2019 RESTORE+ Consortium Meeting - Progress and next steps

The RESTORE+ project is a five-year partnership, which started with the kick-off meeting at IIASA in April 2017. It aims at addressing the Food-Land-Energy nexus related to restoration or utilization of degraded/marginal land in Indonesia and Brazil and also reaches out to the Congo Basin, thus covering all three tropical basins. In Indonesia, ongoing participatory mapping campaigns are combined with land-use and supply chain modelling. The aim is to identify specific areas with scenarios for restoration and sustainable utilisation and their implications on production (including on bioenergy), biodiversity, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and social impacts (e.g. land tenure rights). In Brazil, the project will enhance established land monitoring and modelling capabilities and support Brazil’s contribution to meeting the “Bonn Challenge”. The project identifies degraded areas, assesses restoration options and explores trade-offs associated with implementation of the Brazilian Forest Code.

The project is implemented by a consortium of 10 institutions, led by IIASA. It is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), based on a decision of the German Bundestag.

The 2019 RESTORE+ Consortium Meeting will be held at IIASA in April 2019. The objectives of the two-day meeting are to:

Present and discuss the current status of the project. The updated status quo of each project output will be presented vis-à-vis the original plan by the main partner responsible together with the relevant partners involved. The aim of this detailed presentation is to inform everyone about the status of the project, broken down by output, tracking also the related activities, milestones and indicators. This is necessary to identify potentially existing gaps between the current status and the plan, address them in term of resources and to adjust our work plan accordingly.

Plan towards the next main milestones and events. Discuss the upcoming mid-term meeting in Brazil to be held back-to-back with IUFRO2019 conference (29thSept – 5thOct in Curitiba).

Address the strategy for a Restore+ Methodology. Narrowing down the elements that characterise the methodology.

Agree on publication strategy and finalize a shared plan for scientific articles. Common publication strategy to maximize our dissemination capacity (through peer-reviewed scientific publications) and our contribution to the public discussion and awareness on the topic.

Discuss and define an open source policy. The use and the sharing of data, tools and models employed, implemented or generated by the project must be regulated, according to their different use, both during and after the project lifetime.   

Start sharing ideas for future common activities.  

Text adapted from the project website

Last edited: 21 February 2019