Mobilizing indigenous and local knowledge for successful restoration

Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) aims to recover ecological integrity and enhance the wellbeing of people living in deforested and degraded landscapes. Within global and national restoration agendas, modern science is viewed by influential actors as the foundation for addressing some of the world’s most pressing ecological challenges. Yet, integrated approaches that bridge the social, economic, and ecological dimensions of restoration and give voice to diverse stakeholders are compromised by technocratic solutions and a lack of attention on different ways of knowing and valuing the world. The brief elaborates why and how when informing FLR decisions and processes, conventional science must be coupled with other types and sources of knowledge, including the knowledge of local women and men who manage and inhabit the landscapes to be restored.