A number of governments have undertaken national reforestation programs in recent years; some have been more successful than others. The author reviews these to explore what type of reforestation should be used, where this should be carried out and how much should be done. For example, are the traditional industrial forms of reforestation necessarily the best to use in all situations? How can forest restoration be reconciled with the need for food security? And, are there spatial thresholds that must be exceeded to generate economic and environmental benefits?
The book also examines the policy and institutional settings needed to encourage large-scale reforestation. This includes a discussion of the place for incentives to encourage landholders to undertake particular types of reforestation and to reforest particular locations. It also considers forms of governance that are likely to lead to an equitable sharing of the costs and benefits of forest restoration.
David Lamb taught forest ecology at the University of Queensland, Australia, for 30 years and has since undertaken consultancy work on forest restoration for a range of international organizations and aid agencies, including the World Bank, FAO, AusAID and GTZ. He is a member of the Commissiono n Ecosystem Management of IUCN.