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Are western models of conservation sustainable? Lessons learned from two restoration projects in Ethiopia and Indonesia

Ratna Tesalonika Tondang
Yvonne Tamba

Landscape Ecology and Nature Conservation, Universität Greifswald

There is an urgent need for restoration of degraded ecosystem concurrent with good management practices. Action to help degraded landscape rebound including replanting, controlling land-use change, and developing sustainable livelihood for indigenous communities.
In Borneo, Indonesia action to help degraded peatlands rebound include peatland revegetation, monitoring forests, gender-based income generation. Meanwhile in the dryland forest of Ethiopia, restoration activities have included natural regeneration, reforestation and supplementing communities livelihood with carbon credit trading scheme.
However, to be sustainable, it is important to make sure that restoration activities are in line with communities need and that adaptive landscape management practices fit local ecological conditions.