most cost-effective, sustainable and realistic approach for the continents battle to restore its degraded lands.

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[1] Berrahmouni, N. and Mansourian, S. 2021. Review of forest and landscape restoration in Africa. Accra. FAO and AUDA-NEPAD.

[2] https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/let-it-grow-qa-with-reforestation-and-land-restoration-visionary-tony-rinaudo/